Part 10

He made up both beds every morning and swept the floor so clean that Big Sue couldn’t find a speck of dust anywhere. He knew how to crack hickory nuts and walnuts so the goodies came out whole for Big Sue to put in sweetened bread. He had helped make soap with ashes, pot-grease and the fat of a lot of spoiled hog-meat April gave Big Sue. He took a sack of corn on his shoulder to mill every Saturday morning, and brought it back, ground fine, and hot from the grinding rocks. He milked the cow, churned the cream, fed the chickens, and the hog in the pen. He could even patch his own clothes.

The regular field-hands drew rations on Saturday, one peck of corn, three pounds of cured hog-meat. The women who had no man living with them, paid rent for their cabins with one day’s work a week. April saw to it that every one paid. He was close and careful. Everybody had to come right up to the notch since he was foreman, but the house of Big Sue was rent free, since she was the cook. Breeze drew rations like a regular field-hand, and by hunting and fishing with Sherry and Uncle Bill he provided many a good potful of meat. With a line tied to the end of a long swamp cane, and a slick wriggly earthworm for bait, he caught strings of perches that made rich morsels when dipped in cornmeal and fried.

Sherry’s coon dog, Zip, had a faithful nose, and when Sherry and Breeze took him out at night they seldom came home without coons, or ’possums, enough to satisfy both Big Sue and Zeda.

They came in earlier than usual one night with nine ’possums and found April sitting by the fire with Big Sue. Breeze saw Sherry’s frown and the two men hardly spoke to each other, until April eyed the ’possums with a sneering smile and said:

“Yunnuh’s got a lot o’ ’possums to-night. I heared Jake’s calf got in a bog. E must ’a’ died.”

April poked the fire until sparks flew into the room.

“Wha’ you doin’, April? Is you crazy?” Big Sue cried sharply.

April spat contemptuously far back into the live embers. “I’d as soon eat a buzzard as one o’ dem ’possums!”

“How come?” Breeze, Big Sue, Sherry, all darted astonished looks at him.

“Dey’s full up wid carrion. A ’possum ain’ decent as a buzzard. Dey’s so coward-hearted, dey durstn’ come out in de daytime to eat. No. Dem sleek-tailed devils wait till night, den goes creepin’ to carcasses and stuffs on all what de buzzards scorns.”

“Shut you’ dirty mout’, April! I declare to Gawd, you’s a-turning my stomach! Torectly, I couldn’ eenjoy eatin’ dese possums at all!” Big Sue laid stress on every word.

“When did you git so awful delicate, Big Sue?” April asked with a grin.

“I ever did have a delicate stomach. I don’ hardly have no appetite at all lately.”

Sherry gave a loud guffaw and April frowned in sudden ill-temper. “Wha’ dat tickle you so turrible, now, Sherry?”

April’s irritation showed in the jerky shifting of his hands and feet, and Big Sue’s eyes stretched open and rolled toward Sherry, who answered sourly:

“Oh, I ain’ so awful tickled. No. I just had to laugh when I thought on how it takes a thief to catch a thief. Night-walkers meets night-walkers, enty?”

“I do’in’ un’erstan’ wha’ dat you’s a-drivin’ at.” April stroked his mustache and eyed Sherry coldly.

“Me neither,” Big Sue chimed. “Whyn’ you talk plain talk, Sherry? It’s mighty no-manners to stand up an’ laugh a horse laugh in somebody’s face.”

“Do ex-cuse me, Cun Big Sue. Ev’y now an’ den, I forget an’ speak out o’ turn. I was just talkin’ fool talk. I ain’ laughin’ at nobody. Come on, Breeze. Le’s divide de ’possums. You take four, I take five. We sho’ had good luck to-night. Good night, ev’ybody!”

Sherry flung himself out of the door and April sat silent, vexed, upset; but his anger lasted only a short time. When he spoke, his tone was pleasant enough. He ought not to have joked with Sherry. The boy was too easy to get plagued. Zeda had spoiled him all his life, instead of breaking him of his sassy ways. Such a pity to ruin a nice boy. April got to his feet and stood stiffly erect.

Big Sue’s gimlet eyes watched his face, then leaning to knock her pipe on the hearth she said sadly: “Lawd, I wish dem ’possums was somet’ing fit to eat. A wild turkey or somet’ing. If dey was a wild turkey, I could stuff dem wid oysters an’ roast dem. Jedus, wouldn’ dey taste good! Whyn’ you kill a turkey, April? Looks like nobody else can shoot one but you? Ain’ you got a blind baited?”

She smiled up at him so sweetly, April smiled back.

“Whyn’ you take Breeze an’ go in de mawin’?” she pressed. “We could eat turkey to-morrow night.” She smacked her lips.

April turned her words over in his mind, thinking, calculating. Presently he asked, “How ’bout gwine turkey huntin’ wid me in de mawnin’, boy?”

Breeze was rapt with pure joy. April’s smile made him tingle all over. Instead of being bashful and afraid, he looked straight into April’s eyes and nodded.

“Lawdy! Lawdy!” He murmured low, and his heart went pit-a-pat. He was going turkey-hunting with April, the foreman, who had scarcely ever noticed him before!

“Git on to bed, son!” Big Sue said so gently, so kindly, Breeze was at a loss to know why. He walked slowly back to the shed-room, the blood beating clear up in his cheeks, but Big Sue sat down in her chair by the fire to smoke another pipeful. “Set down, April,” she said. “De night is young, yet.”

She woke Breeze before daylight when the black sky held only a narrow moon, without any sign of sunrise. A thin gray mist hung over the earth and all was quiet except a few crickets and the occasional bark of a dog. Breeze had slept little, but he felt wide awake, breathless, as he followed April’s slow ponderous steps. April spoke seldom. He seemed to be brooding over something. Breeze pitied him. A foreman has so much to think about, so many people to rule, so much land to manage. Sherry was wrong to be impudent last night.

They turned off from the road into a path which Breeze could barely see although his eyes worked well in the dark. April led the way, and Breeze hung close at his heels for the silence in the forest was full of strange sounds and shapes.

The turkey blind was a great bush heap, with one small opening in its side, looking straight out on a narrow trench. The bottom of the trench was strewn with white shelled corn, so when April called the turkeys, and they got to eating, their heads would be down in a bee line. One shot might blow two or three heads off. Wild turkeys fly too fast for any gun to have a good second chance at them.

Breeze sat perfectly still inside the blind, while April yelped and yelped. Once a hen yelped back, but she came no nearer. Breeze’s feet went to sleep. Both his legs got cramp. His back ached. The cold morning air chilled his very bones, but he dared not move so much as one muscle. April had warned him not even to whisper. The silence made him drowsy, but when April sniffed and Breeze drew in a long breath of air, then his body’s discomfort fled! Cold fear took its place, for a rattlesnake was near.

“Le’s go, Cun April!”

“I’m gwine git dat snake first, son. You set still till I call you.”

Day was coming. Tree branches overhead talked softly to one another. Leaves brought down by the wind fell rustling. Birds chirped and twittered. Squirrels barked. Breeze’s blood drummed in his temples.

The forest around them was old and great, most of the trees gums or poplars, with an occasional pine appearing. The undergrowth crowded close together, twining and tangling with limbs and branches so dense the light could scarcely reach the ground.

April found a dogwood tree and cut a long forked stick, then he moved slowly, stealthily, in the direction of the smell. Breeze thought his heart would stop beating altogether, so great was his terror. If that snake struck April and killed him, how’d he ever get home himself? He didn’t know the way. His hands thrust deeper into his pockets and one felt his knife. Uncle’s directions for helping a snake-bitten person came to him. Cut the wound wide open and suck out the poison. Could he do it? Could he cut April’s flesh and suck his blood? He’d have to, if it came to the worst.

April thrashed about in the undergrowth with his long forked stick, calling out as he did so, “Whe’ is you, snake? Hurry up an’ rattle! I wan’ git you!”

When a clear dry rattle sang out, he laughed. “Now we’ll see who’s de best man, me or you! Breeze, git you’ pocket knife! Cut a shell open! Have it ready so if I miss an’ git bit you kin pour de powder in de bite an’ set em afire. I got a box o’ matches here in my pocket. You better take ’em. You understand, enty? Burnin’ de pizen out is better’n suckin’ it out. Fire kin fight em stronger’n you’ mouth.”

The thick-bodied, large-headed snake was coiled, ready to strike. The rattles on the end of its tail raised and shook angrily. But instead of dread, April showed a fierce pleasure in the dry ear-splitting whir. Breeze’s throat went dry, but April laughed.

“You’s too slow, you pided devil! Summer’s gone! I kin kill you easy as Breeze kills a chicken! Lawd! you is old! You’ rattles looks like a cow’s horn. Come on!”

He batted the snake’s head to one side with a deft blow, and, putting the stick’s fork over its neck, held it fast to the ground, until he could seize it below the throat in a steady powerful grip. As he lifted it up off the ground, the thick body wound wildly around his arm in a terrible struggle to wrench loose, the flat eyes glared, the wide mouth yawned. April stood firm as a tree.

“Fight, boy, fight! Stretch you’ mouth wide as you kin! Dat ain’ wide enough yet! I want to spit clean down in your belly! Show you’ fangs! Dey ain’ nuttin! I got blue gums too! You may as well stand still and pray! You’ time is out! You gwine meet you’ Gawd to-day!”

With a whoop April threw his head back, then he spat straight into the yawning mouth.

“Dat shot got you!” he cried, and spat again. “You can’ harm me, son! You is a-weakenin’! I see it! My spit is pizen as you’ own!”

“Come, Breeze! Looka dis scoundrel! Lawd, e sho’ is a whopper!”

The snake’s muzzle was covered with plates, its scaly brown body marked with yellowish square shapes; its eyes, full of hate, stared out from the front of its heart-shaped head. Breeze’s own blood had frozen in his veins, and his legs were almost too numb to carry him.

“You got blue gums, Breeze. Come spit in dis mouth so you’ll know how to do it next time!”

“Don’ make me do dat, Cun April.”

“You ain’ no gal-baby, is you?”

“No, suh.”

“Den come on. Git you’ mouth full. Now, aim straight fo’ de fork in his tongue.”

Breeze’s lips twitched so that he missed the snake completely the first time, but the next effort was a success.

“Dat’s good. You got mo’ grit dan Sherry. Sherry never would try dis. But den, Sherry ain’ got blue gums like me an’ you.”

The snake’s plunging and twisting grew less violent. The huge body writhed sluggishly. Had April really poisoned the creature by spitting into its tongue? Or had he choked it to death? Its life was going out, that was certain.

Suppose April’s fingers took cramp. What would happen then? April turned his face toward home.

“Le’s go, Breeze. It’s too late to git a turkey. I’ll take dis snake to Uncle Isaac. He axed me to git him one to make some tea for his rheumatism. Po’ ol’ man. Rheumatism’ll make a Christian out o’ em yet!”

Full daybreak shed its light everywhere. Night and stars were gone out of the sky. The sun would soon be up. But at Uncle Isaac’s cabin, the doors and windows were shut tight.

The snake couldn’t die altogether until sun-down, but April dropped it on the ground and used his forked stick to beat hard on the sides of the house.

“Hey, Uncle! Hey! Wake up!” He shouted until the old man opened the door. “I got a present fo’ you! A rattlesnake! Me an’ him had a tight time dis mawnin’! Lawd! Yes! I sho’ love to fight wid a snake!”

Uncle Isaac hopped around, exclaiming over the snake’s size. He was glad to get him. He’d fix some snake tea to-day.

As they walked home down the avenue, April talked cheerfully. He said Uncle Isaac had taken so much snake cut that snakes got weak if they crossed his path. If one came near him it got stiff as a stick, and helpless. Next time Breeze saw the old man he must look at his ankles where they’d been cut and cut for snake poison to be rubbed into them. His feet were full of scars too, but Uncle Isaac had worn shoes ever since he chopped off a big toe.

April had walked up on snakes that were stricken by getting too close to Uncle Isaac. They’d be blind and numb, unable to move a step. God gave Uncle Isaac a strong sweat too. If he had never taken snake cut, he could send any snake into a trance by wetting his hands at his armpits and waving them in the snake’s face. They’d faint right off, and stay dead a long time.

Breeze ought to learn Uncle Isaac’s magic. He’d been born with a second-sight. Learning magic would be better for him than learning books. Black magic, as well as white magic; Uncle Isaac knew both. Uncle Bill too. But Uncle Bill gave magic up for religion. A poor swap. A deacon or a preacher is not much more than a woman. Not much more!

April’s down-heartedness had completely passed. Loitering along, he chatted pleasantly. Although the sun had risen he was in no hurry.

XII

DUCK-HUNTING

Sherry promised Big Sue plenty of wild ducks for her quilting dinner if she’d persuade Uncle Bill to row him.

“Lemme go, too, Sherry. Please, Sherry,” Breeze begged.

“If you’ll kill some ducks, you could go.”

“I ain’ got no gun.”

“Plenty o’ guns is yonder in de Big House. Cun April is got de key.”

“I’ll git you a gun, Breeze,” Big Sue offered, and before the day was out Breeze went into the Big House with April, through the same side door out of which April and Big Sue came that first morning.

The side passage led into a wide front hall and a queer feeling of intrusion seized Breeze as he went past rooms where pictures of white people looked at him from the walls. Brass andirons and fenders gleamed out from big fireplaces. Unlit candles left the high ceilinged rooms in a dim uncertain light. Dark shadows hid under the heavy furniture, until April pressed a button and a chandelier hung from the ceiling became hundreds of dazzling icicles, dripping with light.

April took Breeze to a room where a rack held guns of all sizes and shapes, each one polished, well oiled, ready for work. April handed Breeze one after the other to try, making him put them up to his shoulder as if he aimed at something. When one was found to fit, April cautioned him, “When you shoot, fo’git you’ gun. Fasten you’ eyes on de t’ing you want to hit, den pull de trigger. Try em now, son! Don’ squint up you’ eyes! Keep all two wide open. Shootin’ ain’ hard work! It’s for pleasure! You can’ hit nothin’ if you frown.”

Breeze was glad to get out of the silent house with its book-lined walls and rug hidden floors. He took the gun home, but he could scarcely go to sleep for happy excitement over the prospect of going hunting.

* * * * *

Uncle Bill sat waiting in the stern of a small narrow boat, but he got to his feet when he saw Big Sue. While he held the boat steady for Breeze and Sherry to get in, he kept an eye on Big Sue as he warned her please not to touch Breeze, and he kept saying to Breeze:

“Mind, son. Don’ put you’ hand on Miss Big Sue. When a man is gwine a-huntin’, it’ll ruin his luck to let a lady touch him. Be careful!”

He wanted Breeze to sit alone in the bow of the boat, but Sherry considered and then said, no, Breeze must sit beside him on the narrow board seat in the boat’s middle. Uncle Bill shook his head and muttered in disapproval, but Sherry wouldn’t give in.

“No, Uncle Bill, Breeze wouldn’t be safe settin’ in front o’ me dis morning. My gun feels too ready to shoot. I can’ trust em. It’s so quick on de trigger it might miss and aim at his head or his back instead o’ at a duck.”

“Wha’ dat is got you so nervish, Sherry?”

“When my mind runs on some people, I wants to shoot right den!”

“Dat is sinful, son. Awful sinful! I hates to hear you talk so!”

To Breeze, the boat seemed very narrow and the seat scarcely able to hold two. He knew he couldn’t swim if he fell out, but he said nothing, and soon Uncle Bill swung them out into the middle of the deep clear stream.

Instead of being brown-black like the river, this arm of that stream was filled with the blue of the sky. But its dark depths looked bottomless and dangerous, and Breeze sat mute, with his eyes staring down in it until Sherry nudged him and made him look up. “You got to learn how to swim, son, den you won’ be scared o’ water! You get dis straight in you’ head now too; when a man starts out huntin’, e mustn’t never let no ’oman put her hand on him. If e do, his luck is gone. Uncle Bill is even scared for my right hand to touch you, for you ain’ no more’n a li’l’ gal. But I’ll risk it. My luck kin stand a lot. It don’ fail me.”

Breeze listened and answered, “Yes suh,” but he did not altogether understand, and Sherry’s eyes glanced over the water’s surface.

“Lawd! Looka de creek, how blue e is dis mornin’! Winter or summer, e stays blue. Dat is what gives de plantation de name, Blue Brook. Cun Big Sue ain’ told you dat yet?”

Behind them Uncle Bill hissed, “Sh-sh,” and Sherry leaned to whisper, “We mustn’ talk. De ducks’ll hear an’ we won’t git a shot. Is you know how to load you’ gun?”

In his excitement Breeze had forgotten, but Sherry took it and showed him again how to slip two neat yellow, brass-trimmed shells into place in the clean steel barrels, how to make the gun “safe” and “ready.” Then he took up his own gun and with quick slidings and clickings slipped half a dozen shells into its snug chamber. Breeze noticed that Sherry had purple shells and wondered what the different colors meant, but before he could ask, a sharp “sh-sh” from Uncle Bill hissed behind them again.

“Go easy,” Sherry’s big mouth buzzed back in a whisper. To Breeze he mumbled, “Git you’ gun ready, son.”

The tide must have been going with them for they flowed along without a sound. Breeze saw no ducks until suddenly dark wings flashed everywhere in front of them. The gun in Sherry’s hands fired, again and again. It was all quickly over. Echoes banged back and forth at one another, then died, and everything was still. On the water in front of them three limp bundles of feathers were floating, not caring at all where they went.

Uncle Bill’s laughter cackled out. “Sherry, you can’ be beated! Son, you’s a shot-man, fo’ true! Yes, Jedus! You don’ never miss!”

He shot the boat forward and Sherry leaned far out to pick up the lifeless bodies of the ducks he had killed. How strong he was! And as much at home in this cramped-up boat as on the ground.

“Poor creeters!” he pitied, holding the gay-colored bill of one of them between his fingers. “Ain’ e a beauty!”

“I hope you ain’ gettin’ chicken-hearted,” Uncle Bill twitted, and Sherry grinned back.

“Maybe I is, Uncle.” Sherry’s big fingers gently ruffled the feathers on the duck’s breast to show them to Breeze. They were beautiful, indeed. The trim head had a high crest of purple and green and black feathers. White lines were above and below the poor death-dulled eyes. The throat and warm breast, colored soft tan like a chinquapin, and spotted with white, were bloodstained across the fine black markings. The bill was bright pink; the feet and legs, bright orange. Sherry said they were safe to be loud-colored, for they were hidden under water most of the time.

The drake’s mates were less gay. The brown and gray and white feathers on their trim bodies were quiet as shadows on the water.

All three of them were quite dead, and Sherry tossed them back to Uncle Bill who put them far back under the seat, saying as he did so:

“We better hide ’em fo’ true. Dey’s all summer ducks. It’s five hundred dollars to kill one! Five hundred!”

“Shucks!” Sherry answered, reloading his gun. “Dem white folks way off yonder to Columbia sho’ do make some fool laws!”

“If de game warden was to slip up on you right now you’d wish you had kept ’em, dough. Where’d you git de money to pay?”

“Oh, I know I’d go straight to de gang as a martin to his gourd,” Sherry answered cheerfully. “But I trust to my luck to don’ git caught.”

All three of them laughed, and Uncle Bill thrust the boat silently on. Once Sherry pointed to a hollow high up on the body of a leaning cypress. The tree’s feathery top rose far above the mesh of interlaced vines and branches on the bank of the stream. As likely as not a summer duck made her nest in that hollow. They choose knot-holes or hollows, sometimes forty feet high, sometimes near the water. Queer fowls. Hard to fool.

As they rounded a bend on the stream a faint splash sounded in front. Sherry listened with pent breath. “Ducks, enty, Uncle?” he whispered.

“Great Gawd, Sherry! Wha’ dat ail you’ years?”

Almost at once they swung into sight of April in a boat much like their own. He had a load of sacks and packages and its back was piled high with oysters in the shell. His trousers were inside his laced-up boots and a silver watch-chain dangled from a side pocket.