Mama Stalks the Past (5 page)

“He knows how to spend money,” I retorted. “I bet that whatever money he’ll get from the insurance will be gone in six months.”

“Sooner,” Mama murmured, turning to look back out the window. Then her body stiffened and she said urgently, “Come here!”

I joined her at the window. From across the street, a man walked casually, stepping toward the front door of the white-and-green Mixon house. But the man didn’t ring the bell. Instead, he waited. Then, after a minute, he reached out, twisted the knob. The door opened. The man stood motionless. Then, without going inside, he closed the door, turned, and walked quickly away from the house, down Smalls Lane.

I touched Mama’s arm. “Who was that?”

“Moody Hamilton,” Mama answered.

“Who?”

“Moody’s people are from around Pleasant Hill, near Darien. He was raised by his grandmother, who died last fall.”

“Is he like Nat?” I asked.

Mama shook her head, knowing instantly what I meant. “Moody is not known for trouble. As a matter of fact, people say he’s got a soft heart, kind and gentle.”

“What’s he doing at Nat’s house?”

“Looking for Nat, I guess.”

I rolled my eyes. “I bet Nat owes him money and he’s wanting to collect, poor feller.”

Mama frowned. Her golden-brown complexion took on a darker hue. “I’m not worried about
Moody,” she told me. “It’s Nat that concerns me.… It’s not smart for him to leave his front door open like that!”

“I kind of thought that Moody was going inside.”

“I don’t know why he didn’t. Nat’s home.” Mama pointed. “See, he’s in the kitchen near the stove.” She shook her head, then picked up the phone and dialed. “Nat,” she said, once it was answered. “This is Miss Candi.… Listen, I just saw Moody Hamilton at your door.… Well, it’s a good idea to keep your front door locked. He started to walk right in.… You’re right, I’m not your mother.”

Mama replaced the receiver.

I burst out laughing. “I know you didn’t expect thanks for that call, did you?”

Mama smiled. But the expression in her eyes remained thoughtful. “At least we know we won’t have a problem
getting
into his house tonight.”

For the next half hour, as Mama and I cleaned the kitchen, I found myself looking toward the Mixon house time and time again. When the telephone rang, I answered because I was nearest to it. “Okay,” I said, putting my hand over the receiver and turning to Mama, who had just put the last cup into the dishwasher. “It’s Daddy’s cousin Agatha,” I told her.

Mama took a deep breath, then reached for the receiver. “Agatha, how are you?… Uncle Chester? No, James isn’t at home. Now? Okay, Simone and I will be right over.”

“What’s that all about?” I asked, when she’d hung up.

“Uncle Chester is having a hissy fit,” Mama said. She looked annoyed.

“Why?”

“Josiah Covington, your great-grandfather, owned over a thousand acres of land. When he died, his will left that land jointly to his twelve children. These twelve children could either farm the land, cut the timber and share the money from it, or even build a house on it, but they couldn’t sell it, according to Josiah’s will. Your daddy’s father, Samuel Covington, was the first of those twelve children to die. And Uncle Chester is the last of those twelve children living. Your father, Agatha, Gertrude, and Fred Covington are the next generation of over one hundred heirs of those twelve children who are now scattered all over the country. Cousin Agatha is worried.”

I was trying to sort out the tangled Covington family tree. “Why?”

“She’s scared that once Uncle Chester dies, the land will be cut up and sold. So she has talked to Calvin Stokes to find out the best way
to keep that from happening. Calvin suggested that the Covington Land Company be formed and that it be incorporated, and a Trustee be appointed. The Trustee would take care of paying the taxes, cutting the timber, and—”

“Cousin Agatha might be jumping the gun,” I said.

“A couple of months ago there was a big dispute over heirs’ property in Stewart County. Things were so bad that sisters and brothers wouldn’t even sit together at their mother’s funeral. Cousin Agatha doesn’t want that kind of thing tearing our family apart when Uncle Chester dies. She doesn’t want the land sold or lost for taxes either.”

“The Covington family would never fight over property,” I declared.

Mama’s lips pursed. “Don’t be so sure. James’s cousin Fred, your second cousin, has been saying things that hint that as soon as Uncle Chester dies, he’s going to insist that the land be cut up and sold.”

“Why wait until Uncle Chester dies?”

Mama explained patiently. “Because Uncle Chester is the last of Josiah’s original children. As long as he lives, those thousand acres are in his hands. Fred knows that Uncle Chester can’t allow the land to be sold. That is why Agatha is trying to get Uncle Chester to give her power of
attorney so she can form the land company and incorporate it
before
Chester dies.”

“So what’s the hang-up?”

“Uncle Chester will have none of it.” Mama laughed. “Agatha just told me Uncle Chester hasn’t eaten anything in two days. Swears he’s not going to eat another mouthful until she forgets about getting him to sign the power of attorney papers.”

“Tell Cousin Agatha to pretend that she’s forgotten about the papers until Uncle Chester has eaten.”

“Agatha tried that. But Uncle Chester doesn’t trust her. He insists that she gives him those papers so that he can tear them up himself. He thinks that will be the end of it. And he can be a stubborn old man when he wants to be.”

“Why doesn’t Cousin Agatha call Cousin Gertrude? After all, Gertrude works at the hospital—she should know how to handle old people.”

Mama shook her head and didn’t reply. I could see that the possibility of yet another unpleasant squabble over land worried her. The one with Nat Mixon was surely unpleasant enough.

I took a deep breath. “Mama, to be honest, I’m really not in the mood for Uncle Chester right now,” I said, thinking of how much I wanted to be with Cliff.

Mama frowned. “Agatha needs help. Your daddy’s uncle can be a handful!”

I waved my hands submissively. Mama had that look that told me it was useless to argue with her; she had already made up her mind. We were going out in the country to help Cousin Agatha get something into my obstinate great-uncle’s stomach before he starved himself to death in order to get his way. “Okay,” I relented. “Let me just change my clothes. I’d feel better force-feeding Uncle Chester dressed in a jogging outfit rather than this suit.”

A smile creased Mama’s face as if a thought just occurred to her. “Maybe he’ll eat some of my lamb stew,” she said.

D
addy’s cousin Agatha and her father Uncle Chester live in Nixville near the Cypress Creek Cemetery. To get to their house, you have to drive through a hollow, a long, dark, low area with cypress, gum, and pine trees hanging over the road. There is always a dense fog in Nixville, and I can always smell rotten vegetation no matter what the weather.

It was dusk when we left Otis. Thirty minutes later, we arrived at Uncle Chester’s house. The full moon stood watching over the barren soybean fields like a giant orange pumpkin. A brilliant sea of white stars flashed in the sky, blinking down through the darkness.

Uncle Chester’s house is a small wooden
frame building with four rooms. Still, it has character. It’s surrounded by a virgin forest of pines that is filled with squirrels, deer, and foxes. The house has been patched for over fifty years and not one piece of new lumber had ever been placed on it. As we drove up in the front yard, the shadow of some large animal streaked past the car. Involuntarily, I gasped. “What was that?” I asked Mama.

“I didn’t see anything,” she said, turning off the engine and opening her door. She scooped up the bowl of lamb stew she’d brought.

“Now I know why I live in Atlanta,” I grumbled. “The wildlife there moves on two legs.”

Mama laughed as I followed her up the sagging wooden steps, onto the front porch, and into the house.

Uncle Chester’s front room has a potbellied woodstove. Tonight the stove was brimming with oak wood. A kettle of water was boiling furiously on it. The whole place smelled like warm castor oil. In one corner, a large electric heater glowed.

Uncle Chester, gap-toothed, with hair sprouting from his ears, slumped in a recliner, wrapped up in a homemade quilt. Somebody had cut off a woman’s stocking, tied a knot on its top, and pulled it down on his head like a bizarre cap. His eyes were deeply sunken in their sockets, his complexion a leathery mahogany with folds of
skin hanging loosely under his chin and ears. He looked a hundred years old. Maybe older.

Cousin Agatha rushed forward to greet us. My second cousin is an extremely tall, extremely thin woman. Her hair is white as snow and her complexion is the color of overripe bananas full of brown spots. She always covers her mouth shyly with her hand whenever she speaks. But Cousin Agatha’s timid appearance is deceiving: Agatha is extremely smart, good with figures, and handles all the Covington family’s property with the canny astuteness of a business major. Agatha is the oldest daughter of Uncle Chester’s first wife: He’s buried three. Cousin Agatha never married, and as far as I know, never aspired to. She seemed to enjoy staying home, keeping house, taking care of her father and the heirs’ property, property that has been in our family since Reconstruction.

Uncle Chester never appreciated her, has indeed always taken his daughter for granted, but it doesn’t bother Cousin Agatha. The rest of the family isn’t so naive, however. We know that if it hadn’t been for Cousin Agatha, Uncle Chester would have been dead a long time ago and the family’s property would have been sold for the taxes a dozen times over.

Within minutes of our arrival, the odor of castor oil was supplanted by the scent of Mama’s
lamb stew. Needless to say, I was glad. I could stop taking deep breaths and holding them.

It took Uncle Chester a while to smell the difference, however. “What you got there?” he demanded shrilly when his nose finally detected the stew above the pungent castor oil and medicines.

Mama looked as if she didn’t know what he was talking about. “Where?” she asked innocently.

He pointed a very long bony finger. “What you got on top that stove?”

“Nothing,” Mama replied.

A coughing sound came from somewhere deep inside Uncle Chester’s sunken chest. “ ‘Tis something,” he finally said when it cleared. He tucked his pointing finger underneath the quilt. “Don’t play crazy with me, Grace Covington!”

I unsuccessfully stifled a giggle.

“That’s lamb stew,” Mama told him.

“Fresh?” he asked suspiciously.

“Made it this afternoon.”

“What James said about it?” Uncle Chester demanded.

Mama shrugged her shoulders. “James ain’t had it yet.”

“Might be poison,” Uncle Chester grumbled.

Mama’s eyebrow shot upward. “When did you ever know me to cook up poison?”

“I hear tell there somebody poisoning people around your place,” Uncle Chester insisted. His beady dark eyes were malicious. “Times has changed,” he snapped. “In my day, a person want to kill another person, he knocked him on the head.”

“People still get knocked in the head.”

“You know what the Bible says, you reap what you sow,” Uncle Chester declared.

“Yes.”

“People ought to live right if they want to die right.”

“I agree.”

“It ain’t right to profit from somebody else’s killing. Lord remembers them kind of things when it’s time to die!”

“You’re right,” Mama told him cheerfully.

Uncle Chester sat up in his chair, his eyes glued on the potbellied stove. “You ain’t poisoned that there stew, now have you, Candi Covington?”

Mama shook her head. “What kind of poison would I put into my food?”

Uncle Chester’s gleaming dark eyes narrowed. “What I know, poison is poison.” He glared at Mama.

“Well, you ain’t got to worry about me poisoning you,” Mama said, crossing her arms under
her breast. “ ’Cause you ain’t going to eat my stew, now are you?”

Uncle Chester took the challenge. “Who said I ain’t?” he demanded angrily.

Mama unfolded her arms, pointed at Cousin Agatha, who had seated herself silently in the corner closest to the heater. “Agatha told me that you said you ain’t up for eating until—”

“Don’t pay no attention to Agatha,” Uncle Chester interrupted obstinately. “I ain’t never paid no attention to her, now have I?” he said triumphantly.

I burst out laughing, then hastily tried to muffle it. Uncle Chester glared at me. “What’s ailing you?” he shrilled.

“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all!”

He turned back to Mama. “Let me taste what you’ve got in that pot,” he ordered. “See what you done put together for stew!”

Cousin Agatha got up, silently went into the next room, and came back with a blue bowl and a spoon. She ladled the stew into the bowl and handed the bowl to Mama. In less than ten minutes Mama had fed Uncle Chester every spoonful.

When he’d finished, he leaned back in his chair, still tucked warmly in his quilt. “Bring me more,” he commanded.

Mama smiled. “Ill fix a pot especially for you and bring it later in the week,” she promised.

Cousin Agatha smiled and nodded, too. But I doubted Uncle Chester saw her. He was snoring soundly.