Summer of the Redeemers (3 page)

“Maebelle’s awake. Get your bicycle and let’s ride down the road.” I took a couple of steps toward the woods where Picket and my bike were waiting.

Alice cut a look over her shoulder. There was no sign of her mother’s face at the window. “You’ll ride real slow and be careful.” She
hefted the baby in her arms to calculate her weight and how much she’d bounce in the basket.

“Real slow and we’ll come straight back. Mama said I had to be home in an hour. You can stay for supper at our house, and that way your mama won’t think to wonder where we’ve been. Mama Betts is making one of her strawberry pies.”

“Okay.” She handed me the baby while she slipped around the corner of the house to get her bike. She was back in a minute, pushing the bike while I carried the baby into the woods. “I shouldn’t do this …”

“I’ve got to see what those Redeemer folks are doing down there. They might be getting ready to worship—” I stopped. Alice could get funny about religious things at times. I didn’t want to scare her out of riding down to Cry Baby Creek to check out the church folks.

“Worship what?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out.”

I got my bike and made a comfortable little nest for Maebelle in the front basket. It was a deep basket and there was no chance she’d fall out. The only concern was that the road got a little rough in places, but I could get off and push the bike and she’d be none the worse for it.

Picket was right beside us as we rode through the woods, cut behind my house and finally pulled out onto Kali Oka about half a mile from our driveway. Alice and I shared a look of excitement. We were both dying to see what the new residents on Kali Oka were going to do.

Three

T
HE
bridge over Cry Baby Creek is wooden. The creek itself is only about twelve feet wide with amber shallows and a few deep pools. There are places where logs have jammed and the water flows over the top with the sound of a mountain stream.

Old and dilapidated, the bridge is dangerous. Since it only leads to the church property and that’s been vacant for the last ten years, no one worries much about it. Vines growing over the side of it made a good place to hide for me and Alice and Maebelle. The baby was sleeping soundly as we crouched down by the bank and peered through the honeysuckles.

The buses were all parked side by side to the left of the old parsonage. The church folks, seemingly mostly grown-ups, were milling about the grounds, staring up at the sky or into the trees, looking everywhere but at each other. No one seemed to be in charge.

Undisguised by the dirty bus windows they were even scarier than I first thought. Especially the children our age. They reminded me of winter trees, still and solemn and asleep, as if their faces and minds were dormant and waiting for spring. I could not imagine those children playing football or hide-and-seek. I hadn’t caught a glimpse of the really young children yet.

“Creepy,” Alice whispered.

“Zombies.”

“I wonder what they’re going to do down here at the end of this road.”

I couldn’t imagine; but then I did, fevered images of singing and
chanting and snakes. Embellished by my imagination, the churchers were frightening—and compelling. “Wonder if those kids are going to school with us? Mama Betts said no one in Mississippi had to go to school. She said we were one of the only states without mandatory attendance.”

Alice jiggled the baby as she leaned on one elbow and held her with the other arm. “Not likely. The old church set up their own school, or at least that’s what Mama remembers. She’d never just come out and say it, but I heard her whispering with old Mrs. Shoals that the people from that Life church sold their babies for money.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “The girls who had the babies were almost slaves.”

“Selling babies?” It was an incredible idea. Who would buy one?

“Yeah, like puppies or horses. Girls in the church would have a baby, and then they’d sell it to someone who couldn’t have one.” Alice tickled Maebelle and was rewarded with a few healthy kicks and a lopsided grin. “I’d like to sell a few of ours.”

“Alice!” I wasn’t really shocked ‘cause I knew she was just talking. “Look.” Several of the men had gotten together and were talking and pointing around the church grounds. It wasn’t clear what they were saying, but words like nursery and housing and duties were part of it. They called one of the women over, and she nodded her head and then went into the old parsonage.

“They’re acting like they don’t know what to do.”

Several of the men walked over to the buses and began to unload suitcases from the back.

“They’re going to stay here.” Alice inched up the bank for a better view. “They’re going to all sleep in the church.”

She was right. The men were moving the suitcases into the sanctuary. There was only the church building and the parsonage. By my guess there must have been fifty or sixty families. As the men worked, the women began to form a line. The lack of laughter or conversation made it eerie.

“Let’s get out of here before they see us.” Alice inched down the bank toward the creek. Maebelle shifted in her arms and let out a small cry.

The closest group of Redeemers turned our way. I was still at the edge of the creek, buried in honeysuckle, I hoped. I waved Alice back into the protection of the vines in case anyone came over to look.

Maebelle gave another gurgle. Sweat trickled down my cheek. A middle-aged woman and two girls were looking our way. The woman stepped forward, her eyes scanning. The first sign of life shifted across the faces of the girls. One had long brown hair that hung, uncurled, down her back. The mother wore hers up, sort of like some of the high school girls did, but the effect was completely different.

Her eyes locked on me and I stopped breathing. She turned, called something over her shoulder, and one of the men started walking toward her.

“Run!” I tore free of the honeysuckle and slipped down the bank of the creek. Alice came out from under the bridge, and together we waded the shallow water, not concerned for our shoes, only worried about our lives.

“Run, Alice!” I climbed the opposite bank in front of her so I could help with the baby. Maebelle let out a terrible cry as if we were snatching her bald-headed.

“Hey! You!” the man called.

“Run!” I cried. I had Maebelle in my arms and sprinted toward the edge of the woods where we’d left the bicycles. Alice was behind me, dragging in air.

A brown and white streak erupted out of the woods, headed straight for the bridge over the creek and the tall, thin man who was coming for us.

“Picket!” I thrust Maebelle into Alice’s arms and turned back toward the church. The man had stopped on the bridge, his face contorted with fury as Picket squared off at him, her hackles raised and her teeth bared. If he made another move toward us, she’d latch onto his leg. Instead of staring at the dog, the man was looking at Alice and Maebelle.

“Picket! Come here!”

She ignored me, her focus never shifting from the man. She could sense his rage as easily as I could see it written on his features. There was no way she was going to relax her guard. Several other men had clumped together, and a teenage boy ran into the church and returned with a gun. He handed it to one of the men.

“Picket!” I could hear the fear in my own voice. They meant to shoot her.

“Bekkah!” Alice grabbed my arm as I brushed past her, running toward the bridge. “Bekkah, don’t!”

My fingers found the collar in Picket’s thick fur, and I pulled her back with me. Toenails screeching in the wood of the bridge, Picket was rigid, and a fierce growl erupted from her teeth. At the edge of the bridge I looked up at the man. There was a terrible smile on his face.

“That’s a dead dog,” he said softly. The man with the rifle cocked it and aimed.

Picket weighed nearly fifty pounds, but at that moment it didn’t matter. I gathered her in my arms and fled.

“This here’s private property,” the man called after us. “Come here again, and you’ll be sorry. We’ll get the sheriff on you and that cur!”

Maebelle’s descent into the basket was less than tender. Alice held my bike for me and then got hers. The man was sauntering across the bridge as we pedaled furiously away, Picket at our side.

“Whose baby is that anyway?” the man called. “That ain’t no way to treat a young’un.”

My bicycle chain whirred, and Maebelle had begun a soft, steady cry. The motion of the bike seemed to soothe her a bit, and I wasn’t slowing down for her anyway. At least not until we were well clear of the Redeemers.

Sweat was dripping down Alice’s face, and mine, when we pulled over in the shade of a mulberry tree that had sprung up wild in P. C. Harless’s fence row.

“Those folks are crazy mean,” Alice said as she took Maebelle out of the basket and rocked her in her arms. “It’s okay, baby,” she crooned softly. “Hush, hush, baby.” She was about to cry herself.

Neither one of us wanted to talk about how close we’d come to serious trouble, but we couldn’t pretend nothing had happened. “It looks like they’re all going to live there together, doesn’t it? Mama’s gonna die when she finds out they’re going to have a commune.”

“Mama said if Daddy stayed home all the time, I’d have twenty brothers and sisters instead of just ten,” Alice said. She made a face at Maebelle. “I couldn’t stand it.”

“Me either. And they sure didn’t look like happy people. They were mostly wandering around like lost souls.” There had been something definitely eerie about them. Not a single spark of laughter or enthusiasm. It was as if they’d been drained of all vital juices. Sucked dry. “Until they got the gun.”

“You were right; they’re zombies.” Alice hefted the baby to her
shoulder. “We’d better get back. Mama’ll be lookin’ for me to help with supper.”

I could see she’d abandoned the plan to eat with us. It had been too close a call. We needed some time to think about it. “Maybe we can go for a swim tomorrow.”

Alice shot me a quick look. “Not at Cry Baby Creek.”

“Why not?”

“You just want to go and spy on those Redeemers. You don’t care a fig about swimmin’.” Her freckles were startling across her white, white skin. “After today you’d go back there? You don’t have a lick of sense, Bekkah Rich.”

“Sure, I want to go swimmin’, and I want to look around the church a little more. If we hadn’t had Maebelle—”

“And your dog! Chances are I’ll have her tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, until school lets back in.”

Complaining that it wasn’t fair didn’t do a bit of good. Alice didn’t like it any better than I did. Still, part of my dissatisfaction with Kali Oka Road had more to do with Alice being pressed into child labor than with anything else. I missed my friend and the time we once had together.

“Maybe Julie Ann will keep her.”

“Yeah.” Alice put her back in my basket and signaled to go. She didn’t have to say that Julie Ann would never keep the baby. Julie was two years older than Alice, but she was the special child. Asthma had weakened her lungs, and she couldn’t do any of the chores. If any new clothes were purchased, they were for Julie and handed down to the other children. Those above Julie in age got even more work and less attention. In the Waltman household, Julie was the watershed. She was the best embroiderer in the state too. That’s all she did, pull those pretty threads through that hoop of cloth until she’d made a picture.

At the cut through in the woods, Alice left her bike and took the baby. I rode on to the house, back in less than the hour Mama had given me.

“How were the church folks?” Mama Betts asked as I pushed open the screen. She was standing in the doorway, concealed in shadow.

“Spooky.” There was no point lying, exactly. “They acted lost.”

“Stay away from those folks, Bekkah. Nothing good will come of them.”

“I’m only lookin’ at ‘em. There’s no harm in doing that.”

“And when they go to talk to you, what are you going to do then? Act mute?”

“They won’t talk to me. They don’t want any of us around there.”

“Did they run you off?”

Mama Betts was too smart. She had a way of tricking all the details out of you just the way she squeezed a lemon for her pies until even the rind was dry. “Not exactly.” If she found out about Picket and the gun, I’d be in really big trouble.

“But they weren’t too happy to see you, were they?”

“Not really.”

She laughed. “Effie called your dad and told him all about it. He said to keep you away from them, that you’d be joining up like it was the circus.”

“Will Daddy call back?” I hated it when Mama called him and I wasn’t home. It made me feel like I’d been cheated out of a treat.

“Tonight. Just to talk with you.”

“And Arly?”

“And Arly.”

“Where is he anyway?” I hadn’t seen him all day. “Does he know about the Redeemers?”

“He knows. He was all for running down the road to look for you.”

“He couldn’t have made it worse than Maebelle V., whining and crying.”

“You took that baby?”

Her tone of voice made me realize how critically I’d messed up. “We only rode down there and back. The baby likes bicycle rides.”

“You’re going to give that child brain damage. I know Mrs. Waltman has more than she can manage, and pregnant again, I hear, but it seems like she wouldn’t allow—”

“Alice takes care of the baby. Mrs. Waltman has other things on her mind.”

Mama Betts raised her hands to her hips. She didn’t like sass. “I know it isn’t fair, Bekkah, but a lot of children work harder than Alice. Maybe with Alice tied down with that baby you two won’t get into trouble this summer. And don’t deny it. I see it simmering in those devil blue eyes.”