Days of Little Texas (29 page)

A sound like a child’s gasp makes me turn—my breath catches—the blue people are still there.

But they’re so still now. Still and watchful. Not hunched over anymore. Bodies tall, straight, unbroken. Skin glistening. Quiet. They look like …
people
. I can hear them breathing.

One of them, it looks to be an older woman, peels off from the rest and goes up to the trouble tree. She touches the tree, stroking it with her fingers. Then slips like a dissolving blue smoke in the beam of the flashlight right up its trunk. Lost in the branches.

Another one follows. A man this time. He looks back at me, looks at all of us, and passes into the arms of the tree.

They all leave that way. Dark blue shapes touching the tree, then turning into a kind of powder, lifting up from the ground, till they are wafting away.

Free
. Free.

Everything is gone. Everything except the wind and the tree and the night.

My hand still aches … I don’t care. I might sit right here till the battery on the flashlight runs out.

“You,” a
voice says behind me.

I try to get to my feet, but I stagger and fall. Try again, and this time she’s there to catch me. Her hot tears roll down my shirt.

“I’m so
sorry
, Ronald Earl… I’m so
sorry
… I didn’t know! I didn’t know … I couldn’t. I couldn’t warn you. I tried, but I couldn’t…. It was like … it was like … oh please, please … keep holding me….”

I don’t care if she’s made out of steam or sound or
something that doesn’t even have a name. “You’re here,” I say, weeping into her hair, clinging to her, barely able to speak. “You’re … you’re really
here
.” Again and again and again.

Lucy looks up at me, eyes gleaming.

“For a little while … I don’t… don’t have much left in me. You understand?”

“But… I… how …”

“We thought… we thought we had everything figured out, but it… it
knew
.… I thought I would be safe … after it left to go … to where you were … but it took me … it
took me, Ronald Earl…
took me the minute … I came … I came here to wait for you … like being held by a thousand …
arms …
but
you …
God, Ronald Earl…
you
…”

My words come out in pieces. “Certain Certain… I remembered … the slave tag … fear, hate … if that’s what was … holding them … I figured
love
…”

“Shhh, shhh …”
She pats my hair. “I know … I
know
.”

It feels so good to be in her arms. Good beyond any good thing I’ve ever felt before. My breathing, my heart, it all begins to slow. And still we hold each other.

“They’re okay now, aren’t they?” I say. “The slaves? They went
home!
Did you see them? I
saw
them, Lucy! I saw them go.”

“I know. Yeah, they’re
home
. We did it.
You
did it.”

“It felt… it felt so good! Seeing them go … knowing … nothing would ever … would ever
own
them again.”

“But, Ronald Earl…”

“Lord, how I wish Certain Certain could have seen it! All those slaves …
free …
free.”

Lucy pulls back to look in my face. “The blue people … they weren’t the slaves of Vanderloo, Ronald Earl.”

“But—I saw them! Lucy, I saw them
go …
they stroked the tree just like Certain Certain said, and then they went away … they’re
free
now, free—”

“The slaves of Vanderloo were free a long time ago,” she says. “We didn’t free them. They didn’t have to be freed. They did that themselves.”

“But… I don’t understand … what did we …
who—
”

“Those were the
owners
.”

I stand there listening to the wind. Holding her. Feeling the truth trickle over me.

“The owners,” Lucy says after a little while. “And people like Thaddeus Palmer. I didn’t know myself until… until I was inside
with them
.”

“But… I thought… I thought they were …”

Lucy nods. “Oh, those were slaves you set free, all right. The owners and overseers and auctioneers … you see that now, don’t you?
They were slaves, too
. The worst kind. They enslaved
themselves
. And now I know why they brought us here—me and you—to help them. At first I didn’t understand
that myself. But who better? I know, we didn’t do it, we weren’t alive back then … but we’ve benefited, right? From what our ancestors did? Even all these years later?”

I look at the big tree in awe. “Certain Certain … he told me … it’s something we owe. All of us.”

Lucy’s looking, too. The night is quiet. I don’t see anything there, but I think she does. Maybe she does.

“I have to go, Ronald Earl.”

I feel her voice in the middle of my chest like a branch that can’t unbend. I know before I can say anything that what she’s saying is true. But I have to say it anyway.

“But you’re coming with me, aren’t you?”

Lucy looks at me, her lips tight. She holds her fist out, reaches it out to me.

“What?” I say.

I put my hand out. She drops something in it. I can tell just from feeling it that it’s the little corner of brick I lost back at the plantation. I know the words are still there.

“No. Please. No. Don’t leave me here alone. You can’t.
Please
, Lucy. I can’t stand it. I can’t.
I have no one
.”

“I—Ronald Earl—it’s not up to me. It’s
killing me
. It’s killing me, too. But I have … I have … it’s a gift. I want to give it to you. Before … before I go.”

“No!
I just want you. I don’t care about any gift. Just—”

She puts a finger up to my mouth. I can feel the heat coming off of it.

“Please,” she says, looking into my eyes. “It’s happening
faster than I thought. Hold
still
. I’m going. I’m going. This— it’s really hard. I have to put everything I have—all of it…”

She closes her eyes and becomes very still, very quiet. Somewhere out on the lake there is a bird making a long, unbroken noise. Lucy comes closer. I drop my head a little. Our lips touch. I shut my eyes and try to wrap my arms around her, but my hands pass through. She’s putting everything she has into our kiss.
Making it real
.

I keep kissing her, feeling her mouth, her warm lips, and tell myself every part of her is right there. Her lips have to be enough. They have to be all of her.
They have to be
.

I want to melt inside her. Not just my face. My mind. My spirit. Climb all the way in, go wherever she goes. Finally she pulls back. It’s over. She holds her head away from me.

“That’s it,” Lucy says, her voice getting faint. “That’s all of it. We can’t… we can’t touch anymore.”

My eyes flood with tears. I try to fight them back, but I can’t.

“You remember, you told me what we are … it’s too big. Too big to be held,” I say. “You told me—”

Lucy nods her head. “Goodbye,” she says. I don’t know if I really hear it, or just believe I hear it.

“I love you,” I say. I hope she can hear me. “I love you.
I love you
.”

She’s moving away now, not gliding, but walking.

Stepping backward into the black of the woods. Watching me the whole time.

When she goes, it’s not like the others. She keeps on pulling back, waving her small hand. I reach toward her, fingers shaking. She’s gone.

Gone
.

“Little Texas!”

The man’s name is Danny. He knows me; turns out he was here before, when Sugar Tom took sick.

I’m still watching the island. Watching it move away. It’s too much, so I watch Danny instead. I can’t focus on what he is saying, though. I have to focus on the things that make sense. Things that are simple. Like the fact Danny has hair like a brush and a fire-colored beard.

He dabs at my cuts and wraps a band around my arm and pumps up that black squeezy thing. He puts something in my mouth, looks at my eyes with a little flashlight.

I don’t care about my body right now. Whatever is wrong, let it heal itself.

The boat engine rumbles. Red lights are flashing all over the pasture, white lights swinging down the shore. I look at the old trestle.

“They had to fish some folks out of the lake,” Danny says. “It’s a miracle nobody died. But everybody made it out, far as we can tell.”

Everybody made it out. Especially one in particular. She wears a blue dress, has skinny arms. Sometimes walks like a bird riding on a breeze.

The lights start blurring, washing the nighttime out. I hear men and women shouting, see them coming and going. They start to blur, too. That’s okay. I can see. I can see.

I won’t talk to any of them, so the TV people surround Miss Wanda Joy instead.

The hot lights make her squint. I’ve never seen her look so rough, eyes wild, hair in strings. One of the hospital cleaning guys points, pretending he is flying on his mop. I’m too far gone to care. We aren’t who they think we are.

Certain Certain says all kinds of news folks are clamoring to see Devil Hill, but Tee Barlow has forbidden anybody access.

“Just a matter of time before CNN, Fox News turn up,” Certain Certain says when he comes to see me in my room.
His eyes are red and watery. He perches on the edge of the bed. “Somethin’ like this is just right for the freak-show slot. You gonna be hot as a two-dollar pistol, Lightning. Ministries all over itchin’ to hear you speak. Likely be a whole new wave of revival come out of this, praise His name. So maybe some-thin’ good can come out of that old plantation after all?”

I squeeze his big hand. His skin feels cold. “Thanks for getting me out of there,” I say, meaning the emergency room.

Certain Certain frowns. “Look like you been in a seven-day axe fight, lost your axe on the first day. How you feeling?”

“I’ve been better,” I say.

They have a drip needle stuck in the back of my hand. Plenty of cuts, bruises, bandages. Seven stitches over my eye. But everything’s still attached, nothing broken.
Except my heart
.

“You ready to talk about it, just let me know,” Certain Certain says.

I haven’t told him about how I lost his slave tag, how it saved my life.
Maybe my soul
.

What can I believe now?

I’ve seen too much. Besides, I’m just not built to not believe. Maybe all I can do is believe in
more
.

“You have to believe bigger.… The truth is not that small.”

Lucy said that.

Everything is getting soft, starting to dissolve. The fog of the drip needle is starting to kick in.

“How’s … Sugar Tom?” I say.

Certain Certain leans forward, tipping his ear to me. “What’s that?”

“S’gar Tom,” I say, slurring the words.

“Old skizzard? Talking.”

“He
is
?”

“Like a teenage gal with a new callin’ plan. Woke up late this evening; first thing he did was ask about you and the service.”

“Is he—is he all right? His side, arm …”

“I don’t know could he shin a bear up a tree without a stick, but he’s a tough old cracker. He’ll be all right, I’m thinking. But of course that’s up to the Big Man.”

“Can I … can I go see him?”

Certain Certain grins, his mouth tugging his tore-up lip into a grimace. He pats my arm.

“We can think about that in the mornin’, boy. You lay back and get you some rest.”

“But…”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be right outside. They goin’ be beating this door down any minute. I’m gonna cut me a hick’ry pole, run they asses straight back to Peachtree Street, they get too rambunctious.”

As he’s going, I raise up my hand and wave. He stops.

“What?”

“Thanks,” I say. “Thanks f’everything.”

“Shoot.”

And he’s gone. I dream of nothing. Nothing at all.