American Ghost (11 page)

Lena was the only woman in the dining room, though squeezed between the china cabinet and table, and the role of maidservant fell to
her, not just for Carl, but every other man in the room. On her fourth trip to the kitchen to refill tea glasses or fetch ice or pepper sauce, Jolie gave her the same advice she'd given her the night before when she'd announced her engagement: “Run for your life.”

Lena laughed, as she was in her element, basking in the glow of Carl's renewed attention in a way that made Jolie want to strangle her. Jolie was equally annoyed at her slightly disheveled fiancé, who for all his bold socialist ways seemed to be fitting like a hand in a glove into the old Hoyt caste system, sitting at Carl and Lena's table and, from all appearances, having the time of his life, laughing his ass off at all the usual Hoytling banter.

It began the moment Carl walked in, as he was considered as spoiled as Jolie and was the target of a lot of in-family needling. After a great bear hug of greeting, his cousin Ricky bellowed, “Carl, son, look at you! Ye're gitting fat as yer daddy.”

Carl was as used to the dozen as Jolie and hadn't blinked an eye, but patted his stomach with good-natured resignation, telling him, “Yeah, well, you know the Hoyts, Rick. We git old, we go fat or ugly. And we can
sho
see which way you went.”

So it went, all afternoon long, this back-and-forth needling that Jolie was frequently drawn into. She was considered famously spoiled where women's work was concerned, and whenever she showed her face in the dining room, one or another of her cousins would pause in his teeth-picking to call, “Jo
lee
? Shug? Would you git me some mo' tea?”

She answered with flipped birds that they gleefully reported to her father, calling, “Uncle Ray? Yo daughter's making them obscene gestures behind yo back agin,” all in a tone of teasing hilarity, nothing serious. Uncle Ray had made his bones in Hendrix years ago, and even as a stoop-shouldered, gray-haired old man, he wasn't anyone you'd care to cross, especially in the matter of his darling Jo
lee
.

Sam watched it all with great enjoyment, as the Hoyts were good for entertainment value, if nothing else, their fast, high drawls more turnip than julep, their physical presence a lively thing, full of slaps, pokes, and
bellows of laughter. As Jolie had warned, they were dressed for the hunt in boots and camo, and full of macho swagger, bragging about bucks and points and tossing off racial invective so casually that it almost seemed like vaudeville. It was as if they were playing the part of the trash-talking redneck as Carl had that morning at the river, in a merry, green-eyed jest. (“You want Cracker? We'll give you
Cracker
.”)

When they were done eating, they finally released the table to the womenfolk and retired to the front porch so they could sip a little dessert whiskey from quietly passed pocket flasks and smoke hand-rolled Bugler cigarettes. Sam cared for neither, but joined them there to listen to their roll of fast, semi-understandable conversation, beginning to wonder if he should relinquish the Muskogee Creek to the titled historians and do his thesis on these, their lesser known, mixed-blood cousins.

Once they had a little liquor in them, they were happy to talk race, jovially and openly, the younger men trotting out all the old myths of origin, mostly to do with the Black Irish and Black Dutch. The older men weren't so sanguine about such open disclosure, and Ray's oldest brother, the wheezing Uncle Earl, denied any aboriginal blood at all.

Sam listened impassively, arms crossed on his chest, and commented, “Pure white,” in answer.

He was quoting the oral histories of the Croatan Indians, who self-described in such a way in their fight for separate schools in the early part of the century. He didn't mean to offend, but got a hard look from the old man and a hoot of laughter from the younger in response, as if he'd said something audaciously clever.

Before anyone could speak, Brother Hoyt had jumped in to explain to his brothers—all nearly as deaf as Ott—that Sam was going to school at the university, studying the Indians in the Forest.

The old men reacted with looks of blank astonishment to this odd pronouncement, one of them asking with apparent sincerity if he'd found any.

“Oh, yeah,” Sam assured him. “Twenty-seven families, all legal and supported, winging their way to the museum as we speak—including
the Hoyts, who are Creek through the Ammons line, which is nice, because they were matrilineal—the Creek.”

They nodded in silent amazement at the strange bit of news and spoke no more of it, as the short autumn afternoon was already losing its brightness, the sun west of the old cemetery across the highway, casting the Spanish moss in long shadow. The young men soon loaded up and returned to the woods for one more run with the dogs before it got dark. The old men were too old for such nonsense and sat in their rockers and ironed out the last-minute details of their annual Thanksgiving trip to the family fish camp, four miles south of the public landing. The weatherman in Panama City was predicting frost before sunrise, but the old diehards still planned to take the boats out, gamely inviting Sam along, promising him catfish and reds, trout to die for, “cooked on a spit, just like the old days.”

Sam didn't require much persuasion as the Hoyt Camp was a local legend, so far down the river that it was only accessible by boat. This was the home of all-night poker games and a particularly potent moonshine flavored with blood oranges, called Bounce (because one sip of it would bounce you on your ass). He was game for a firsthand look, thinking he might talk one of them into wading into the woods to the edge of Camp Six, so he could try to locate the exact location of old Morris's store.

When he went to the kitchen and told Jolie, she rounded on him with the same sharpness she'd rounded on her cousins. “You are
not
.”

Sam might have contracted a small case of testosterone poisoning from his afternoon in the company of the Hoyts, as he snapped back, “I am
so
. I've been here three months, haven't fished yet. And I'm here to study the Creek.”

Jolie's only helper was one of her uncle Earl's great-granddaughters, a spunky blond eight-year-old named Ashley, who was drying a plate with a dish towel. She looked about as thrilled as Jolie with the Hoyt division of labor and piped up in a quarrelsome voice, “Pawpaw says we're Cherokee.”

“Pawpaw's an idiot,” Sam murmured. Then, to Jolie: “We'll be back
tomorrow, or Saturday. Ott says we need to leave—have to get there before dark.”

She didn't seem to have heard him, but absently wiped her hands. “Does Deddy know?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “I'm twenty-four, Jolie. I don't have to ask
Deddy's
permission to go fishing.”

She blinked at the mimic, then pinned him with a cold eye. “Well, good. Have fun. I hope you freeze your ass off.”

Ashley laughed, though Sam set his jaw. “Good. I will,” he said, and left Jolie to the pans, the front-porch screen slapping shut behind him after a moment with a solid thwack.

Jolie didn't go after him, just returned to the dishes with her face carefully lowered so Ashley wouldn't see her tears and run to tell Uncle Ray or her pawpaw that Jolie and Sam had a fight; that Jolie was standing in the kitchen crying. She just thanked Ashley for helping, then sent her away. Jolie was not only tired, but sadder than sad, tears of outrage beginning to run down her cheeks in quiet little rivulets.

She was careful to wipe them away before anyone saw them, the house empty when Lena wandered in an hour later and found Jolie still working on the last of the dishes, the counters piled high with all manner of plates and pans and turkey utensils. Lena knew she was in trouble the moment she saw her. “My gosh, Jol—you're still at it? Where's Sam?”

“He's going to the fish camp,” Jolie answered in a small voice, making no more of it, though Lena was enough of an insider to understand the significance of this event and raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“Does your daddy know?” At Jolie's brief shake of her head, Lena asked with a mischievous grin, “Want me to run out to the shed and tell 'im?”

Jolie shook her head and concentrated on the dishes, till Lena detected the tears, which she found alarming, as Jolie never cried, never. Not when she didn't make National Honor Society (though she had the grade point), not even when her mother died (or so claimed Carl). Lena took Jolie by her shoulders and pulled her away from the sink, told her,
“Come on, Jol. What's he gonna do at the camp tonight with that old pack of geezers? Play poker? Drink beer—or, horror of horrors, find one of those ancient old titty magazines in the john?”

Jolie didn't smile at the gibe, just wiped her face on the hem of her apron. “I asked him not to go.”

“Well, he can't help himself. When men get a pack like this—going fishing, going hunting, playing football—they turn into wolves, all stay together. Let him spend the night
on
the water, instead of
by
the water, and he'll get a little inkling of the price you pay to run with the Hoyt pack. He'll probably go to the altar Sunday, get saved. Just think how the Sisters will shout—a
sinner
from the fish camp comes
home.
”

Jolie finally smiled at that, and Lena gave her a friendly shake. “Go to bed. I'll finish up here. You don't look so hot.”

“I don't feel so hot.”

“Then get some rest. We'll go to Dothan tomorrow for the big Christmas sale at Belk's; eat trout amandine with the old folk at Morrison's. '
K?
”

Jolie was too tired to argue and nodded wordlessly as she untied her apron and handed it over, then thanked Lena and went down the hall to bed, almost bumping into Sam as he came around the corner in a jog. His face was red-tipped from the cold, harassed but conciliatory. “Are you all right? We're pulling out—but I won't go if you're gonna get mad.”

Jolie was relieved to tears that he'd cared enough to come back. She gripped him in a tight hug, her eyes closed at his chest. “I'm not mad. Just be careful. Be careful. It's a dangerous place,” she whispered, barely audible. For a moment she stood there, holding him tight, then stepped back and wiped her eyes. “Did you bring your coat? It'll be freezing on the water.”

“There's no time,” he said, backing to the front door, which was open to the screen, the front yard full of brake lights and boat lights, everyone all packed and ready to pull out, apparently waiting for Sam. “I'll be all right,” he assured her, though Jolie wasn't so sure.

“This camp isn't
by
the water—it's
on
the water,” she tried to explain,
but he wouldn't listen, just called and waved, told her he'd be fine; he'd be home in the morning.

Jolie didn't argue, just ran to the hall closet and pulled out her father's fishing coat—an olive-drab, army-issue field jacket with his Social Security number inked on the top seam that he'd been issued by the quartermaster in Germany in 1946. It was lined and waterproof, and she hastily yanked it off a hanger and took it to the porch in a run, but they were already pulling out on the highway, headed for the landing.

“You're gonna freeze!” she called. “Take Daddy's coat!”

But he either didn't hear her or didn't think he needed it, and the line of lights and boats and blinkers continued out, leaving Jolie on the porch in the raw, November twilight, the worn, old soldier's coat gripped in her hands. She stood there till their brake lights were nothing more than pinpoints of red in the gray, then went back in the empty house to the kitchen, where Lena was drying the church coffeemaker.

She looked happy and industrious in her damp apron and asked cheerfully, “Does the punch bowl go back to the church? Or in the china cabinet?”

“The church,” Jolie answered dimly. “Sam went to the camp without a coat. It's already misting out there—he'll catch pneumonia.”

Her leap to the catastrophic was so sincere that it struck Lena as hilarious, making her laugh as she set the old percolator on the table. “You know, Jol, in some cultures women actually enjoy being
young,
and in
love
. It actually seems to make them
happy
.”

Jolie understood Lena was trying to tease her out of her funk, but was too tired to one-up with a one-liner and answered honestly, if wearily, “In
some
cultures, the women aren't from Hendrix.”

L
ena's laughter followed Jolie down the hallway to her bedroom, which was much as she had left it the day before yesterday. She wanted to take a bath and wash off the smell of turkey and gravy and hard labor, but was too tired to undress. She lay back on the spread and, after a moment, flipped up a corner of the spread to cover her; it was getting so cold so quickly. Her last thought before sleep was curiosity at how quickly the weather had changed, how swiftly it'd gone from sticky humid heat to a sharp autumn chill and now, in the space of two days, was almost down to ice.

She fell asleep quickly and slept so soundly that she was oblivious to the rest of the house: to Lena and Carl drying dishes in the kitchen, discussing their evening plans, and her father, who came inside when the cold drove him in at nine, the temperature dropping so sharply that he lit the furnace for the first time that year before going to bed. The dense, smoky smell of heating oil woke Jolie up before midnight, no longer lying on the spread, but under a blanket, her shoes on the floor at her feet. She didn't know how she got there, just felt for her bedside clock and saw the time. She thought about going to the kitchen and calling Lena to see if they'd got the coat to Sam, but she was too tired to worry with it, too warm and snug in her covers.