The Coffin Quilt (11 page)

I followed Alifair down the path to the gate and stood like a mule with colic, watching Ro come. She looked right smart in a new calico dress Aunt Betty had made her. And Clothilda had on a proper leather harness. At the gate she stopped, looked at everybody, and sort of smiled.

"Howdy," she said.

I started forward, but Alifair had a grip on my arm like a bear trap. "Let me go! You made me come out
here, now let me go to her." I felt a panic rising inside me. Somehow I had to break free of my sister and keep Ro from coming to our gate. I knew that if she came through that gate harm would come to her. They had something planned, I felt it in my bones.

"Stay here and let the boys attend to her."

Attend to her?
Alifair sounded like Mr. Cuzlin, like Ro was a contrary five-year-old. I fought her, but she hung on to my wrist. "Ma!" I called.

What did I expect? Ma quoted the Bible. "Your children will meet the enemy at the gates." She turned her mind again to those beans.

The enemy? Is that how she sees Ro now?
Oh! I sobbed, then stopped fussing to watch my sister get down off Clothilda, come to the gate, and open it. Then Pharmer had his hand on it, holding it closed. "Afore you come in, Ro, there's something we've a mind to ask you."

I saw her look into Pharmer's face, then Bud's and Bill's. Ro wasn't stupid. What she saw there made her drop her hand from the gate. "Ask," she said.

"Did you ride off yesterday and tell the Hatfields that Pa and Jim had Johnse?"

Silence settled over the front yard. Ro's answer was so soft I couldn't hear it, but I didn't have to. Her head was bowed. I knew what she said.

"You mean you told those spawn of the Devil so's they'd come after Pa and Jim? What were you a-thinkin', Ro?"

I heard her sob. "Of Johnse. I didn't want them to shoot Johnse."

"Did Jim promise you he wouldn't?"

She nodded. "But Pa," she said, "it was Pa I was afeared would shoot him."

"So you told the Hatfields so they could shoot your own kin."

"I didn't think," she said. "I didn't think that far. I only thought to save Johnse."

"Well you should of," Pharmer said. "Now Pa isn't home, Ro. But as the oldest son here, I speak for him. You have to go. And not come back here again, you hear?"

I couldn't believe what Pharmer was saying! Not come back again? How could they! Again I struggled to free myself but couldn't. Ro looked up, wiping her eyes, staring around at the place like she'd never seen it before. She stared at Bud and Bill in turn, then at Adelaide and Trinvilla, who'd already turned to salt there in the garden. Her eyes went to Alifair, who was still holding me, to me, then to Ma. It was to Ma that she reached out her hand. "Mama?"

"You gotta go, Ro," Pharmer said. "Now. Sorry, but you can't see Ma. You sent Hatfields to kill her husband."

"I didn't!" Ro came to life then and pushed the gate open.

"Well, old Devil Anse was set to shoot Pa, and would of if Johnse didn't stop him."

"Then Johnse saved his life. What's wrong with you people? Why don't you bring a stop to all this?"

"You started it, Ro, when you ran off with Johnse. Now it's set its own course and it can't be stopped,"
Pharmer said. Then he closed the gate against her. The click of it sounded in the yard so loud I thought it would burst my eardrums. "Go, Ro, and don't come back. Ever."

"Ma," she called. "You can't mean this! You can't be sending me off like this!"

"But God shoots His arrows at conspirators. Suddenly they are struck. He brings them down by their own tongues." That was all Ma said. It was enough.

Ro's shoulders slumped. She turned to go. It was then that I bit Alifair's arm hard enough to make her yell and ran down the path to my sister. "Ro! Ro, wait, I'm coming," I yelled.

Bud and Bill tried to hold me, but I kicked them and fought like a painter cat.

"Leave her say good-bye," Pharmer said.

Bud and Bill obeyed, and I opened the gate and went through to Ro. I hugged her, smelled her glycerin and rosewater, felt the rise of her belly others did not know about.

"It's okay, baby," she said. "I'll be all right. Don't cry."

"I want to come with you."

"No, no, you stay here. Here's where you belong."

I couldn't see her face for my tears. "I'll come see you," I whispered. "I promise."

She nodded and smoothed my hair, tucked it behind my ears. I gave her one final hug and ran back through the gate. But I didn't run into the house. I ran around it, past the outbuildings, through the holler, across the creek, and into the woods toward my
playhouse. My feet were bare. I felt the sharpness of rocks, twigs, underbrush, but I didn't care. Nothing could hurt me more than what they'd done to me this morning.

Before I climbed the ladder to the tree house, I stopped and looked around. I was all alone in the woods. Sunlight dappled through the colorful trees. A squirrel darted away when he saw me coming. From the distance some birds were chattering in the trees. Then of a sudden they stopped and it was silent, so silent all I could hear was the beating of my own heart.

And then I felt eyes watching me.

Yeller Thing! I felt the fear crawl up my throat. I felt it in my mouth, my arms, my legs. Fear so black and terrible it ate me up right there and spit me out. I wiped my face with my hands and looked around again.

Now I heard it, a faint hissing growl, like it was setting there watching me and getting ready to leap. Had he been here all along, knowing I'd come? Or had I conjured him?

And then something else happened. I was so all-fired mad at my family, at their stupidity, their meanness to Ro, that I didn't care if Yeller Thing was there waiting for me.

"Come on and get me!" I yelled. "Come on! I don't care!"

I screamed it in the silent woods. It echoed, bounced off the trees. The roosting birds took off in fright with a flurry of beating wings, flew away, and then it was silent again.

I waited, trembling, in my cotton nightdress and bare
feet. But Yeller Thing didn't come. I think if I'd of waited all day he wouldn't of come.

Coward,
I thought.
Only fit to scare little girls.
And I climbed the steps to my playhouse. But inside myself I knew he was no coward. Settled in my safe spot, I knew that it just wasn't time yet for him to come, that was all. He wasn't ready yet. He had more plans for me. More terror for us all.

"Fanny? Hey, Fanny, you up there? Come on down, child. I'm here to take you home."

Tolbert! Was I dreaming? I'd fallen asleep! I sat up and crawled across the playhouse floor to look down. No, I wasn't dreaming. It was Tolbert, sitting on his horse right below, peering up at me.

"You in trouble with Alifair again?"

"She's meaner than a black bear, Tolbert. I hate her. And they sent Ro away for good. Did you know that? I hate all of 'em, and I'm not going home!"

"Not with me?"

I came full awake then. "I'm allowed?"

"Ma told as you and Alifair had a set-to; maybe it's best you spent some time with me, Mary, and Cora. I've got a bundle of your things. Well? You a-comin'? Or you aim to live in that tree house?"

So, for all her Bible-quoting, Ma did have her wits about her. And she'd sent for Tolbert, to get me away. From the ladder he grabbed me around the waist and set me in front of him on his horse. If Yeller Thing was still in those woods, let him come out now. I double dared him.

B
ABY
C
ORA TODDLED
about on fat little legs, shaking her head and saying "no, no" when you told her she couldn't do something. I fed her, bathed her, combed her wispy baby hair, and I would have played with her all day if Tolbert didn't make me go to school.

I stayed a week with them. I was feeling more and more at home at their place. The house itself comforted me. The wood in the common room seemed to gleam in the firelight more than ours at home. Mary had a quilt on the wall over the settee. Ma would say quilts belonged only on beds. Their candles smelled good, and somehow the things they used to live every day—apples drying on a table, Mary's butter churn and spinning wheel, her bunches of herbs hanging overhead, Tolbert's bullet mold, his pelts hanging on the walls, the baby's cradle—looked purty lying about. Ours didn't at home.
Maybe it was only the play of the light, I told myself. The light seemed different here.

I especially liked Tolbert's books. He had lots of them. One was
Declaration of the Rights of Man.
One night when I was supposed to be doing my lesson I asked him, "What's 'rights'?"

He was molding bullets. "It's something God gives us that nobody can take. Rights to live and think free, worship, read, talk, have families and raise 'em the way you want. It's what our ancestors fought for in the Revolution."

"You always have to fight for rights?"

He smiled. "Most of the time, yes."

"Do only men have them?"

From a chair by the fire, doing mending, Mary spoke. "Well? Answer her, Tolbert."

But instead he smiled. "What do you want, Fanny?"

"I want to go visit Ro. I miss her and I'm afeared for her."

"Can't let you do that. Pa's got men in the woods with guns lest Johnse comes by. It's dangerous."

"You could come with me. It wouldn't be dangerous then."

Silence. He wiped his hands with a rag. His yellow hair gleamed in the firelight. I saw him look at Mary, saw the look on her face, like she was saying something without opening her mouth. Saw him nod to her. Then he said, "All right, I'll take you." And I knew that Mary had rights.

In bed that night I was so excited about seeing Ro
I could scarce sleep. The last thought I had before going off was,
Then didn't God give Johnse rights to wed Roseanna
?

***

T
OLBERT TELLS THE
best stories. On the way to Roseanna's we passed Granny Meeker's place, which is about two miles from Stringtown. She was limping around her yard and waved to Tolbert. He waved back. "Know why she limps?" he asked.

'Course I said no. So he told me. Said that she was a witch. And she put a spell on old Henry Crumley, who had a farm down the road. And to go about without he should see her, she changed herself into an old hen turkey.

"Well," Tolbert said, "Henry got vexed with this old hen turkey poking around his place and tried to shoot it. He shot lots of times and hit it, but it wouldn't die. So then a friend tells him that's because it's old Granny Meeker who turned herself into a hen turkey to plague him. And what he had to do was make himself a silver bullet and it'd kill her for sure. So Henry made himself a silver bullet and shot the hen turkey and it fell down dead. And the next time he saw old Granny Meeker she was limping around in her yard after a bad spell of sickness. And she never did bother him again."

"Do you think a silver bullet would kill Yeller Thing?" I asked him.

"If'n he'd stand still, maybe."

I pondered Tolbert's story on that ride to Aunt
Betty's. I knew about witches. A witch woman could ask to borrow something from you, and if you refused she could do you ill. Some people had witch marks over their doors to protect them. Ma said we didn't need one, Jesus would protect us.

I wondered if a silver bullet would kill Yeller Thing, if anything would. As it turned out, I should have been pondering other things. Soon's we got there, Tolbert saw that Ro was expecting. Of a sudden it seemed like you could tell. And it came to me that I hadn't told Tolbert. He didn't say anything, just went about his business of fixing Aunt Betty's door, while me and Ro visited.

She was working on the Coffin quilt, "Has Johnse been around?" I asked.

"No. Nobody's been here, Fanny." She sounded sad. "I'm a marked woman. Not only for the baby but because I set the Hatfields against our family. I'm worse now than Belle Beaver. But it's all right. Aunt Betty is good to me. And we've been making baby clothes. I'm happy here. My baby will be born in March, and I'll have my little one to love."

"But don't you miss Johnse?"

She lowered her eyes, not looking at me. "I told him I won't marry him, Fanny."

What had happened in the past weeks?
I just stared at her.

"All it'll lead to is killing," she said. "You heard how Devil Anse almost killed Pa. I don't want my baby marked by such doings." She was set on it and would
speak of it no more. So we made small talk and soon the visit was over. There was no sign of Pa's men watching the place.

I promised to come again. But before we left, Tolbert pulled me aside. "She's a-havin' a little 'un," he said. And he looked at me as if it was my fault.

I nodded.

"How long you known?"

"Since before she left home. I wanted to tell you, but I couldn't. She swore me not to. Please don't be mad, Tolbert."

He hooked his thumbs in his back pockets and stared over my head to Ro. "You stay here tonight," he said quietly.

Tears came to my eyes. "You mean you don't want me with you and Mary anymore?"

"Don't be silly, Fanny. I want you to stay here because I'm a-goin' home and tellin' Ma."

He was walking to his horse. I ran after him and grabbed his arm. "You can't! Ro doesn't want Ma to know." I hung on his arm.

"Fanny," he said, "I wasn't angry, but I'm a-gettin' there. I don't care what Ro wants. I care about this family. I care about what's right. Ma would want to know, and you know it. Now let go."

I let go. "I don't have any clothes with me," I said.

"You can manage. I'll be back tomorrow with Ma. You stay here and wait, you hear?"

"What if Pa goes after Johnse with guns?"

He swung up onto his horse. "I want to find you
here tomorrow, Fanny," was all he said. "And don't tell Ro, either. It'll work out, don't worry."

***

I
WISH
I could say it all worked out. I wish I could end this account here and say the baby made a difference. Oh, it did with Ma. Like Tolbert said, he brought her back the next day. She came to see Ro, and they hugged and cried and sat and had cups of tea and talked like God was in His heaven and all was right with the world, the way women do when it has to do with babies. But nobody else came, and Pa never sent word.