A Peach For Big Jim

by Lisa Belmont

  Caleb got dressed in his General Robert E. Lee costume, and Momma made over him real good.

  “You lookin’ so handsome, Caleb,” she said, telling him to turn around. “Put on a beard and you’d be the spitting image of Briscoe Mason.”

  Pa had a painting of Briscoe Mason over his bed, and I realized Momma was right. If I looked at Caleb just so, I could see the resemblance.

  Pa came in from lighting the jack o’ lanterns, and a cool gust of air blew in with him.

  “They’re glowing pretty good,” he said, looking out the window.

  He’d set one on either side of the door after carving them up real good with his hunting knife. “Brighter than the lanterns I take on coon hunts,” he said, turning to Caleb.

  “Well, if you ain’t ready to go kill some Yankees,” Pa said, grinning ear to ear. “You’d make your great-granddaddy mighty proud.”

  “Thanks, Pa,” Caleb said, straightening his back.

  They’d been real chummy of late and I started feeling left out, especially when Pa told Caleb that Robert E. Lee was always a gentleman.

  “Even when he surrendered at Appomattox, son, he was a true Southerner. That traitor Lincoln offered him command of the Union Army at the start of the war, but Lee wouldn’t fight against his beloved Virginia. I hope I can say the same of you someday, Caleb. I hope you can do like Lee did and always act like a Southern gentleman.”

  I knew I shouldn’t be jealous, but when Pa put his arm around Caleb, I went to my room under the guise that I needed to put a warm sweater under my costume. I got to feeling I’d never belong in this family and started wondering if I should even go with Caleb, but when he hollered, “Come on, Chloe. We’re going to be late,” I realized I’d rather be outside in the cold than in the house with Pa.

  His leg was acting up and he told Momma he needed to stay home. Course, he always liked it when she’d wrap those warm towels around his leg and fix him a hot buttered rum.

  Pa gave me the once-over when I came out, probably thinking I’d stolen the sheet off his bed.

  “Your brother’s General Robert E. Lee, a war hero and the pride of the South, and you’re going as a gall-darn ghost?”

  “Maybe she’s the ghost of a Confederate soldier,” Caleb said.

  “Or maybe Lincoln’s ghost,” Pa said. “Come back to haunt me.”

  Momma scolded them, saying, “Chloe’s just a little emotional these days. She don’t need you two carrying on like that. Especially since we ain’t got no money for no pretty clothes these days.”

  Pa just looked at me and said, “Don’t get in no trouble, you hear?”

  “No, sir,” I said, as we left out the front door.

  Most kids had been talking all week about the Bleekman party. It seemed the whole neighborhood was real worked up about Halloween.

  I was pretty sure that all Caleb was interested in was seeing Emma Kate. I could tell by the way he kept telling me to hurry up. Didn’t he know it was real hard to see out of them two little cutouts?

  It shouldn’t have bothered me, but Caleb had been acting strange ever since he met her. Now, instead of having all them baseball cards of Babe Ruth and fishing poles in his room, he’d started collecting all kinds of magazines from Uncle Hickory’s. They were the manly adventure magazines that apparently taught you how to impress a girl.

  Lately, after supper, Caleb would go to his room and sit in front of the mirror. He’d admire all that peach fuzz on his chin and tell it to grow faster. I started wondering if Emma Kate had cast some sort of spell on him.

  When Caleb and I arrived at the Bleekmans’ shotgun house, we were met by Chester and Henry. Chester was dressed as a bank robber in bib overalls with a red handkerchief masking his face. I recognized him, though, by the warts on his fingers. His brother Henry was dressed as a scarecrow.

  Course, Caleb showed off his costume and went on about how he looked just like Robert E. Lee. I started wishing I’d stayed home when Henry asked if we were up for soaping Widow Jones’ windows.

  “Too bad she ain’t got an outhouse,” Caleb said. “We could overturn it like we did Uncle Hickory’s last year.”

  “She’s got one out back for them niggers,” Henry said. “Course, I ain’t touching nothing no nigger’d go in.”

  “Me neither,” Chester said. “Specially not since Pa says they carry disease.”

  “They don’t carry no disease,” I said. “Nothing worse than Chester’s lice.”

  Henry and Chester looked at me funny, but it didn’t keep them from going on about all the pranks they wanted to play. I tried to get into the spirit of things, but just couldn’t.

  Finally, Chester turned to me and said, “What are you supposed to be anyway? A Klansman?”

  “No,” I said. “Of course not.”

  “You sure look like one,” he said, trying to make the sheet over my head come to a point.

  “I do not,” I said. “You take that back.”

  “Will not.”

  “Come on, you two,” Caleb said, motioning to the porch.

  The Bleekmans’ front door was open and a few kids were milling outside around a barrel used for apple bobbing. Caleb went inside and I followed him. Alma Bleekman was handing out pieces of paper so everyone could write down their favorite costume. Joss followed her around in a baby costume that Alma had made out of light blue flannel. He even had on a white mob cap and went around sucking his thumb.

  “Where’s your bottle?” someone called out.

  Joss put an arm around Alma and said, “I only drink Alma’s milk.”

  That got everyone to laughing as he squeezed his wife. Lord, if he was protective before, that wasn’t nothing now that Alma was expecting a baby.

  “Go on,” she told him, as he kissed her round belly. “Hickory Wilcox needs some cider.”

  “Why, sure honey,” he said, moving from her side.

  He poured some cider and joined Uncle Hickory in the corner. I heard bits and pieces of what they said. Something about Widow Jones ain’t got no right to scare him and Pa. That she’s gonna pay if she thinks she’s gonna tell Joss Bleekman where he can go while them niggers stay up at Whitehall. Lord, if I didn’t feel stifled all of a sudden. What if I told Joss that me and Caleb were related to Negroes? Big Jim and Hattie Mae, in fact. I wondered if that’d shut him up.

  I followed Caleb to the punch table and let him pour me a cup.

  He nudged me in the arm and said, “Who you voting for, Chloe?”

  I looked around the room. There were all kinds of costumes from clowns to hobos to a tree that Uncle Hickory had made by sticking leaves all over himself. But that wasn’t what was bothering me. In the corner, Emma Kate and Jonas Fairfax were holding hands. She had on one of them real pretty dresses like Margaret’s. I think she was supposed to be Scarlett O' Hara cuz she was wearing a green and white hoop-skirt dress with ruffled sleeves. A straw hat flounced on her head with a wide green ribbon.

  “Ain’t decided,” I said.

  Caleb looked over my shoulder and his face fell. I knew he was all worked up about coming tonight to see Emma Kate and here she was, making goo-goo eyes at Jonas Fairfax. He was a new boy who came from the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Word was he wasn’t afraid to walk through the old slave cemetery and that he could win an ax throwing contest hands down.

  Emma Kate giggled at something he said and put an arm around him. They moved to a corner by a paper cutout of a skeleton and got to kissing good.

  Caleb was all riled up and, Lord, I hoped he wasn’t gonna fight. He balled up his fist, but Henry joined us and led Caleb outside to get some fresh air. I gave Emma Kate one of them real mean stares through the cutout holes in my costume. She looked toward the door when Caleb went out, but I was glad she didn’t follow him. She just stayed there with Jonas Fairfax, laughing real loud about something he said.

  I ended up voting for Caleb, hoping that’d cheer him up. Alma Bleekman came up to me holding a black hat and I dropped
the piece of paper in it, half admiring her costume and half mad at her for not standing up for Big Jim when he was caught in the bear trap.

  She’d written “Southern” on her maternity dress and had tied a little jingle bell around her neck.

  “I’m a Southern belle,” she said in that real syrupy voice of hers.

  I excused myself and walked over to the sweet table, which pretty much amounted to some hard candy, a few lollipops, and three caramel apples. If this was all there was to it, I knew Caleb would want to leave as soon as they announced the winner of the contest.

  Margaret Wilcox grabbed a cherry pop and said, “Who are you?”

  “It’s me, Chloe,” I said, opening my eyes real wide so she could tell.

  “You a ghost?”

  “Yeah,” I said, trying not to feel bad cuz her costume looked like one of them real fancy ones you’d see in them fairy-tale books. “You Maid Marian?”

  “Momma had a pattern,” she said, twirling her skirt as Mrs. Bleekman came over to us.

  “Miss Margaret,” she said, holding the black hat and a single piece of paper in her hand. “It looks like you’ve just won the costume contest,” she said, hugging her real tight. “Your momma’s just made you the most precious dress I’ve ever seen,” she said, looking at me for confirmation.

  “Yessum,” I said. “Margaret looks real nice.”

  “Why Miss Chloe, is that you?” she said, taking the prize, which was a bar of handmade soap, and giving it to Margaret. “I wouldn’t have guessed that was you in a hundred years. You’re very brave to pick something so boyish.”

  I was glad she couldn’t see the way my cheeks were turning red. I started wishing I hadn’t come at all when Caleb told me we were going on an adventure. I think it was more to get his mind off Emma Kate than anything.

  “What kind of adventure?” I said, looking down at my chewed-off fingernails, wishing they were like Margaret’s painted ones.

  “The scary kind,” Chester said, making spooky ghost noises.

  “I don’t want to go on no adventure. I want to go trick-or-treating.”

  “Of course, you do, baby,” Chester said, patting my head. “You run along now and get yourself a diaper.”

  I swatted him away, saying, “Don’t touch me, Chester. I don’t want none of your ol’ toad warts.”

  “We’re going with Henry to Foxhole Swamp,” Caleb said. “He dared us to put our hand in the hollow tree.”

  “The ghost’s tree?”

  “The one and only,” Chester said. “That is unless you’re chicken.”

  “I ain’t scared of nothin’,” I said, which, after going against Joss and Pa, seemed pretty much the truth.

  We met Henry on the porch as kids started breaking off in clusters. You’d hear excited voices and sometimes a scream as everyone made their way to the neighborhood houses.

  The last thing I wanted to do was spend Halloween with Chester, but I figured I’d never live it down if I chickened out.

  “I almost didn’t go as a bank robber,” Chester said. “I almost made a hairy monster costume out of all that wild boar hair Pa gets when he’s skinning them hogs. You know, the hair that comes off the rear end.”

  “That’s a dumb costume,” I said.

  “I was gonna call myself Big Jim,” he said, grabbing his sides as Caleb and Henry laughed with him.

  I’d pocketed a wad of hard candy and wound up throwing it at Chester. It hit him in the face and he hollered, “What’d you do that for?”

  “Cuz you’re mean and hateful.”

  “Hush up,” Caleb said, as we came to the swamp.

  He held up a lantern, and we looked into the vast, dark night. The trees were twisting this way and that, looking oppressive like they were spooks themselves.

  “We all know you’re afraid of the dark, Chloe. So, if you want to turn back, you can,” Chester said.

  The leaves rustled, and an owl hooted from a branch. Lord only knew what was lurking behind them gnarled cypress trees. Caleb lifted his lantern and Henry did the same. The moon was high over the swamp, cutting a ribbon across the water.

  “I ain’t afraid,” I told Chester.

  A thick layer of leaves softened the path, and an eerie mist hovered in the air. Chester started making ghost noises, and I punched him in the side. He ran off, acting like he was hurt, only to come back walking like Frankenstein with his arms extended straight out and his neck real stiff.

  “Which way is it?” Caleb asked, as we walked under the heavy branches draped in Spanish moss. That moss moved with the breeze and looked more ghostly than I did.

  “It’s by the cattails,” Henry said, as something splashed in the water.

  “No, it’s over by the swamp lilies,” Chester said, rubbing his arms.

  “It’s right here,” I said, lifting Caleb’s lantern.

  He liked to jump when he saw that crooked tree standing right in front of us. It looked like them branches could reach down and grab us.

  “Legend says if you reach in the hole, you’ll become a ghost yourself,” Caleb said.

  I didn’t know what it was about Halloween night, but all that blackness seemed to settle over us, and we got real quiet.

  “You don’t believe that, do you, Caleb?” Chester said.

  He shone his lantern around the tree like he was wondering if someone was hiding behind it. “No, do you?”

  Chester shook his head. “Nuh-uh.”

  “Why don’t you stick your hand in it then?”

  That shut Chester up. He stepped up to the tree and lifted his hand. It hovered there as a squirrel leaped out of the knothole and landed on Chester’s arm. It spooked him good.

  “Get it off! Get it off!” he hollered.

  The squirrel jumped off Chester and scurried into the woods.

  “Dang varmints,” Chester said, brushing himself off.

  “You afraid of a little squirrel?” I said.

  He puffed up his chest and said, “No, just surprised me. That’s all.”

  “Chester’s afraid. Chester’s afraid,” I sang, as the moonlight came through the trees.

  “Knock it off,” he said. “I bet you’re afraid to stick your hand in there.”

  “Am not.”

  “Then do it.”

  Caleb lifted his lantern to the knothole, and everyone looked at me.

  There couldn’t be another squirrel, I told myself. I raised my hand slowly and hovered it in front of the hole.

  In the distance, a dog was baying.

  “Big Jim’s howling at the moon again,” Caleb said, as Henry and Chester broke out laughing.

  I stuck my hand right in that knothole and pulled it out, quick as a lick.

  Chester’s jaw liked to drop off. He never thought I’d stick my hand in no ghost hole.

  “Your turn,” I said, moving aside.

  Chester looked up at the tree, the shadows making it appear like it was covered in cobwebs.

  “The ghost ain’t got all night,” Caleb said.

  Chester gulped and balled up his fist real tight.

  “Fingers gotta be apart,” I said.

  He nodded and held up five fingers. He was shaking so bad I thought he was gonna wet his pants.

  The moon moved over us, casting great shadows as Chester looked in the direction of the rustling leaves.

  “Look!” he hollered.

  “Nice try,” Caleb said. “Stick your hand in the hole already.”

  “No, look,” he said.

  We turned in the direction of the water, the moon so big and round it could have swallowed us up. But that’s not what I was looking at. There, under the moon, was Big Jim’s silhouette.

  “It’s the ghost of Foxhole Swamp,” Chester said.

  Big Jim stood with one shoulder hunched lower than the other. I knew he was compensating for his leg. The Spanish moss moved behind him, real eerie like, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind the sound of crickets or owls, or knowing gators were
nearby. I didn’t mind anything at all.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Henry said.

  Chester and Henry hightailed it down the trail with Caleb following. He turned around when he saw I wasn’t behind them.

  “What’s the matter?” he said.

  “You go. I ain’t afraid.”

  “Why don’t you wanna come?”

  “Just don’t.”

  “Chloe, I ain’t leaving you.”

  “I know my way home.”

  Caleb looked at me, utterly stunned. He followed my line of vision to the water and realized the full moon was shining on Big Jim.

  “Chloe, you done lost your mind.”

  “He saved me, Caleb,” I said, realizing how good it felt to speak the truth. “Big Jim saved me from a gator.”

  “Chloe you get back here,” he said. “You come back this instant.”

  I pulled off that old sheet and let it float away, hearing Caleb go on about how worried Momma was gonna be. He kept calling for me, but I didn’t care. I just hurried as fast as I could to the cypress tree.

  A hundred things were running through my head, but all I could think to say when I got to Big Jim was, “What took you so long?”

  Big Jim stood a good head taller than me, but I could tell by the way he lowered his head that he was real sorry.

  “I’ve been coming, Miss Chloe,” he said. “Near every night. Looking up at that tree fort and wishing you could teach me to read some more.”

  That liked to make up for all the nights I’d sat by the fire, drinking apple cider and wishing it was moonshine. I reached up and hugged Big Jim, hugged him like he was my brother. In a way, he was. He was my kinfolk as sure as that swamp had mosquitoes. I wouldn’t have cared if Caleb, Chester and Henry had all come back with Pa. I wouldn’t have cared if they’d called me a double-crossing traitor. I wasn’t gonna let Big Jim go now, not for anything.

  The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is, that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won’t.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Chapter Thirty-Five