Arly (14 page)

“Arly?”

Somebody said my name. Hearing it, I jumped up quick and hurried to the door, thinking it was Mrs. Cooter. I was wrong. It was Miss Hoe.

“Oh, Arly … I just heard.”

“My daddy died last night.”

“I'm so sorry.” As she holded out both her hands, I took them. “The pair of you seemed to be so deeply proud of each other. So very belonging.”

“Yes'm.”

She hugged me very gentle. “Brother Smith came over to Mrs. Newell's before I was even up or dressed,” she spoke into my ear. “He could hardly speak. I guess he'd waited outside, holding his hat, until Verna Newell rushed out. Then he told the two of us …
Brother Poole be dead
. That's how he said it, Arly. Softer than a prayer.”

“Thank you,” I said, “for feeling grief.”

Releasing me, holding my shoulders at arm's length, she studied my face. “Believe me, I really do. But what a gift you'll someday give your father. You were his hope, Arly. His escape and his dream. I read it all on his face the day I stepped off the gangplank of the Caloosahatchee Queen and saw him shove you toward your … famous lady.”

Miss Hoe tried a smile.

“Papa wanted me to git choose for your school.”

The teacher held my face in her little hands. “You
have
been chosen, by Brother Smith, by all your Shack Row neighbors, and by God. To learn, to love, and to grow.” She shook her head at me. “No hatred, Arly. Not even a wee lick of it. It would be wasting a good brain.”

“I'm plenty scared, Miss Hoe. Because I got me a hunch that maybe Papa and me still owe at Mrs. Stout's trading store. On Saturday nights, us pickers got to report there, to settle up. So if'n I owe, I can't never leave Jailtown. Mr. Broda will fetch me back with a rope to my neck, like he done Mr. Yurman.”

“No,” said Miss Hoe. “He won't.” Her mouth was set grim tight as she spoke it.

I shook my head. “You be new in Jailtown. They got rules and orders for Shack Row people. If'n ya cut loose, you maybe don't git no shack to roof over you.
And they'll put you on half wages whenever you stir up trouble. You can ask Mr. Yurman if you don't believe it. Nobody run away, Miss Hoe, because they dassn't dare.”

“Arly,” she said, “come with me.”

“Where to?”

“I'm taking you to Mrs. Newell's.”

“No!” I near to hollered at her. “I'll miss the picker wagon. Mr. Broda will put my name on his roster board, to take Papa's place. I gotta go pick.”

Miss Hoe shook her head. “That's not true. You're coming along with me, and that's all there is to it.”

The two of us near trot through the Okeechobee mist on our way out of Shack Row as we headed for Jailtown. Once we'd leg it to Mrs. Newell's, my teacher sent me out back to wash myself clean. After that, Mrs. Newell fed me full on stew and two glasses of sweet milk. I tried not to gulp it all in too fast, yet I did. Both of the ladies sat to watch me while I ate.

“Arly, I have a cousin in Moore Haven,” Mrs. Newell telled me. “His name is Mr. Alfred Bonner, and he's a schoolteacher.'”

Dribbling milk down my chin, I wiped it on my sleeve and grinned. “I already got a teacher. Fact be, I got me the best doggone schoolteacher in the all of Florida.” I winked at Miss Hoe.

“Thank you, Arly,” Miss Hoe said. “But Verna and I have talked it all over, and Mr. Bonner knows you're coming.”

“Run away?” As I asked the question, the hot stew bubbled up from my belly and I could taste it again, in my gullet.

“You're getting out, Arly Poole,” said Miss Hoe. “And you will be the first of many to follow. My
flagship. There won't be any picker wagon looking for you, or any bloodhounds on your trail.”

“Amen,” said Mrs. Newell.

“I can't leave Essie May,” I said. “Because if I do y'all know what'll happen to her. She'll wind up going to live at the Lucky Leg Social Palace. And it ain't right. I got feelings for her.”

Miss Hoe nodded. “I understand, but Essie May might be older than you are, in some ways.”

“Maybe so,” I told her, “but maybe no. Both of you ladies is real kind, so I don't guess I can sass you none, but I'm not always going to be a kid. I'm close to being a man. All men ain't as big as Roscoe Broda. Papa was a small man. So is Mr. Witt.”

Standing up, Miss Hoe started to rub her hands, as Mrs. Verna Newell cleared the table, run water into her sink place, but didn't use it much. She walked around the kitchen, going nowhere, and the two ladies sort of looked at each other without speaking.

“Arly,” said Miss Hoe after taking a deep breath, “it's all arranged. Brother Smith is going to help us get you away. He's in on it too. But you've got to trust us, all the way, and believe in what we're doing. If you drag your feet …”

My fist hit the table. “I'm sorry,” I said quick, “but it couldn't be decent for me to leave Essie here in Jailtown. It just wouldn't seem righteous.”

“You are very young, Arly,” said Miss Hoe. “Perhaps older than Verna and I imagined, yet you're still younger than you are judging to be. Give yourself this chance to grow, Arly. You can't grab a rosebud and force it open into a rose. You need time to blossom into manhood.”

“Essie May's already a woman.” As I said it, I could hardly hold back telling what I knowed about
Essie and Roscoe Broda, and the thought of it soured my insides, like I might lose up all the milk and stew. “Someday,” I said, “Essie and me are going to be one, flying together like two white gulls.”

Miss Hoe shook her head. Sitting down at the table, she reached out to touch my hand.

“Moving on,” she telled me, “often entails a leaving behind of treasured things and cherished people. When I came to Jailtown, I left someone behind, a person very dear to me. Yet I had to tighten my will and do it. Because it needed doing.” Miss Hoe sighed. “Oh, there's such a selfish streak in us schoolmarms. We never expect our kittens to ever grow up and become cats.”

“I ain't nobody's kitten, Miss Hoe.”

“No indeed, you certainly are not.” She smiled. “Least of all mine.”

I stood up. “Thanks for the meal, Mrs. Newell. Believe me, I ain't never ate so good in my whole entire life. But I'm going back to Shack Row and locate Essie May. On account it be ample better to face sorry matters and not just run away like it don't be worth a bother.”

“Think on it, Arly,” Miss Hoe said. “Verna and I won't push you. You'll have to make up your own mind what to do.”

Nodding, I thank both the ladies once again, and left, running all the way from town and back to Shack Row. I never stop running until I pulled to a whoa at Addie Cooter's place.

“Essie?”

Mrs. Cooter come to the door, holding little Florence in her chubby arms. Her eyes look red and her face swollen, a blushy pink.

“She ain't here.”

“Where'd she go, Mrs. Cooter?”

It was a while before Addie Cooter could answer
me. All she done was look off toward Jailtown, her chin trembling. “Last night, after we buried your pa, it must've all took place. Maybe I was too tired to wake up to reason, on account I'd had trouble with the mules. And this morning, Roscoe Broda told me all about it.”

“About what?”

“Essie's gone. I ain't got her no more.”

“Where is she, Mrs. Cooter? Where'd she go?”

“She … she's with Miss Angel Free. Roscoe's seen her there, late last night, and told me this morning with a smarty-mean grin on his face. Huff's gone too. All I got left is Delbert and Jackson and little Flo.”

She slump to the door stoop of her shack, cradling Florence in her arms, hiding her face into the child's hair, her big body shaking.

“I'm … all shame. Don't know if I can ever eye decent people again, or face the world. God, please help me keep the three I got left. Help me, Lord, please … please …”

As I touch Addie Cooter's shoulder, efforting to comfort her some, I could hear a horse nicker. Turning about, I saw somebody cantering my way on a bay gelding.

Roscoe Broda.

“Arly Poole.”

The way Mr. Broda spoke my name made my spine rattle, like he was telling me that I belong to old Genesis Tant, now and forever.

“Boy,” he said, “you been hiding off from me all morning, and so you're on half wages for today and tomorrow. Hear?”

“I hear.”

He spur his gelding close to me, so near that I could smell the sweat of horse breath. Foam from its mouth spatter me. “You got shack rent due come Saturday night. Maybe it won't be so pig simple for you to tally up.”

“I know that,” I said. “I'll work it clear.”

Broda took off his hat to wipe his face with a sleeve. “There's ample more you don't know. Dan Poole become so illy useless to me that he'd worked on half wages better'n a week.” Broda pulled out his pocket watch. “You got five minutes to report to the cane crusher. Pronto. Or git dragged there like a stuck hawg.” As he spoke, I noticed the coiled rope which he looped around the horn of his saddle.

My legs steadied real sudden. “I'll go,” I telled Mr. Broda,
“but first I aim to visit the Lucky Leg and fetch Essie May back home. She don't belong there. Essie's only a kid.”

Broda's eyes narrow. I could tell by his look that he figured maybe Essie told me about what he'd done to her, and I'd tell Miss Angel. Or maybe even Miss Liddy Tant. His look made me study the ground.

“Damn you, Poole.”

The rope hissed out so fast that I hardly saw it coming. All I felt was a loop tightening around me, pinning my arms to my body. I got jerked off my feet and my face was sudden eating dirt. All I knowed was that I was getting dragged along the sandy road, hearing the hoofs of his horse, and Mrs. Cooter's screaming for it all to stop.

He didn't stop. Not until I got drug through the fanpalm prickers and sandspurs for what seemed to be near a lifetime. But then the rope eased to quit, leaving me lying in the marsh muck, hurting all over. Broda's hands was on me, claiming his rope. “You're now at the cane mill, boy. Fastest trip a picker ever took to work.” Broda laughed. “Now git up and report to Mr. Lem Rathaway inside.”

He kicked me, real hard.

“From now on,” he said, “best you forget all you heard about me. You're to forget the Cooter gal and also forget about school. Fact is, the only thing you
remember
is that you're a picker, boy. A picker.”

Broda spat in my face.

Mounting his gelding, he recoiled his rope and then rode off in the direction of the produce fields, leaving me standing ankle-deep in the black mud. I couldn't breathe. It was like Roscoe Broda's noose was still around me, and my arms smarted from the rope burns. My new orange shirt was now a tore-up rag. But all my
pain melt away gradual, until I couldn't feel nothing alive in me, like I was some old limper of a dog.

Then I heared a voice. “Git in here!”

As if in a dream I stumble toward the cane mill to report. When asked what my name was, I couldn't speak it out right away. Finally I did, and they hand me a broom to sweep up the spill. The noise from the crusher was fearful loud. Picker! Picker! Picker! After a while, though, I couldn't hear it, because a dead soul can't listen.

Seeing as I hadn't brung a noon bag, I didn't get to eat a midday meal. My gut surely ached hollow by whistle time. I headed to Shack Row in a daze, feeling nothing, not even the sand under my toes.

I couldn't eat.

So I just hided myself in a corner of our shack, behind the cookstove, praying for dark. All I could hear was the picker-picker-picker noise of the cane crusher, even though it'd be shut down until morning. For near all-day I'd worked for half wages which wouldn't cover my shack rent.

My gut felt empty, yet the thought of even chicken turned my stomach. I still feeled Broda's rope around me, dragging me through all the thorns, stumps and muck.

But then I started to remember Papa, and how proud he was that I was getting some schooling, and about Mrs. Newell's cousin in Moore Haven who'd maybe take me in. I'd earn my keep. Because I weren't about to burden somebody who be a schoolteacher. Seems like if'n he was Mrs. Newell's cousin, he'd be a decent sort of a gentleman, like Mrs. Newell who give me a shirt.

I stood up.

“Arly, it's near about time you gathered your guts together and quit taking it all on the chin.”

As I walked to the doorway, Shack Row was tuckered out quiet and rested down for keeps. So I headed myself toward town, knowing exact where I'd be going, right to the Lucky Leg Social Palace. Maybe I could rescue Essie May Cooter before she become another of Miss Angel's fancy ladies.

Outside of the Lucky Leg, as I was hiding myself in the bushes, I could see into one of the windows and its lace curtains. The music of Knuckle Knapp's piano tinkled through the open window. Used to be, I liked hearing him play, but not no more. The piano music sounded like a devil's hymn.

I saw Essie May Cooter.

After first, I didn't know it was Essie. Her hair looked different, lighter in color, almost tow. And her clothes was now satiny yellow, to match her new hair. It seemed that Essie May Cooter weren't no longer the same girl, because on her face was color paint, and her mouth was redder than a rose. Yet, to me, she looked like a dead bird, one that'd got gunned down somewhere, to frill up a lady's hat.

To see Essie like so was sadder than finding Papa dead. Dan Poole had his life, but Essie wouldn't never have hers, except for socialing dredgers at the Lucky Leg for the rest of her time. The girl I was watching through the window now be somebody strange to me, like she fell from a distant star, someone I no longer knowed. I ached to touch her face one last time.