Mare's War (5 page)

Toby better not come in this room.

Then the door swings open, and even I am not ready. I scream. I scream long and loud like a baby, like Feen, and then Feen’s screaming, too, and crying for Mama.

“Shut up! Shut up that damned noise,” Toby growls,
launching himself across the room at me. He smacks me in the mouth before I can get my hand up. Feen hasn’t stopped screaming, but I have. I tighten my hands on the hatchet.

“Get on out of here, you no-’count man. I’ll call Mama. I will!”

“Your mama’s asleep, and she ain’t got no time for this nonsense. Y’all better hush up and stop acting like little children. I just want to visit with you, is all.”

Toby backs toward the doorway, still trying to keep his voice down. He looks over his shoulder, toward Mama’s room. He’s thinking about her. He’s still scared. I still got time. Toby ain’t nothing but a low-down confidence man from Mississippi. Sister Dials say she seen his kind before.

“Get out!” I raise the hatchet, and when he sees it, a little sly smile come to his face. An ugly laugh come out his mouth, and weasel quick, he moves. He swings, and his big fist catches me from the side. Pain explodes in my rib cage, and I slam to the floor, a glimpse of Feen’s frightened eyes as I land. Instinctively, I roll, stagger to my feet. My knees are shaking, and the hatchet has slipped from my fingers. I can feel it with my foot, but I don’t dare take my eyes off Toby to pick it up. I’m still like a jackrabbit when a hawk flies over.

“Just tryin’ to visit with you, and you get all uppity like you something special. I got a man’s rights up in this house. Your mama
my
woman, and you girls is
my
girls. Keep snivelin’ around like I ain’t good enough to talk to”—he closes the door behind him—“and I aim to teach you better. Feen? Get out from under that bed.”

Now, I know I don’t have to tell Feen to stay put. Her squallin’ is so loud she can’t even hear him. She moanin’ to Jesus, to Mama, to somebody to save us. What I know is this: God will surely help you, but you also got to help your own self. I put my foot on that hatchet again.

“Now, Josephine, I ain’t mad. Get on out from under that bed and let your uncle Toby see you.” He’s talkin’ sweet now, smiling that sly smile again, and I watch him lick his lips. He thinks Feen is his already. He’s got another thought coming.

“Josephine, girl, get out from under that bed! Don’t make me come and
get
you out.”

I push the hatchet back some, behind me now. Toby should leave while he still got his life.

“Don’t you move,” Toby snarls at me, grabbing my chin. He shoves me back, then makes to bend down and get under the bed. “Jose
phine
!”

Mama said take care of Feen.

I grab for the hatchet and come up swinging.

“Aww!”
Toby roars like a bull and twists, trying to reach his back. Dark blood stains his shirt. I pull on the hatchet, lift it again. Toby backhands me, clutching his side, and I fall against the door. I swing the hatchet as he comes for me again, but he grabs it, twisting my arm. I won’t give it up.

“Get out! Get
out!”

Feen is screaming, and I feel the bones in my arm grate. I know I have lost as Toby bends my arm up behind my back. He is pinning me against the wall; the honed blade of the hatchet has cut us both now and is slick with blood. I know he will hurt me bad.

“Run, Feen!” I scream, pain making my ears ring. My eyes are going dim, and Toby has his shoulder against my throat. I hear my heart pounding in my ears, and then Toby gives a hard jerk, and he has the hatchet. He pounds my head against the wall and I feel myself going under.

“Mamaaaaaaa! He’s killing her! He’s killing her!”

Toby’s hands are hurting me, and then I hear a sound louder than thunder.

Boom!
And that’s all I can remember.

There was blood on the floor, blood on my coat, blood on my hands, and smoke in the air. Mama had fired the shotgun, and a smoking hole gapes in the wall above our heads. Feen told me later Mama thought I was dead. When I can finally hear something, Toby is on his knees, begging Mama not to put him out. He say we all just misunderstanding him. Feen’s still cryin’ when the folks from the farm across the field bust in. They heard the shot, and knowing Mama is a woman alone, they came on a hustle.

Nobody believe his sob story, so they run Toby off. Don’t nobody bother with the sheriff; the sheriff don’t care what the coloreds get up to on their own ’less one of ’em look at a white girl wrong—
then
there will be trouble.

I can’t get up, and I can’t stop squealin’ every time somebody try to touch me. My shoulder hurt so bad it feels like I’m burned. Mama don’t call out no doctor; she looks me over and the neighbors help wrap up my hands. Toby didn’t break my arm, but he twisted it out my socket so bad, makes me
wish he had. Mama wraps her hands around my arm, puts her foot on my chest, and pulls. The neighbors help hold me down. It hurts so bad I can’t even scream—and then it goes—a grinding, sick-making
pop
. I lay there and shake like I caught a chill.

I almost had him. I almost had him with my hatchet. He messed up my arm, but I am not dead, and neither is Feen.

Mama said to take care of my sister. I did all right.

We did all right, Feen and me.

It is a week past before I realize Mama ain’t said nothing to me. She don’t ask me what happened that night; she don’t say a word. I want to tell her how it was, hear her tell me she sorry, so I stop one night before I go to Young’s. Mama sitting in her chair, sewing like always.

“Mama,” I say, “you know Toby—”

“Hush,” Mama says. “Don’t want to hear nothing about it.”

“But Ma—” Something about the way she hold her mouth when she look at me says to let it go, so I do. But now she look at me like she don’t even see me. I am at the bus stop before I realize she didn’t even tell me to “watch yourself” when I left.

Feen, Mama, and me go on like we done before, only Feen stands up a little straighter, and Mama’s face is hard, hard with pride. The gossips in Bay Slough have their day, but they know better than to say nothing to me, and nobody want to start mess with Mama looking like she gonna come out swingin’. Toby come back one day for his things, one day
when Feen at school and me at Miss Ida’s. I ain’t said nothing to Feen, but I think Mama let him in. Mama still don’t have nothing to say to me.

I wish she would just talk to me.

That’s all right. I keep my hatchet nice and sharp. I nick my finger on it every night, just to check. Mr. Toby might come back this way, but I aim to be prepared.

Thanksgiving Day, Mama butchers two hogs and gets the smokehouse ready for making sausages for Christmas. At Young’s, talk is buzzing about the War Commission. Seems the newspaper say folks has got to work or fight. Since Uncle Sam is offering work, even colored folks are saying maybe they will join up now with the United States Navy, try to get out of this little no-’count town and get a little money now.

President Roosevelt says everybody need to help, and Feen tell me a lady from the women’s army come talk at her school. I wonder if Beatrice Payne still want to get herself off to Daytona, but I don’t give it too much thought. If Feen and me’s gonna get up outta here when she done with school, I need to find us more money. I got to get more work. Maybe Mr. Young give me more if Samuel joins up with the service. Lord knows I can’t expect nothing more from Miss Ida but words.

But after St. Valentine’s Day, Mama gets a letter from one of her people and say Feen should pack up her things. Seems Auntie Shirley in Philadelphia lost a baby, and she got that woman’s grievin’ so bad folks are worried for her. Mama’s putting
Feen on the train to help her out and go to school there till Auntie Shirley is feeling all right. Now, I know ain’t nothing wrong with Aunt Shirley that no little girl can fix, but Mama said go, so Feen going on to get packed.

I could be of more help to Aunt Shirley than little old Feen, but Mama don’t even ask me to go. She can’t spare the wages I bring to keep up the farm. But she don’t say nothing to me. She just takes out the old cardboard suitcase Miss Ida gave her and makes sure Feen got clean stockings. I don’t know what to say. Hasn’t Mama been telling me all my life to watch after Feen? What am I supposed to do now?

What are me and Mama gonna do, rattling around this house like peas, without Feen there, talking her little talk about school and what so-and-so in her class said? Me and Mama don’t got nothing to talk about, and that “nothing” has got two arms, two legs, and a name. Toby.

“Marey Lee,” Feen whisper the night before she go. “You still gonna come get me when you get your place? Mama say I got to stay with Aunt Shirley till I get out of school. You won’t forget, huh? You promise you gonna come get me?”

“Girl, don’t bother me,” I say, putting my arm around her and squeezing her good. “You know I will.” But I got a bad feeling. Mama say Feen going to have opportunities in Philadelphia, maybe meet some city folk and find herself a
good
job. She says Feen has got to go while she’s still in school, still young enough to learn—which Mama don’t think I am, me being almost seventeen and hardheaded at that. Feen ain’t gonna need no one to come after her once
she gets up out of Bay Slough, but I don’t aim to tell her that. And anyway, I know why Mama sent Feen off.

Sister Dials come by last week to tell me she’s seen Toby back in town.

“I’ll write to you when I get there so you’ll have my address. You write back, hear?” Feen say at the station. “Don’t forget me, Marey Lee.”

“Don’t you worry about me, girl,” I tell her. “I’ll see you before you know it.”

Mama cries and carries on a little when Feen gets on the train, but I already done my crying. Once Feen walks up those stairs, I tuck my heart up tight against my ribs and put it on ice. I ain’t got time for cryin’. My sister, Josephine, was holding me back, but soon as she’s gone, I got nothin’ to hold me in Bay Slough, Alabama, no more. Nothing.

Mama been saying for me to “watch yourself,” and I am finished up with watching, biding my time, and waiting. Don’t nobody need me at home no more. It is time for this girl to go.

My hands are shaking when I take the examination down at the post office. I show I can read, and I can write fine. I know I ain’t hardly no twenty years old, but it is easy to slide a lie past the folks who don’t know my mama wouldn’t sign no permission letter. Probably lots of girls do it. Almost seventeen ain’t much different than twenty anyhow.

In a day or two, I have my bus ticket. I pack my few things in a bag and I go see Miss Ida, like usual. I put on my apron. I
whip up the mayonnaise; I cut the crusts off the white bread sandwiches Miss Ida wants for her ladies’ club. I lay out the plates. I press out the napkins; I polish up the silver napkin rings and the big coffee service. It all looks real fine when I set out the white candles, and Miss Ida is some pleased.

One by one, the ladies come. They get to eating and talking and playing them cards. I serve and clear away, and then I clean. Afterward, Miss Ida tell me to help myself to the leftovers. I wrap up the silver, careful like I always do, and nod like I’m grateful.

Tonight, I am gone.

Sister Dials’s eyes get wide when I walk up to her door with my letter. She told me the truth about Toby, so I know I can trust her to do this, even though I also know she’s going to gossip ’bout it soon as she got time.

Back home, I fold up my few things in a flour sack and tuck it up under my arm.

I am ready.

Sister Dials said she hope I know what I am doing.

Lord have mercy, so do I.