Gone Crazy in Alabama (15 page)

A full day hadn't passed by, but Vonetta's absence lingered in every corner of the house. Everywhere I turned was a space Vonetta had been in that was now left empty. I was glad Mr. Lucas had given me something to do, although it didn't take long to gather the planks of broken wood from the henhouse and the baby dresser drawers that were once the hens' nesting boxes. They made a small, splintery pile of wood that couldn't be used for anything else. It was in raking the yard, searching for nails and glass pieces blown over from Mr. Lucas's house, that gave my eyes a downward place to look. For that I was glad. I searched and searched for broken bits while I missed Vonetta and missed Fern and hated my mother
and thought of what Fern had yelled at me and dreaded seeing my father's face but wanted him here with me at the same time.

Uncle Darnell would soon go over the creek to see about the Trotters. When I asked to go with him he said, “We'll see,” which I hoped was a strong maybe. I wanted to see how JimmyTrotter and Miss Trotter were, but at the same time, I was afraid of what I might see. Mr. Lucas's house was sturdy and Miss Trotter's house was old. Its floorboards spoke with every step we took whenever we were inside the house. She kept everything as it was when her father had lived with her and Ella Pearl. According to my cousin, Mr. Lucas had made offers to “gird up the house's foundation” over the years, but Miss Trotter had always told JimmyTrotter the house was fine as it was. She didn't want anyone to touch what her father had made.

I decided I'd rather be anywhere but here, even if I had to see what I didn't want to see.

I scratched and clawed at the ground, waiting for Uncle Darnell to take me with him. On television they never say the person's name when there is a missing person and that person is found. Instead, they say, “The body has been found,” because the body is all that is left. But if she was found, still inside her body, still alive, they'd say, “We found the little girl. We found Vonetta Gaither.”

I didn't want to believe it. Any of it. Not that it was my
fault, like Fern said. Not that my sister was gone. Not that Vonetta was gone for good. I didn't want anyone to say, “We found the body.”

I kept my head down. I raked and clawed.

Caleb started up his noise, louder than his usual dog song. I stopped tearing up the ground with the rake and instead combed it softly, waiting for our visitor to come into view. Caleb could cry and carry on long before a stranger or a hungry fox could be seen. My heart quickened, wanting to hope. He didn't only sing out for strangers. He sang when the visitor was someone he knew. Like Vonetta. I kept the rake going but I stopped breathing.

Finally, the moving car showed itself—the sheriff's black-and-white car. It turned off the tree-blocked road and jostled through the field of dandelions and wildflowers. I searched the car, hoping to see my sister. I saw something besides the sheriff, but it wasn't my sister. The car was now up on the grass but it didn't come any closer. The sheriff got out, then opened the passenger door and a bloodhound jumped out. Caleb pulled at his chain and pitched a fuss, so I let him off of his chain and he was on Sheriff Charles in no time, jumping, licking, and baying like a pup. The two dogs scampered about excitedly, glad to see each other. Still excited, Caleb nipped at the sheriff's pants leg but the sheriff didn't look down at Caleb or pet him. He just flung Caleb off of him, kicking out his leg once, and the two dogs went back to playing with each
other while the sheriff trudged up to the house.

As he approached I realized that he was more Big Ma and Mr. Lucas's age. Maybe a little younger. He was broad from shoulder to belly and then narrow from the hip—where his holster sat—down to his boots. I felt no need to give the greeting Big Ma had taught my sisters and me to give all grown folk, especially to white folk. I knew who he was. I knew he wore a white sheet when he wasn't wearing his badge.

It made him no difference whether I spoke to him or not. He tapped on the screen door with the back of his hand and called out, “'Phelia! You there? Mama? It's Davey Lee.”

Uncle Darnell met him at the door and opened it wide. I thought he did that to be the man of the house and stand up to the Klan—but my uncle opened the door wide and shook the sheriff's hand.
Shook his hand
. And brought him inside my great-grandmother's house.

I got up to the porch to see and hear through the screen door. Why was he here if he didn't have my sister—and who did he think he was, calling Ma Charles “Mama”? I was mad enough to scream just when I thought I'd been wrung out numb.
The Klan was in my great-grandmother's house. My uncle shook his hand
. Unreal. Crazy unreal. Yet I couldn't take myself away.

Fern was glued to Ma Charles the way she should have been glued to me. The sheriff looked down at Fern and
then said to Ma Charles, “Should have figured those were yours.”

Ma Charles nodded. “They're mine. All three.”

“When was the last you seen her?” he asked.

Big Ma said, “Supper last night. Just before the thundering and lightning started. The kids went to their beds early. Stayed in their room.”

“No chance she went out in the electrical storm last night?”

“No,” Fern said. And everyone turned to her in a kind of shock because Fern said very little. “She stayed on her side of the room and me and Delphine stayed on our side. But we all went to bed.” Then she added, “Vonetta snores. Loud. She kept me awake with her snoring. I thought she was snoring loud to get back at Delphine and me because we didn't let her play Old Maid with us.”

He nodded to that and asked Big Ma for a recent photograph, and she told Fern to go in her room and get her church purse. Fern hurried off and returned with the black bag. Big Ma took out her wallet and from there she carefully pulled out a small picture. A school picture.

The sheriff looked at the picture once, shook his head, probably at Vonetta's proud-of-herself grin. He probably thought no black girl had the right to be that proud, but there she was, being Vonetta in a photo.

“You know not to hope, 'Phelia,” the sheriff said. “Taranada”—that was exactly how he said it, with four
syllables, all
A
's—“wasn't the worst, but I tell you one thing. It was bad enough to toss that Negro rag doll clear 'cross the county, out of this lifetime.”

Mr. Lucas had to catch Big Ma and Uncle Darnell said, “Hey, man. You didn't have to say that.”

The sheriff said, “Better the truth than a fairy tale.”

“We're not asking you for no fairy tale,” Ma Charles said. “We're asking you to do what the sheriff's supposed to do. We're asking you to find our lost child.”

“Yes, Mama,” the sheriff said.

I hated that he called her that, but she said, “Just go find her, son. Go find her.”
Son
. My great-grandmother called the Klan
son
.

“All right then, Mama,” he said. He turned to Uncle Darnell and said, “I need a piece of her clothing. Something she wore yesterday. Pj's, maybe.”

Fern then ran off again and returned with Vonetta's nightie. But she didn't hand it over to the sheriff. She gave it to Ma Charles, and Ma Charles lifted her hand for the sheriff to lean over and take it.

I got away from the door.

He called his dog and the dog trotted up to his boots. Caleb followed. He knelt and gave the nighties to his dog to sniff. “Scent, boy. Scent.” Both dogs went at it. Caleb, sniffing and baying loud and crazy. “Where she, boy? Where that li'l Negro child?”

Something about the way he said it.
Negro
. Like he was
used to saying the other word. The bad word.

“Darnell! Darnell!” he shouted, sounding more like an army sergeant giving orders than a sheriff. When Uncle Darnell came out, the sheriff said, “We got a scent.”

“I'm coming,” my uncle told the sheriff.

“Well, come on, then.”

“Can I go?” I asked. I don't know what made me ask. I didn't want to be near that Ku Klux Klansman.

I was asking my uncle but the sheriff said, “Naw. This is a manhunt. Sheriff business.”

Then Uncle Darnell said, “Stay here.”

They leashed up both dogs and set off down the road and into the pines, the dogs baying and pulling. I put the rake down and sat on the porch. I looked to the pines, hoping.

I heard both dogs before I saw them. “They're coming!” I yelled to Big Ma, Ma Charles, and Fern. “They're coming!”

I wanted to see Uncle Darnell carrying Vonetta but when we finally saw them, it was Uncle D, the sheriff, and the two bloodhounds.

“We found the bicycle,” the sheriff said. “Up a tree in ten pieces.”

“A mercy, Lord. A mercy, a mercy.”

“But we didn't find the body.”

“She's not the body!” I screamed at him. “She's Vonetta.”

Big Ma grabbed me by the arm. “Girl, you shut your
mouth. You hear me? You just shut your mouth.”

Uncle D pulled me in to him.

The sheriff went on. “Scent got cold. Taranada might have blown her anywhere. The body could be up in one them trees.”

I was glad when Sheriff Charles had finally left. I hoped he would find Vonetta, and I hoped he wouldn't.

Caleb could not be calmed. Once he sniffed that old sheriff and his brother and Vonetta's scent from the nightie, there was no quieting him down. I put his chain back on him and tied him up good, but Caleb kept sniffing and pulling. Pulling after the sheriff's car.

I knew they used dogs. The sheriffs down here. I knew this from our summer at the People's Center. I had seen old photographs of cops siccing dogs on people. Black people. And college students. Now the sheriff would use the dog to find where the tornado had blown Vonetta.

Caleb wouldn't stop singing his dog song. Missing his hound-dog brother and maybe even the sheriff. “Hush, Caleb,” I said. “Hush that noise.” But he wouldn't hear me. He bayed louder and louder and then kept it to a loud, one-note song.

When I looked up I saw what he was barking at. I saw it but I could barely believe it. I didn't know who to call first so I yelled, “Everyone! Come see! Come see!”

My hand flew to my mouth. My eyes saw it but my mind spun in disbelieving circles. The closer they came out of the pines and into the field and toward the grass, the more real it became. Fern, Uncle Darnell, Mr. Lucas, Big Ma, and Ma Charles came out to the porch to see the commotion. I took off running to the pines. I ran to Miss Trotter, JimmyTrotter, Sophie, and Butter. The sight of them sent me racing on the inside! Miss Trotter on foot, holding on to the cane Ma Charles had given her. JimmyTrotter leading the cows. Miss Trotter's wooden chair strapped to Sophie's back. What a sight! What a sight! I jumped up as I ran. I was the first to get there, winded, hugging, and crying. So glad to see them. So glad. It was the only good
thing that had happened this day.

“Miss Trotter! Miss Trotter! You're here! You're here! At last!”

“As sure as you're born,” Miss Trotter said. “As sure as you're born.” She had a grip on that cane in one hand and the picture of her parents in the other. Both she and JimmyTrotter carried knapsacks on their backs, his bigger than hers, but it looked like they carried all that they had left. Uncle Darnell and I helped them out of their bags and took them. Miss Trotter was winded after having walked the distance, and her skirt was wet from about her knee to her feet. Fern petted Sophie and Butter and told them not to be afraid of Caleb. Caleb kept up his dog song. Big Ma praised the Lord and started to fuss over Miss Trotter. Mr. Lucas took a rope from JimmyTrotter and led the cows up to the house.

“You're wet, Auntie,” Big Ma said. “You'll catch your death.”

“Death ain't caught me by the ankle yet,” Miss Trotter said, but she was shivering. “Guess I keep right on stepping.”

“The tornado destroyed the walkway so we went through the water,” JimmyTrotter said. “Had to go all the way down to the shallows. Cows didn't like it much, but we're here.” And Miss Trotter started to hum a song I knew: “Wading in the Water.”

By this time Ma Charles was making her way down
to us. Miss Trotter stopped humming and fussing once she caught sight of her ambling toward us all. Big Ma fussed at Mr. Lucas to “help Ma,” and Ma Charles refused Mr. Lucas's hand when he tried to help her. I figured she didn't want her sister to see she wasn't as steady as she once was.

Sophie mooed, which sparked Butter mooing, and Caleb had never quite stopped crying his dog song. It just got louder. But not one of us spoke a word. In fact, Big Ma placed her hand over Mr. Lucas's lips to keep him from speaking. Then Miss Trotter, digging that cane in the ground with each step, made her way to Ma Charles.

“Sister,” one called out.

“Sister,” the other called out.

JimmyTrotter described everything. How the tornado came their way and took down half of the barn and most of the house. That they had only two minutes to get to the crawl space under the house and that Miss Trotter wouldn't go without Mama and Papa so JimmyTrotter had to get the photograph from the mantel.

“It's all just kindling,” Miss Trotter said. “'Cept for Papa's chair. Tornado threw it good, but JimmyTrotter found it up a tree.”

“I didn't think I'd get it down, but here it is.”

Mr. Lucas offered to take a look at it and make sure it
was sturdy but Miss Trotter wouldn't let him touch her father's chair.

“House shaking on top of us, this way and that,” Miss Trotter said. “The wind was having its way. Wasn't nothing we could do but pray.”

“Prayer works,” Ma Charles said.

“Didn't I say don't go poking in the sky?”

“Through God's heavens,” Ma Charles said. “You must have heard me saying it. Tell 'em,” Ma Charles said to me. It seemed the first time anyone had said anything at all to me. All I could do was nod my head yes and remember that I still had to face my father. In the middle of this one good thing, my belly started to ache.

“I knew it was trouble when I felt that air, sister.”

“Cold here,” Ma Charles said.

“And heat stirring there,” the other finished. “It's all that stirring up. Sending men into space and hurling them back down. Poking holes where they need not poke holes.”

“Electric storm is the ma and pa,” one said.

“And the tornado is its wayward child,” the other said.

“There wasn't a finer teacher than Miss Rice.”

“Surely and truly,” the other said.

“It's a wonder we still have Sophie and Butter,” JimmyTrotter said. “You wouldn't know the barn to see it.”

“What barn? Just a pile of sticks. House too. Kindling.”

“Like the henhouse!” Fern cried.

Everyone spoke on about the tornado. Things brought
down. Some homes standing. Some split apart into nothingness. But I stayed silent, like I didn't have a right to the family sounds. I was at the table but I was watching. On the outside.

“What is a barn, or a henhouse?” Miss Trotter said. “What are two cows? I'd give those cows and more to see my sister with all her greats.”

And then they began to pray for Vonetta. Moan for her. Cry for her.

“My line had sons. Nothing but sons,” Miss Trotter said. “It was all we could do to keep the Trotter name going for Papa.”

Then Ma Charles said, “My line has daughters. The names add on, but we keep the bloodline going.”

“I've got—” Miss Trotter started.

“Each other,” Big Ma said, before they could get a squabble started.

One said, “Sister.”

The other said, “Sister.”

Things went well between them until one said, “Mrs. Hazzard.”

Then the other said, “Massa Charles's property,” and I thought they would never stop.

Big Ma said, “You two are worse than those three ever were.”

But there were only two of us now. Two. Big Ma started to cry. And then Fern and I started. Mr. Lucas said, “Come
on, Ophelia. I'll take you to your room. You need to rest.”

Then Ma Charles said, “You stay here, son. Where I can see you.”

And Miss Trotter said, “Young folk.”

And my great-grandmother agreed. “Young'ns.”