The Day of Small Things (32 page)

“Well, Dor’thy,” I say, feeling somehow aggravated with poor, long-gone Luther, “it’s been a right smart of time and I believe I’ve been as good a Christian as most. But go on and finish telling me about these dreams. You say you been having them every night?”

She closes her eyes. “Every night I put off going to bed because I don’t want the dream. I been sitting up in the living room with the TV on, trying to stay awake, but every night, sooner or later I drop off—I can’t help it.

“And then I’m back in the dark place where Calven is laying so still and this black thing is coming for him. I try to holler or to run at the thing but I can’t move and I can’t make a sound. And then I wake up.”

“Dor’thy honey, have you—”

She looks at me and her eyes is wild. “Birdie, I have prayed and prayed. I have fallen asleep with a prayer on my lips and the Bible in my hands and still the dreams come. But the worst is that every night, in the dream, I am farther away from the boy and every night the black thing is closer to him. And in the dream I know—”

She is crying hard now and I say, “Hush, honey, it’s all right; you don’t need to talk about it.”

But she don’t pay me no mind. She is sobbing and choking but at last she says the words I had dreaded to hear.

“B-Birdie, last night it was leaning right over Calven, and its black hand or its claw, everwhat it was, was reaching down to the boy’s chest.” She grabs hold of my arm and she is wailing like a crazy woman now. “I know … I know as sure as I’m alive, if I have the dream tonight, that thing will reach in and pull out Calven’s heart.”

She looks around again and now her voice is naught but a whisper. “Birdie.” I can’t hardly make out the words but I see them on her lips.

“Birdie,” she says, “the creature means to eat it.”

(Birdie)

T
hey was a time when I had bad dreams … 
I
dreams of Old Spearfinger standing by my bed, and I would wake crying and shivering and crawl in bed with Granny Beck for her to hold me and comfort me with her soft words. But when I got to crying out in my sleep two and three times every night, Granny said that we must get rid of the bad dreams for once and all. That was when she showed me what the Cherokees called Going to Water.

And because I fear what will happen if Dorothy dreams that one last dream, I decide at last to break my promise to Luther.

I think I already knew I would, back at the Holiness Church when the Voice in the whirlwind told me that they is more than one way of knowing God and so, “Dor’thy,” I say, “let’s you and me drive down to the river. I believe that I can stop those dreams.”

“This here is something my granny did for me when I was little and had real bad dreams,” I tell Dorothy as we are driving along the dirt road that runs from the bridge back up to the burying place.

“It seems to me,” I say, trying to convince both of us that I am right in what I purpose to do, “it seems to me that if your prayers and your Bible ain’t helping against this Cherokee witch that has got into your dreams, then maybe a Cherokee spell will do the trick. Do you have a handkerchief or some such with you?”

She looks at me, kind of doubting, but I know that she is past arguing. “I have a bandana there in the glove compartment. A blue one.”

“That’ll do just fine,” I tell her. “Now here at this wide place in the road, you can pull over and park. The riverbank ain’t too growed up and it’s easy to get to the water long about here.”

She pulls over, cuts off the engine, and starts to get out but I say, “Now, Dor’thy, I’m trying to remember the words my granny said more than seventy years ago. So while I’m working this charm, I don’t want you to speak for fear I’ll get bumfuzzled and not be able to finish, do you understand?”

Dorothy is wide-eyed but she presses her lips tight together and nods, then reaches over and pulls a folded blue bandana out of the glove compartment. She offers it to me but I tell her to hold on to it. And so we make our way to the water, just as Granny and I did so many years ago.

Me and Granny couldn’t get all the way down to the river, though she said that it would have been better. It was hard enough for her to hobble out the back way and to the little branch that bordered the field back of the
house. But it had been a wet April and there was water enough.…

When we have reached the river’s edge and the water is lapping around the toes of our shoes I am happy to see that long-leggety gray bird is out there. He is most always somewhere on the rocks of the river and it wouldn’t seem natural not to see him.

“Now, Dor’thy,” I say, “you hold the bandana in your right hand and close your eyes. I’m going to dash some water over your head. When I’ve done it seven times, then you open your eyes and throw the bandana in the river. As it goes to float away, I’ll say the charm that’ll end the bad dreams.”

She nods and squinches her eyes shut. I lean on my stick and bend over to catch some water in the jelly jar I have brought for the purpose. It ain’t much but it is enough that Dorothy jumps when I pour it on her head and it dribbles down her face.

“No, leave it be.” I catch her hand as she is bringing the bandana to her face. “Let it work to wash away the bad memories and the fear the dreams has put into your mind.”

I wonder what Dorothy would think was I to tell her how the Injuns used to do this spell. If we did it the old way, she would take off every whipstitch of her clothes but her shirt and then she would wade out and dip herself all the way under seven times. Then she would take off the shirt and let it float away.

It makes me smile to picture what folks would think was someone to pass by and see two old women, one standing naked in the river. Even as we are, I’m just as glad don’t no one travel this way but very seldom.

By the time I have bent down and scooped water seven
times, my old back is about give out. But Dorothy’s head is streaming wet and on her face is a little smile like she is already feeling some calmer.

“Now, Dor’thy honey, open your eyes. Take that bandana and put all them bad dreams in it, wad it up, and throw it in the water.”

She does just like I say and, for a wonder, she ain’t let out a peep. I believe that this is the longest I have ever been around Dorothy without her saying something.

We stand there in the sunlight, watching the water take the bandana. The river is fast-running and the blue cloth is soon out of sight, heading for the bridge and on its way to Tennessee—if it don’t catch on something first.

The sparkle of the sun on the water blinds me and the steady
hurring
sound of the water busying along fills my ears. And as I let the river sounds run through my head, wiping out all that the years has put there, Granny Beck’s words come back to me.

“Oh
see yoh
, listen here, Brown Beaver and White Beaver,” I say, speaking strong and clear to the listening ones. “This is Dor’thy. Her soul has been released. Her soul is lifted up.”

The sound of the river catches my words and carries them along but not before I can hear that it is Granny Beck’s voice coming out of my mouth. Dorothy is standing stock-still, her face lifted to the sun and her eyes closed again. She has a look … I reckon you might could call it a look of abiding peace.

There are more words to the spell, and without even thinking on it, I open my mouth and they spill out.

“The soul has become changed. The soul has been lifted up. The evil is released.”

I know that it has. I have felt its going. But I say the
last part of the spell—or Granny Beck says it … I can’t tell no more.

“The soul has been changed. The soul, made pleasing, has been lifted up to the seventh world.”

When the last words are spoke, I lean on my stick and watch the river and the gray bird wading on his queer back-jointed legs, not wanting to break into whatever has put such a smile on Dorothy’s face.

Then all at once her eyes blink open. “What in the name of goodness—have I been asleep standing up?”

She gives a little shake and the water flies from her hair. She puts her hand up to it and feels of it. “Standing in the sun and sweating like a pig. Well, I never—but you were right, Birdie; a breath of fresh air was just what I needed. I feel just fine—there ain’t a bit of headache left.”

We drive back to the house and all the way she is chattering about how much better she feels and how she’s going to go home and do some cooking for she feels it in her bones that Calven is coming back soon.

“… one of those big chocolate pudding cakes. I can put it in the freezer and …”

Her chatter is like the sound of the river, running on and on. She has forgot all about the dreams and the spell.

I hope … I hope that it was the right thing for me to do.

As we get to the bridge and turn back onto Ridley Branch Road, I look across the river up to the old house at Gudger’s Stand, all abandoned now with its windows like blind eyes. I can pick out the one that was mine and remember how many a time I would lean out, longing to be gone from that evil place but held by my fear.

And then I hear the whistle of a train and the rumble and the rattle drawing near and I look away. There is so many things I wish that I could forget—but there ain’t no one to take me to water and wash away my sins.

When I call Dorothy the next morning to ask has she heard anything from Calven, she says no. But I can tell by the sound of her voice that she is feeling a world better and I ask her how she slept.

“Oh, Birdie,” says she. “You know I always sleep good—my head hits the pillow and I’m out like a light. Why, I sleep so hard I don’t even dream.”

(Calven)

T
he mark was a middle-aged man in khaki trousers and a pink knit shirt. They had watched him at the ATM machine and they were watching him now as he checked his watch and looked up and down the street. From the van’s passenger seat, Calven studied him, waiting for Pook’s directions.

“So, Good Boy, reckon why we’re goin’ after this one?”

Pook was lounging on the back seat, one arm draped around Calven’s mother, who was adding a fresh layer of deep red lipstick to her mouth. Oversized sunglasses hid most of the black eye, and heavy makeup covered the rest of the bruising. Her hands were shaking and she didn’t look up from the small mirror she was holding. Pook turned toward Calven, awaiting an answer.

“Well, we just saw him get a whole wad of money. And we saw him stick it in his left front pocket—not his wallet. Plus them pants he’s got on—they got them loose pockets, easier to work than jeans.”