One Good Mama Bone

by McClain, Bren; Monroe, Mary Alice;

  “Back to us, Mr. Ike.”

  Ike’s eyes began to fill like Reedy River, where he’d baptized souls in search. He imagined his own head going under water and coming back high into sunshine and blue. Ike Thrasher had found salvation.

  He removed his hat, held it in his hand away from himself. His head now naked.

  …..

  A sound woke Ike. He had made himself a pallet on the kitchen floor. He wanted to scream. But he stayed still, trying not to breathe. He’d forgotten how dark it got out in the country.

  He should go outside and patrol the house, take a quick run around the premises. But he needed a weapon. Mrs. Creamer’s frying pan sat on top of the woodstove. It was made of cast iron and could hurt someone. He picked it up, wrapped both hands around its handle and stepped out onto the porch, where he stayed still and listened.

  He felt the coldness of the night but heard no sounds, except the rapid beating of his heart.

  He stepped out into the yard, starting to his right and passing the boy’s room. Shrubbery, tall enough to hide him, gathered in spots. He moved in behind the first bunch, then quickly scooted to the next.

  Another sound came. It was Mama Red, her voice deep, and then whispers from humans in the direction of the barn. He wanted to faint.

  Lucky snorted. Ike was sure of it, and now dark shapes moved his way. Someone was stealing the boy’s steer. “Stop!” he called out and ran towards the sounds, the pan held high. It was two negro boys, and they had Lucky on a rope. “Let him go, or I’ll flatten y’all to smithereens.” He lifted the frying pan high and charged at them with all his might.

  The boys ran. They let go of Lucky and ran.

  Ike kept the pan in the air, holding it like he was hanging from a cliff, and this was all that was saving him. But then it came to his mind that he had just saved Lucky. He had. Isaiah Ferdinand Thrasher, Jr.

  He brought his hands down and stood with the animal, the two of them in the pitch black beneath a sky of sparkling pin lights he could swear were winking at him.

  He knew what he had to do. He had to call the law, and he would do so from that neighbor man’s house. He saw no lights on there, but Ike would knock and the man would answer.

  But, first, he picked up Lucky’s rope and led him home. Behind him, off in the distance, sat his father’s house. It had no lights on, either, but he would not go knocking there that night. In fact, he would never go knocking there again.

  …..

  Billy Udean was already in the garden that morning when Emerson Bridge approached him with his hand up, stiff. “0800, sir,” Emerson Bridge said.

  The man put his cigarette in his mouth and brought his hand up, too.

  “Sorry I’m a day late, Mr. Billy Udean. Been at the hospital with my mama.”

  “How is she?”

  “Still in there.” He and Mr. Ike had decided not to tell his mother about the boys trying to steal Lucky. She had enough to worry about.

  The man took a long pull on his cigarette. The end lit up bright red. “So, when’s your birthday?” the man asked. “Got to make sure you’re old enough to work.”

  “June 22nd.”

  “Yeah?” He blew smoke from his mouth in a circle. “What year?”

  “19 and 44.”

  He pulled even longer now.

  “I’m seven and half way to eight.” Emerson Bridge tried to make his voice go deep. “Please say I’m old enough.”

  The man removed his cigarette and used it like a stick to point out towards his front yard. “Got a burn pile going over there. If you’ll start gathering up these limbs I’m cutting and then go throw them on it.”

  He resumed work on a small tree with a large hand saw. This man was strong, moving the saw in a blaze.

  “Does smoking warm you up, Mr. Billy Udean?”

  “You cold?”

  He was, but he didn’t want the man to know. He might make him go inside. “No sir,” he told him and crossed his arms over his chest. He thought he saw the man looking at his arms. “I’m strong. Watch!” Emerson Bridge gathered an armful and ran with them to the burn pile.

  Each time he went for another load, he noticed the man studying him. Emerson Bridge thought he must be doing it wrong. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “For what, son?”

  “For not doing it right.”

  “Not doing what right?”

  “What you asked,” Emerson Bridge told him. “Taking these limbs and burning them.”

  The man took off his cap and brushed back what little hair he had and then put his cap back on. “Son, you’re doing it right.”

  Emerson Bridge smiled. He liked being called “son.” His papa had called him that.

  When he returned for the next load, the man asked him, “What’s your mama’s name?”

  “Sarah.”

  The man made a sound with his nose like he was breathing in something hard. “Creamer?”

  “Creamer. Yes sir.”

  The man had a knot in his neck like his papa had. Emerson Bridge saw it move up and down. “My papa’s name was Harold. But he’s dead now.”

  It moved again. “Sorry to hear that, son. He been sick?”

  “He coughed a lot, but Mama said he died of hard times.” Emerson Bridge thought his eyes might fill up, but he took a deep breath and made himself stop. “I’m the man of the house now.”

  The man’s eyes looked kind. Emerson Bridge bet his papa would have liked him.

  “We’ve got Mr. Ike helping out some, and he tries real good. He wants to be a real cowboy like Roy Rogers, but me and Mama know he’s really not. But don’t say nothing to him about it.” Emerson Bridge brought his finger up to his mouth and said, “Shhhh.”

  The man dropped his cigarette, ground it into the dirt and pulled out another. “Roy Rogers, huh? He’s the one that’s got dimples like you.”

  Emerson Bridge could feel his own sinking in all the way to his teeth. “Yes sir.”

  The man put the cigarette in his mouth and struck a match and then cupped his hand around the fire and brought it to the end. It was like he was whispering a secret.

  Emerson Bridge gathered another load and started for the burn pile.

  “So, your dimples,” he heard at his back, “where’d you get them from? Your mama or your papa?”

  He turned and looked the man’s way. He had his cigarette pinched at his mouth, and his voice wasn’t so strong anymore.

  “Neither one.” He ran on and soon returned for another armful.

  But the man had not cut anymore. He faced Emerson Bridge and dropped his saw to the ground. His hands were shaking. He brought one up to Emerson Bridge’s left cheek, to his dimple, and brushed it soft it like it might break.

  …..

  From near his side shrubbery, Luther heard the automobile slow, then pick up speed. The afternoon paper had arrived. He had been keeping his ear out for such. Nothing about a steer theft had been reported in the morning paper.

  Luther retrieved the paper and then went inside the house, as he did every afternoon to read it. Mildred was in the living room, taking down the Christmas tree. He started to shoo her away, but having her in there might be an advantage. It showed that he had nothing to worry about.

  He sat in his easy chair, lit one of his Tampa Nuggets she’d given him for Christmas, and propped his feet on the ottoman. She had a nice fire going. He set his cigar in his ashtray stand and opened the paper, making sure he kept it high enough for Mildred not to see his face, in case there was bad news. But he needed to stop his hands from shaking.

  He scanned the front page. Fighting continued in Korea, snow in Chicago, navy fighter planes lost in the Santee swamp. Nothing. His eyes moved to the “Today in Anderson” column. The big news was the annual rabbit hunt without guns, only dogs and sticks, where “a number of kills were made.” A new Anderson hospital admission record, hip surgery for an old lady who tripped on her grandchild’s Christmas toy and teenagers practicing ba
sketball at the Recreation Center. Nothing.

  Luther wiped his brow.

  When he’d spent enough time on the front page for Mildred to believe he was reading it, he turned to the inside to more local news on page three, and there his eyes saw the headline “Negroes Steal Turkeys.” He sucked in his breath. What if the paper had gotten the animal wrong? But then he read it was old man H. S. Hanks, who was known for raising turkeys, hundreds of them. The law had enough on their hands with this turkey theft. Luther was home free.

  But, there, down lower, appeared the headline, “Negro Boys on the Loose after Attempted Steer Rustling.” Luther’s hands dropped, crunching the paper so loud, Mildred looked his way. He jerked his hands up high again.

  He read to himself. “An attempted theft of a 4-H steer belonging to seven-year-old Emerson Bridge Creamer, son of Mrs. Sarah Creamer, of Route 2 in west Anderson, occurred late Wednesday night. The sheriff credits Mr. Isaiah Ferdinand Thrasher, Jr., of McDuffie Street, with stopping two negro boys from stealing the steer. “I was under a commitment to protect the Creamer place,” Mr. Thrasher said. Ike Thrasher was the reason they were caught?

  He wanted to ball up the paper and throw it in the fire and let Mildred’s flames consume it the way the lure of her money had consumed him. But he knew he needed to finish reading in his usual fashion. Of all days, this had to be a Thursday when the paper was as thick as a Dobbins slice of bacon with all the grocery advertisements.

  But what if the negro boys knew who he was? Why did he have to wear a suit that day to try to impress Donald Lee at the bank? He should have worn clothes that were common. If they could walk to the Creamer place, they could walk to his. His wasn’t as far. They had nothing to lose. They could kill him. But maybe they’d just come for the money he’d promised. What if he left the coins on the front porch? But how would they know where he lived?

  He balled up the paper and threw it into the fire. “Ain’t nothing ever in here worth reading.”

  He walked the stairs to his bedroom and took his gun, his pearl-handle, from beneath the mattress and then went outside to his truck and placed the gun under his seat.

  “What’d you put in there, Dad?” It was LC out in the yard and not in the lot where he was supposed to be, working with his steer.

  Luther wanted to backhand him, but he liked that his boy was man enough to question him. He pulled the gun back out and held it between them. “Can’t trust niggers. They’ll steal you blind.”

  The fading sun caught the silver barrel and made it appear to shine. Luther, though, preferred that his boy see the handle, see that he could afford a pearl-handle. He slid his fingers forward and let the sun cast the pearl as white as teeth. Luther looked at his boy, in his eyes, to see if they glistened, too.

  But they did not.

  LC turned and went to the lot, to his steer, which he touched, running his hands, flat and full, along the side of the animal’s neck. As if he loved him, Luther thought, as if he loved him.

  Luther put the gun back under the seat.

  It was a tad early for him to go to his garage, but to his garage he went and touched his drinking glass and bottle of almighty whiskey, running his hand flat over them.

  And then he poured himself full.

  …..

  Merritt pulled into Luther’s driveway before Luther had finished his breakfast. “LC, get your lessons and get out to the road. The bus’ll be early today, being the first day back at school.”

  He took a deep breath. He knew why Merritt was there.

  He went outside to Merritt’s truck parked near the barn. Merritt rolled down his window. “And what do I owe this momentous gigantic enormous pleasure?”

  “On my way to the Creamers to check on that steer, Luther. Was out of town last week when it happened. You know any more?”

  Luther felt his body jerk. “All I know is I got to kill a hog today as soon as Uncle gets here.” The hard part was over now. Merritt wasn’t on to him. There’d been nothing more in the newspaper about the negro boys.

  “So you don’t know anything else?” Merritt said.

  Luther wanted to spit in the man’s face but chose to cast it on the ground. “Got my own boy’s steer to worry about. Don’t make it my business to follow the Creamers like you do. Run after every time they twitch their little pinkie.” Luther motioned with his last finger in front of Merritt’s baby face.

  “Attempted rustling is hardly twitching their little pinkie, Luther.”

  “Well, Paul,” Luther told him and made sure he said the man’s name with the same heaviness the man had tried to use on him. “Who says that jelly didn’t make it all up? Bet he did it to get attention. Everybody wants to be in the paper. Surprised he didn’t insist on them taking his picture with his little cowboy git-up on.”

  Merritt took a deep breath and let it out real slow.

  “Why you asking me for, anyway? I ain’t got nothing to do with your prized ‘down the roader.’ You think I’m that Houdini or something and can pull that stuff out of the air? Or that man with them memory powers the paper says is coming to the Recreation Center that can name the exact population of every town in the whole state? No, sir. I’m just a poor country boy trying to run a farm out here, if you’ll excuse me.” Luther took a couple of steps away.

  “I’ll tell you who’s poor,” Merritt called out. “That little Creamer boy. Dog, if he don’t have the hardest time.”

  Luther shot his eyes towards the lot, where his boy’s steer was tied. He hoped Merritt would follow his lead.

  But all Merritt said was, “Should have paid him more attention. Gone around there more.”

  Luther could feel his body tensing up.

  “Don’t go getting your dander up, Luther. Not showing favoritism, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Merritt was backing up and chuckling. He’d never heard Merritt chuckle. “Everybody knows you’ve got a dynasty out here.”

  Luther made a show of drawing up air in his nose. “What’s that smell?”

  “Manure?” Merritt said and stopped.

  Luther drew up more air. “Why, the smell of money.”

  Merritt was moving again. “By the way,” he called out, “they approved moving the Fat Cattle Show & Sale from the fairgrounds out here to your farm. You got what you wanted. Nobody can challenge you.”

  Merritt left. Luther had thought he would revel at the county agent using the word “dynasty” to describe what he had built, but Luther wondered if the man had said it in jest. Like he didn’t believe it for half a second. And that they were moving the show to his place, so that when LC’s steer that Luther had selected didn’t win again, everyone could laugh and do so on his Dobbins property, where the laughter would seep into soil, staining it and causing nothing to ever grow there again.

  The mother cow had not seen or heard the gentle wind. The mother cow kept watch.

  “Morning, Mr. LC.” It was Uncle. He watched the man go towards the barn, where the hog was penned up with a big slop trough, getting fat. It was certainly cold enough for hog killing, highs in the forties that day, and he could trust Uncle to do it right.

  Luther felt a rush travel to his head like a bullet. He needed a better plan, one he could trust.

  He went to his truck and retrieved his gun. He would give it to Uncle to put a bullet in the hog’s head, but Uncle would also be using a second bullet.

  Luther found him in the barn. “I need you to go do something for me tonight. Need you to go out to the Creamer place and get that blame steer and get rid of it.” He shook the gun in front of Uncle’s face when he said the last part.

  Uncle dropped his eyes towards the ground. “Mr. LC, I—”

  “I is right. I is going to do that for you, Mr. LC. That’s all you need to say.”

  “You know I can’t do that. That’s not—”

  “That’s none of your business. You work for me. You’ll do what I tell you.”

  The Adam’s apple in Uncle’s neck bobbed
from a big swallow. Luther pointed the gun there. “Maybe the business end of a gun is a superior talker than I am.” Beads of perspiration peppered the man’s brow, sprinkled about like the little pin holes in the tin roof of the tenant house he grew up in.

  “It’s wrong, Luther.”

  At the sound of his outright name, Luther felt his body tense. He pulled the hammer back. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. Wrong is you getting above your colored raising. I’m Mr. LC to you. And you ain’t nothing but a nigger.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do,” Luther told him. “I mean it as strong as, as—”

  “As strong as what?” Uncle said and moved closer to the gun. “As strong as you were that night to tell on my mama? Make Mr. Allgood throw us off his place just for taking care of one of your kind?”

  Luther’s hand was shaking. “What was she doing with a white baby anyway?”

  “A white lady she did laundry for died giving birth, and her husband didn’t know what to do with it and asked my mama to take care of it until he could get him another woman to marry.”

  “Don’t look right for negroes to have white babies.”

  “Like it didn’t look right for whites to live as negroes?”

  Luther moved the gun until it touched Uncle’s skin. “I said go get that by God Creamer steer and get rid of it.”

  “No, sir.” Uncle pressed his neck against the barrel. “Go on and shoot me, because I ain’t going to go do it. It’s wrong.”

  Luther could feel beads of perspiration on his brow now.

  “You can’t pull that trigger. You make everybody do your dirty work for you, Luther.” Uncle backed away from the gun and put his hand on the barrel and pushed it aside.

  He walked away.

  “Don’t you walk away from me,” Luther called out. “You do that, and you’ll never be hired on with me again.”

  The man kept walking.

  “You hear me?” He aimed the gun at Uncle’s back. “Should have known you never were my friend. That I couldn’t count on you when I need you. When I need you the most.”

  Uncle now was halfway across the field. He was heading to his house.

  Luther ran after him and got in front and put his hands on Uncle’s shoulder to make him stop. But Uncle stepped around him and resumed walking.