Redwood and Wildfire

by Andrea Hairston

  Redwood didn’t want to believe it. An acrid smell filled the church, like green pinewood burning. She felt as if scorched roots were coming apart beneath her feet, tearing through dirt, spraying bugs and mucky old leaves in the air. If she hadn’t been singing, she’d have fallen over or worse. She clung to each note, longer than she should, louder than the pounding hooves drumming the road. Miz Subie didn’t lie. Mama was dead and gone and never coming back. Redwood didn’t know how she could stand it. She shook Miz Subie’s cold, heavy hand off her shoulder. Singing loud helped her walk the aisle between the pews and push past her cousins, aunt, and uncle to George. He couldn’t holler no more and stood at the crèche, staring at orchids on dusty white cloth wrapped ’round all that was left of Mama.

  Redwood took George’s hand. He squeezed hard. On her back, Iris fussed. Redwood was full of tears too, howling through Joy to the World louder than a baby, for Mama going off with the angels and leaving them behind

  “You singing like her!” George shook so, ’til he almost knocked Redwood down. “Just like Mama.”

  Hope burned through the hurt and held Redwood up. Everybody always said she was the spitting image of Mama. Sounded and acted like her too. So Mama wasn’t all the way dead — Redwood was a spell she left behind. Spells only worked if you filled your heart, did them proper, and believed. So right then and there, she decided, no matter what, to sing, dance, and conjure up a storm, just like Garnett Phipps. It was what she wanted to do anyhow, but now she had to do it. For Mama’s sake. Redwood’s voice broke into wrong notes and lost words, wailing and sobbing out of tune, for she didn’t know how long, but then she got a good breath and sang on:

  No more let sins and sorrows grow

  Nor thorns infest the ground

  He comes to make his blessings flow

  Far as the curse is found

  Far as the curse is found

  Far as, far as, the curse is found

  Two

  Peach Grove, 1902

  Redwood Phipps squirmed in the last and only empty pew of the Baptist Church. Folks had been smaller back in the day when her ornery ancestors built this church and decided how much legroom you needed to praise the Lord. Her knees pressed into splintery wood. At fifteen, Redwood was taller than a lot of grown men. Still, anybody would tell you, she was a beautiful gal with caramel skin, midnight eyes, and hair fluffy as a dandelion gone to seed. They’d also tell you she was a natural hoodoo child, beloved by the spirit in everything, wiry, spooky, working the conqueror root. And nobody — young folk or grownups — wanted to sit with her.

  “You see clean through shady grins and lying skins. Of course they’re ’fraid of you, of course ain’t nobody goin’ sit next to you,” Miz Subie said, taking her side. Big brother George beat up Bubba Jackson yesterday for calling Redwood a ghost gal, a haint child. But George and Miz Subie didn’t never come to church no more.

  The preacher was always railing against conjuring. “A hoodoo witch sells her soul to the devil, and she has to keep someone in her power all the time; if not, the devil will make her suffer untold agony.”

  Despite all Miz Subie’s supposed devil work, God didn’t strike her down, and everybody sick kept on coming to her for healing. Preacher didn’t sermonize against George, but why should he sit half the day praying for good times to roll after he was dead. “Ain’t no time like now. Smile at them hinkty fools, Red, and you be surprised.”

  Before heading to service, Redwood had braided her hair in neat plaits, scrubbed her skin raw, and put on one of Mama’s fancy dresses. Unfortunately, when she smiled and a few folks smiled back, there wasn’t no more room in their pews.

  The choir slid off key — so many bad notes, it hurt. Members of the congregation wondered if the spirit could really be with such awful singers. That was the only reason the choir director wanted Redwood to join, desperate for any kind of help, even hoodoo.

  The preacher grimaced and intoned over the wayward melody. “Have you swept your spirit clean? God sees to every black corner of your heart. He knows every black deed.” The preacher mopped his brow and smiled at the widow in the first row who was swooning from the heat of the Holy Ghost — or pretending to. “Repent! Spill out your sins. Tell God your dark secrets.”

  “If God knows all,” Redwood whispered to nobody, “why I got to tell him, too?” That was a good one to save for George later. Four-year-old Iris turned from two rows up and grinned. Redwood and Baby Sister could speak heart to heart even with Iris squished between Uncle Ladd and Aunt Elisa praising the Holy Ghost.

  “HE sends us signs every day. Jesus wept, yes he did, for each one of us.” The preacher hadn’t said anything new for weeks but nobody noticed. Aunt Elisa, Uncle Ladd, and then the cousins were swaying with the hymn. Iris moved to her own music. Redwood stared out the open window. The sun was almost gone.

  “Hoodoo conjure man only lead you astray.” Preacher was riding his high horse now. “Singing the Blues and telling you only what you want to hear. Easy lies. But the road to Heaven is uphill all the way. Have mercy!” he screamed, and the congregation jumped to their feet, shouting amen!

  Redwood clutched a postcard that Mama sent from the Chicago Fair. The words written on the back changed from time to time. “We bear witness for redemption.” She quoted the latest message under the amens and have mercys. She spoke Mama’s words every chance she got, so she wouldn’t forget herself or where she come from. “We speak truth that it may come true.” She slipped out the side door into the twilight, certain that when the church sat back down, no one would notice the empty pew.

  Aidan Cooper was sweating and spitting as he angled the plow into hard ground. The Lord’s Day didn’t bring rest. Aunt Caitlin’s patch of dirt farm was his now. And he was a married man, responsible for two lives, not just his ownself. Who could say, maybe a baby, a new life was on the way. If he managed another good crop, he could afford to hire an extra hand — one of the Glover boys, whoever Ladd could spare. And if not, at least he wouldn’t lose his land like the Jessups, the Crawfords, and half the poor colored and white folk this side of the creek. Determined to get one more row ready for winter oats, he ignored the sun sneaking down behind the trees. The mule had other ideas. She stopped mid-row and turned to stare into Aidan’s smoky green eyes. An evening wind tangled his long black hair.

  “Come on now, let’s move, Princess. Just one more furrow and then supper.” Tall and vibrant, a handsome man with burnished skin, Aidan whistled and shouted at Princess. The alligator pouch banged against Aidan’s hip. His daddy’s hunting knife sparkled in the fading light. The mule glared back at him, unimpressed. Princess was as red as the sunset, ’cept for a white nose and a patch of black shaped in a feather on her forehead. She snorted and twitched long, luxurious ears.

  “What do you want out of me?” Aidan sighed, shook his head. He found a melody for just this moment, a haunting tune in a minor key. No words as yet, just nonsense sounds, whistles, click-clacks and heya bobs, which suited the mule just fine. With him singing, Princess plodded on into the twilight for three more rows.

  “Anybody please.” A voice rustled through the stalks and leaves.

  Aidan choked on the last of his song. Princess trudged on, dragging him along.

  The voice blew through the trees. “Somebody!”

  Horrified, Aidan twisted and turned in every direction — not a soul to be seen.

  “Do right,” the voice begged as an owl hooted.

  How the hell was he ever goin’ do that?

  It was Christmas 1898 again, and hooded men — nightriders — blazed ’cross the newly plowed earth or through Aidan’s mind. Either way, the horses’ hooves stamped on his nerves. Something hung from a pine tree. He could smell the foul sweat, feel hot blood rising. A turkey buzzard circled with a string of flesh dangling from its beak.

  Garnett Phipps groaned with the wind. “Do right, for the sickness cured, for the babies born true, for evil spirits chased from your gate
s. Have mercy.”

  Aidan slumped against the plow. Princess stopped and turned, flicking her velvet ears toward him. ’Cross the purple sky, bats swooped through a cloud of bugs, feasting. Aidan pulled his weary self up, unhitched Princess, and reached for his jug. “What can I tell you? Wide awake hearing the voice of a dead woman.”

  Even if nobody sat next to her and she didn’t last the whole sermon, talking to God always put Redwood in a grand mood. Sitting in church with a whole crowd of sinners and saints, believing, calling down the spirit, she felt right as rain, good as dirt, and wide open like the sky. She felt as ancient as the old oaks, as new as the falling dew — just how Mama said. “Listen hard, Red, and you can hear everything, all over creation.”

  This Sunday evening, creation was so loud with all the hooting, squealing, slithering, hollering, slurping, and buzzing, it was a wonder she could hear her own footfall. But cutting through the woods and taking the long way home, Redwood tracked the sound of good music. So faint at first, it could’ve just been wishful thinking. Yet a throb under her toes called her to dance. A twang vibrating her breastbone begged her to sing. Real professionals were passing through Peach Grove. That was the talk ’round town. Storm had washed them out Saturday evening. Sounded like they were goin’ to give it another go tonight — blasphemy or not.

  The burning flavor of moonshine tinged the air. Redwood also smelled sweet potatoes boiling, chicken and ribs roasting, biscuits and skillet bread too, melting fresh butter. A peach cobbler bubbled and popped, and she picked up speed. Laughter and love talk echoed through the trees. Lanterns swung from oak branches and winked at her. Spanish moss danced in the warm beams of light. Redwood dashed through evergreen magnolias into a clearing just as a guitar got coaxed back in tune and a washboard was wiped down. She squatted under a flickering light to catch her breath.

  Eyeing the steaming food on rough wooden tables, her stomach growled. A nickel for what you could eat and drink, but she didn’t have a cent on her. Young folk from all over, from thirty miles away even, sat on splintery benches dressed in silky fabrics and starched collars. They smelled sweet as spring. Redwood smoothed her stiff cotton dress, something Mama made ten years ago to wear to the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition. It was old and faded, thin and patched, but Redwood felt beautiful as she sauntered up to the traveling Bluesmen.

  “Milton, they got to be paying us cash money,” a handsome man with hazel eyes and a side part in his thick hair whispered over the washtub bass, a northerner from the sound of him. “Not just —”

  “Do you know who you be and where you are, Eddie?” Milton replied, strumming his guitar. Couldn’t tell where he was from, but Milton had a city mustache and a breath of hair like black mist, cloaking his deep brown skull. “Backcountry, nowhere Georgia. And you think you’re good enough for cash — ha!”

  “On a piano, I’m so good, can’t nobody touch me. My fingers’re so fast can’t nobody even see me. That’s worth…” Eddie shook his head, marveling at his music. “Not just food, not just a lady for the night.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” Redwood said, right in Milton’s face. He jumped back as if she’d materialized out of the cooking smoke. “You the one played music for Mr. Bert Williams in The Lucky Coon like they say?”

  “I did indeed, pretty lady.” Milton smelled of moonshine, fried chicken, and hot coffee. “On stages clear ’cross this US of A.”

  “How you get started doing shows and whatnot?” Redwood asked.

  “Me and ole Bert be thick as thieves.” He looked like a fancy liar if ever she’d seen one.

  “Is that a fact?”

  Milton grinned at her earnest face. “You want to go on the stage, little miss woman?”

  “It’s my dream,” Redwood replied.

  Eddie looked her up and down. He frowned at her beat-up brogans or maybe it was the size of her big feet as compared to her little tiddies, which hadn’t got to half of Mama’s fullness and didn’t seem like they ever would. “Shouldn’t you be at the prayer meeting?” Eddie snickered. “Your mama let you come hear our music?”

  “Mama done gone to Glory,” Redwood said to Milton. “The angels snatched her up one Christmas night, to be one of their number. But she know, Blues ain’t devil music.”

  “You’re Garnett Phipps’ gal.” Milton laughed nervously and plucked at his guitar. Who she was spooked him. Eddie scowled and started singing. He mumbled and slurred so, Redwood couldn’t understand a word, but it was good music. The tune went in your head and wouldn’t let go, the rhythm got under your skin and took charge. She stepped toward the snarl of young folk dancing in the dirt. They were showing off for each other with swooping bird and bug steps from the Sea Islands, or jumping like rabbits, waddling like pigs, and doing the shimmy-shake from Savannah.

  Beatrice and Fanny, who had grown up down the road from Redwood, smiled, swayed their hips, and eyed young men who had yet to find partners. They looked grand with full bosoms already, fluffy hairdos, and red on their lips. The two gals were close friends, always in step, tangled in each other’s thoughts, believing each other’s dreams. Redwood didn’t mean to be jealous of them, but she was. Seeing her approach, Beatrice frowned and clutched Fanny’s hand. They froze and their smiles drained away. Bubba Jackson grabbed Fanny and a friend of George’s snatched Beatrice. With no prodding, they were hopping and swooping like everyone else. No boy ever come up and snatch Redwood’s hand like that. She sighed and danced alone. Chasing the beat, she faltered and couldn’t find herself for a moment. She stomped on someone’s toes.

  “Watch what you doing, gal!” Bubba yelled, blood still in his eye where George had punched him on Redwood’s account. “I don’t want to go lame ’cause you can’t dance.” He shoved her, hard. “Steer clear or sit yourself down.”

  Redwood moved toward an empty spot near the food, and though she didn’t stop dancing, she’d lost the feeling.

  “You looking good to me.” Milton winked at her. He was a showman, and everybody knew you couldn’t trust what come out a performer’s mouth. Actors could say anything and get away with it. Milton and Eddie played the crowd, not the truth. Redwood wanted to believe him though. She took a deep breath.

  A powerful stink from sweaty hair, rotten food caught in a decaying tooth, and skin that had never been washed made her dizzy. She turned to a hairy beast pawing a dish of ribs on the table. The claws on the young black bear were filthy yellow. A scar on his cheek was a gray star. The dish crashed to the ground as he stuffed meat in his mouth, crunching bones and gristle and swallowing that too.

  Milton halted on an upbeat. Beatrice, Fanny, Bubba, and George’s friend hollered, like at church in the grip of the Holy Ghost, only they weren’t faking it. Everybody was squealing, and the poor bear was so rattled it stopped chewing. It reared up on its hind legs waving a chicken breast skewered on its right paw and moaned at the mob.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Redwood saw a shotgun aimed at the bear. The animal was only half-grown and wetting the ground in terror. Shooting it down dead before it got a chance to live would be a shame, a sin. Redwood jumped between the gun and the bear, close enough for a swipe of its yellow claws to reach her. The chicken breast passed under her nose and smeared ’cross her belly. The bear was hemmed in between a table and a bench, panicking. Redwood fixed her eye on him, felt his great heart thundering in her chest, felt his lungs heaving, felt the mosquitoes burrowing for a soft spot, felt his bowels squeezed tight and his stomach growling. For a moment, there was nothing but the two of them. Calmer, the bear sucked the chicken from its claws and swallowed without much chewing.

  “Get on away from here now!” Redwood waved her arms. The bear blew foul breath in her face, grabbed more ribs from the table, and ran off into the cover of the trees. Redwood gaped at him, surprised and relieved. He’d listened to her.

  “I’ll be damned.” Milton’s face twisted between a grin and a grimace. “She hoodooed that bear.”

  Beatri
ce and Fanny sucked their teeth and rolled their eyes. Eddie just scowled. Everybody gawked at Redwood, whispering and grumbling — Bubba louder than most. She wiped her greasy tummy. The man with the shotgun didn’t lower it ’til there wasn’t even a sound of bear. It was big brother George, squinting his eyes, taking aim with a frown, and shaking his head at her, maybe a bit of awe mixed in with the anger. She could never read his mind from his face.

  “We’re here to have a good time, all right?” Milton picked a rousing tune on his guitar. After several bars he jabbed Eddie. “You plan to leave me hangin’?”

  Eddie blew on a stovepipe. “Better put down your nickel and eat that food ’fore more bears come along and beat you to it.” Titters flitted through the crowd.

  “I’m an ornery cuss and got a mean streak as long and wide as the Mississippi River. My mama tell you, see a bear and me fighting over my food, don’t worry ’bout me, help the bear!” Milton got everybody laughing. “Yeah, help the poor bear.”

  Bubba and Fanny danced far away from Redwood; all the other couples did too.

  “Please don’t tell,” she whispered to George. “I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”

  George grunted and rested the gun against his thigh.

  Aidan sat up in a hunting perch and enjoyed the Blues music drifting in from how far he couldn’t say. A second jug was almost empty, and he’d lost sense of distance and time and just ’bout everything else. Couldn’t even remember climbing the tree. He still knew May Ellen would worry ’til he dragged his behind home. She’d want him to eat a big dinner: greasy meat, lumpy biscuits, mealy potatoes, cold okra…Well, his stomach wasn’t having none of that. And there’d be no loving with him stinking of hooch. Sober, he could get May Ellen singing to sweet Jesus. Drunk, she’d banish him to the shed. At least Princess would let him curl up next to her, ’stead of freeze. He’d better go home and get it over with. No point in waiting for dawn. The sun might not come back for a long while. Moonlight played tricks on him, but ghosts and haints never pestered Aidan with stupid talk ’bout have mercy when he was three sheets to the wind.