Blood Kin Page 5

  There was something in a crate beneath the kudzu out in that field on the other side of the woods, a crate that someone had felt the need to bind in iron, if Grandma had not lied to him. And Michael didn’t think she ever lied.

  She was up again at four. He could hear her stirring. He hadn’t even been aware he’d stayed up all night. He thought about slipping into bed before she knew he was up, but then the ache in his side intensifiedas she struggled to get to the screen door behind him.

  He could feel her thin lips begin to move.

  “We’d best get back at it. We lost last night.” He waited. “There’s little time left, Michael.”

  The wind was suddenly in the distant kudzu, and the thousand green leaves of it pushed against the wall of dark trees until they swayed.

  Chapter Four

  SADIE DIDN’T WANT the preacher walking her home, but she didn’t know how to stop him. She didn’t even know how to talk to him, didn’t want to. The preacher wanted something from her, seemed like most everybody wanted things from her lately: her daddy, her momma, George Mackey. But she was sure that whatever the preacher wanted would put all those other wants to shame. The preacher hadn’t said a word to her for some time, but he didn’t have to. Although they were walking together he was leading her, just like he did everybody in the hollow. Some people said it was because he carried our Lord with him that he was such a natural-born leader, but Sadie knew it was something else entirely. She couldn’t have said exactly what it was; she didn’t even want to think about it.

  With her trembling left fist she clutched the back of her yellow dress so that it fell down in folds to hidethe blood from her period, praying her thanks that she was so skinny and that the dress had always been so loose. But she kept thinking about that blood on her and she couldn’t help thinking of it as Fred Shaney’s blood, too. She kept seeing Fred Shaney’s hands flopped down in the dirt like pale fish.

  She kept trying to think of a way to explain it away. She wasn’t ready, and she didn’t even know what it was she wasn’t ready for.

  But the preacher knew.

  “They killed him last night,” the preacher said, his voice slow and watery.

  “Who?” Again she thought of Fred Shaney. Who had the preacher done away with now?

  “John Dillinger. Shot him down outside a theater in

  Chicago. Heard it on the radio down at the store.”

  “So? He’s a criminal, aint he?”

  “Depends on how you look at the thing.”

  Sadie wasn’t surprised by hisattitude, but it made her curious all the same. “Why… you’re a preacher. How can you say that?”

  “John Dillinger was an outsider, an outcast in an evil society. He just did what they forced him to do.”

  “He killed people.”

  “Sometimes you have to. You’ll be learning that, Sadie.” She almost shook her head. Not if it means cutting people up like that, like poor Fred Shaney.

  They descended into a bottom where the creek came up almost to the roadside for a time. A soot-streaked shack on the opposite bank, eaten out over the years, leaned like it was about to fall into the water. Gazing at the wide spaces between the boards gave Sadie an achy feeling. A pleasing dampness filled the air; light shone between the trees like a wet silver ribbon.

  Dying vegetation caked the creek banks. The creek was still, stopped by the green logs bridging the banks. Somebody had started a stone dam here years ago and left it a third built. Stones still jutted from the banks into the green water and the mass of rotting logs. Water wept down the rough stone. She felt like the air she was breathing was so old it was leaking.

  “It be the third decade of the twentieth century, girl.” The voice was so low, so careful, Sadie wasn’t even sure it was the preacher’s voice, but she didn’t turn around to see if his lips were moving. It was like hearing her own thoughts. She just kept walking, looking straight ahead, and letting the words creep up into her head. “It is half done with nineteen-thirty-four. Our family has been on this earth a long time. Getting ripe. Developing their feeling for each other and everything their eyes can reach. Just like you, Sadie. All of us are getting to our maturity. The blood’s getting ripe, telling us what we gotta do.”

  He stopped talking as they started past the Baker place. The widow Baker wasn’t a relation, but half-crazy just the same. Sadie knew the preacher didn’t trust her. The woman was standing out in her front yard, one arm thrown over the head of her best milker.

  “Mornin, ma’am.” The preacher raised his broad-rimmed dark hat. The widow didn’t pay them any attention; she was too busy babbling to her cow.

  Saplings the Civilian Conservation Corps boys had planted dotted the hillside. A few of the boys were up there now in their blue outfits, just like soldiers. Supposed to be building a fire tower, she’d heard.

  “Our family’s got the best part of the Melungeon stock, Sadie. Our blood’s got the most feeling in it. Now some has watered it down with other families, but we’re still pure enough, at least so’s we can do what’s gotta be done.”

  A chimney stood by itself in a clearing on their left. A squirrel jumped out of the top and scrambled down the side. She used to know the family that lived there. There was a boy who tried and tried every year to catch a fish, but never could. Every time she’d see him dipping his pole she’d tried to explain to him that there hadn’t been fish in that creek since before her daddy’s time — the first families into the hollow had fished it all out. But the boy never would listen, acting like she wasn’t even there. She remembered the old man one day in there screaming, trying to beat down the walls of his house. She tried hard to remember his name, but the preacher’s voice was still at her, moving inside her like thunder trying to hold its breath.

  “You’re a Gibson. And the purest Gibson stock, not one of them pale Gibsons that live in the towns. You got the feeling and there’s just no refusing it.”

  “What do you want from me?” she cried, still unable to look into hisface. She stared at the truck coming down the road toward them, tried to concentrate on its bright new red paint job, tried to keep his voice outside.

  He didn’t say anything for a while. A caved-in barn surrounded two large trees on their left. The truck up ahead was slowing down. Sadie recognized Homer Goin’s rendering truck. Somebody’s horse or cow must’ve died. The truck was moving even more slowly now, practically creeping. The trees were so close here Sadie and the preacher couldn’t get completely out of the road. She felt the preacher moving her to the side as he began to speak again.

  “I don’t want nothing much, Sadie. Some of your feeling, some of your blood.”

  She was sick from the stench. The truck hit a stone and a greasy piece of sour meat came flying out, slapping the dust beside them.

  “Things are happening. I need that blood of yours. And I need you to marry. The family needs your blood-born, your child.”

  “Married!” Sadie was choking, her eyes filling with tears. She couldn’t get rid of the smell.

  “Yes, indeedy. I want you to marry Mickey-Gene for me.”

  “The fool! And a first cousin to boot! You’re crazy you think I’m…”

  She was too angry to hear the word the preacher said, but the way he said it made her go cold all over. She stopped speaking, stopped moving, stopped breathing. It was like she’d been shot. Her thoughts were frozen and useless in her brain.

  “Legal in the state of Virginia, if that matters to you. This is going to happen, Sadie. It’s your time.”

  Sadie thought of the gray eyes floating in Mickey-Gene’s pasty face, his mouth opening with no sound. “But he’s got no sense,” she said softly.

  “You got enough sense for the both of you. He’s close to pure blood. He’s just right for the baby you’re gonna have. Now, that’s gonna be a child with feeling.”

  “Wh… why, Uncle?” She didn’t really want to know, but she wanted the preacher to do all the talking now. It seemed rea
l important that she listen to everything he might say on the subject. And if she talked — it was just too dangerous to risk his anger.

  “This world’s changing. We’re having bad times. Seems like us Gibsons always having bad times.” The smoothness in his voice began to calm her. “But right now everybody’s feeling it, I guess. Cept for CCC work, only jobs are a good fifty mile away, and that means mining those tiny holes in the ground, throwing a pick into rock over your head with water in the tunnel up to your knees. Cattle’s selling at five cents on the pound, and the tobacco’s coming in low as two. Costs more to sell it on the floor than it pays. People are out begging for a meal and anything a body’ll spare from people just cant spare it. You think about some old-timer you aint seen in town a few months or so — likely as not some hunter’ll find his body out in the woods where he was trying to dig out a root to chew on, the hounds drawn to the smell.”

  So what do you want from me? she thought, trying to hold back the tears. “How’s my having Mickey-Gene’s baby gonna help any of that?”

  “Wont help us now but might help us later.”

  “How?”

  “That’s gonna take some time to work out. I’ve been dreaming about things, Honey. Somewhere in this world there be an army building places where they’ll be killing thousands of people, maybe millions. I’d know more, but the smell of all those bodies just pulls me right out of my bed. Think about this hollow full up to the treetops with dead men, women, children. We’re Melungeons, Honey. Why, state of Virginia still says we’re coloreds. We aint supposed to vote, though some do. Personally I wouldn’t care to. We’re not part of that government — never will be.

  “There’s people’d like to kill us all out. Now you wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?”

  “No, I wouldn’t, preacher, I…”

  “You think about it. You imagine it. I bet you can smell them bodies too.”

  Sadie gasped, and her lungs filled with the decay.

  “Feel it, Sadie!”

  Her throat felt slimy with the stench, her lips rotting off her face.

  “Oh, you got it, Sweetie. I know!”

  Sadie could see her house just a little further up the road. She wanted to run, but the smell was choking her. She could barely see. She rubbed her throat, wanting badly to throw up, get some of the smell out of her.

  “Go on. Dig it out. You dig out the stink and you’ll just find there’s always more stink right under it.”

  “Let me go. Please.”

  “It’s not me, Sadie. You just have the feeling. You got to live with that. But I can make it a little easier for you.”

  The preacher grabbed both her arms and pulled her up toward his scarred face. Sadie glanced up at his eyes, but couldn’t hold on to what was there. She dropped her gaze to the crooked scar that snaked his cheek. It writhed suddenly, as if to leap out of his skin. The preacher grinned, his teeth snagging on blistered, uneven lips. “You be at the church meeting tonight, girl. Or I’ll tell your daddy about what happened down the store today. Then I’ll tell your momma about what your daddy’s been wanting to do with you. See if that makes her love you more!” Sadie knew she was showing herself to the preacher, but she couldn’t hide from him. He seemed to suck it right out of her. “Yeah, I know all about that. Not much I dont know. And I’ll find a way to make that happen with your daddy, if you dont do exactly what I say. Hear?” He dropped her. “Be there?”

  “Yes. I swear, just don’t…”

  But he’d already turned and was striding away from her, enormous brown boots pounding the road. His body was a shadow the afternoon sun seemed unable to lighten. His clothing was crisp and rustled like dry leaves in the boiling air.

  THEIR HOUSE WAS all lit up, and it still two hours before dark. Her daddy had even hung a couple of lanterns on the porch, and that meant company. Sadie pulled her skirt tighter in back and walked carefully to the back of the house. Her tiny room had a door that led on to the back porch — it had been used for firewood storage before she was born. If her daddy was drunk enough maybe he wouldn’t hear her come in. Her momma was always off visiting and usually not home until late.

  But tonight Momma had a visitor. When Sadie walked up to the house she heard the women trying to sing “Poor Orphan Child,” that song by that family over in Poor Valley that got so famous, the Carters. The idea that anybody from those parts could get famous for singing was like something from a storybook, and when the record come out people from all over went down to Levitt’s General to listen to it. Nobody she knew in the hollow had the electricity, so no record players or radios neither, but Levitt’s had both. Least all the folks had mouths though, and they weren’t too bashful about using them for singing, especially if they’d been drinking.

  She opened the screen door and stepped up onto the porch. The first thing she saw was her momma sitting in the doorway to the kitchen, sharing a smoke and a little bottle of shine with Uncle Jesse’s wife, Lilly. They stopped hurting that poor orphan child when she came in, and Lilly made a little laugh like she was embarrassed. She was a church goer, so shine and cigarettes were things she was supposed to be staying away from.

  Lilly was among the darkest of the Gibsons, “almost a nigger,” Daddy’d always say, but not to where Uncle Jesse could hear it. Uncle Jesse was quiet most of the time; when he was drunk people’d say he was almost a poet. But sometimes he’d go mean, like something went bust inside all of a sudden, and you never knew what he might do. Daddy said he saw Jesse bite off a man’s ear one time, then try to wrestle out the tongue with his fingers. Daddy said they used to call Uncle Jesse “mad dog” when he was a boy.

  Sadie kind of liked the way Lilly looked and acted. Her aunt was beautiful, about the only woman in Morrison she’d ever say that about. She thought her aunt looked oriental, like some kind of princess in a story book. And she was quiet, too, but in a special kind of way. Like she knew about better things, but she wasn’t about to talk about them in front of the likes of Morrison folk. And she’d been smoking a long time, and got Sadie’s momma to start smoking, too. Lilly was like that, a leader. The other Morrison women would never admit it, but they imitated her.

  Aunt Lilly nodded at Sadie. She was all in white. Her eyes and teeth sparked against her dark skin.

  “Hello, Aunt Lilly.” Sadie felt foolishly like dipping her knee and bowing her head a little.

  “So where you’ve been, girl?” It was her momma speaking. For a moment Sadie thought to lie, wondering if somebody had already told what had happened.

  “I was just down to the town for a little. Stopped and talked to Granddaddy on the way.”

  “Yeah. He told me.”

  Granddaddy wouldn’t have volunteered that. Her momma must have asked him direct. He never said nothing to his daughter or son-in-law about Sadie’s doings, never could tell what might get her into trouble. Sadie appreciated that, but it must have been hard on her momma, her own daddy not trusting her like that.

  Her momma could be pretty if she wanted to be. Even in the gray housedress she was wearing now − it had orange flowers on it but they were so faded they looked like grease spots. She had a fine shape to her face, high cheekbones and a nose Sadie envied. Hers always felt swollen up. If she’d just do something to her hair, and if she’d eat better. Since she took up smoking she hardly ate at all, and never with the family, just a little on a plate by the stove. She didn’t even sit down to eat. No wonder she was always so nervous. Sadie was gazing through the kitchen door, past her mother’s head.

  “Your pa’s got his fool buddies over. No offense, Lilly.” Lilly just nodded and blew a line of smoke. Uncle Jesse was in there, then. “I swear if this house caught fire tonight there’d be more than one in this valley praising the Good Lord tommorry!”

  Sadie used to laugh at the smart-mouth things her mother said. They were certainly almost always true. But it didn’t make things any better for her mother, or for Sadie. So after a while it just made Sadie
mad. That kind of talk just made you feel worse. Granddaddy said Sadie’s momma had gone hateful since the marriage. Sometimes Sadie wondered if her mother would have been so bad if she hadn’t had her.

  Sadie looked down the porch and through the screen: the sun was dropping fast. She needed to get into her room, but couldn’t figure how to leave her mother yet.

  “By the way, the Grans want to see you tonight. Uncle Jesse brought the message — dont know where he got it from. He’s been drinkin too much to get it outta him.” Her mother said it careful, like it meant something. And it did.

  It was too dark for Sadie to find her mother’s eyes. “Why?” She tried to ask it firmly, but it came out a whisper.

  “How the hell should I know? I aint seen them since the wedding, Missy!”

  That was true. Sadie knew her mother thought it was because she’d come from outside the family, and a lot of the Gibsons resented that. Dilution, was the big word the preacher used for that. But the Grans hardly ever saw nobody. They never went into town, or to any of the socials, and nobody went to see them, either. Except the preacher. People said he went there most every week. But Sadie had never heard of anyone else visiting there in years; she didn’t even know how they got their food. It seemed a shame — they didn’t live that much further up the mountain. But Sadie had never visited them, either. The kids at school said they were devils.

  She felt herself trembling. “I have to go?”

  Sadie wished she could take that back. She went stiff all over, waiting for her mother to scream at her, or maybe hit her. But her mother didn’t say anything for a while. Then, finally, in a voice that made Sadie want to cry it sounded so gentle, “I guess you gotta, Baby. They’re the Grans, and they never asked nobody before.”