A Peach For Big Jim

by Lisa Belmont

  “You think we’ll find anything good?”

  “Don’t know,” Caleb said, taking out his slingshot. “But if we meet any pirates, I can use this.”

  He’d made the slingshot last summer out of a Y-shaped maple branch. He’d cut it down to size and attached a leather pocket with a thick elastic band. He’d gotten pretty good with it, too. Once I’d even seen him shoot a bucket off a fence post.

  “You sure it’s low tide?”

  “According to the Farmers’ Almanac,” he said, wiping his brow.

  That’s one thing I ain’t never got used to – South Carolina heat. It liked to suck the energy right out of you.

  At least by the time we got to the banks of the Ashley a good breeze was kicking up. Caleb and I started digging in the mud along the shore looking for anything that might pass as valuable. There were a few liquor bottles and an old leather shoe, but nothing I’d call worthwhile.

  We stayed out there a good three hours until I finally told Caleb it wasn’t any use. Either the shipwreck site had been picked over, or everything had sunk way down to the bottom of the river.

  Caleb waded into the water and washed off his britches. I was so tired I didn’t even bother. Who was gonna see us anyway?

  I watched the water ripple along the pilings of a little dock nestled over the river. It took on a burnished glow as the sun dipped behind the trees. All I knew was I wanted to get home. It’d be dark soon, so I told Caleb to hurry up.

  “I’m coming,” he hollered, as a breeze rose from the south.

  It carried the scent of mimosa and the sound of creaking boards. I looked up and saw Emma Kate walking on the wooden planks of the dock. She was wearing bright lipstick and a halter dress that showed off her figure. I hoped I’d get curves like that someday. She looked just like one of them pin-up girls. Her skin was as pale as a magnolia and she had a few freckles dotted on her cheeks. Standing at the edge of the dock, she looked right at me. Caleb was down in the water, oblivious. Emma Kate walked down from the dock and came to the shore.

  I was gathering up our things, hoping she wouldn’t notice my muddy clothes.

  She went right up to Caleb and said, “What are you doing down here, Caleb Mason?”

  He was so startled, he turned around and flushed redder than the mosquito bite on his arm.

  “Looks like you been doing some digging,” she said.

  “There’s old shipwrecks out here.”

  “I know. You find anything, yet?”

  She looked right at Caleb. I might as well have been invisible.

  “No, just a few bottles and such.”

  They stood there a minute more, just gazing down at the water. Lord, if Caleb was this shy, he wasn’t ever gonna get nowhere. Apparently he hardly spoke two words to Emma Kate at the picnic social. All that scrubbing in the tub for nothing.

  “I hope you have better luck next time, Caleb,” she said, twirling a little in her pretty chiffon dress.

  She turned around and walked real slow, almost like she was hoping Caleb would say something more, but I knew he wouldn’t.

  I felt a wave of relief go through me until Emma Kate turned around. “You’re welcome to stop by the house, Caleb. We’ve made a shoofly pie.”

  “That’s real kind of you,” Caleb said, tipping back his hat like he was wanting to follow her home.

  I stood there like a bump on a log while Rufus took off after a squirrel. I figured I’d just head back to the house and tell Caleb he owed me a month in the vegetable garden.

  Ol’ Rufus got to carrying on something awful as he chased the squirrel up the side of a tree. Poor dog jumped on that trunk like he thought he could climb it himself.

  Emma Kate put her hands on her hips and said, “Well, if that don’t beat all. That’s the same squirrel that’s made a nest in grandmama’s chimney. I recognize it cuz its tail has turned black from soot.”

  “You got squirrels in your chimney?” I said, thinking Momma’d love that. Course, we’d never get to light no fires.

  “Just the one,” she said. “He thinks our chimney is a hollowed-out tree.”

  “Have you tried making noise to get rid of him?”

  “All kinds of noise. Margaret and I spent the last few mornings banging pots and pans to scare him away, but he keeps coming back. Grandmama’s worried cuz soon as fall comes, she’s gonna need her fire going.”

  “I can get rid of him,” Caleb said, looking up at the squirrel.

  “You can?” Emma Kate brightened.

  “Yeah,” he said, going to his knapsack.

  He took out his slingshot and rummaged around for a stone. Sometimes Caleb used marbles, but I was glad he had one of them good-sized rocks in his pocket.

  He set his foot on a moss-covered log and put the stone in the leather pouch of the slingshot. The light got to sparkling over red mulberries as Caleb held the Y-shaped handle with his left hand and drew back the band with his right. I wondered how he was holding it so steady. I knew he must be a jumble of nerves.

  I started praying for him, hoping he’d make it, but that squirrel got to twitching and scurried down the side of the tree like it was wanting to go in the knothole. The knothole wasn’t much bigger than a pinecone, so I knew it was now or never.

  Caleb adjusted his slingshot to line up with that bushy-tailed squirrel and, as God is my witness, he drew his arm back and catapulted that stone through the air faster than a guided missile. It whistled through the trees and knocked that squirrel right in the hole.

  “Got him!”

  I blinked like I was seeing things and turned to Caleb in utter disbelief.

  “Where did you learn to do that?” Emma Kate said, running to Caleb’s side and giving him a hug like he was a soldier back from the war.

  Caleb didn’t hardly know what to do. He kinda put his arms around Emma Kate real uneasy like, and I had to look away. When I got the courage to look back, he was hugging on her real good. He even had a stain on his shirt from all her Pan-Cake makeup.

  I got our things together as Emma Kate took Caleb’s hand and led him up the shore toward her grandmama’s house. He looked back once with his slingshot hanging out of his back pocket. Lord, I ain’t never seen his dimpled smile get so big.

  To hold a man down, you have to stay down with him.

  Booker T. Washington

  Chapter Thirteen

  The following afternoon, after I’d put in a few hours at Whitehall, Widow Jones decided she wanted Momma to call the doctor. Apparently she’d gotten tired of all her fainting spells. She told me to take the rest of the day off, but instead of heading directly home, I went by the swamp to see if I could find Big Jim. There was a chill in the air, and Momma said it was gonna rain, so I kept under them moss-covered oaks.

  I moseyed along, letting my hand drag along the tall spires of grass. I hardly expected to see anyone since not many people took the dirt road that ran alongside the swamp. That’s why I was shocked when I heard the sound of horse hoofs. They clip-clopped along at a steady pace, and I ducked into the tall grass. I didn’t want to risk anyone seeing me and telling Pa about it later.

  A carriage came rambling by, and I laid down real flat. I figured it’d keep going, but it came to a quick stop as the driver called, “Whoa!”

  I sat up and saw Pa and Joss. They were in Pa’s buggy. It was one of them carriages with a black canopy and buttoned vinyl seat that liked to bounce you to the roof every time it went over a bump.

  I didn’t know if they’d seen me, but work was slower than molasses at the sawmill and it made Pa jumpier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. He’d given nearly thirty years to that mill and now seemed to have more time on his hands than he knew what to do with.

  The buggy parked alongside the swamp. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why they’d stopped until I saw Big Jim.

  He came out of the cattails, brushing his hands on his pants like he’d been fishing.

  “See
that sign, nigger?” Joss said, as he and Pa stepped from the carriage. “It says you’re trespassing.”

  “Let’s cut him some slack, Joss. Maybe he can’t read. Can you read, boy?”

  “No, sir,” Big Jim said. “But I know what the sign says.”

  “You know?”

  “Yessir, somebody told me.”

  “Somebody told you, did they? Who told you?”

  “Puddingtate Mosley.”

  “Puddingtate Mosley told you, did he? He’s a right smart nigger.”

  “Yessir.”

  “So, then you know it’s trespassing.”

  “No, sir,” Big Jim said. “Widow Jones ain’t put that sign up so I ain’t gotta do what it says.”

  “Who told you that?” Joss said.

  Please don’t say me. Please don’t mention my name.

  I hunched down low in the grass, clutching my satchel so hard I thought it might bust in two.

  “Who told you, boy?”

  Big Jim shook his head. “Don’t rightly know.”

  “Can’t remember?”

  “No.”

  I felt a sigh of relief go all through me.

  Joss nodded to Pa, and he went to the carriage. He leaned over the seat and grabbed the buggy whip. He slapped it against his thigh and went down to the water. Big Jim backed up real good.

  “I ain’t gonna hurt you boy,” Pa said, “but trespassers gotta be punished.”

  Big Jim held up his hands like he was surrendering. “Don’t mean no harm, Mr. Mason.”

  “Well, that’s real nice of you, ain’t it? But you gotta take what’s coming, boy.”

  Joss cornered him by the cattails.

  “Please, Mr. Bleekman,” Big Jim pleaded, “I didn’t know I was doing nothing wrong.”

  “Take your shirt off, boy. You gotta take your punishment.”

  Big Jim lowered his head and nodded. “Yessir.”

  He crossed his arms and lifted his cotton shirt over his head. Joss grabbed it out of his hands and tossed it in the cattails.

  “Turn around, boy.”

  Big Jim looked at Pa and Joss with wide eyes. “Lord, you gonna kill me?”

  “You gotta learn a lesson. Now turn around.”

  Big Jim turned around, his back wider than a signpost. Pa and Joss shared a grin. Pa drew his hand back and cracked the whip along Big Jim’s back.

  I felt the tears come streaming down my face, hotter than skillet grease. No, I cried. No, Pa. No.

  He drew his hand back and cracked the whip along Big Jim’s back a second time. Big Jim fell forward in the cattails and Pa told him to get up.

  “Get up or I gotta whip you like a dog.”

  I gripped a handful of grass and squeezed it until my knuckles turned white. Pa drew his hand back a third time and whipped him so hard that a loud crack echoed through the swamp.

  Big Jim eased into the water, and Pa shrugged. “Leave him to the gators.”

  Pa and Joss walked to the buggy, slapping each other on the back. The front seat creaked under their weight, and they grinned ear to ear.

  “Don’t you be trespassin’ again, boy,” Joss hollered, as they drove by.

  I stayed in the grass like a coward. I waited until I heard Big Jim moan before I got up. I walked to the water’s edge and stood on the shore, looking over the cypress swamp.

  The sun was shining on the water, and the cicadas were singing. All those rich, acrid scents that I usually smelled down by the swamp seemed to disappear. Honeysuckle lingered on the breeze and a nest of mourning doves got to chirping.

  I spied Big Jim on the opposite bank. His body was slumped over like he’d been washed on the shore by some violent storm. The water lapped at his waist and he rested his head on his arm.

  “Big Jim,” I called.

  He didn’t answer. He just lay there, real peaceful like he was taking a nap.

  I’d never had a true spiritual awakening before – the kind where folks see angels or visions – but at that moment, I felt something pulling on me. Something I couldn’t ignore. Maybe it was a sense of morality or obligation, but whatever it was, I stared down at that water, watching the duckweed glimmer on the surface. If I knew anything, it was that I couldn’t turn back.

  I walked down the side of the bank and waded into the tea-colored water, letting it lap around my thighs. It was the same arctic blast you’d feel when you’d open a freezer. All that cold water penetrated my skin and I’d never felt so awakened.

  I stretched my arms out to either side and cut a path straight through those tiny green leaves floating on the surface. Once in a while, I’d look down and see the glimmer of a fish or a tadpole. I was startled by my audacity, like I could just wade into the swamp without worrying about what was under the surface.

  I splashed when I got to the shore, spraying Big Jim real good. His back shone in the sun with three crisscrossed lines that went from his shoulders to his lower back. They weren’t too deep, but still, I thought they’d get infected if they weren’t treated.

  “Big Jim,” I said, shaking his arm.

  He sat up real slow.

  “Miss Chloe,” he said, wincing. “They done beat me bad. That must be Widow Jones’ sign.”

  That liked to slay me. I wanted to slip down to the bottom of the swamp and get buried with Moses.

  “It ain’t so bad,” I lied. “A little iodine’ll fix you right up.”

  Sometimes I didn’t think I knew Pa at all. I’d never seen him even remotely think about whipping Rufus like he did Big Jim.

  I held out my hand and he got up slowly. We linked arms and waded across the swamp like we’d just been baptized in the River Jordan. Maybe we had. I felt a part of myself breaking off like an old cypress limb. Some part of myself I could no longer keep.

  Big Jim and I emerged from the water and headed up the shallow bank. We got as far as the cotton grass that grew past Widow Jones’ before he closed his eyes and lay face down. A dragonfly landed on his back, and I waved it away.

  “I’m sorry they did this to you,” I said, but he didn’t hear me.

  He got to snoring and looking downright tranquil in that tall grass. I hated to make him start walking, but it was nearly two miles to the river shacks.

  Rain fell in silver drops. It was refreshing, the pitter-patter of a summer shower that kept out the world and all its meanness. I wanted to hide beneath the canopy of leaves forever, but I knew I’d be getting the whuppin’ of a lifetime if we kept stalling.

  “Big Jim, we gotta go. You gotta get something on those wounds.”

  “Just a minute, Miss Chloe,” he mumbled like he was wanting to take one of them long Rip Van Winkle naps.

  We had to cross the little creek that bordered the Negro section and Big Jim would be home free. And, more than that, my conscience would be cleared.

  Even though Pa would’ve skinned me alive if I’d come out of the brush and told him to leave Big Jim alone, I wished I had. I wished I hadn’t been such a fraidy cat.

  I wondered if that was the same wrestling feeling Miss Priscilla had for Moses. If she knew the consequences of showing her love to a Negro and yet, in the end, didn’t care.

  Big Jim got to snoring away, and I laid down in the sweetgrass beside him. The magnolia trees made an umbrella over us, a sort of refuge, as I listened to them tree frogs. They got to carrying on until the whole forest was filled with croaking. A few wrens and a sparrow chimed in, and I wished we could just disappear into that vast array of sound.

  For a minute I thought it was the tree frogs I was hearing when the slow, mournful sound of singing entered my thoughts.

  There is a balm in Gilead, to make the wounded whole. There is a balm in Gilead, to heal the sin-sick soul.

  The voice was real thick and crackly and seemed to stir up the air. I didn’t know who was coming, but whoever it was, I didn’t want them finding me with Big Jim. Me lying in the grass would’ve probably caused a riot. Lord, we might even have another lynchi
ng on our hands.

  I scrambled to my feet and noticed Big Jim hadn’t moved an inch. He was about as near to what I imagined Sleeping Beauty would’ve looked like after a hundred years of hibernation. There was a thin line of drool coming out of his mouth, and he blew great puffs of air that rustled the grass.

  I moved behind the mossy rope vines that hung haphazardly from a cypress and watched as Puddingtate walked alongside the creek. He’d probably just left Widow Jones’ cuz he got to singing real good.

  Sometimes I feel discouraged, and think my work’s in vain, but then the Holy Spirit, revives my soul again.

  Don’t ever feel discouraged, for Jesus is your friend, and if you lack of knowledge, He’ll ne’er refuse to lend.

  If you cannot preach like Peter, if you cannot pray like Paul, you can tell the love of Jesus, and say, “He died for all.”

  He poked along, carrying a stick and jabbing the creek like he was trying to scare up some fish. Big Jim let out a moan and Puddingtate stopped in his tracks.

  “Ghost, that you?”

  Big Jim moaned and sat up.

  Puddingtate’s eyes got real big. “What happened to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “How’d you get them marks on your back?”

  “A blackberry bramble.”

  Puddingtate blinked real wide and said, “Lord, you got whipped.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Who whipped ya?”

  “Don’t matter.”

  “It matters plenty. Widow Jones is already mad as all get-out ‘bout them lynching posters. Wait till she sees your back. She’ll want to do some lynching of her own, I reckon.”

  “She ain’t gonna know,” Big Jim said, putting on his shirt.

  I wondered if that was true. I wondered if Big Jim wasn’t going to tell on Pa. Not even to Hattie Mae. I wondered if he’d carry the shame quietly, the way the brook melted into the river at a little spot between the bitternut hickories.

  “Lord,” Puddingtate said, like he was drawing on the rich Southern history that surrounded him. “Cotton used to go on for miles around these parts. It looked like new fallen snow, sticking to your fingers and getting in your hair. Overseer’d whip you good if you didn’t bring in your share. Yessir, he’d whip you good,” Puddingtate said, helping Big Jim up.