into the mountains, a blue sky overhead, but plenty of rain had fallen. The creeks ran quick and muddy. The fields were no longer dust. It had been a soaking rain, the answer to prayers and dead black snakes and shee-show and whatever else people had found to believe in.
Billy wasn’t in his fields, but I hadn’t expected him to be since it was too muddy to get much done anyway. You might get some corn and beans after all, Billy, I thought as I followed the other men’s muddy footprints down the field edge to the river. Already the corn stalks seemed to be standing taller, the beans greener.
The river was high, fast and muddy like the creeks. Crossing was a lot trickier than yesterday. I found a limb to use as a staff and took my time. I gave a shout, and Bobby answered downstream. The water was too high to use the grappling hooks. All Bobby and the rest of the men were doing was hoping to find what water had already brought up on its own.
By eleven the river crested. Tom and Leonard cast the grappling hooks into blue holes as the rest of us walked the banks. The river had washed up tree limbs and a tractor tire and even a rod and reel. But it still hid Holland. We stopped at noon and ate donuts and drank Cheerwines Bobby had brought.
‘If that storm didn’t bring that body up I don’t know what the hell will,’ Bobby said as we sat on the bank.
‘It sure enough brought up most everything else,’ Tom said. We watched the river flow past, almost as clear now as it had been the day before and not much higher.
It was the river I’d been baptized in.
‘Washed in the blood of the lamb,’ Preacher Robertson had said as the blue sky fell away and water rushed over me. It seemed Preacher Robertson held me there forever, but I hadn’t been afraid. I was ten years old. I had felt the power of that river and believed it nothing less than God Himself swirling around me.
After we ate, Tom and Leonard worked the blue holes while Bobby and me waded in and poked bamboo poles under banks and between big rocks. All we found was snakes and muskrats.
‘Let’s go,’ I said at four o’clock. We recrossed the river and slogged our way back up the field edge.
‘You go on back with Tom and the others,’ I told Bobby when we got to the cars. ‘I’ll be along directly.’
I watched Tom’s car disappear around a bend, then stepped into Billy Holcombe’s yard. I heard a rasping sound coming from the woodshed and walked over and peered inside. At first I saw nothing, but my eyes began to adjust to the dark. Billy slowly took his form behind what looked like prison bars. Like a haint shape-shifting, my older kin would have said. But I was the ghost, haunting a valley where I no longer belonged.
Soon I saw the bars he worked on were wood, not steel. He hummed to himself, so soft it sounded no louder than a wasp’s drone. I could smell the wood, wild cherry, and I knew the crib was as much for his wife as for the child. Whatever had happened between Holland and her, the crib was a sign she and Billy had gotten past it.
She had stuck by him the last few days, lied for him. Whatever had happened that morning, she’d had to make a choice between Holland and Billy and she’d chosen Billy.
Billy kept on humming, and I bet he didn’t even know he was doing it. I listened to a man who believed his future was going to be better than his past, a man who’d woke up to rain-soaked fields and the knowledge come fall he’d have a bumper crop. A man about to learn he’d gotten away with murder.
I wondered what would happen when Carolina Power ran him off his land. Billy’s parents had been sharecroppers. This land didn’t connect Billy to his family the way Daddy’s land connected him to ours.
Billy’s land signaled a break from his past, from what his family had been. Maybe land to Billy was just something to be used, like a truck or plow horse. Billy might think his ship had come in when Carolina Power bought his place
Billy wasn’t in his fields, but I hadn’t expected him to be since it was too muddy to get much done anyway. You might get some corn and beans after all, Billy, I thought as I followed the other men’s muddy footprints down the field edge to the river. Already the corn stalks seemed to be standing taller, the beans greener.
The river was high, fast and muddy like the creeks. Crossing was a lot trickier than yesterday. I found a limb to use as a staff and took my time. I gave a shout, and Bobby answered downstream. The water was too high to use the grappling hooks. All Bobby and the rest of the men were doing was hoping to find what water had already brought up on its own.
By eleven the river crested. Tom and Leonard cast the grappling hooks into blue holes as the rest of us walked the banks. The river had washed up tree limbs and a tractor tire and even a rod and reel. But it still hid Holland. We stopped at noon and ate donuts and drank Cheerwines Bobby had brought.
‘If that storm didn’t bring that body up I don’t know what the hell will,’ Bobby said as we sat on the bank.
‘It sure enough brought up most everything else,’ Tom said. We watched the river flow past, almost as clear now as it had been the day before and not much higher.
It was the river I’d been baptized in.
‘Washed in the blood of the lamb,’ Preacher Robertson had said as the blue sky fell away and water rushed over me. It seemed Preacher Robertson held me there forever, but I hadn’t been afraid. I was ten years old. I had felt the power of that river and believed it nothing less than God Himself swirling around me.
After we ate, Tom and Leonard worked the blue holes while Bobby and me waded in and poked bamboo poles under banks and between big rocks. All we found was snakes and muskrats.
‘Let’s go,’ I said at four o’clock. We recrossed the river and slogged our way back up the field edge.
‘You go on back with Tom and the others,’ I told Bobby when we got to the cars. ‘I’ll be along directly.’
I watched Tom’s car disappear around a bend, then stepped into Billy Holcombe’s yard. I heard a rasping sound coming from the woodshed and walked over and peered inside. At first I saw nothing, but my eyes began to adjust to the dark. Billy slowly took his form behind what looked like prison bars. Like a haint shape-shifting, my older kin would have said. But I was the ghost, haunting a valley where I no longer belonged.
Soon I saw the bars he worked on were wood, not steel. He hummed to himself, so soft it sounded no louder than a wasp’s drone. I could smell the wood, wild cherry, and I knew the crib was as much for his wife as for the child. Whatever had happened between Holland and her, the crib was a sign she and Billy had gotten past it.
She had stuck by him the last few days, lied for him. Whatever had happened that morning, she’d had to make a choice between Holland and Billy and she’d chosen Billy.
Billy kept on humming, and I bet he didn’t even know he was doing it. I listened to a man who believed his future was going to be better than his past, a man who’d woke up to rain-soaked fields and the knowledge come fall he’d have a bumper crop. A man about to learn he’d gotten away with murder.
I wondered what would happen when Carolina Power ran him off his land. Billy’s parents had been sharecroppers. This land didn’t connect Billy to his family the way Daddy’s land connected him to ours.
Billy’s land signaled a break from his past, from what his family had been. Maybe land to Billy was just something to be used, like a truck or plow horse. Billy might think his ship had come in when Carolina Power bought his place
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