One More River (18 page)

She looked at her watch. She’d have to wait twenty minutes for her ride to arrive. Twenty minutes to work herself into a panic royale. After five, her head felt light, as if it were about to float off her neck. After ten, her knees went wobbly. Be calm, she told herself, be calm. She reached inside the bag to feel the item she’d thrown in there at the last minute in case things were as perilous in the backwoods as J. Henry feared. Ah, there it was. Her fingers wound around the barrel of Daddy’s pistol, and her strength returned. She wondered if it was loaded. She’d never stopped to check. She reprimanded herself. Checking whether or not a gun was loaded was the very first lesson Daddy taught her about firearms.

Her thoughts drifted back to when she was only ten and Daddy first put a gun in her hand to show her how it worked. A gal needs to know how to protect herself in this world, Daddy said, and proceeded to show her how she might do exactly that. It was always hot at the gun range. The place had a smell she didn’t like. She only ever went enough to make Daddy happy. She was alright with a gun, but never great. Still, she knew her way around a variety of weapons.

Her ride arrived in a cloud of dust and a world of noise. The paint was so worn, the car had no color but gunmetal and rust. There was a clean round spot as big as a head in the front window over by the driver’s side, and the glass everywhere else was covered with a film of Delta mud thick as a widow’s veil. Leaving the car running, J. Henry popped out, went around the side, opened the back door and ushered her in. The seat was piled up with hand-stitched quilts over pillow ticking stuffed with straw.

I put these down for you, miss. They oughta help smooth the ride some.

She wondered why he was still so concerned about her riding up front. Given the condition of the windows, it’d take a midnight owl to see in and figure out who was riding with whom, but she figured they could argue on the road if it came to that. The important thing was to get going. She got in back and settled in. With a great rumble and a jarring jolt, they peeled off the access road. Her torso jigged up and down with the chassis of the car but not so badly that her head hit the roof. The quilts and pillows provided a measure of comfort. Thank you, J. Henry, for setting up the backseat, she said, it’s very cushy back here.

The driver rattled on about his wife gathering pillows and quilts from the neighbors so they’d be sure she was comfy, but Laura Anne wasn’t listening. She kept her mind focused on seeing Mickey Moe by nightfall. Whatever she suffered along route was nothing. She would be amply rewarded by his loving mouth and warm embrace.

A jug lay on the floor at the left side of the dividing hump next to a wire basket covered by a towel. Suddenly, Laura Anne realized how thirsty she was after that hot run and her twenty-minute wait in the sun. J. Henry, might I have some of whatever’s in this jug? she asked. I’m painfully dry.

The driver’s eyes crinkled with pleasure up there in the rear view. Why, of course, Miss Laura Anne. That’s just water. I packed it for you and you alone.

That was kind, J. Henry.

I got my own by me, so you just do whatever you like with that all.

Very kind.

There followed a lot of quiet but for the gospel music and preaching from the car radio. Laura Anne complained about the air, which was close to the point of stifling, but when they rolled down the windows more than an inch, the dust from the road billowed in and gave them both coughing fits.

Hours passed. They traveled Highway 61 awhile, then took an exit, and before long were deep in the countryside. They passed hardscrabble farms carved out of forest and rock. Every once in a while, there was a great manse near the river or some other body of water, a lake or a pond, and there’d be acres and acres of cultivated land, and where the spreads ended, clusters of cinder-block hovels with outhouses and barbecue pits. There were shacks made out of all kinds of scavenged wood pounded or lashed together with wire, and old washing machines and car parts strewn over what passed for lawn. There were dirt paddocks populated by goats, a lone cow, or a mule. In short, they passed terrain much like every other piss-poor patch of land Laura Anne ever saw outside the immediate environs of Greenville, only there was much more of it.

How much longer, J. Henry?

Oh, you just relax and enjoy the view, Miss Laura Anne. We’ll be there directly.

This meant anywhere from three to six hours. She wished she’d brought a book or some knitting. Anything to pass the time. She tried talking to J. Henry, but they had nothing but pleasantries to exchange. The landscape bored her. They traveled deeper into nowhere by the minute as far as she could determine. She realized at one point she hadn’t seen a home, rich or poor, for nearly an hour. Her stomach growled. She’d forgotten to pack something to eat. Like he was reading her mind, J. Henry stopped the car next to a spot of cleared woods and declared they should get out and stretch their legs, have the box lunch his wife packed.

Laura Anne gave him her biggest, toothy smile.

Why you thought of everything, didn’t you, J. Henry?

Thank you, miss.

J. Henry got out his side of the car and looked in every direction as if he was searching for something before he opened her door. He took one of the quilts she’d been sitting on and spread it out over a patch of grass. He set the wire basket on top of that.

You come sit here, he said. This here’s for you.

She did as he suggested, lifted the towel off the basket, and found a china plate, cutlery, no doubt J. Henry’s wife’s very best cloth napkin and, sitting on a square of brown paper, a plump fried chicken breast, a little tin of black-eyed peas in sauce, a square of cornbread, and an apple.

Oh! This is divine, she said. But it’s much too much. Aren’t you going to sit down and have a bite?

No, no, no, thank you very much. I’ll stand here and keep watch. I can eat these here legs I got standin’ up.

Keep watch for what? We’re nowhere in the world at all. I don’t mind if you sit by me. What are you so afraid of?

J. Henry sighed. Miss, you don’t know these woods like I do, that’s all.

Laura Anne couldn’t comprehend the stubborn fears of Negroes. How could a people so remarkably strong be so timid? She guessed it was just the way they were made, and she was too hungry to think more about it, so she set to and ate her fill, enjoying the soft, fresh breeze that blew about her hair and up her skirt. When she was done, she would have liked to take just a tiny bit of shut-eye in the shade before continuing, but J. Henry was obviously agitated by that idea. More no, no, no’s from him, and they were back in the car on their way.

Laura Anne felt frustrated and decided to complain.

Why on earth are you so edgy about traveling with me, J. Henry? Do I scare you so very much?

He’d had enough. He slapped his steering wheel with one hand in a way that made her jump.

Lord, miss! Are you truly so innocent you don’t know what’s been goin’ on ’round here? Don’t you know there’s been mangled bodies drifting downriver and young folk disappeared ’round here all year long? Yes’m. There have. Two last August, and another in February. Ever since those Yankee lawyers came down here to help that Meredith child, the boys in these woods been fired up and ready for blood. What ’xactly do you think a pack of ’em goin’ to do if they come across a black man and a white gal layin’ around at a picnic in their fields? Ask questions?

Laura Anne apologized as much as she needed to calm J. Henry down, but in her heart she thought he blew events way out of proportion. There simply weren’t evil-minded hooligans roaming everywhere around them or hiding behind the trees. Well, maybe there were some here and there, there was bad blood everywhere, and times were dangerous if you didn’t mind your own business these days, but murderous peril behind each and every tree? In this downright wilderness? Yes, she determined, timidity was in their blood.

After the relief of the outdoors, the close air in the car was about killing her. She couldn’t breathe freely enough to get the sleep she wanted, although she did close her eyes to daydream about the look on Mickey Moe’s face when she finally arrived at his mechanic’s house. Oh, I’m sufferin’ darling, she told him in her mind. You better appreciate this. Then she imagined a dozen ways he could demonstrate he did.

Out of nowhere, the car screeched to a halt. Her body pitched forward, her chin hit the back of the front seat. Ow, she said, ow. What was that? And picking up her head, leaning over the front seat, she looked past J. Henry’s shoulder and out the passenger’s window. Draped over the car was a beast, a beast bigger than a deer, bigger than a bear on all fours. She stared through the dirt until she realized the beast was a man leaning forward, his two arms stretched out over the hood. His fingers clawed at air and metal. O Lord, she thought, a man. We hit a man.

What in heaven’s name happened, J. Henry?

J. Henry’s breath came loud and fast at her before he spoke. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. His hand trembled.

It seems like he just jumped out at us, miss.

Well, you better get out and see if he’s alright.

J. Henry gulped twice, put his hand on the door handle. He moved too slowly for her taste. There was a man out there, and he looked badly hurt. In the last few seconds, he’d slumped forward more, and then he stopped moving altogether. She put a little command in her tone.

Go on. Go see.

J. Henry gave out a jagged sigh.

I’m gettin’ ready.

Go on. Go on. Go on.

J. Henry went to the man possibly dying over the hood of his car. He tapped the man’s shoulder. When his head went up, J. Henry jumped away. Then he inched back. The two of them talked. The man stiffened his arms and pulled himself up off the hood. J. Henry put his arm around his waist and walked him around to the side door opposite Laura Anne, got the door open with his free hand, and more or less tossed the man in beside her.

When she got a close look at her fellow passenger, Laura Anne shrieked. At least she tried to shriek. Her mouth opened, her throat quivered, and the smallest high-pitched whine emerged, like the sound an asthmatic makes when his windpipe gets bothered.

He was a white man covered in blood. It wasn’t from any kind of wound the car had made, that much was sure. What bloodied him, she could not say. There were thin red lines all over his face and chest, his hands, too, and Lord knew where else. His shirt was torn, his trousers stained and foul smelling, his shoes gone, and brambles were stuck all over his ripped and filthy socks. Despite the cuts on his cheeks, she could see he was clean-shaven. The fabric of his ruined clothes, she could tell, any woman could, was rich, smartly tailored before he met with violence. He lifted his head, tried to talk, but couldn’t. He just lay back down, right next to Laura Anne’s left thigh, and passed out.

This poor man is a city boy, J. Henry.

I can see that.

What do you think brought him out here? What happened to him?

I do not know. Who happened to him is more likely. We need to get out of here as quick as we can.

You think he met up with those boys you mentioned?

It’s entirely possible.

A tense ring of fear, barbed like wire, circled Laura Anne’s throat. She couldn’t speak at first. When she could, she tried for bravado, but her tone was shaky, the pitch was off, and it came out false and flat, landing with a thud at her feet. What she said was, Then it’s very good it was us he ran into, wasn’t it?

And J. Henry said, Maybe for him. For us, could be the worse thing ever happened.

His foot got heavy and he drove as fast as his old rattletrap would allow on a dirt road studded with gullies and ancient roots thick as logs.

They pressed on for what felt like hours and hours. The white man barely moved although he moaned a lot. Laura Anne tried to give him some water, but it dribbled out his mouth. She daubed at the cuts on his face and hands with a dampened lunch napkin, but the blood tracks were dried thick. Since she couldn’t do much about them without hurting him more, making them bleed afresh, she gave up and sat back. She took her pocketbook and positioned it square in her lap. She shoved her hand into her purse and found the butt of her daddy’s pistol, which she tried to keep tight in her grip. She kept her finger off the trigger, because she didn’t want to shoot her own foot or, God forbid, any part of J. Henry up front. She was bouncing a whole lot more in the car now than before, and the whole time, her hand trembled, timid as a field mouse caught in a trap.

O
NCE THEY GAVE UP LOOKING
for Aurora Mae, they tried life well east of the Mississippi. They trekked all the way to Cincinnati, where they worked for a time in a restaurant, Bernard slinging hash, Horace cleaning up. They lived in a rooming house near the railway. It wasn’t bad. Bernard had a room next to the bath, and Horace was allowed to sleep in the basement on a cot set up by the coal pile as long as he got up a few times in the night to fire up the burner. They made a few friends. For a time, Horace had a sweetheart. But nothing felt real to either one of them. It was as if they were suspended in a jar of jelly, all movement, all emotion blunted. Horace’s gal left him for a man with a proper home, nothing more than a shack, really, next to the tracks outside of town. The weather got cold, the men got restless, and without even discussing it, they packed up one day and left. They headed back to the old house in case she was there, but they found the old house grown over with weeds, its windows broken, the roof caved in, and no Aurora Mae anywhere. It was like pulling scabs off a half-healed wound. All their misery returned, there was nothing blunted about it. They couldn’t stay no matter how kind the cousins were.

They followed the river downstream, because that felt easiest. They were aimless, heartsore, without desire or design. After a few weeks, it rained nearly all the time. They moved on, because they could not turn back. Even when it did not rain, the water was high, angry, impossible to cross. Sometimes it seemed the river was following them. Soup thick and dark, the noise it made to their grieving ears was like a great roar of sorrow. It suited them. They ran out of money. They had no shelter. They slept under the best tree cover they could find.