Whistling Past the Graveyard Read online

  It wasn’t, but it was close enough the ground shook under my feet.

  I wished I’d left James in the bedroom; at least then he’d be dry and warm and he wouldn’t starve to death. I hadn’t even got to the swamp yet. Carrying James, I was moving like a turtle, not the jackrabbit Daddy always said I was.

  The good thing about storms this strong was they didn’t last long. It might rain for the rest of the night, but I could walk in the rain; heck, I couldn’t get any wetter. Right now I was just glad not to be squished under a fallen tree.

  I started to shiver. I hoped James wasn’t too cold. He kept crying and was wiggly, making me hold the basket so tight I worried I was hurting him. Maybe if I sang to him, he’d be less scared. I didn’t know any baby songs, so I sang “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” My voice sounded funny in the wild wind, but I think James liked it ’cause he quieted some.

  Before long, the lightning flashes were less blinding and less often and the thunder moved off. The wind stopped swatting at the trees, but the rain still come down hard. When I started to feel so tired and hopeless that I wanted to just stop right where I was, I thought about being locked in a room, with Wallace and his craziness just outside the door.

  In my miserableness I almost wished I was back home getting myself hauled off to reform school.Truth be told, Mamie’s house probably wasn’t all that different from reform school, all chores and punishment and wadded-up disappointment—just without the locked doors. Sometimes I thought that Mamie thought if she smiled at me once, I’d let loose all the bad behavior I had stored up in me—which according to Mamie was considerable. I never got anything I wanted ’cause everything I asked for was “trashy” or “foolish” or “a waste of your daddy’s hard-earned money.”

  Mamie’s. Reform school. It didn’t really matter. But Momma’s in Nashville, that was gonna be different.

  I started doing a different kind of whistling in my head; thinking how Christmas was gonna be in Nashville. Daddy would come there instead of going to Mamie’s (and Mamie wouldn’t be invited; she could sit in Cayuga Springs in her perfect quiet, looking at her perfect Christmas tree without my handmade ornaments from school messing up the back side anymore). Momma and I would make cookies in the shapes of reindeer and stars, and I wouldn’t get hollered at for getting sugar all over the floor. I’d get Sea-Monkeys and Sparkle Paints and a Barbie House (I didn’t really like Barbies, but the house with all of its fold-together cardboard modern furniture was neat) and a record player with records by Elvis and and the Beach Boys and Martha and the Vandellas. Mamie was particular determined that I didn’t listen to none of that negra music, but I liked it a lot when me and Patti Lynn listened to Cathy’s records.

  Thinking ’bout Christmas in Nashville helped for a while. Then James let loose and no amount of jigglin’ or singin’ made any difference.

  “Sorry, but there’s no food,” I kept telling him, but either he didn’t hear or didn’t understand. “I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry . . . sorry . . . sorry.” I kept mumbling it over and over. My feet kept moving but my mind kinda went to sleep.

  I’m not sure how much time went by, but suddenly I realized the rain had stopped and James wasn’t crying. I worried he wasn’t alive anymore, had maybe starved clean to death. But I was too scared to look, so I just kept walking.

  With my mind awake again, I noticed the ground under my feet had turned to chip and tar. The trees and brush that had made a tunnel of the road had disappeared. Naked trees, black on the dark gray sky with ghosts of moss dancing under their broken branches. Water licked right up to the edge of the road.

  The swamp.

  All sorts of things ran around in my head and I couldn’t stop them: swamp monsters, water moccasins, gators. My skin puckered up with a fresh crop of goose bumps and I tried to make myself small and quiet.

  I loved Vincent Price movies, but after this I was never gonna spend a quarter to see another one. Being scared for real was way worse than being movie scared.

  How long had it taken Eula to drive past the brown water and bare trees? It didn’t matter. It’d take me a lot longer, especially since I was dog tired.

  Then I heard it. Birds chirpin’ for the morning. I hadn’t noticed, but a soft gray light was creepin’ in. Silver mist rose off the water—just like in all of the scary movies I’d ever seen. I wished with all my heart we was out of this swamp.

  Light got brighter. The sky streaked pink and orange in front of me. I looked over my shoulder and saw the sky behind me had blued up some but still showed a couple of bright stars. James started crying again. I was almost glad . . . at least he was alive.

  I was getting hungry myself and started thinking about a nice big bowl of Sugar Frosted Flakes. I told my growling stomach to shut up. It didn’t listen—probably couldn’t hear over James’s caterwaulin’. My arms started to cramp and shake and I could feel a blister rubbed on my left heel by my wet socks. I had to rest for just a minute.

  Water was everywhere, so I sat right down where I was, Indianstyle on the puddly road. I figured in the middle was farther for the snakes to crawl and I’d see ’em coming. It took a couple of seconds to unbend my arms. Once they got loosened, baby James kicked and the basket jumped and rolled over onto the road.

  The basket had been folded so tight for so long, he didn’t tumble out.

  I set the basket upright and spread it open. His face was red as an August sunburn. His mouth was open to his gummy gums and his eyes squeezed shut. I thought he’d stopped breathing when he finally sucked in a big gulp of air, then screamed bloody murder.

  I was just reaching in the basket to get him out when I heard a rough rumble.

  Not thunder.

  A truck was coming—and there was nowhere to hide.

  The robin-egg-blue patch on the hood sucked all hope from my lungs. I didn’t even stand up, just sat there watching those headlights getting bigger by the heartbeat. The only direction I could run was straight down the road, and I sure couldn’t outrun a truck, no matter how rickety it was.

  But this old truck wasn’t creepin’ along. It was coming fast, way faster than Eula drove. A big lump of surrender swelled up in my throat. Black, slimy fear wound itself around it, choking me till my ears rang and my chest hurt. A sob rammed up against that fear and it exploded from me, startling me with its loudness.

  Once that first cry was loose, it took over my whole self and there wasn’t nothing left to be but blubberin’ defeat. I’d tried. I’d tried to save me and James. But now Wallace knew my hand. Tears blurred the hulk of hunched-up rust and headlights barreling my way.

  I was gonna spend the rest of my life locked up in that bedroom, probably tied up, too.

  The truck got closer, not slowing down.

  Closer.

  It wasn’t gonna stop!

  I considered letting death gather me under that truck.

  At the last second, I kicked James’s basket, sending it rolling to one side of the road. At the same time I threw myself backward to the other, rolling up and over my shoulders in a backward somersault. As I landed on my belly, head still on the road, I heard my feet hit the water. Had James landed in the swamp on the other side?

  The wheels locked up and slid on the wet chip and tar, screaming like a giant bird. The spray splattered my face as the front wheel stopped right in front of my nose.

  That wheel didn’t have a hubcap. Why I noticed was a mystery.

  My stomach felt like it was still back underneath that truck’s dull, pockmarked front bumper.

  I heard James squallin’. He wasn’t underwater and the truck hadn’t squashed him. I couldn’t see if he was hurt. I couldn’t see nothin’ but that fat rubber tire and rusty wheel. It come to me then that I couldn’t move even a finger, laying there with my breath echoing in my body and my eyes on that tire.

  The door clunked and squeaked open.

  My eyes shifted in their sockets. The shoe that hit the pavement next to me was big and brown.<
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  Tears wetted my cheeks and I hated every one of them.

  All the sudden, Wallace had me by the back of my shirt, yanking me up off the ground.

  For a second I just hung there, limp with fear.

  Fight!

  My arm finally listened to my brain and I took a swipe at him. I could only reach his arm. It felt like I was hittin’ a ham.

  I opened my mouth to yell, Let me go! But all that came out was a shameful sob.

  He gave me a little shake like I was a kitten he had by the scruff.

  That knocked something loose inside me. All my muscles woke up. I fought like a catamount to get free of that man, twistin’ and thrashin’ and scratchin’. With a scream through my gritted teeth, I flung my legs, trying to land a kick.

  He slapped my face. The sting of it sucked the air out of my scream and stunned my limbs into stillness. My eyes got blurry as I hung there at the end of his arm, half-sitting on the ground.

  That’s when I realized I wasn’t the only one screaming.

  Eula was coming up and over the side of the truck bed, her hair sticking up like tufts of steel wool, blood running down her cheek. “Stop! Wallace! Stop!”

  He jerked his head around, looking surprised to see her.

  He moved quick as a snake, whipping me around so my head was toward the water and slammed me down. I grabbed at the marsh grass and tried to pull against him, but my hands kept slipping.

  Eula threw herself at him, but he flicked her off like she was no bigger than a bug.

  “Don’ make this worse than it gotta be!” he yelled while he pressed me against the ground. The back of my head hit the water.

  I wasn’t gonna get tied up. I was gonna die.

  “Please, don’t,” I said, my voice so small I could barely hear it. My bladder let go; warmth ran up my back. My heart beat so fast I was dizzy. “I’ll stay with you and Eula. I’ll never tell about James. Never . . .”

  His eyes rolled up in his head, looking to the sky. His voice was a harsh whisper when he said, “God forgive me, it gotta be done.”

  Eula was up again. She pulled against Wallace’s shoulders, like a bird trying to move an elephant. “Please, baby. You not this kind of man, I know you ain’t. You got a good heart inside you. I promise I’ll keep her locked inside. I promise. Nobody know. Please, baby.”

  For an instant, his grip on my shoulders eased.

  Then Wallace roared as loud as any bear and flung her away. She landed on her side and rolled into the water.

  “I won’t tell! I won’t tell anybody!” I screamed.

  The water came up over my ears. I strained my neck to raise my head.

  “Don’t look at me!” he shouted. “Close your eyes and don’t you look at me!” His knee pinned my shoulders and his big hand pressed my forehead. Then he pushed.

  I kicked and bucked my legs. I clawed his arm.

  The water blurred my vision, but I saw him turn his face away. My breath ran out fast.

  My mouth opened. Water burned its way in.

  This is the end of me.

  The hand on my head began to shake.

  A lily pad floated into sight. It looked different from the bottom.

  All the sudden, I wasn’t scared anymore. Warm calm wrapped me up tight.

  I was sorry I wouldn’t see my momma again. Sorry I didn’t tell Patti Lynn good-bye. Sorry Daddy’d have to be without his girl when he came home for a visit next time.

  My eyes closed.

  Please don’t hurt baby James.

  All at once, the hand and the knee were gone.

  My face sprung up out of the water. I had to kick with my legs to keep from sliding back in. I grabbed a handful of tall grass and pulled. I coughed and wheezed as I rolled over. I heard my lungs squeal as air rushed in, burning even more than the water as it had inched deep into my chest.

  I heard Eula splashing and slipping a few feet away as she tried to get out of the mud and water. It hadn’t been her who made him stop.

  Wallace sat on the edge of the road, not a foot from me, his elbows on his knees, the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes. His mouth was drawn into an awful openmouthed frown; a string of spit ran from his lower lip. He rocked and muttered, “Sweet Jesus, save me . . . save me . . . I can’t . . . I jus’ can’t . . .”

  I wanted to yell his damnation. I opened my mouth and all that came out was a sorry sob; a baby’s sob. I tried to swallow it, but another bubbled up right behind it.

  Wallace trained his eyes on me and raised his fist. “You’s alive now, but you run again, I am gonna kill you . . . right after I kill that squallin’ baby.”

  Never let a bully see you scared.

  I tried to sit up but my arms were too weak to push.

  Reaching deep for courage, I found there was nothing left to grab on to.

  I wished I’d let that truck run over me.

  I rolled onto my back and looked up at the sky, my own barking sobs filling my ears. Suddenly the sunrise turned inside out and time ran backwards, sending the sky toward darkness.

  Baby James sounded farther and farther away.

  Then everything faded altogether. I reached out and took that blackness by the hand, glad to go away from here. Away from everything forever.

  9

  i

  was rocking. I was warm. A soft hum brushed my ears, which seemed to be plugged up with cotton, making the sound far away. I knew it was close though, ’cause it vibrated against my shoulder. Momma?

  Keeping my eyes closed, I tried to dig back deeper into sleep. I was safe.That’s all I wanted to let in. But my body worked against me, waking up anyway, poking with soreness and pain. For a while I could ignore it. Then things started to prickle my mind. The storm. The swamp.

  A cold wind blew the cobwebs from my head, pulling them string by sticky string, showing more than I wanted to remember.

  Wallace.

  Oh, dear baby Jesus, no.

  The smell of woodsmoke and kerosene snaked into my nose. I was back in the hateful little bedroom. Trapped. Hopeless.

  I felt like something was trying to claw its way out of my chest. The pain forced my eyes open.

  I was wrapped in the quilt from my pallet. Brown arms wrapped around me. Eula hummed as she pushed the rocker slowly back and forth. My bare toes tapped the floor each time she rocked forward.

  Eula smiled.“There now. You awake.”She said it soft and sweet, and the sound of it made me want to cry.

  I pressed myself back against her bony shoulder and stuck my nose down into the quilt. My eyeballs felt like they was likely to explode from the tears built up inside. But inside was where they had to stay. Blubberin’ wasn’t gonna help anything. My cheeks burned with shame, thinking on how I’d cried and begged out there on the road. I’d showed I was nothing but a scared little girl.

  And now Wallace knew.

  “It’s all right,” Eula cooed just like she did to baby James. “It be all right now.”

  A tornado sprung up in my chest, a wild swirl of black fear, red anger, and hot frustration. Those feelings spun so tight I couldn’t tell one from the other. They sucked the air from my aching lungs and sent bitter shivers through me. Eula had known she’d stole that white baby. She’d known Wallace was crazy. He’d tried to kill me and here she was acting all sweet, like it was a regular day.

  I threw myself from her lap. The water in my ears crackled and fluttered. Tripping over the quilt, I stumbled to the floor. As I rolled over, I caught sight of her face and a tiny bit of my anger went away.

  Blood had dried on her cheek over a deep red-purple bruise beneath her brown skin. Her black hair stood in pointy tufts like a crazy clown hat. Her lip was split and swollen.

  She had tried to save me.

  No! I pushed the thought away. She was wrong! She could have driven right on by, kept baby James, and I could have been safe with Momma right now.

  Baby James!

  I looked around the room. The bulr
ush basket was in the corner, dirty and broken. No baby inside. “Oh no!”

  “He all right. He sleepin’.” Eula nodded toward the cradle.

  All my muscles let go at once. “He’s okay?”

  She nodded. “And you, too.”

  “I am not okay,” I said, mustering up just as much hatefulness as I could. “I’m not.” I sounded more pitiful than hateful. “You never shoulda picked me up. You kidnapped me just like you did James!”

  Her brow wrinkled and her eyes filled with surprise and hurt. She looked away. “No. No, it wasn’t like that. Nobody want James. And you . . . I was worried you come to no good out there all alone after dark.”

  “Wallace tried to kill me! How much more ‘no good’ can it get?”

  She began to shake her head, burying her fingers in her hair. “It wasn’t supposed to—” She rocked a little. “You was supposed to go on to Nashville. Baby James supposed to stay with me. But Wallace, he so scared . . .”

  “He’s scared! I was the one who almost got drowned.”

  She sent a quick look toward the glassless window. “Shhh. Shhh, now. No need to be afraid of Wallace.”

  Just then the bear’s hateful face peered in through the window, and the urge to throw up grabbed me so fast all I could do was lean over and heave onto the floor. My stomach squeezed and squeezed until my eyes felt like they was gonna pop. Nothing but a thin string came up. Then I got a coughing fit, which caused more heaving.

  I realized Eula had come onto the floor with me. She rubbed my back, talking quiet the whole time. I shook her hand off. She didn’t put it back.

  When I could finally breathe again, I peeked out from under my eyebrows to see Wallace still staring at me. I couldn’t tell exactly what he was thinking, but he looked . . . sad. Guess he was since he didn’t get me all the way killed.

  Eula whispered in my ear, “He only tryin’ to keep me safe. He don’t mean it.”