GodPretty in the Tobacco Field (5 page)

One hot Sunday when we kids took to the creek for an after-church social, Carter teetered along the bank watching. Nobody'd taught him how to swim, and he hated anyone who could, throwing his skipping rocks out, nipping skin if he could. He'd sit on the grass, souring, him with a bunch of raccoon pecker bones dangling around his neck—showing off the newest hook-shaped charm that he'd gotten from his latest coon hunt—looking over the younger girls to favor one with the sweetheart gift so she'd hang it from her own neck and be his gal. He had at least five of those nasty coon penises hanging from a piece of old leather rope around his neck.

One particular kid, Billy O'Brien, took to water like birds take to sky. He could do a perfect backflip from the wooden plank nailed to the tree, and swing from the old knotted rope higher than anyone before flying out and landing in the deep end.

That day Carter lit a cigarette and paced back and forth, muddying a grassy path. After Billy did a double backflip, Carter called out, motioning him up to the bank near a thick knee-high stump.

Carter asked him to prove who was the toughest and waved his cigarette in front of him. But Billy brushed him off with a laugh. Carter insisted, taunting him with names; then he promised, “You win, Billy, I'll give you one of these here.” Carter pointed to his necklace, lifted the longest coon bone, coaxing. “Look at the hook on this coon's pecker, boy. This here is my biggest and you can have it if ya beat me.” Carter knelt down and laid his arm across the stump, wheedling an invite.

Billy had never learned to hunt, but he was sweet on a certain girl, so he took him up on the dare.

We gathered around as Carter clasped Billy's long, muscular forearm beside his bony one, squeezing them close. Then Carter took his lit cigarette, puffed hard, and snugged it between their joined arms, sizzling flesh.

Billy jerked. Again, and then again. Carter never blinked once. Billy screamed a few seconds in, jumped up, and scrambled into the creek, cursing and nursing the burn on his limp arm. But not Carter Crockett, nuh-uh, he was just getting started. With a hard smile, he picked up the cigarette, took a long, hot drag, and put it out atop the blistered hole on his arm for a good three seconds more.

Henny dangled the yellowing bone from a piece of twine. “Ain't too many boys can get you one of these.” She flipped back her hair and I saw a fresh bruise on her neck.

I thought about Rainey and his red-blossomed clover ring.

Henny rubbed the necklace across her lips. “Can't wear it around Pa, but we's going together now.”

“But he hits his girlfriends, Henny.”

“Mary deserved that busted lip—”

“Like you deserved that?” I pointed to her neck.

She pressed a hand over the bruise, covering. “She deserved it, ya know she did. Carter said she made sweet eyes at another boy down at the Feed & Seed. And even Ma said she'd asked for it . . . And this”—she rubbed her neck—“is what I get for nagging. Now, c'mon Roo, ya got to tell me what you've seen about them baby-buyers.” She stuffed the necklace back under the collar of her dress, patted.

“What? No, I-I'm trying to tell you I don't—” I looked into her hopeful eyes and hung my protests with the iron skillet on its nail board beside the stove, clattering the pots next to it. “Okay . . . okay, don't tell, but maybe I've seen something,” I lied to cheer her. “City stores that have big bins of food, and giant buildings—buildings bigger than the Feed & Seed—as big as barns maybe. Everyone dresses pretty like—”

“
Lady Bird Johnson!
Oh, to be a First Lady of this here big ol' United States . . . Imagine.” Henny sweet-toothed the thought.

I giggled. “Uh-huh, and with long, pearl-stitched gloves,” I added, recalling a scene I'd snuck and read in one of Rose's excitement books in the back of her traveling trader next to the stack of girlie magazines and tonic cures.

“Will the baby grow up with two of everything?” Henny asked.

“
Two
.” I stretched my arm, wiggled an invisible glove over my rough, gum-stained hands. “And if it's a girl, the people will get her
two
Honey Girl slips . . . with Chantilly lace trim. Oh, and some soft nylons,” I said.

“
Girl!
” Laughing, Henny raised the hem of her stain-spotted dress, rocked a bare leg, and teased out a silky line from Margaret Whiting's “The Money Tree.” “‘
That beautiful, lovely, wonderful money tree
.' ” Henny whipped out an arm.

I hooked mine onto hers and we grabbed each other's waists, circled and sang.

Gunnar walked into the kitchen and slapped rubber gloves down onto the table.

“I wonder if they buy teenagers filled to the brim with sin,” he said.

W
hat had gotten into me? By the look on Gunnar's face, I may as well have been do-si-do'n on the kitchen floor with Satan.

Fire flicked my ears at the thought of him overhearing my talk about unmentionables.

“I best go catch up with Ma.” Henny colored, too, as she made to move past Gunnar.

“Not so quick,” Gunnar said, sidestepping to block her. “You'll want to take these, Miss Stump.” He picked up the rubber gloves. “Go ahead, take them with you.”

“But Henny's still on laundry duty at the creek because she's been green with the 'bacco sickness,” I protested. I knew Henny didn't like to work in the tobacco, and she was delicate and lately had gotten a touch of the greenies from the work. It didn't bother me much. But some folks said working tobacco was like smoking fifty cigarettes in one hour. And every time the dew was thick on the leaves, Henny claimed the moisture soaked her skin and made her head and belly hurt something awful.

Myself, I couldn't wear the gloves, any gloves. They sweated and chafed my hands, left 'em fiery hot and looking worse than the tar that stained them.

Henny took the gloves and nodded vigorously. “Yessir, I've been sick.”

Gunnar pointed to her arm, reddened and tracked with tiny bumps. “Your mother said this was the only thing ailing you. A plain old poison-ivy rash.”

Henny tucked her arm behind her back.

“You've been running my property lines with that Crockett boy,” Gunnar said, “when I have been paying you to do field work. Since that doesn't seem to have any effect on your health, tomorrow morning you'll begin clearing that plot your pa's buying from me. Seven o'clock sharp.”

“So, is Mr. Stump selling the new baby?” I blurted.

Gunnar jerked his head toward me. “You would do wise to keep a
GodPretty
soul when your
weak
mind is tempted to meddle in others' affairs.”

Henny clutched the new gloves, slinked past Gunnar. I heard her pounding down the porch steps.

Gunnar watched her from the front door. “That girl's got a mess of trouble on her tail. You'll not have her in the house anymore.”

I gasped. “But, Gunnar, she's my best friend—”

“She's trash. Keep
it
outside.”

I ran to the back porch. Henny was in a full run heading toward Stump Mountain. I stood there under the star-packed sky rubbing the panic pricking my flesh until I couldn't see her anymore.

When I came back in, Gunnar had gone off into the sitting room. I paused in the doorway and peeked in. He was talking to his wife, again. All five pounds of her. The weight of her ashes inside the hand-carved box he had sitting on the mantel, and I reckoned about the same weight as a bag of the Colonial sugar in the pantry. I'm sure he was souring Aunt Claire on his many, many disappointments in me.

I stepped back to go up to my room.

“RubyLyn,” Gunnar said without turning. “Coming up on August . . . Do you think the tobacco needs a dusting, or is it too soon?”

Surprised because he never much asked my opinion, I said, “Reckon it could. It's been sixteen days since I did the last poison. Rainey's been seeing more of the hornworms. And I saw flea beetles moving up the stalks the other day.”

“Why don't you oversee it.”

“Yessir.” I waited for any other instructions he might have, again surprised he wanted me to oversee anything.

“Those Stumps . . .” he began. “I've been helping them ever since I inherited this house. When it was just my folks' five acres. And I worked damn hard to buy up more land. Still do. But those Stumps”—he wagged a finger—“stopped working after the president came to Kentucky.”

A lot of things had
stopped
around here. Gunnar'd stopped taking care of the house, stopped painting the boards, and stopped fixing up things inside.

“The Stumps,” he said quietly, “will do better without an added mouth.” He worried a finger along the edge of the wooden box before running his palm over it, straightening it just so. “Time for bed.”

Upstairs, I pulled out the snakeskin purse and dug inside for Mama's fortune-teller to study my crayoned heart with its wiggly break struck through the center.
Why did I draw this when I was five? Maybe Henny was right . . . I'd been cursed with the Granny Magic. No . . . not true, dammit. . . . It was my art that would lead me out of this cursed town. And if that meant playing woo woo with the fortune-tellers, selling 'em and acting as matchmaker, I'd damn well continue.
... I bit the vow into my pillow.

 

I spent Friday alone in the tobacco field while Gunnar and Rainey drove over to the next county to look at a tractor. Henny still hadn't showed up in the fields. And on Saturday when Rainey hadn't made it over to the rows by seven, it looked like I might be working by myself again. I took the hoe to the vegetable garden, digging up weeds as fast as I could, then started over in the tobaccos, topping the flower heads.

It was eight thirty when Rainey finally showed up, whistling a tune, eyebrows reaching for the morning sun in an I've-stashed-a-secret sort of way. He put the catch bucket on the gathering table.

“Someone's in a light mood,” I fished.

“Mm-hmm.”

“And a little late,” I said. “Done made it to the third row while I was waiting for you. I didn't spy any hornworms.”

“And if you had?”

I grinned, happy to see him. We both knew I hated picking worms and fell into a puddle of wriggles if I had to touch one. It was the rules.
Our rules.
I'd easily toss out the field snakes Rainey was deathly afraid of, any snake, and he would pluck off the slimy green hornworms and throw them into the catch bucket for me. My daddy had lived with snakes and was never afraid of them. I guess that's why they didn't bother me much, and I could tell from the shape of the pupils and the coloring which snakes to take a hoe to and which to reach down for. Yet, I truly and fully despised touching the little hornworms.

“Did you see Henny in the backfield on your way over?” I asked.

Rainey looked over his shoulder toward Stump Mountain. “Sure did. What's that about?”

“Her daddy is buying a back acre with money he's supposed to get from some baby-buyers who live in the city.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Henny said he's going to sell Lena's baby. I didn't want to believe it, but there she is, clearing Royal land to make it Stump land.”

“Sell?” Rainey puzzled. “I thought I saw the midwife's truck going up Stump Mountain when I left this morning.
But hell . .
. selling a baby? Don't seem at all right.”

“Midwife?” I looked anxiously toward the mountain. “Oretta's up there now?”

“Sure 'nuff . . . Humph, it's hard to believe Gunnar'd sell them land, but then I suppose it's better than letting it go to seed.”

“They sure can use the food. Still, Gunnar's not talking and he's split me and Henny up. He got wind of her seeing Carter Crockett and decided he'd task her with setting her daddy's new plot. Likely be back there forever.”

“
Crockett
. Ma said the sheriff was over there yesterday.”

“That makes twice this week.” I frowned.

“She saw Sheriff drive by with Digit Crockett in the backseat this time. Said the boy looked pretty busted up.”

A garter snake slithered out of a row of tobacco to hunt and bask. Rainey startled and I stomped a foot to shoo it away. I knew snakes didn't hear like people, they felt their noise. I stomped twice more to scare it with the thumping. The creature flattened its head, forked a tongue, then took its sweet time to slide back into the plants.

“Those Crockett brothers are dumber than hornworms and just as slippery,” I said.

Everyone knew the Crocketts scrapped at any excuse, their porch railings and boards bloodstained, full of jars of shine and piss beer—the brawls teetering, just begging to spill out into the muddied yard, lick the mountains with drunken curses.

Anytime the law went out to pick one of them up on a warrant, the rest of the Crockett clan lazed on their stick-railed porch, stoking, rooting the family member on to prove his namesake, until the lawbreaker would sidle up to the sheriff or his deputy and murmur the obligatory poke, “Ain't nothing personal, Sheriff, but you know I'm gonna have to fight ya before I can let ya take me to the can.”

Rainey and I would slip over there and watch.

The sheriff might flip a coin with his deputy to see which one of them would roll up their sleeves. Other times, Sheriff would tease out the talk: stuffing himself a fat chaw of Red Man, fussing about not wanting to tear his clean britches, jawing on about the weather and such, or asking about each of the Crocketts—and how the rest of their kin were doing. Then Sheriff would wipe the tobacco spittle off his jaw, grin, and roll up his sleeves. The fistfight would be on while the rest of the Crocketts would sit back on the porch, hooting, sparking it further. After the scuffle, the offender would brag his injuries, surrender himself to the sheriff, and bid good-bye to his family.

“At least you don't have to worry about Cash anymore,” Rainey teased.

I blushed at that. Cash was the only Crockett kin to get his full learning. His teacher even tried to get him into a college when he finished high school two years ago, but Cash wouldn't go.

Cash got sweet on me when I turned thirteen and decided to come calling. Flattering, since most girls three-mountains-wide were hot after him, but Gunnar wouldn't have it, even though Cash tried to get his permission first. And after chasing Cash off the land three times, Gunnar'd had enough.

My uncle took the pellets out of a shotgun shell and repacked it with rock salt. Then when he caught Cash sneaking around the house, softly calling for me again, Gunnar took his gun after him. Cash was the faster runner, but not faster than the rock salt stinging his hiney.

After that, Cash took off to the city.

Rainey stared off and turned quiet. I needed to get him back to his whistle.

“So”—I gently bumped his shoulder—“are you going to tell me where you were? It's not like you to be late.”

His soft laurel-green eyes lit up and he reached inside his back pocket. Pulling out a long envelope, he tapped it across his hand. “Got my official greeting letter from the president. The postmistress had it waiting for me this morning, along with a package of catgut I'd ordered for my violin.”

“Oh . . . that's . . . What did Abby say?”

“Even Ma can't boss the president, and she doesn't know yet. But if I know her, and I do, she will sit down and write him back a letter, giving a dozen reasons why my black hide can't go.”

I nodded weakly, knowing Abby would.

“I'm outta here, RubyLyn. Ain't it swell? Says here I have to go get my army physical at the Nichols Army Hospital in Louisville. I can't wait.”

“That's just . . . swell, Rainey. Swell.” The cheer limped off my tongue.

“California, here I come.”

“California?”

“Uh-huh. Going to Fort Knox for my basic, then I'll get my special training at Fort Ord on the big Pacific Ocean. That's where I'll train for jungle combat.” He paused to study me.

“California's a far way from Nameless—Louisville—us,” I whispered.
Us
. I tinkered with feelings. It felt right—a lot like my parents and what I remembered from them. The time they'd kissed. Mama'd swooped me up into their hug, and said, “There's nothing meaner than a bad man, and nothing sweeter than a good one, snugbug. When one as fine as your daddy comes along, you best latch on to him and get all God's goodness.”

Even though I didn't understand most of it back then, I knew she thought my daddy was that fine one. And more and more I couldn't help thinking Rainey was mine. I suspected it long ago when he gave me the marriage promise. I felt it last winter when he brought hay bedding and milk for the gray barn cat's new litter, and I knew it every day in the long hours he worked, the strum of his violin, and the smile he saved for me. Now Rainey was off to other worlds that could only be seen inside Gunnar's old encyclopedias.

I glanced at Rainey, and said quietly, “I've read about other big towns. Even heard where a white woman and black man can hang together, where the black can shop with white folks, pray together, and even . . . marry and live together and stuff.” My face flushed.

“Hard to believe.” Rainey wrinkled his brow.

Hard to believe how big my feelings were growing for him. . . . Weren't no paper fortunes talking. It was my heart a'knockin' at something I didn't quite understand.

“Rose says it's true,” I said.

“She would know . . . Be nice not having folks fuss at you—be like living a fairy tale, I imagine.”

Then something else stirred. “Rainey, I've been hearing about all the foot soldiers coming home in coffins—the living ones missing legs, blind even—lots of bad stuff. You think about that?”

Rainey shook his head. “I think about getting away from Nameless more. Hell, girl, none of that stuff is gonna happen to me. They say they got bigger weapons and teach our soldiers how to fight even better now.”

The look on Rainey hadn't changed. He believed all of it.

He peeked over his shoulder, then leaned in. “We both know staying here is as good as being dead . . . I'll get a leave after two months, Roo. Going to spend it in Louisville. And I'll have me some good pay, too.”