Ruthless Eddie threw sand in the Pirate’s eyes and threatened the crowd. He stabbed at Pupil Iris, slicing a bow from her dress. In a mad dash to save her, the Pirate slashed Eddie’s arm with his sword, but lost his balance. Pirate Saeed’s sword tumbled into the water. Wildfire pulled Iris out of range, as a gloating Eddie closed in on the unarmed Pirate. He was about to run him through when Teacher Redwood thrust herself between Eddie’s blade and the Pirate’s throat, saving him from certain death. Again the crowd gasped as Eddie’s sword pierced her body. Stunned, Eddie backed away from his weapon in the wounded Teacher. The blade had plunged through the red leather journal and under ribs. Pirate Saeed grabbed the sword and caught her as she fell. Eddie looked around wildly. The others mobbed him before he could flee. Pirate Saeed clutched his brave beloved and cried up to the heavens.
TITLE: “I FEAR SHE IS NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD!”
Later, inside Wildfire’s house, Redwood lay in a bed, wrapped in white bandages. Dr. Harris stood over her, shaking his head. She clutched the journal of good words that had not saved her, but merely postponed the worst. Clarissa leaned into Minister Milton and covered her face. Dr. Harris picked up his bag and left solemnly. All stood around the bed. Pirate Saeed fell onto Redwood’s body, begging her to not leave him. She stroked his head and looked to the stars.
Rose threw open the door. Mambo Dupree dressed as Erzulie Dantor, the hot Loa of love, danced into the cabin. She traced two vèvés on the floor - a heart with a sword through it and two crossroads intersecting - and called to the spirits of love and of death to ride her. Mambo Dupree brandished a machete and cut the air over the bed. She sprinkled charms and blessings.
TITLE: “I HAVE ONLY A LITTLE BIT, BUT TOGETHER, YOU ALL HAVE PLENTY MAGIC!”
Mambo Dupree danced out the door toward the sea. Sitting up, Teacher Redwood held out her storm hand. Candles in the room burst into flames. Everyone gathered close to the bed. A fire spirit blazed around the room, and no one could say what or who she was. Later, Nicolai and crew would claim the haint as camera magic, but everybody saw her leap from the fireplace and burn brightly over the bed. The Bear loped by the open door, a big fish in her mouth. She stopped in the doorway and dropped her supper, as the fire-haint flew out over her head. Spent, Teacher Redwood sank back into the bedding. Her eyes fluttered shut.
Pupil Iris stomped her foot and pointed to the night sky.
TITLE: “THE STARS ARE DIM. SHE CAN'T FIND THE CITY OF LIGHT. SHE WON'T DIE TONIGHT.”
Somber faces told another story. Clarissa wept against the Minister. Despairing, Pirate Saeed stroked Redwood’s peaceful face.
TITLE: “I WOULD GIVE ALL THE TREASURE IN THE WORLD FOR THE LIGHT IN HER EYES!”
Valiant Iris refused to cry or sing a funeral song. She danced for the spirit of the dead, for the spirits of love, for the light to come back to Teacher Redwood’s eyes. Who dared hope with her? The scene faded to black.
Some days later, inside the church, Rose, Walter, his daddy, Wildfire, and the pupils all in fancy dress, stood in the pews. They held flowers, and tears streaked a few faces. The Minister dabbed his eyes at the altar, reading from his Bible. He displayed a rich chest of treasure — gold coins, silver goblets, strings of pearls.
TITLE: “OUR PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED. A GIFT FROM THE SEA! HOG HOLLOW IS OURS.”
Friend Clarissa offered a bouquet of orchids to a bride wearing a dress as delicate as Prairie Smoke and fog. This was no funeral after all. Accepting the flowers, the bride turned. She was none other than Teacher Redwood! She had not died! Her smile and eyes were light. Pirate Saeed stood beside her at the altar, wearing a patchwork Seminole coat and turban. They kissed.
TITLE: TELL ME WHOM YOU LOVE AND I WILL TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE.
Between them, they clasped a bedraggled journal of good words - a heart with a sword through it, a vèvé calling to spirit Erzulie, Loa of love.
The image irised to black.
“I can feel the moving picture again when I read this.” Walter waved Aidan’s journal in the air. “Everybody will love seeing this kind of story.” The candle on the round table flickered. “Iris and you-all put our lives into that scenario.”
“Iris is mostly to blame,” Aidan said. Toting the rocker he’d made as a wedding gift for Walter and Rose, he squeezed through the backdoor into Walter’s tight little kitchen.
“You finished that already?” Walter said.
“I felt the pattern in the wood, just made it come through. That don’t take no time.” Aidan set the rocker by the stove. Orchids bloomed on the back and along the arms.
“Rose loves those swamp flowers.” Walter smiled. “Thank you.”
“Easier than trying to carve the wind.” Aidan reached for his journal.
Walter held on to it and sat back in his chair. “Your father was Hutalgalgi, Wind Clan too.” He stared at Aidan. “This book is full — a lot of good stories to tell?”
“Writing myself down, it’s — a hoodoo tonic spell.” He paced ’round the table. “I thought I’d let Iris and…Redwood read it all tonight.”
“Good.” Walter shook his head. “I don’t understand you two.”
“Red and me went too fast when I first got to Chicago. We had to learn how to be with one another again.” Aidan stumbled over pots and baskets lurking in the shadows. The sun had gone down an hour ago. “Don’t you like electric lights?” He watched the shadows from candles play on the ceiling.
“Sometimes I do, sometimes I want a flame.” Walter brushed away bits of food and set Aidan’s journal on the table. “Sometimes I don’t pay the electric bill on time.” He shrugged. “This is not important.”
“Now that The Pirate and Schoolteacher is done, Red and me are going to California, or Oregon, or Washington,” Aidan said. “We’re taking Iris too.”
“What are you running from?”
“I don’t know that I’m running from anything.” Aidan considered the empty jars lined up on the counter, waiting for the vegetable harvest. “Liquor cross my mind now and again. But I close my eyes, and it’s empty bottles full of amber sunshine.”
“That’s wonderful, but have you talked to Redwood?”
“We talked before, before I left George’s.”
“What if she’s changed her mind? Rose changes her mind all the time. We can’t decide anything.” Walter tried to laugh as if he’d made a joke. “Can’t stand still with a woman. You got to change.”
“They’re making moving pictures in California. There must be vaudeville too.” Aidan’s head throbbed. “I want to dig in the dirt again and make something grow. Raise a family.” He sank into a chair. “I need room, trees, a dark night, just for a while. And if we don’t like it, we can come back. Where’s Chicago going?” He rubbed his face and then squeezed his hands together. “Carving some difficult piece, no use digging away on a mistake. You get yourself a fresh piece of wood and —”
“What?”
“You love Rose, don’t you?”
Walter smiled. “She makes me feel like a good man.” He clutched Aidan’s arm. “But I will miss you if you ride away.” He paused, searching for something. “You know how to believe.” Walter released Aidan, pleased with this.
“I’m your friend, even on a distant coast,” Aidan said. “And I’ll miss you.”
“I don’t farm,” Walter said. “But perhaps —”
Aidan’s heart pounded as Walter pondered his perhaps. “You and Rose could come, see what else to do.” Aidan gripped Walter. “Raise hell for Indian people out there.”
Walter sighed. “My father would like to see the Black Hills again. We could cross this way one more time.” He nodded. “What are you going to do with the bear?”
Aidan chuckled. “Iris want to take her with us when we go west, but —”
“So, it’s only Redwood you must persuade.”
“I feel something from her. Maybe she’s ready to —”
The rocker moved back and forth o
f its own accord and startled Aidan silent. He and Walter watched it. “Boneyard baron rock an empty chair.” Aidan quoted Miz Subie. An orchid on the chair gleamed in moonlight. Seeing that, he jumped up from the table.
“You didn’t bring that flower. What is it?” Walter stood up too.
“I’m not sure.” Aidan opened the back door and saw a flash of fire disappear ’round a corner. “I gotta go.” He stuffed the journal in his shoulder bag and plucked the orchid from the chair. The petals were hot. The chair went dead still. As he rushed out the door and down the street, the tang of burnt flesh filled his nose and mouth.
The end of a good show with good players was always sad, but the gloom Redwood felt, now that she had reached after the film, was worse than usual. Dread had been dogging her for weeks, and not just over what she and Aidan were goin’ do. Today at the screening in Nicolai’s office, dread hit Iris too. Baby Sister flitted round like a dragonfly, pestering everybody ’til finally Aidan told her to sit down and be quiet. And still Iris twittered louder than the noisy projector, during the whole show.
The Pirate and the Schoolteacher looked grand and sounded grand with musicians playing along. Redwood hated to admit it, but George was right. Everybody cheered for the Schoolteacher coming back from the dead, for a dark hero and his brown-skin sweetheart. Who could deny their picture show would be a success? Mama used to say, stories and songs are powerful medicine. A good story fill you up when you hungry, when you lonely, help you find your way when you lost. A good song take the hurting out your spirit. George and those hinkty Club women were wrong — nothing naïve or foolish ’bout believing in stories.
After the screening, Clarissa hugged Redwood then disappeared quickly. Milton was out the door complaining of aches and pains. Fidgety Iris ran off behind George. Saeed offered to celebrate with Redwood, but she let him go paint the town red with Corey, his Union man. Aidan rushed off too, with Walter, saying they could talk in the morning; they could plan in the morning. ’Stead of hauling Aidan off somewhere quiet for a talk right then and there, Redwood said, “fine, fine.” She shouldn’t have let him slip away.
Nicolai lifted a glass of strong spirits. “Now, it is out of our hands.”
Taking a shortcut home from the trolley, Redwood turned down a dim alley. A tall figure, little more than smoke covered by a colorful cloak, blocked her way. Like a highwayman from an old-fashioned romance, he declared, “stand and deliver!” She backed up and opened her eyes wide. The alleyway was empty. Night had fallen.
Redwood tried to soak away nightmare images. After the bath, she slipped into a blue silk gown Clarissa gave her and watched the moonrise from her window. It looked like Mr. Noyes’s ghostly galleon tossed on cloudy seas when the highwayman came riding. Redwood stepped away from the window, shivering inside and out. Haints don’t bother you, ’less you believe in ’em, Mama always said. Hear me? Don’t be so hardheaded. Don’t hug anger to your heart.
“I ain’t mad at you, Mama,” she whispered. “I mean, I was, but not really, just mad at a world so mean you had to —” Redwood cried softly. “But see what I’ve done. Just like I promised!” She smiled and wiped away tears. “What I always wanted to do.”
Nicolai had made several prints of The Pirate and the Schoolteacher. George was goin’ pay for more. Her copy sat on top the books she’d boxed up, two reels in a metal case, glittering in moonlight — magic. They’d called up much magic. Nicolai captured their conjuring on film. Soon projectionists would set their spells free into the world. A thrill raced up her back, delight at her dream come true, and then fear. Something bad was coming, a train jumping the track or the moon falling out the sky. A blot on tomorrow, and what could she do about it? She moved to close the shutters.
A wooden box, carved in the shape of a comet, perched on the window seat. The tail was silver threads and blue-violet feathers from a swamp hen. Redwood picked it up and drew the feathers over her face and down her neck. A sweet ache spilled over her. Some secret thing inside rattled. The sound tickled her too. Aidan gave her the comet-box last year, but she’d never opened it. If tomorrow might not come, if something horrible was to claim her this night, she’d better burn her candles and open her secret treasures, now.
Lighting a red scented candle and setting it in the window, she undid the clasp of the comet-box. Her hands trembled as she slid the round cover to one side. In the box was a bright yellow bead and two cracked seashells wrapped in a brown and black feather. The bead was actually a mosaic of yellow, gold, and white. Redwood squealed as she remembered the pounds of beads and hammered gold jewelry hanging on the necks, waists, arms, and ankles of the Dahomeyan women at the Chicago World’s Fair. The feather was something Aidan found at the Wild West show before they rode the Ferris Wheel. The seashells, though, were a mystery.
She kissed the bead and stroked the feather. Here was proof. “We were really there.”
She put a shell to each ear. The ocean whispered a windy chant, urging her to get up and move. What if she and Aidan didn’t make it to the morning? Redwood set the treasures back in the comet and slid the lid shut. She pulled on Aidan’s old shirt and pants and set his cap on her head. She tied a stream of blue silk to her waist. Her red mojo bag hung ’round her neck. Walter’s place was an hour or so, walking and taking the trolley. She could stay with Aidan there ’til they decided where they were going next. And if they only had one more night, it would be together.
Rustling in the garden startled her. A stiff breeze blew the candle out, and red wax dribbled down to the window-seat cushions. Redwood peered outside into the shadows. The boneyard baron flung the colorful cloak into the high branches of the maple tree. He stood below it, an icy wind in a long black coat. A scarf of white mist curled ’round his neck. The baron tipped his black top hat at her. “Stand and deliver!” Sparkly teeth caught a glint of moonlight and froze in a scowl.
Redwood shuddered. “You been following me.” She stared in his blazing eyes and didn’t blink as pain seared into her. “What you want?”
On each of the baron’s skeleton fingers, a silver ring dripped blood. He pointed dagger fingernails at a flash of light in the distance. Redwood winced. The baron set his velvety hat on his bright white skull and sauntered away from the maple tree. Every step he took was a fresh grave. She felt warm flesh whither and heard anguished souls wailing, but she couldn’t read the headstones. The baron turned back to glance at Redwood and then faded into the silver lining of a shadow.
Redwood rubbed her aching eyes and pulled on Aidan’s brogans. She ran through the house from top to bottom. Iris’s room was empty. The other children were visiting their cousins. George was working late and Clarissa had gone to take him supper. She called the Dry Cleaning but couldn’t get a connection through the switchboard.
Redwood wished she was good at cussing, like Aidan. She longed for a foul stream of it. Nothing came. She dashed out into the middle of the street, trying to feel the right direction to take, trying to see the baron as a warning of danger to come, a danger she could stop. She ran and ran, ’til her bones rattled and her muscles burned, ’til the streets and the people were gray shadows behind the baron’s top hat and cane, ’til she didn’t feel her feet touch the ground, running toward —
Twenty-five
Fire, Chicago, 1913
Blistering flames scorched the cool moonlight. The letters on Phipps Dry Cleaning: Cleaner than New melted away. Aidan saw this several blocks away. Pale men on dark steeds pounded the cobblestones and raced past him, old nightmares on the prowl. Aidan cussed loud and long. His heart hurt, blasting blood into cramped leg muscles. A bullet ricocheted through the alley, singing a high sharp melody. He picked up speed. Fire engines, volunteers, and onlookers were illuminated in a shower of flickering light. A steam engine pump was sweating and wheezing like an asthmatic ole geezer.
Aidan collided with Redwood, and they fell to the ground. His brain banged into his skull, and he almost passed out. Redwood looked
dazed too.
“You can’t go back in there, George!” Clarissa shrieked. Her white smock was pink in the firelight. “It’s a miracle you got out.”
George dumped a man at Clarissa’s feet and turned back toward the fire. She gripped his sleeves. “Let me go, woman. I’m to blame as sure as…if I struck the match.” George shook Clarissa off, dodged a policeman, and ran back into the inferno.
Aidan and Redwood struggled to standing and staggered down the street.
“Nooooo!” Clarissa yelled.
Police dragged her and whoever George rescued away from the flames. Two geysers of fire-engine water evaporated in the heat as the blaze climbed to the second floor. A burly fireman gripped Aidan, and a volunteer blocked Redwood.
“If you go in there, you’re cooked.” The fireman shoved them back. He was strong and Irish from the lilt on his tongue. His red face was covered in soot, like a bad blackface job. Behind him, beefy policemen yelled at one another.
“Chemical fires are the worst!”
“Niggers take too many risks trying to make a buck.”
“Naw. Somebody set this one.”
Aidan wanted to turn ’round and run the other direction. He didn’t need to see or hear or taste any more fire.
“My brother’s inside.” Redwood tried to push past the volunteer, a slim, midnight-dark man who wouldn’t let her through.
The fireman gripped her shoulders with thick gloves. He spoke to Aidan though. “I’m sorry. But we can’t let you —”
A shot rang out, and the Irish fireman knocked Redwood and Aidan to the ground. A firefighter operating a cranky pump crumpled. Blood spurted from a wound in his chest, turning his blond beard red. Several dark men dashed to his aid, but most of the on-lookers scattered. Other firemen huddled against their engines and eyed windows and rooftops. Rescuers zigzagged ’cross the street, making it hard for the sniper as they carried the wounded man away. Back on his feet, Aidan heard desperate screams. He felt choked lungs and burnt skin as lives were cut short and dreams turned to ash.
Redwood and Wildfire Page 44