The Road to Memphis (9 page)

I reached the top of the darkened ridge, hid behind a tree, and looked back.

“What ya say, Stat?”

Statler was looking up the ridge, but I didn’t figure he could see me now. Still, I backed away, farther into the shadows. “Yeah, sure. Y’all go on after him.” Leon and Troy and the dogs took off. “But y’all get him cornered, y’all leave him be till I get there! Y’all hear me?”

“Yeah! Yeah!” Leon and Troy hollered back and ran on.

Statler looked over at Jeremy. “You comin’?”

Jeremy hesitated. “Look, Stat, you done had your fun with him—”

Statler’s voice hardened. “I said, you comin’?”

Jeremy didn’t say anything.

Statler turned in disgust. “Sometimes I don’t know ’bout you, Jeremy. Uncle Charlie, he always did say you got a streak of nigger lovin’ in you—”

“You got no call t’ say that!” Jeremy shot back.

“That right? Sometimes I get t’ wonderin’ how you could be Uncle Charlie’s boy. I got me no notion.”

“Statler, you got no call—”

“You gonna prove me different?”

Jeremy just looked at him, and Statler walked off. Jeremy
watched him, then gazed up the ridge, as if he could see me watching, then, rifle in hand, he turned and followed Statler. As they headed down the bank I ran back toward the camp, hollering as loud as I could for the boys, and they came running. “Cassie! Cassie, what is it?” they cried.

“It’s Harris! They got the dogs after him!”

“Who?” said Stacey.

“Statler Aames and his brothers!” My words were a winded rush. “They were making fun of Harris, and Harris took off running, and now they’re chasing him with their dogs along the Rosa Lee!”

“Ah, Lordy!” Clarence exclaimed.

Stacey grabbed hold of both my shoulders. “They do anything to you?”

“I’m fine, but poor Harris, they’ve got him scared to death!”

Stacey looked off to the woods, and Christopher-John, frowning, said, “Maybe we oughta go back and get Papa.”

“You, Man, and Cassie, you go on back. Clarence, Willie, and me, we’ll go on after Harris.”

“I’m not going back to the house!” I said. “I’m going with you!”

“Me too!” declared Little Man, and the thing was settled. There was no time for arguing.

We headed down the ridge. As I trailed Stacey I told him about Jeremy. “He’s with them,” I said.

Stacey stopped and turned, his eyes not wanting to believe. “What you say?”

I didn’t want to repeat it, but I did. “Jeremy . . . he’s chasing Harris too.”

Stacey looked at the others, and we all paused in that moment, then nothing more was said. Stacey turned back to the trail, and we all hurried on.

As we neared the water we heard the baying of the dogs. “Them dogs yappin’ so, sound like they got ole Harris cornered,” said Willie.

We ran along the bank, and the barking grew louder. We made our way up a heavily foliaged knoll and saw the Aames brothers and Jeremy, their flashlights shining, watching their dogs yelping and leaping at poor Harris standing in an upper fork of a tree. How Harris had managed to get his massive frame up in that tree I had no idea. Maybe his fear and the nearness of the dogs had hefted him up. The dogs had been given free rein. Leon and Troy no longer held them. We came down the knoll, and Statler turned. “Well, now,” he said, smiling amiably, “y’all out huntin’ t’night too?”

Stacey glanced at Statler, then turned to Harris and shouted: “Harris! Harris, get down from there!”

“Can’t,” said Statler. “He’s our coon and we got him cornered. He get down and them dogs’ll tear him up.”

Stacey looked back to him. “Then call the dogs off.”

The mocking look of good nature left Statler’s face. “Nigger, you issuin’ orders to me? Maybe you oughta be up that tree yourself—”

Suddenly there was an awful crack, then an ear-splitting yell as Harris toppled from the tree and crashed to the ground. The dogs immediately made for him. Stacey moved the quickest, dashing right into the midst of the hounds and slashing at them with the butt of the rifle. Clarence, Willie, and the rest of us grabbed up sticks and shot down behind him. Leon ran after us. “Y’all niggers, y’all harm one hair on them dogs and I’ll see all y’all dead! I swear!”

“Leon!” hollered Statler. “Call them dogs back! Get them dogs off that boy! Get ’em off, I say!”

Leon and Troy called the dogs back and took hold of them
again. We went to Harris. He was all in a mangle and out cold.

Statler came over. “How he be?” he asked. We didn’t answer. Harris was bleeding badly and a sharply broken bone stood straight up through the flesh of his left leg, cutting through the threadbare overalls and jutting upward into the night. His face was badly scratched and it was obvious that he had been bitten by the dogs. “Y’all know we ain’t meant Harris there no harm. We was funnin’ with him, that’s all . . . I said, how he be?”

Stacey looked at Statler, and his eyes said it all. “We take care of him,” he voiced and turned again to Harris.

Statler backed away. “Yeah . . . all right, y’all do that . . . . Like I said, ain’t meant the boy no harm. Just funnin’ with him . . . . He ought’ve not gone up that tree, not with all that weight on him.” He gestured to Leon and Troy. “Come on. Leave Harris to them. Jeremy, you comin’?”

Jeremy, eyes on Harris, mutely shook his head. Statler looked at him but didn’t say anything else, and he and his brothers left with the dogs. For several minutes Jeremy stood aside as we worked over Harris, then, his face pale in the shadowy light, he took a hesitant step toward us. “Anything . . . anything I can do?” he offered in a low voice that was hoarse and shaken.

Stacey’s back had been to him. Now Stacey turned and looked at Jeremy. “You were hunting Harris down. I don’t expect so.”

Jeremy said nothing else and backed away.

Christopher-John grimaced at the ugly wound. “How we going to get him home, Stacey? You figure we can carry him?”

“Best not move that leg before it’s set. Cassie, you and Man go on home, get Papa and the wagon. Bring Big Ma up here,
too, so she can set this leg. She’ll know better how to handle him. Go on, hurry now!”

Little Man and I took off. We ran all the way back to the house. Mama, Papa, and Big Ma were sitting on the porch; they saw us coming. As we ran up the lawn Big Ma hollered: “Girl, what you doin’ in them pants?”

“Harris fell!” I cried, giving no thought to the trouble I would be in later about the pants.

“He’s hurt bad too!” added Little Man.

Papa got up. “What happened?”

We told him.

“Clayton, help me with the wagon,” Papa said; then he and Little Man went out to the barn. Mama, Big Ma, and I followed, and as soon as the mules were hitched we all got on the wagon and headed for the woods.

When we reached Harris, Big Ma looked him over and shook her head. “Lord have mercy!” she exclaimed softly. “Look like this here leg got more’n one break. Got some broke ribs too. No tellin’ what else. Have mercy.” Then, under the glow of the flashlight, she set Harris’s leg with branches that the boys and I gathered from the forest ground, and tied it with strips ripped from Harris’s already torn overalls. Then gently, very gently, we lifted Harris onto the wagon and took him back to the house.

As soon as we had settled Harris on the bed in the boys’ room, Stacey took out his newly polished Ford and drove over to get Ma Batie, Mrs. Sarah Noble, and Sissy. There was no sense in taking Harris, Big Ma said; it would be too rough a ride, and Harris shouldn’t be moved. Stacey was gone about half an hour, and when he came back with Harris’s family, Harris was still unconscious. Big Ma said that wasn’t good.

Through the night we all waited for Harris to come to himself.
No one went to bed. Sissy stayed inside, sitting by Harris’s bed with the older folks, while the boys and I sat on the front porch. Since the bedroom opened onto the front porch, we were able to observe Harris and all that went on through the window. We could see Harris lying unmoving on the bed and we could hear Ma Batie and Mrs. Noble and Big Ma praying. We were silently praying too, or at least I knew I was. As the night drew toward dawn and our eyelids grew heavy, Harris finally awakened. It was a blessed relief.

We hurried in to see him, but Harris wasn’t saying anything. He was awake and in pain. He started to cry. Clarence, Willie, Christopher-John, and Little Man went back out. Stacey and I remained inside, wanting to say something, to do something to make things better for Harris. There was nothing we could do, but we stayed anyway. Then Clarence stuck his head into the room and called Stacey to the door. “Jeremy’s out here,” he said. “He say he wanna see ya. He was askin’ ’bout Harris, and I told him how he was, but he say he wanna talk to you.”

“Jeremy?” Sissy was bent over Harris. She raised her head and looked out past Clarence into the night. “Jeremy Simms?” Then, suddenly, she jumped up like a body possessed and ran outside.

“Girl, get back here!” yelled Ma Batie, but Sissy didn’t stop. She was headed straight for Jeremy.

Clarence caught her, but that didn’t keep her from screaming at Jeremy. “You ole two-faced cracker! Messin’ with Harris like that! Was it funny t’ ya?
Was it funny?
Was it funny seein’ the fat boy run? Was it funny seein’ the fat boy fall? Was it—”

“Hush up that girl!” Big Ma ordered from deep inside the room.

“Clarence,” Papa said, “bring her in here.”

Clarence nodded and, picking Sissy straight up, took her kicking and still screaming back inside the house and off to the kitchen.

Papa glanced out at Jeremy staring up from the lawn and said to Stacey, “You best go talk to him.”

For a moment Stacey didn’t move. Papa didn’t rush him. But then Mama did; I knew she didn’t like Jeremy’s being out there any more than the rest of us. “Stacey,” she said. Stacey looked at her, at Papa, and stone faced, went out to the porch and down the steps. I followed him out and leaned against a porch post. Christopher-John and Willie, seated on the swing, and Little Man, seated by the door, remained silent, their eyes on Jeremy.

Jeremy looked at us, then at the open door and Harris lying on the bed. “How—how is he?” he stammered. His words were not much more than a whisper.

There was no warmth in Stacey as he answered. “Got a broken leg busted up more’n one place.”

“But . . . but he gonna pull through?”

“He just come to. Big Ma says time’ll tell how he heals.”

Jeremy nodded. “I’m prayin’ he’ll be all right. I been out here all the night prayin’ for that.”

Stacey said nothing.

“Stacey, I . . . I’m really sorry ’bout Harris. Sorry as I can be. Things just done sort’ve got outa hand. I ain’t never meant Harris no harm. I know Statler always be funnin’ Harris, but that’s just his way. Him and Leon and Troy, they ain’t meant no harm neither.”

“And that’s supposed to make things all right?”

“Well, naw . . . I ’spect not. But you know I wouldn’t never do Harris no harm—”

“From what I could tell, you didn’t try to stop it.” Jeremy didn’t reply to that, and Stacey took his silence as an answer. “If you didn’t, then don’t come up here telling us you’re sorry.”

“You . . . you don’t understand—”

“Yeah, I understand. You didn’t mean Harris any harm. Y’all was just funning.”

Jeremy stepped back. “I want y’all to understand. Asking you to understand . . . .”

“Told you I understood.” Stacey’s words were cold and unforgiving.

Their eyes fixed on each other and didn’t waver.

“Asking you to see how it is for me, Stacey. Things ain’t so easy for me, neither, always tryin’ to help y’all out—”

“Always tryin’ to help us?” Stacey repeated, his words like an ice-cold torrent. “
Always trying to help us?
When we ever ask your help ’cept for that one time, and that was to help a white man? You recall, that was when Mr. Farnsworth, the county agent, got beaten up so bad some years back, and, you recall, he was beaten up by white men. You recall, we were fearful colored would be blamed. You recall, we could’ve left him there on that road to die, but we didn’t. ’Stead, we asked your help to get him to some white folks so’s he could get some doctoring. Now, you blaming us for that? We suppose to thank you for that?”

The rush of hostile words shoved Jeremy backward. He retreated a few steps as far as the magnolia tree midway down the lawn; but he didn’t leave. He looked off into the night, turned his back to Stacey with words spoken so softly I could hardly recognize them. “I . . . I ain’t never know’d a time I done lied to y’all, on a purpose done none of y’all no harm. Need y’all t’ believe me on this here now.”

“You asking something too hard of me to believe, Jeremy.
You hunted Harris down. That’s all I know . . . or need to know.” Those were Stacey’s final words.

Jeremy looked again at him and accepted them as final. He turned and walked down the lawn. Once he reached the road, he looked back. “I swear to the Lord God Almighty, Stacey, I ain’t never meant that boy no harm. I swear to God.” Then, hands buried in his pockets, his head bowed, he crossed into the woods and was gone.

Stacey came back to the porch. I didn’t say anything to him. Little Willie, Christopher-John, and Little Man didn’t either. I looked out to the woods and figured maybe it was just as well that this had happened. After all, Jeremy was a man now, and childhood was over. Appropriately, I supposed, so was our friendship.

Down Home Farewell

By Sunday night Harris seemed some better. On Monday morning, long before dawn, Stacey, Moe, Little Willie, and I got into the Ford and headed for Jackson. Clarence went with us. When we reached Jackson, Clarence did as he said he would. He went to the Army recruiting office and joined up. A few days later he went to Camp Shelby for training. Stacey, Moe, and Little Willie went back to working their six-day shifts at the box factory, and I settled in, started school, and tried to adjust again to living in Jackson.

I wasn’t all that crazy about Jackson. It was the capital, and it was big, too big for me. There were sixty some thousand people in the city and more folks coming all the time, what
with all the military bases opening up in the state and jobs too. That was fine, I supposed, for folks who liked city life. As for me, I preferred the country, where things were open and clean and there weren’t people the next house over practically sitting on your doorstep. But the schools were better in Jackson, and Mama and Papa wanted me to have the best education they could afford to give me. They had wanted that for all of us. Stacey, too, had attended a Jackson school until he had quit at the end of his tenth grade year and Christopher-John and Little Man, though still attending school at Great Faith, would most likely be attending a Jackson school next year. I realized that living in the city was necessary to getting a good education, so I didn’t complain. Not too much, anyway.