What the River Washed Away Read online

  I ain’t seen her before. She ain’t one of them kids I see passing our track for the school bus. If she calls me Po’bean I’m gonna get mad as hell though.

  ‘My grandma says I gotta come on over and get something from Mambo. She says Mambo knows all about it and knows what to give me. She says she spoke to her already.’

  ‘Mambo, a girl out here come for ya.’

  Mambo raises herself up off her bed like she’s expecting her anyways. She’s wearing a thin slip, hands on hips, don’t look like a mambo at all, but that girl creeps round the edge of our porch like she’s scared as hell to leave them walls. Like creeping gonna be saving her from something.

  ‘Come on in honey, I ain’t gonna bite, ya know.’ Mambo yawns.

  I nod my head so that poor girl knows it’s okay to come on in. She nods, sees right away we got two of us scared of Mambo.

  Her eyes start darting round our cabin like she’s thinking the Devil himself must be living inside of it. Mambo’s towering over her with hand stretched out, which don’t help none, so when she looks my way again I give her another one of my nods, since looks like she reckons that makes things fine. She places her rolled-up coins on the table, ain’t taking no risk placing it right in Mambo’s hand at all. I reckon she’s even more scared than she looks, and I wanna tell her everything is okay, but I keep quiet ’cause of Mambo doing business and I ain’t got no place in the middle of it.

  Mambo unrolls the few coins and turns back into the bedroom, rattling them in the palm of her hand. She closes the door behind her. I hear the key unlock Pappy’s old closet and my heart sinks low. I ain’t ever seen what she keeps inside of that closet, I’ve always been scared to look and, anyways, she’s still using Pappy’s big lock on it. Pappy made his closet out of wood from a broken cotton cart off the old plantation long before she was even born and he kept what he called all our worldly goods in it. Ain’t ever clear what they were, though. Sure couldn’t have been much because I ain’t never see much, but he kept it closed up anyways, and the key to that lock was hanging round his neck as long as I can remember. He kept what few clothes we had inside of it, I know that, and he sure was fussy about what he called ‘his best’, but now Mambo’s dresses hang over a piece of string between her bed and my cot and, far as I can tell, all her mumbo-jumbo is filling up Pappy’s closet.

  ‘It’s all right, don’t be frightened. She ain’t gonna harm ya,’ I tell the girl, ’cause I see she’s shaking. Truth is, I don’t know if all that mumbo-jumbo does good or harm to folks. Pappy was always calling it devil’s work, but I ain’t ever wanna think of my own Mambo doing harm to folks, or doing any devil’s work at all. That’s for sure. She’s real handy with thwacking and all, ’cause I’m right there and I’m mouthy, but she ain’t bad. No way. She’s just scary ’cause she’s a mambo and right keen on being off someplace when she oughta be right here looking after me like Pappy said she should be. Don’t make her bad. She says it’s just ’cause she’s young and gotta do what young does.

  ‘Ya living here with her?’ the girl asks.

  ‘Yeah, she’s my ma.’

  ‘Ya ma!’ she whispers from the shadow of the wall she’s still creeping round. Looks like she’s in some kinda shock that a mambo can be a ma too and I don’t bother saying she ain’t much of a one.

  ‘I ain’t never seen ya round here before. Where ya living? Where ya come from?’

  ‘Other side of the dirt road,’ she says. ‘We staying out past the new train crossing. We just come. My mom ain’t feeling well, so my grandma sent me on over. We come back ’cause Mom ain’t well and she knows ya … uh, she knows ya … she knows Mambo.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ I raise my voice, trying to cover the garbling noises coming outta Mambo. ‘Ya ma, what’s wrong with her?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure, but Grandma says maybe she’s been accursed.’

  ‘Accursed?’ I ain’t never hear the word with an ‘a’ on the front of it before. Seems quite fancy: must be what they say where she comes from. Out here she’ll get to know a curse is just a curse, and quite soon too, if Mambo don’t get more business.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what she says, and she says ya mom can catch a curser good, and I gotta take whatever she gives me and do whatever she says.’ Her eyes are wide with fear hearing Mambo mumbling behind that door.

  I nod. I hear it plenty. Mambo’s mumbling and all that stuff folks say they come for.

  ‘My grandma, she says my mom’s gonna stop crying and get better.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Ya think it gonna work? ’Cause something sure gotta,’ she says. ‘She’s crying and ain’t able to look after us kids at all.’

  ‘Yeah. It gonna work.’ I chew my lip and think about Pappy telling me I ain’t got no business telling lies. I know Mambo is well able to make some things work, but I don’t know for sure it always makes folks feel better. I wish with all the heart I got that she’s able to make folks feel better.

  Mambo gets done mumbling and she’s standing in the doorway with a small black wrapping in her hand. That’s a piece of newspaper I gotta paint black or red as one of my chores. Nobody but Mambo is ever gonna know what’s inside of that wrapping.

  ‘Ya ma need to boil up half of this and drink it right away. Right away, ya hear? Soon as ya gets home. She needs to give the other half to the gentleman in question. Y’all able to recall that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s good. Off ya go then, she’s waiting. Arletta can write it down if ya wanna be sure on getting it right,’ she says and flounces on back into the bedroom.

  ‘Ya’s able a write?’

  She sure does look right surprised at that, so I tell her how Pappy taught me, and how he taught me to read too. She gets right up in the air ’cause Mambo don’t send me for schooling.

  ‘Ya gotta go to school, we’re all starting next week ’cause we just get here. Y’all gonna get in trouble if ya don’t go. If ya try gettin’ in church and ya children ain’t in school, they say the Devil’s gonna find work for ya hands.’

  I get her outside quick before Mambo hears her talking like that.

  ‘She says I got enough to be doing at home and she needs me right here for it. She says I read and write good enough already and half the ones going to that school don’t ever get able. And she says them darn teachers are just one bunch of trumped-up do-gooders getting gov’ment money for telling folks round here to do as they’s told. Or be scared as hell. That’s what she says about it.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Ya want me to write it? What Mambo says to tell ya ma?’

  ‘No, I remember it. My name’s Safi. What ya called?’

  ‘Arletta.’

  ‘Ya wanna play sometime? We don’t know anybody since we come to live with Grandma. We can meet at the train crossing. That’s what we do sometimes, watch out for trains comin’ through and blowin’.’

  ‘Yeah, sure, that sounds kinda nice,’ is all I say. I don’t reckon she’ll be allowed to play with me ’cause of Mambo, especially if her folks are sending her for schooling, and them trying for church and all. Once she gets to know folks round here, they’re gonna tell her I’m called Po’bean too.

  She says there’s a train coming through at ten o’clock and we can watch it. Then she heads on up our track. I don’t go near that crossing though, ’cause I don’t think she’s gonna be there and I ain’t wanting to be called Po’bean when them other kids catch sight of me anyways. Ain’t got no ways of telling ten o’clock, neither.

  The weekend comes and the moon gets dark.

  Mambo is quiet. All week folks been coming from all over and I gotta leave our cabin every time they come, ’cause of stuff they’s telling Mambo ain’t no other folks oughta hear about. Some folks stay on a long time and I get left outside till the last one of them leaves, like I’m just nobody. Most times I fall asleep in the rocking chair. One time I got lifted up, like Pappy always used to, and put in my cot,
but one time I woke up shivering with cold ’cause of being left outside all night and them folks still talking.

  Mambo lays out her white clothes for bleaching under the sun for two days. She’s careful to take them in when the sun goes down, keeping them outta the kinda trouble going about when bad folks see a dark moon coming, she says. Every month gone by, since she got her first bleeding, she’s been soaking her head cloth in blood mixed with madder root she grows out back. It’s got a deep red colour she’s right proud of, and the power of Mambo’s belly in it too, she says.

  She takes to cleaning out every corner of our cabin, except for Pappy’s old cartwheel and the box of nails in our rafters. She don’t touch under my cot, neither. I ain’t ever hear her speak much about Pappy’s stuff these days, and I get a feeling that she don’t wanna be touching it at all. I ain’t saying for sure, but she just might be fearful of Pappy now he’s dead and gone with God Almighty. She don’t ever say a thing about it, but I see her face get kinda sad when he’s spoken about, and that’s something folks round here do a lot of the time. They say my Pappy was a fine man and good enough for God.

  ‘Ya getting y’self ready, Arletta, like I tell ya?’ she asks, serving me sweet rice and creamy goobers for breakfast.

  ‘No, I ain’t.’

  That just come straight outta my mouth, so I duck down right away in case the back of her hand comes shooting over my face.

  ‘Ya gonna do as ya told, Arletta, just as I says. Hear me? I need ya up there this morning making sure all them torches get put where they’s oughta be. Ya know they’s always putting them torches where I ain’t able to see folks’ faces, and that’s something I need to be seeing.’

  ‘I’ll go and do that Mambo, I gonna help ya set stuff up, but I don’t like no dark moon an’ I ain’t gonna go up near that place in it. No way, Mambo.’

  ‘Arletta, ya the daughter and the granddaughter of mambos, best round here for miles. Grandma was the best in her time and I’m the best in my time. And my daughter’s gonna be too. That gonna happen if ya like it or not. Liking ain’t no part of it. Mambos need strong blood, family blood, and that’s what’s running in ya veins child. Ya’s Mambo’s flesh and blood, and that’s all there is to it. Ya gonna do it.’

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  ‘Yes, ya will.’

  There’s times I know my Mambo is worse than when she’s thwacking. She’s downright stubborn, Pappy said, and no question of it. That’s what always caused a heap of trouble. She’s gonna make me stay up late listening to them drums beating and all them voices wailing when bad spirits get a hold on folks. And then our cockerel’s blood’s gonna get spilled all over, ’cause we already got a new one. Mambo says getting a new cockerel is a sure sign of something, ain’t sure what. Some folks gonna be so gone with liquor and spirits getting a hold of them, they’s gonna be drinking that blood and saving the rest of it for cursing on other folks. It’s gonna be rubbed all over them and all I know is my belly’s gonna turn upside down and I’m gonna be feeling like throwing up with fear of it all. Same as always. Sure don’t wanna be no mambo.

  The day gets along and I start feeling more scared than ever about what’s coming with that dark moon. They take away our cockerel and Mambo packs me off to the mule barn to make sure the torches are put where she says they gotta be. Gonna be hell to pay if that ain’t right this time, she says.

  Lamper Ridge mule barn’s been half in ruins for a long, long time; ain’t nobody ever lay no claim on it. The walls are falling down and ain’t much of a roof left neither. Our mambos been using it since they came to these parts, and my own Mambo says great spirits take care of their own and ain’t nobody ever gonna lay no claim on it. I reckon that’s just ’cause they scared as hell about what’s going on, but I ain’t saying nothing.

  There’s three men up there already and I tell them where Mambo wants the torches. That gets one of them saying my Mambo is real fussy.

  ‘The best there is though,’ another one says. ‘She sure knows about raising up spirits from the old country better than anybody I ever seen. Best in Louisiana state as I knows it.’

  They’re passing round a jug of moonshine and ain’t long before their tongues loosen up, like always. One with no wife talking about who he’s courting, and even though them other two have wives I knows about, they start spouting about who else they’s courting too. They forget I’m there and hearing all that talk. Well, I sure do know all about holding my tongue on that sorta thing, but I’m right ready for running in case they start thinking on doing to me with that stinking liquor making them crazy.

  The place is fixed up good though, like Mambo says, and a fire set ready for lighting soon as it’s dark. Then the drums come and the ground’s marked out with stones. Once that’s done, everybody gets real quiet. Women come and set baskets down. One of them says Mambo wants me back at the cabin right away. I’m glad I can leave that place, and I’m thinking there’s still time to find some kinda reason I don’t need to be coming back after sundown.

  Mambo shows me a new frock I gotta wear for the night; she wants to see how it’s looking on me. Course, I never knew anything about Mambo getting a new frock for me at all. She never takes me past the end of our track, so how I gonna know, anyways? ‘Gallivantin’’, Pappy called it. I just gotta take what I get and ain’t no say if I like it or not. Course, everything I ever have is a hand-me-down from someplace. That’s all I ever have. My new frock ain’t exactly new at all.

  ‘Arletta honey, if ya ain’t so damn sulky that darned much of the time, ya’d be real pretty. Look here girl, see how nice this dress is on ya? See how nice ya looking? My, my.’ She twirls me round so fast to see myself in the mirror, I nearly trip over my own feet. ‘Ya just the prettiest li’l girl I ever seen, and ya’s my baby.’ She plants a kiss on my cheek.

  ‘It’s real fine Mambo. I hope it don’t get no soiling, though. I’m gonna be taking real good care with it. It’s right pretty and I’m thinking it’s just so nice I best not be going up to that old mule barn at all. It sure does get messy up there and I ain’t wanting no messing …’

  Mambo ain’t hear a word of that, just tells me to go wait outside and calls me her honey. She pops another kiss on my other cheek, so I reckon on doing like I’m told. I don’t want no fighting with my Mambo when she’s so full of love and kisses.

  Outside is real dark ’cause there ain’t no moon, and then Mambo even turns out our Tilley. She starts up on her mumbling, and whatever it is she’s burning has me feeling about as strange as I ever been. I’m as fearful as any poor soul can be.

  Folks start coming, some I know and some I don’t, but my mind has me thinking they’re all spirits of dead folks passing over to take a hold on my Mambo. Ain’t nothing I can do about it. Ain’t nothing I can do that’s ever gonna stop them making her the Devil’s child. Pappy ain’t never able to stop it, and he got Jesus, so I sure ain’t able to neither.

  Inside of our cabin a drum starts beating – I don’t even know how it got in there – then somebody lights the tallow tin and I see Mambo’s shadow swaying from side to side. The spirits of the old world are taking hold on her good, nothing I can do gonna stop that now. Then somebody I don’t even know takes me by the hand. I just follow and do like I’m told.

  Mambo’s so far gone she needs holding up. Burning torches throw up creeping shadows all over the place and them pounding drums get louder and louder every step I sure don’t wanna be taking.

  Lamper Ridge mule barn is crowded with folks now. They all give way for Mambo and I take myself off outta sight to hide in the rubble of the wall, same as always. Feet are thumping, hips are swinging, and Mambo’s bangles keep time with the drums when she starts stamping the earth. I curl up in the broken-down wall and pray to God Almighty that none of them spirits come over my way at all. I ask Him with all my heart to make sure I get my Mambo back safe.

  The crowd are swaying like a ripple on Sugarsookie Creek. The night is hot and the dev
ils’ eyes glow red in the fire. Mambo is chanting in the old tongue, calling the spirits of Africa so they know to come. I never learnt any of that old tongue, so I ain’t never get what she’s talking about when she’s off with them spirits. She’s been trying to teach me the talk that came over when our own people got dragged outta their own land, but it don’t sound right to me, and I ain’t gonna say it, ’cause Pappy told me Jesus don’t like it at all. Boy, that sure did cause a heap of trouble in our cabin.

  Mambo pulls an old mamma into the circle of stones. That mamma’s looking right poorly and in need of something doing for sure. They start swaying together and Mambo starts rubbing ashes into her hair. She gets her drinking from one of the little bottles she has swinging from her belt. When Mambo steps back a bit, that old woman starts shaking herself all over like nobody’s ever gonna think she’s able. Looks like some devil’s got inside of her. Next thing, she falls flat out on the ground. She gets up and shakes them skinny legs all over again like it’s the most she moved in years. She falls down one more time and there ain’t no way she’s getting up at all. Her boys, I know them from when Pappy used to go fishing, carry her off to the side of the barn and take good care of her till the Devil leaves her belly.

  One after another, folks take to inside of that circle and Mambo gets something going on. There’s times they just drink from one of her bottles and get themselves on outta there, ’cause I reckon they still got a bit of sense in them, and times they take to shaking all over with the spirits of the old world taking up in their bellies. Some folks start screeching hard, some start singing, some laugh and some cry. Like they’re all crazy as hell, is what Pappy would have said about it.

  I see Mambo whip the shirt off a man one time and draw blood with her knife, the one she keeps sharp as a razor for gutting fish and letting bad spirits outta folks. I see her pounding the good earth hard, and stare, wild as a mad catahoula, at a woman till she falls down crying and trembling all over about how she’s sorry for all the trouble folks say she’s causing.