The Ghosts of Varner Creek (6 page)

"Huh?" asked Mama. "Oh, no, Miss Thomas, I'm just fine. Happy as a clam after seeing Sarah have such a perfect birthday. I can't thank you enough for coming and for the book. I'm sure she's just going to love it."

"Well, I know it's difficult sometimes, Annie. But God made your child just as loving and pure as she can be.” Mama didn’t respond but Miss Thomas knew something was eating at her. She was thinking that maybe Sarah's condition was weighing on Mama lately, and in times of need Miss Thomas relied on the scriptures. “'Blessed are the pure of heart, for they will see God'. —Matthew five:eight',” she told Mama. Miss Thomas had an arsenal of her favorite verses memorized and she was quick to whip one out for appropriate occasions, “And she's blessed to have a mother like you, Annie. You're doing very well by her."

Mama paused a bit and looked in Miss Thomas' sturdy eyes with her own frail hazel ones. She had her left pinky between her teeth working on it a bit. She still didn't say anything, though.

"What is it, Annie?"

"Nothing. I'm just wondering if I have done right."

Miss Thomas gave her a little hug, "Well of course you have, child. You've done as well as anybody could ask of you. The Lord has given you burdens, to be sure, but He wouldn't give you more than He thought you could bear, Annie."

She had hoped her words would have a cheering effect on Mama, but instead Mama said something that took the cheery wind right out of Miss Thomas' sails, "And what happens when the devil throws his lot in on top of what the good Lord done give me?" There weren't any tears in her eyes but there was something deep and painful in them that really struck a chord with Miss Thomas. "What do you do then?"

Miss Thomas paused and thought a moment. Uncle Colby and Aunt Emma were waiting for her and this wasn't the chance she'd have to try to get my Mama to open up some more. "Then that person must ask Him to help them bear it, Annie. Isaiah forty-one:ten, ‘Fear thou not; for I am with thee. Be not dismayed; for I am thy God. I will strengthen thee. Yea, I will help thee. Yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.’” That was just the right one, I’m sure Miss Thomas was thinking to herself, “Whatever shadows or storms come, Annie, they pass. Just be strong like you have been and you'll weather them."

Mama kind of nodded in feigned agreement. "I know. Thank you again, Miss Thomas. I'll see you Sunday at church."

"We'll talk some more then if you feel like it, okay?"

"Of course, Miss Thomas. I'll see you later." She gave Miss Thomas a hug as the lady in blue climbed in the wagon and they headed down the road.

I helped Mama clear the dishes and Pap dismantled the makeshift table. Sarah followed Mama and me around modeling her princess dress and casting spells with, what she had chosen for the moment to be, her magic wand. She wanted Mama to read to her from her new book and was trying to enchant the dishes clean so Mama would hurry up and finish them. Mama seemed to be moving at a snail's pace, though. Her expression was distant and she moved as though somebody else was directing her around on hidden strings.

Eventually, the house was put straight again and Sarah and I climbed in our beds while Mama read us a bit from
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
. Mama was on
Chapter two, The Pool of Tears
, and she read: "Dear, dear! How queer everything is today! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling differently . . ." but Mama’s words trailed off. It seemed that for some reason she had been struck suddenly dumb. Her hands were trembling as she held the book. I couldn't see her features very well in the lamplight since her head was lowered towards the pages, but she almost looked like she was crying. I was going to say something, but before I had the chance she closed the book and said hastily, "We'll read more tomorrow. It's late and Mama's tired, now." Then she stood up, still keeping her head lowered a bit, and left the room with the lamp.

Had it not been for the all the food I had eaten that afternoon, I might have been alert enough to ponder if something was terribly wrong with Mama and follow after her. I might have had the sense to ask her before she left the room if everything was okay. I might have done something other than just fall asleep. But as it was, I was exhausted and barely awake when she left our room that night, so such things were only a passing thought that quickly faded in my tiredness. I rolled over, comfy under my quilt. Sarah, too, seemed tired from the day. She hadn't let Mama take the dress off of her earlier so she went to sleep wearing her princess outfit. She held her cedar castle close in her hands, its sweet smell permeating the room as she dozed off. Before I knew it, I was asleep, too. I always remembered what a great day she’d had before we went to bed that night. It was one of the few things that gave me comfort. At least she’d had a perfect birthday.

The next morning I awoke to the sound of a strange silence in the house. I was used to either hearing Sarah's heavy breathing in her bed near mine or else her high pitched voice bouncing off the walls of the kitchen, but this morning there was neither. I went into the kitchen and Pap was there with a glass of whiskey in his hand. Normally he didn't drink before going to work, just a lot when he got home, and there was a very unusual expression on his face. I didn't know what kind of emotion it was that put that expression on his face, but I knew it was something I hadn't seen before. He hadn't even looked at me when I walked in the kitchen and looked around. There was no breakfast on the small table, no fire in the oven, no Mama telling me to sit down and eat, and no Sarah. There was just Pap with that new expression and glass of whiskey. Seconds passed and he still didn’t say anything or make any facial change, so I did the obvious and asked, "Where's Mama and Sarah?"

He put the glass to his lips, swished around a mouthful of lightning like it was mouthwash before swallowing it down and then said, "Your Mama done left us, boy. She done took your sister and they’re gone."

Chapter 4

There was a lot of back history about my parents I never could have known in those days. When I got older, my uncle Marcus told me quite a bit, as did Aunt Emma and others, and eventually I was able to put together much of the past that ended up having such an impact on my future.

Annie Stotley was one of four children born to Tom and Mary Stotley on April 4, 1881. They lived in a three-room house Mr. Stotley had built in the new town of Varner Creek. Like so many others in town, Tom Stotley was primarily a cotton farmer, or to be more accurate he worked as a farm hand for Mr. Wilkins, the actual land owner who had purchased hundreds of acres from Pritchard Varner's estate. There were some sharecroppers, too, who simply leased land from Mr. Wilkins for their own crop and then paid him from their individual profits, but others like Tom felt that wage earning was a more stable income. Mr. Wilkins had cattle and other crops that could offset the loss if the cotton harvest had a bad year, so Tom was content to stay in the service of his employer. Besides, Mr. Wilkins was a fair man. When he did well, so did his employees. And when things were tough he and his workers could rally around one another. Everyone pulled their belts a notch tighter, and in that way nobody was ever left to starve. It was the same with other land owners in the area and it made for a very close-knit community back in those days. It was Mr. Wilkins' son, in fact, who at the time was at the state medical school in Galveston, who later become the town‘s first doctor.

Mrs. Stotley was a woman between two worlds. She had grown up a fire and brimstone Protestant, raised by Bible-thumper parents, named for the preachers who would pound upon their Bible as they rained down sermons of punishment and vengeance. She’d been taught that God is not a forgiving deity, but rather should be feared always and obeyed without question lest He punish those who stray. But when she married Tom and they moved away she found most everyone around her didn’t follow the fire and brimstone way of thinking, and she never seemed to quite know what to think of people who thought God was so forgiving.

The Stotley's small home sat just a mile or so outside of town on land they made payments on to Mr. Wilkins. They had four children, their oldest being a boy and then three girls, my Mama being the second youngest child. When their son Marcus was old enough Tom and Mary had him join his father working in the fields. Like his father he was quiet and reserved, but a hard worker. And when harvest time came around the entire family would put on their work clothes, which was everything except their Sunday clothes, and labor out in the fickle Fall weather picking the tufts of cotton out of the dry and prickly plants. It was mostly during the harvest time that Mr. Wilkins would pick up extra farm hands to help bring in the cotton. It was in this way that Annie Stotley ended up meeting Abram Mayfield.

He wasn't from Varner Creek. He was in his early twenties and walked into town one day with a couple of other buddies, Uncle Colby included, looking for work. It was the harvesting season of 1895 and there was work to be had so the boys were in luck. His boots were old and worn from walking and his clothes dirty and full of holes. His walking companions were just the same and they were a rowdy bunch from the start. Mr. Wilkins hired them none the less and offered them thirty-five cents a day with three meals regular and a work house that they could rent by having some of their pay withheld. It was basically a one room shack that had a wood burning stove next to a few other shacks that shared an outhouse. It was set up just like the old slave rows, but since there weren’t any slaves anymore, everyone just called it worker's row. As soon as they got their first pay the boys bought the cheap liquor called white lightning that was sold in town and stayed up late drinking, playing cards, and trying to find a tune with a harmonica and a fiddle that only had two strings left, not to mention a big chunk missing out of the back.

Abram noticed Annie Stotley his first week working. She was a pretty, petite girl of only fourteen with bright hazel eyes and long black hair that was as dark as midnight. Everyone was picking the cotton and she was hauling the water bucket around one day offering people a drink. When she got to him he gave her a charming smile and tried to strike up a conversation. "Hey, how’re you?"

"I'm all right. Hot out here today, though," she responded. The weather had gone from a cool morning to a cooking afternoon again, as Texas weather has a nasty tendency to do.

"Damn sure is." He dipped the communal ladle, took a deep drink, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. He was a tall young man, about six foot, with brown hair and brown eyes. He had a somewhat nice smile but his lips were thin and his teeth were yellowed from too much chaw. Annie hadn't had a grown man smile at her like he was just now. She wasn't sure what was different about it but it made her feel a bit awkward and she felt flush on top of the heat. "Don't go too far, now," he told her, "I might want yah to come back pretty soon." He gave her a flirty wink, "Might want some more water, too."

She smiled back at him, more out of habit than anything else, "Um, okay. Bye."

As she went off to the others working in the field Abram whispered to one of his housemates standing next to him, "She’s a bit of a stick, but I bet she’d be a good roll in the hay, don’t yah think?" His friend Colby glanced up briefly at the girl Abram pointed at and went back to work without saying anything.

And so it went on like that during the rest of the harvest. He'd find her in the fields and manage his way close by while they both walked down the rows stuffing their bags full, or sometimes her father would ask her to go fetch the bucket and get everyone some water, and Abram would always make her wait those few extra seconds so he could flirt a little and look her over. Finally he worked up the nerve to let her know what was on his mind. "You sure are pretty. What's your name?"

She pushed her hair back over her ear and looked around like he had just said something that might cause an uproar. "Annie.” She looked around a bit more and seemed content nobody was paying them much mind. “Annie Stotley. What's yours?"

"I'm Abram." He watched her gaze dart around. "How come you look so scared all of a sudden? I just ask your name."

She kept her voice low, "I don't think my Mama would approve of us talkin'. She awfully strict about things like that," she said nervously.

"And how’re we talking that's so bad?" he asked. "Nothing but telling our names and me just making a polite compliment. That's nothin' to get worked up over, now is it?"

She watched her shoe and kicked around a dirt clod. "I reckon not, but like I said, she’s awfully strict."

While they had been talking, Mrs. Stotley noticed her daughter taking far too long with one of the workmen some ways off. She didn't much like the looks of their conversation, either. She yelled out to her, "Annie! Go on and finish up and then come help me with this row."

Abram was still giving her his most charming of smiles. "I gotta go," she said. "That's my Mama."

"All right, then." She turned to go and he said quickly, "Maybe we could meet up some time and talk some more."

She paused. "I don't think I'd be allowed." She walked off but turned around again before she was too far away to be heard, and in a hushed voice called out, "Harvest festival’s coming up, though. We could talk then." She wasn't sure quite why she said it. He was obviously too old for her parents to approve of, but maybe that in itself had something to do with it. She didn't wait for a response because she could feel her mother's glare, so she walked away with a brisk skip in her step.