Redwood and Wildfire

by Andrea Hairston

  “What you mean, magic we make together?” Aidan stroked the bead and feather in his pocket, relieved to touch proof. He had a mountain of questions, but Redwood was so tuckered out, she fell over into his lap. Looking at her droopy eyes, he didn’t have the heart to press her.

  “Don’t worry,” she mumbled. “I just need to rest up.”

  Despite a rumbling stomach, she only managed a mouthful of beans and a biscuit. She slept through red wolves hollering at each other, a barred owl barking, and a stag crashing in the brush. She slept most of the bumpy canoe ride down creeks swollen from the storm, waking when he stopped to collect the plants she needed for Miz Subie.

  “Ain’t you sweet,” she said as he filled her bag.

  “Least I can do after such a powerful get-well spell.”

  “You believing made it easy. Never stayed away so long, not even with Mama.”

  “Now you tell me,” he said. “Maybe we stole too many heartbeats.”

  “I’m fine.” She clutched his arm. “And you’re well then?”

  He didn’t know ’bout that. “I do feel better than I have for…years. You’re a tonic for my spirit, Miz Redwood, like the Balm of Gilead. I’ll be owing you for awhile.”

  “No. Sing me something good, with that lilt you can do. Then we’re even.”

  A verse from an old Irish song his mother used to sing came to him:

  Love is a fever that can’t be cured

  Woe to him who bears it night and day

  For its knot binds tight and it never can be loosed

  And my own dear comrade, may you fare well

  Redwood’s fingers danced in the air. She murmured nonsense, almost in harmony with his melody, then dropped back to dreams.

  As they left the fire forest behind, Aidan spit the smoky taste from his mouth. The sun slid down slow, but the heat wasn’t going nowhere. Seeing Aidan come downstream, Princess brayed and whinnied so loud, they must’ve heard her all over the county. Redwood didn’t rouse ’til he shook her shoulders hard for a solid minute. Dream-talking, she stumbled out the boat and Aidan had to heave her onto Princess’s back. He jumped up behind her and Redwood slumped back against his chest. She passed out again, sleeping so deep she barely took a breath. Nothing he did woke her up.

  Doc Johnson had gone off to Atlanta. Aidan cussed Doc’s empty house. Miz Subie wasn’t at home when they stopped at her house. What if Redwood didn’t wake up on her own? What if something was really wrong? What if she stole too many heartbeats staying away too long and didn’t want to tell him?

  Princess turned down the old oak lane toward his place.

  “Whoa, sweetheart, not that way. Ain’t going home yet.” He dismounted and Princess blew her lips at him. “Going to Ladd and Elisa’s. I’ll walk and give you a rest.” Redwood slumped against Princess’s neck, but didn’t fall off. Aidan brushed soggy hair from her face and wiped cold sweat from her neck. She sighed at his gentle touch, a peaceful smile curling on her lips. “We got to carry Miz Redwood to the front door. Don’t think we can trust her sleepwalking on shaky legs.”

  Princess butted her nose into his ribs. He pulled the last bit of apple from his pocket. She gobbled it up in a flash. They ambled along, not fast, not slow. Reluctant and anxious, Aidan didn’t relish walking into Ladd and Elisa’s yard, didn’t relish walking into their questions. George would have a burr under his butt, but Aidan hoped somebody would know how to wake Redwood or tell him that sleeping so deep was fine. Course then there was Josie ’round the next bend of his life. Marrying her wouldn’t set the world right, wouldn’t make nobody happy even. Josie was settling for him, and he was a falling-down drunk fool, playacting the man of honor.

  With a quarter mile to go, little Iris come dashing for him. George was a few steps behind. “Crazy Coop,” Iris yelled. She turned and slugged her brother. “Didn’t I say they was coming this way.” She jumped into Aidan’s arms. “I knew it, I knew it.”

  Aidan swung her high in the air. “You been riding that pig?” he said as she wrapped sticky hands ’round his neck and he got a good whiff of her. The tattered green frock she wore was covered in slop, as if she’d been rolling with the pigs.

  “Raccoon got in the pigpen, and I had to get her out ’fore she got hurt,” Iris said.

  “Well, of course.” Aidan smiled, despite worry tightening his chest.

  “Red!” George tried to rouse his sister to no avail.

  “You smell of swamp and sparks in the sky.” Iris squeezed Aidan. “I knew it.”

  George was ready to breathe fire. “What’s a matter with her?”

  “I don’t know.” Aidan set Iris down. She held on to his hand. “I wish I did.”

  George shook Redwood’s shoulder roughly. “She was fine when I…left her.”

  “She found me after…you went bird hunting, and then…” Aidan didn’t know what to say. “She just won’t wake up.”

  “That was three days ago,” George said.

  “What you say?”

  “What you been doing all this time?” George shouted, and then the whole family come charging down the road, raising a cloud of dust. Ladd, Elisa, and the five cousins wore sweaty work clothes like they’d just run out the fields. Miz Subie followed at a slower pace, stepping proud with a carved walking staff, like those folks from Africa at the Fair. She wore a green silk head rag, and a blue medicine bag dangled from her waist. Princess brayed at so many strange people rushing for her.

  “Whoa, whoa, they’re friendly,” Aidan said. Princess wasn’t convinced. Snatching Redwood from her back, George looked evil as sin. Princess wanted to kick him. She wasn’t the only one. Aidan rubbed her nose to keep them both calm, but it didn’t help.

  “They was worried,” Iris whispered to Aidan. “I knew sister was fine with you.”

  “I don’t know that.” George staggered down the road away from Aidan with Redwood’s head bobbing against his shoulder. The five cousins ran after them. Aidan’s heart wrenched, parting from her like this after all they’d been through.

  “What did Crazy Coop do to her?” one of the cousins asked. Aidan could never keep their names straight. He always mixed up Becky and Ruby and called Jessie, Tom or Bill, and vice versa.

  “Lay her down under that tree.” Subie pointed to a battered old oak. “She need fresh air.”

  “So what have you been doing all this time?” Elisa planted herself in front of Aidan, her jaw jutting out like a blade. She pulled a resisting Iris away from him as if he was a poison weed.

  “Spit it out. It ain’t goin’ get no easier, the longer you wait.” Ladd was toting a shotgun and an evil look too. He stood up straight to Aidan, no jigging and cooning for once. “You ain’t gone deaf, man. You hear me talking.”

  Subie tugged at Ladd’s gun arm. “Give him a chance.”

  Ladd marched back and forth, barely holding his temper. Streaks of salt on his dark skin made his lean face resemble a skeleton mask. Aidan glanced over to the cousins. Even Becky and Ruby were grinding their teeth and spitting anger with each breath. They must have all been thinking the worst.

  Subie calmed Princess with a few tugs on her ears. “Tell us what you can, Mr. Cooper.” She fixed him in her eye.

  “It’s Aidan, Ma’am, and we uh…”

  Subie nodded. “Traveled a long way, huh?”

  “Yes, Ma’am, that’s it and uh…her heart’s barely beating, just a faint thump every now and then, and…” Aidan had promised not to tell. The Chicago Fair seemed to be a dream or drunken phantasm, and ’cept for a bead and feathers from a Wild West Show, what did he have to show for their adventure? “Stolen heartbeats, don’t you know.”

  Subie nodded her head. “I see.” Nobody else did from the scowls on their faces, ’cept for little Iris. Subie dug through her blue medicine bag and pulled out swamp iris root and something Aidan didn’t recognize. “Get me some hot water.” She waved at the cousins. Becky or Ruby hurried off to oblige her.

  George se
ttled Redwood down carefully. “I ain’t done nothing but worry since…”

  “She ain’t bleeding.” Iris sat in the dirt beside her and babbled away. “She ain’t hurt, I tell you. She goin’ wake up when she done resting.”

  “You don’t say.” Elisa put a shawl under Redwood’s head.

  Iris touched Redwood’s brow. “She just be tired in her heart spirit. A traveler coming home though.” Iris was a hoodoo, like her sister, like her mama, snatching truth out of nowhere. She spooked folks sometime, saying things a little child shouldn’t. They’d be more spooked to hear what trick Redwood played.

  Ladd stopped stamping back and forth and set the shotgun in the shade. Princess was in a fine mood, nibbling something from Subie’s hand.

  George didn’t let up though. “You don’t have no better tale to tell?”

  “Lightning set a fire downstream. Maybe she swallowed too much smoke and —” Aidan wanted to say Redwood hoodooed her ownself. He wanted to ask George why he run off and leave his sister alone in the swamp. But he wasn’t feeling his usual Irish temper and couldn’t get any mean, fighting talk out. Same as when he and Redwood were trading words over Cherokee Will in the chickee. He hadn’t mentioned the colored folk who bought and sold each other during slavery times and who were, to this very day, richer than he ever hoped to be on land Indians once roamed. He didn’t have a taste for fighting low with anybody over old history and skin. He just wanted to see Redwood through. This was a new year.

  “A little smoke done this to her and not you?” George needed one of Redwood’s tonic spells. Anger was ’bout to bust the veins in his skull. He was powerful built, almost as tall as Aidan and thicker. His muscles looked cut from dark stone. And George wanted to be mad at Aidan or any white man within a hundred miles of his sister. “You just goin’ stand there, staring at me like a damn fool, when I’m asking you a civilized question? My sister gone missing for three days!”

  “Three days?” Aidan scratched his jaw. “I reckon I lost a day somewhere.”

  “I reckon you goin’ lose some more days if —”

  “Hush George,” Ladd said. His nephew fumed, but didn’t finish the threat.

  Subie dug in Redwood’s canvas bag. “She found all the roots I asked for and then some. That’s more than a week of work in three days.” She peered at Aidan with her blind eye.

  “You know how she is,” Aidan said.

  “Redwood got a talent for getting herself into sticky situations,” Ladd said.

  Subie listened to Redwood’s breath. “That’s right. She ain’t Mr. Cooper’s fault.”

  “The child don’t know better,” Elisa said.

  “Child? Redwood’s a grown woman, Aunt.” George snorted. “She better start knowing better.”

  “How? She built how she built, and people just take advantage of her good nature.” Elisa glanced sideways at Aidan. “We got to look out for her.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do here,” George said.

  “Mr. Cooper ain’t have to bring her back if he meant any harm,” Iris said.

  “Red is headstrong and reckless.” Everybody nodded at that. “Something real bad is bound to happen to her. Can’t y’all see that?” George balled his fists. He was sweating and spitting mad over the principle, over all the bad that could have happened to her.

  “I ain’t fighting you, George,” Aidan said. They’d been friends once, when they were younger and Aidan was sober. He and George would go off hunting or just drifting in a canoe to anywhere. Before. “She would never forgive either one of us for acting foolish.”

  “Redwood or Mama?” Iris said.

  “What you talking? You don’t even remember Mama,” George said.

  “Yes I do!” Iris stamped her feet. “I do too. Don’t say I don’t.”

  Everybody looked awkward and jittery, as if Iris and Aidan too, had called up a haint. Princess walked close to George and licked his fists. George backed away.

  “Why you mad at Crazy Coop?” Iris said. “You know he ain’t done nothing to Sis.”

  George cooled a bit. “I’m just mad, I guess.”

  “You goin’ be a rich man now, all the feathers you sold. You don’t have to be mad at what you ain’t got.” Iris turned away from him and chattered in Redwood’s ear. “I missed you. I sure would’ve liked to take a ride on the big wheel too. I found a baby raccoon, and Uncle Ladd said I could feed her and keep her ’til she big enough to fend for herself. You gotta hurry on and wake up soon and see her.”

  Redwood shifted in the dirt; her fingers grasped at something, and then her eyes fluttered open. She squeezed Iris’ hand. “A raccoon?” she murmured.

  “You know the right spell to call a body back, chile,” Subie said.

  Redwood’s eyes darted this way and that, and she smiled at everybody hovering over her. George sniffled and snorted like he was swallowing down something nasty. Elisa pressed her fist against her lips, and Ladd patted his wife’s back. The cousins jumped up and down, squealing and cheering ’til Elisa hushed them.

  “Where you been?” Iris asked.

  “I was riding a shooting star,” Redwood murmured. She sounded hoarse. “Chasing ’round the world through the night sky,”

  “Were you now?” Subie laid wrinkled hands on Redwood’s face and neck.

  “Baby Sister talking scared away a haint on my tail.” Redwood stared up at Aidan and set his heart to pounding. “Mostly blue smoke and red fire eyes.”

  He nodded at this, and Subie poured a brew down Redwood’s throat before she could say any more. Redwood coughed and sputtered and then closed her eyes again.

  “Her heart’s coming on real strong.” Miz Subie shook her walking stick at the whole family. “Ain’t no use y’all standing here wasting daylight. Go on ’bout your business. She goin’ come back full on her time.”

  “You know what’s what, Miz Subie.” Ladd signaled everybody to go.

  “Thank you, Mr. Cooper, for having an eye out.” Elisa herded the cousins down the dusty road. She halted and turned back to Aidan. “Come by for a proper visit.”

  “Thank you, Ma’am,” his voice cracked, but he sputtered on, “I surely will.”

  “Come on, please. PLEASE.” Iris pulled George toward the shed.

  “I’ve seen that pest how many darn times?” he said, following her inside though.

  Alone, Subie eyed Aidan, sucked her teeth, and shook her head. “How far you two go to be needing stolen heartbeats?”

  Aidan sighed. “I promised Red, not to say.”

  “Uh huh,” Subie muttered. “I do like a man who can keep his word, but you need to head on home now.”

  “I can’t, not ’til I know if she —”

  “She goin’ be doing fine. And that’s God’s truth.”

  “I don’t doubt you, Ma’am.” Aidan couldn’t move.

  “She need all her power for herself right now.” Subie patted Aidan’s face. “Don’t worry. She’ll sing at your wedding. Go on now.”

  Aidan raised an eyebrow at what Subie shouldn’t have known, ’less Josie was talking all over town already. He wanted to ask ’bout that and ’bout Red riding shooting stars, but Miz Subie’s milky eye was twitching and flashing so he heaved hisself onto Princess’s back. He tasted dirt on his tongue; heavy blood pounded against his skull. What desperate future was he riding into? “I’ll be seeing you then.”

  Iris scurried from the shed, holding a baby raccoon up to him. “George gotta say she uglier than sin. What you think?”

  Aidan leaned down to get a good look. It was a scrawny, mangy creature with a smashed-in face and delicate, hand-like paws. “George got a good eye,” he said, “but she’ll look better after awhile, after you take good care.”

  “I’m goin’ call her Cairo, like the street,” Iris said, hugging the creature to her face.

  Aidan sat up straight, a chill spooking through him. “That’s a fine name, but I believe Cairo’s a city in Egypt.”

 
Princess tugged him away. She wanted to get home even if he didn’t.

  B O O K I I

  The one who tells the stories rules the world.

  Hopi proverb

  Five

  Peach Grove, 1904

  Wade in the water

  See those children dressed in black

  God’s gonna trouble the water

  They come a long way and they ain’t going back

  Redwood mouthed the words with the church choir, leaving a hole in the soprano section. Last time she really sang full out was over a year ago at Aidan’s wedding. She sang herself hoarse then. Standing next to his bride, listening to this very hymn, the poor man looked ready to cry, or maybe he was just realizing what doing right by Josie Fields meant. Redwood wasn’t good for nothing for a month afterward.

  Wade in the water

  Jordan’s water is chilly and cold

  God’s gonna trouble the water

  It chills the body, but not the soul

  A November chill had taken up residence in Redwood’s lungs, and it didn’t matter how many coats or scarves she wrapped up in. Since Halloween, her arms and legs had been tingling something terrible, prickly fireworks going off under her skin. Her mind was feverish too, wandering like a creek through a swamp, not settling anywhere long.

  Wade in the water

  Some say Peter, some say Paul

  God’s gonna trouble the water

  Ain’t but one God made us all

  The choir director cut them off at the last chorus. The sopranos sank down on their benches, jostling and poking her. Scrubbing his bald head with a red handkerchief, the choir director fretted at the piano over the wrong notes they’d been singing. Redwood sighed. She’d only had one song in her today — I’ll Overcome Someday. The sopranos had to fend for themselves for the rest of the service. Rev. Washington cleared his throat, swallowing the taste of bad music, then he railed against moonshine and lazy, good-for-nothing Negroes who thought the world owed ’em a living.