Whistling Past the Graveyard (6 page)

6

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verything after that slid by so fast, it wasn’t much more than a blur in my head. Somewhere, out beyond Eula’s crying and the
thud-thud, thud-thud
of my heartbeat, I began to hear something else.

Wallace heard it, too, ’cause he stopped dead still and his head snapped up. I could hear the roughness of his breath as it rushed through his nose. His hand gripped my arm tighter and his eyes narrowed to slits.

The sound rose and fell, swelled and shrank, until I recognized it. Dogs . . . huntin’ hounds.
Quick as a rattler, he reached down with the hand that wasn’t holding me and jerked Eula up off the ground. She came to her feet like she was one of those string puppets. I was pretty sure if Wallace let her go, she’d have gone flat back on the ground like just like a puppet, too. Her crying slid to whimpers.
Wallace’s eyes was crazy, with so much white showing they looked like cue balls.
I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out.
Before I could blink, he drug the both of us toward the house. He started moving while I was half on the ground; I didn’t have a chance to get on my feet, and Eula wasn’t even trying. My shins slammed into the steps, tearing chunks of skin off and setting them on fire. I sucked in a breath to keep from yelling out with the pain; all bullies got worse when you let them know they were hurting you.
Eula’s dragging feet caught the rug in the living room. It rolled up like a butter curl behind us. Wallace shoved us into the little bedroom where James was sleeping.
We landed in two heaps on the floor.
Just before Wallace locked the bedroom door, he warned us we’d both be sorry if we made a sound. I believed him. From the look on Eula’s face, she did, too. I’d seen her scared of Wallace before, but there was something sharp and new to this scaredness.
I started to see stars. I sat there for a second, sucking air back into my fear-pinched lungs.
Eula scooted on her backside until she was shoved in the corner beside the door. She pulled her legs up to her chest and held tight with both arms. Her eyes didn’t look like they was seeing anything around us. Somewhere deep in her throat, a thin, little whine rolled around, almost too quiet to hear.
I looked down at my scraped shins.That just made them hurt worse. It also made me wonder what Wallace would do next. I couldn’t think about that. If I let fear get locked in my head, I wouldn’t be able to think at all. And if I couldn’t think, and Eula was all messed up, we were goners.
I’d been so surprised by Wallace’s viciousness that I didn’t fight my best—and Eula was too scared to fight at all. I had to do better, be faster, smarter. Meaner.
Mamie had smacked me before, and I’d been knocked down in a fight on the playground, but I’d never been jerked around and dragged like I wasn’t even a person at all. I wondered if Wallace treated Eula like this all the time. Maybe she had tried to fight once—Wallace was so big, and poor Eula wasn’t more than skin on bones, she couldn’t beat him, or even get away most likely.
“Eula?” Her eyes were like glass. I’d never seen a grown-up woman so helpless and scared. She’d just switched off, like she wasn’t even on the inside of herself anymore.
The sound of the hounds yippin’ and howlin’ was close now, maybe even in the yard. I jumped up and looked out the little window, but couldn’t see nothin’ but trees and a couple of squirrels scared up ’em by all the barking.
Kneeling back in front of Eula, I asked, “Who’s comin’ with the dogs?”
Her eyes stayed empty.
“Eula?” I touched her cheek and turned her to face me. There was a muddy place where her tears had mixed with the dirt from when she’d been knocked to the ground. “Who’s comin’ with the dogs?”
I heard Wallace’s grumbly voice mixed in with the yappin’ of the dogs. But I couldn’t hear any other person.
“Eula!” I said, more of a sharp hiss than a yell. I couldn’t yell until I knew who was outside.
She blinked. Then her eyes shifted and looked at me.
“Who is it? Who come with the dogs?”
She swallowed hard, like there was something blocking her throat. “Prob’ly Shorty. He come by most days.”
“He huntin’?” Which would mean he had a gun he could use to fend off Wallace once he got to rescuin’ us.
“He don’t hunt, not no more. Not for years. Just got the one arm.”
Dang, most likely no gun, then. I chewed my cheek for a second. “He white or colored?”
Her brow wrinkled and she looked at me like I’d gone crazy. “Why would he get dragged behind a car and had his arm tore off if he was white?”
My stomach went sour and I tried not to think about someone’s arm being tore right from its socket like that. It seemed there wasn’t no limit to the meanness of some people. I felt sorry for that man, but even sorrier for me and James and Eula. A man like that wasn’t gonna be interested in making Wallace mad by rescuin’ white children.’Sides, with only one arm and no gun, he wouldn’t have a chance against the bear.
I flopped backward and looked at the plank-board ceiling. If only Eula hadn’t taken James. Then Wallace would be happy to take me out to the highway and never see my white face again; he wouldn’t be so scared of Shorty findin’ out I was here and blabbing it all over. Or even if James had been a colored baby.
A while passed before the dogs seemed to settle down.Then I heard one of them snufflin’ and rubbing the underside of the floor. There wasn’t any latticework to keep animals from getting underneath the house. If only dogs could save a person—they don’t care if you’re white or colored.
I finally sat up and made myself ask,“What did Wallace mean when he said you know what’s got to be done?”
Eula looked like she’d switched mostly back on. “He calm down now. Everythin’ goin’ be all right. You see. Just goin’ take some time.” She nodded and breathed an “Uh-huh.” Then a few seconds later, she whispered, “We be fine.”
She crawled over to James. Her gentle hands smoothed his blanket as her hunched shoulders curved over that baby. I felt like I’d turned invisible and started to wonder if she was going away in her head again.
“Eula?”
She started humming, soft and low and oh so sweet. Her head tilted sideways and her eyes stayed on James. It was like she thought she could make the rest of the world go away by just ignoring it.
And right that minute I understood; there was something broke deep inside Eula. Like maybe she hadn’t been able to feel right in her world the same way I never felt right in mine—her without a baby and me without a momma. And I wondered if baby James could fix her.
No. Not in this world. Nothing good could come of a colored woman and a white baby. Wallace knew it, sure as day. He’d called her stupid, but she wasn’t stupid. She was just empty. Empty and needing a baby to fill her up.
I crawled over behind her and rested my cheek against her back. Her bones was sharp under her skin. Her humming vibrated in my head.
I patted her on the shoulder. “We are gonna be fine, you and me and James. We just gotta get away from Wallace.”
The humming stopped like somebody’d pulled the plug on the radio. Her body snapped up straight and I could swear she was holding her breath. “What’d you say?”
“I said we’ll be fine once we get away from Wallace.”
She turned around so fast that I fell backward onto my elbows. “Now you listen here. I ain’t never leavin’ Wallace.”
I felt like I’d been punched in the chest. After the horribleness we just went through, I couldn’t believe she’d stay. “Why not?” “You don’t understand nothin’, so don’t go talkin’ like you do. You just a child, you don’t know nothin’ about bein’ a wife . . . or a colored woman.”
“But he’s so mean to you! You can come with me to Momma’s. She’ll help you get a job in Nashville. You don’t need Wallace.” “Wallace, he take care of me.” Her face got softer. “He always take care of me.”
“But—”
“Shush now! You don’t know him. He jus’ worried ’bout me. He a fine man. I wasn’t nothin’ till he with me. Nothin’ but a throwaway.” She sat there for a minute and her eyes got all faraway. “I was sixteen when we met  .  .  . and so shy.” She shook her head and sighed. “So shy I couldn’t look a man in the eye—even an ugly one.” She leaned close and chuckled, like we was sharing a joke. “And Wallace, ahh, you shoulda seen him; the girls all hovered round him like butterflies round a flower. And the men, why, they step right careful round him. Nobody mess with me once I with Wallace.”
I wanted to say that nobody needed to ’cause Wallace was doing enough messing hisself. But the way she said it made me think she’d seen a world of hurt even before Wallace. So I just clamped my jaw tight. “I didn’t think he even know I was breathin’. But one Saturday night up in the balcony of the movie house, he come and sat right down next to me—even though there was plenty of empty seats. He smiled so handsome and handed me a bag of popcorn.” She smiled in a remembering way. “I was so nervous I couldn’t even eat it. Took it home and ate a few pieces every day for a whole week.”
I decided I would never, ever eat popcorn again.
“Wallace, he grow up with a hoe in his hand, jus’ like every other colored man in Mississippi. But Wallace, he made a life for hisself! One that didn’t just sit there and wait for what was handed out.” She smiled, like Mamie did when she talked about my granddad. “Had a job with a good wage at the charcoal plant. He work hard, was tall and handsome, and proud. So proud.” Her eyes clouded over and her voice slid low. “That pride what bring him down. Down so low he never the same.” She sat up straighter and squared her bony shoulders. “But he always take care of me.”
She reached out to brush my hair away from my face, and I hated that her touch made me feel weak and better all at the same time.
“We be a family now, us four—a secret family.” Eula cupped my cheek with her work-rough hand. “Good Lord, God Almighty, take care of His own,” she whispered, as if church-grateful for her devotion being rewarded.
I thought for a minute. Maybe I ought to start praying direct to the Lord, since he seemed to be winning here over my baby Jesus.
“He done give me more than jus’ baby James,” Eula said. “He know you need a momma, too.”
My back stiffened. “The good Lord already gave me a momma. She’s waitin’ for me in Nashville.”
“Is she?”Eula’s eyes looked straight into the dark pit of my soul where all of the half-truths hid. “I think your momma maybe been gone a long time.” She tilted her head back, peered down her nose, and seemed to look deeper yet. “I think maybe she don’t even know you comin’.”
The bitter truth of that snatched the breath from my lungs, drained away my strength to load another lie. I just sat there and stared right back at her with my lips locked tight.
Eula tried to draw me close, but I pulled away. “There more to bein’ a momma than growin’ a child in your belly. Some women just ain’t made for stickin’ it out.” She didn’t say it hateful, like Mamie when she talked about Momma, but it still got my back up.
“It ain’t like that with Momma!” I felt a tear roll down my nose. “She misses me.”
“Course she misses you, you her child. But no matter how much missin’some mommas do, they still can’t be a momma the way the good Lord intended. And I take real good care of you.” Eula sat there while my hurt swirled with anger, making a knot of feelings so tangled and strong I could hardly breathe.
Then she said, “Yes, the good Lord take care of His own. Trust Him.”
I was so mad my whole body shook. Eula thought she was better than my momma—when she was just a colored woman. And she tried to make me think this was all God’s doing.
The skin on my neck prickled. “I trust God.” My voice was raspy. Then it slid even lower, so low I wasn’t sure Eula heard when I said, “But not Wallace.”
I didn’t want to talk anymore. I went over and laid down on my pallet, facing the wall so my back was to her.
I didn’t turn over when I heard Wallace unlock the door a while later and let her out. Sometime after that, I smelled something sweet, like a pie baking, sneakin’ under the door. I wondered if Eula had more to deliver to Cayuga Springs. I wondered if Wallace would even let her out of the house to do it if she did.
Then I worried she
would
leave . . . leave me and James here alone with Wallace.
That thought made my insides pucker. I waited and worried, but the truck never started up. Time passed. Eula come back in, but sat down next to James and didn’t talk to me. My fear stewed and boiled and finally began to cool some. But it was still there, like bitter on the back of my tongue after eating a bad pecan. I had a feeling it would stay that way until I was safe away from Wallace.
Eula didn’t so much as turn an eyelash my way. She sat beside baby James’s basket, humming a church song and rocking. It was like I’d gone invisible. I told myself that was okay, since she was so good at seeing inside my head, I didn’t want her to figure out what I was thinking ’bout doing.
I didn’t much like being mad at her. But she was just too stubborn and determined to have a baby to see what was obvious as frog’s eyes. Wallace didn’t want to keep me as family. No, sir. Wallace wanted me gone to Jesus.
I told myself, I am white. Wallace can’t really do me in.
But I knew better. Nobody knew I was here. I could get buried in the woods and nobody’d ever find me.
My head hurt and my throat felt like it had a big rock stuck in it. The afternoon passed with me and Eula staying invisible to each another and her coming and going with James. Wallace’s voice on the other side of the door got running slow as an August river, and I knew he was back in the juice. I kept my mind on how I was gonna get away from here and to my momma—who did want me, no matter what Eula said. Getting away, that’s all I let myself think about; not what I was gonna tell Momma about baby James, or about the empty place inside Eula that needed filling so bad that she’d steal a white baby.

7

F

inally, it got dark and the house quiet. The wind came on, not fast and hard, but soft and easy, pushed ahead of a summer storm. The trees whispered with it. The old boards of the house sighed like they was too sad to stand another day. Through the flutterin’ leaves I could see the on-and-off glow of heat lightning. I could still see the moon playing peekaboo through the leaves, so the clouds hadn’t come on yet.

I couldn’t hardly be still. My skin felt all jittery and my feet twitched with needing to move. I had to make sure Wallace was good and asleep, but couldn’t wait until James was crying for his bottle again. I sure hoped a baby couldn’t starve to death in the time it took me to walk to the highway. It was a fact, James had to come with me; I had to get him back to his real momma. I was mad at Eula for staying with Wallace, but I didn’t want her to get into trouble. If I took James, she wouldn’t, ’cause nobody would ever know she took him. She might have been wrong in going about it, but all Eula wanted was a family, and a person shouldn’t get an arm tore off for that.