Arly (15 page)

She looked at me sudden.

Then, with a signal of her head and eyes, she moved toward the side door. Hoping she'd meet me there, I went too, and sure enough Essie come outside and
whisper my name. I was thankful that it was dark and she couldn't see how beat-up I was.

“Arly?”

I went to her. She smelled like a evil flower, sweet and sickening as the stink from the cane crusher at the sugar mill. Her perfume near to made me gag.

“It's too late, Arly. Please don't scold me none. Just tell Mama how much I love her and y'all. Honest do. But I had to get out'n our shack, or smother. Miss Angel says she knows a doctor man, over in Moore Haven, who'll fix my belly so's I don't ever born no kids.” Her chin tremble. “Don't carry no hate for me, Arly. Please don't.”

“I can't, Essie.”

“We had feelings, Arly, you and me. But I ain't never again going to feel deep about nobody. Miss Angel says that for a spell I won't have to social no men. My job's to parade around and be bait, to sucker the sports inside to git serviced upstairs by the older ladies.”

Holding my hands over my ears, I couldn't listen to no more. It hurt too much. Looking at Essie was like watching somebody step on a flower.

“We could run away, Essie May.”

She shook her heard. “No, on account I made up my mind. I'm out of Shack Row for keeps. I ain't to become another Addie Cooter and sweat like a mule. My belly won't never swell up around a baby. Not yours, not nobody's baby. Because babies, Miss Angel says, is little more than nails in a poorhouse coffin. So don't pity me, Arly. I made my bed.”

Taking my face in her hands, real gentle, Essie May Cooter kiss both my cheeks. Her lips were fluttery soft, like the wings of a broken butterfly.

“Take care now, Arly Poole.”

Somehow, she seemed older, as though Essie was
twice my age, and already knowed so much about the upstairs life, things I'd yet to discover.

“You take care,” I said, trying to hold my feelings back from the brink of crying.

Turning away, she went back inside the red door, and didn't once look back to watch me wave.

“Good-bye,” I told Essie, saying it to the girl who'd sat in school with chalk dust on her fingertips, a young lady I'd danced a hundred years ago. I'd known Essie May Cooter ever since I could remember. Her and Huff was the first kids I'd ever played with, and all of the Cooters was a part of my entire life. Yet somewhere I'd always guessed she'd become a woman before I'd git to be a growed-up man. Walking away from the Lucky Leg, I kept saying, “I'll come back for you, Essie,” even though I couldn't begin to guess how.

I knocked at Mrs. Newell's door.

But it weren't Mrs. Newell or Miss Hoe who answered. A big dredger come to the doorway, staring at me through the screen. Turning around, he shouted up the stairs. “Miss Hoe, there's a visitor here to see ya.”

“Thank you. I'll be right down.”

The dredger left me standing on the porch, wondering how I had the strength to pace back and forth. I'd worked most of a full day on only what Mrs. Newell give me, early this morning. My stomach was already complaining too. It seemed a long time before Miss Binnie Hoe final come to the door.

“Arly!” As I turned to face her in the porch light, her mouth flew open. “Lord, what happened to you?”

Being tired, hungry and heart-broke over Essie, I'd forgot that I'd been rope-dragged by Roscoe Broda, scuffed up and tore by the torns and prickers. Looking down at myself, I saw that my clothes was near to rags.

“I'm sorry to look so shameful. Please don't let Mrs. Newell see my shirt. It'd hurt her feelings.”

Coming out the door, Miss Hoe hurried to me, threw her arms around me, real snug. It made me sort of back away.

“Careful,” I telled her, “I'll git you dirty as me.”

“Oh, you precious Arly Poole.”

“Essie May's at the Lucky Leg,” I told Miss Hoe. “And it's hurting her ma something awful. Me too. I can't hurt you, not on purpose, but I don't guess I can handle life much longer.”

Miss Hoe shook her head. “No, Arly … the answer isn't dying. It's living.”

“Yes'm. So now I'm ready to do whatever, like you want.” My body started to shake.

“Come,” she said, “and we'll soap you clean.”

They washed me.

I was too tired and tore up to squawk. Mrs. Newell and Miss Hoe spooned food into me, put some stingy iodine and bandages on my gashes, and then dressed me in more of Mr. Newell's clothes. Neither lady seemed to give a hoot that, except for the sudsy soap lather, I'd been near to newborn naked. Both ladies were too busy to look.

“Mrs. Newell,” I said, “I'm dreadful sorry about Mr. Newell's orange shirt getting so ripped.”

“Oh,” she said, “they's plenty more.”

They led me upstairs, to a tiny little room and ordered me into a real bed, to sleep on clean cloth for my very first time. Sure feeled strange. They quieted my shaking, placed a soft pillow under my head, and left. Just as I was going to sleep, I overheared Miss Hoe say something to Mrs. Newell that shook me awake sudden quick.

It was about Huff Cooter.

Over in the swamp, Broda's men caught up to Huff, dragged him back to Jailtown and tossed him in a jail cell. Tomorrow, according to Miss Hoe, he'd start work on the highway crew, in chains. It all had to do with his
mother owing at the store. Blinking, looking at the clean white ceiling overhead, I thought I'd best see what I could do for Huff. Maybe he was alone in the dark, behind bars, scared and crying.

Hungry too.

So later, when I heared Mrs. Newell's grandfather's clock strike more times than I had fingers, I figured it was midnight. Getting out of bed, sneaking down the stairs, I helped myself to some sticky rolls, three oranges, a doughnut, and some prunes.

I left by the back door.

Staying in the shadows, I moved slowly through Jailtown in the direction of the jail. The building was only one story high, no upstairs, and the barred windows were below ground level, in pits. So I snuck along, hugging the outer concrete-block wall, stopping outside each window.

“Huff … you in there?”

No answer. Only a muffled voice that sounded like it belonged to a very old person. Whoever he was, he coughed.

“Huff …”

I hit it lucky.

“Arly? Is that you out yonder?”

“It's me. Here, I brung ya some eats.”

Hands reached through the bars. He ate the doughnut in about three or four snaps. Mumbling how good it all was, Huff ate an orange, a sticky bun, and a couple of prunes.

“Miss Hoe knows you're inside,” I telled him. “She'll do all she can to spring you out of there.”

“It don't matter, Arly.”

“Why don't it?”

“Because … because Essie's gone to reside at the Leg. That you possible already know. So tell Miss Hoe
to work on Essie May's problem. It's a whole worse'n mine.”

“I will.”

“Never mind on me, Arly. I didn't take to schooling much as you. Maybe I'll be a picker, or work with Ma seeing to the mules. It was dumb to run off. That old swamp back yonder is one spooky hellhole. Murky water, green slime, moss hanging down like ghosts in the night. All them frogs drumming at you from all sides.”

“Gators?”

“Only saw one. Arly, I near to stepped on him. He give out a hiss loud enough to scorch a man's mind to crazy. So I turned tail and retreated, only to meet Jim Tanner's dogs. One bited me fearful. I'm still bleedy.”

He ate more prunes, spitting the pits out one-by-one through the bars and into the dusty sand.

“Huff, I'm leaving too.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow night, Miss Hoe says.”

“How?”

“Don't know yet. But it'll probable be to Moore Haven … at Mrs. Newell's cousin's place. We gotta keep in touch, Huff. We're pals. So sometime, ask Mrs. Newell at Newell's Boarding House exact where I'm at.”

Huff laughed. “Poor old Arly Poole. He's so simple he don't know where he is yet.”

Both of us were giggling. But right then, I stopped, because there was a noise behind me, coming from the roadway, toward town.

“Dogs,” said Huff. “You best scamper.”

I touched his hand, jumped out of the pit, then run, hearing one of the hounds bugle, followed by a man's deep voice. “Vernon, you hear anything?”

Another man answer in a high-pitch voice. “Nope,
I didn't hear a cussed thing, but my dog certain did. Looky them ear.”

“Which way?”

“Well, maybe over along them bushes by the jailhouse wall. Let's go see.”

Again I ran. Behind me, two dogs tune up their bugling like they'd treed a coon. Outside the feed store stood an empty ammonia barrel. It stunk to glory. Sharp fumes that smart your eyes. But it was the perfect hiding place. Made to order. There weren't a dog alive that would keep his nose anywhere near ammonia. Holding my breath, and nose, I crawled inside the barrel, closed my eyes really tight, and prayed.

The dogs come.

Vernon and Deep Voice come too, letting the dogs sniff around. I could hear their panting. But one whiff of ammonia and both dogs turned tail. One even whine. Then another dog come back to brave one more intake. Maybe he smell
picker
. Mr. Roscoe Broda always claim that there be a stench on us Shack Row people. The dog stay for so long that I was crazy for air. Yet if I breathe, I'd cough. That'd bring the guns.

Ripping off my biggest bandage, the one still soaking with iodine, I held it to where I could see a dog's snout through the widest crack between the barrel staves. One whiff. The strong medicine smell of iodine caused the hound to yelp, and run away.

“It ain't nothing,” Vernon said to either his dog or to his friend.

They left, arguing.

As I crawled out the barrel, I took in air, filling my lungs and making me feel alive again. The men and their dogs were close to the jailhouse wall, patrolling, so there was little hope in going back to Huff. Yet I still was too
frighted to stray too far away from the ammonia barrel, even though my eyes were stinging.

All along, I was hoping that both Miss Hoe and Mrs. Newell were sound sleepers. If either lady woke up in the night and went to check on me, they'd possible turn to worry.

My progress back to Newell's Boarding House was slower than torture. No point in making any noise. I'd been careless with Huff Cooter. The two of us must've stirred up enough racket to turn the dogs pesky. Or perhaps one of the hounds sniffed the air, caught my scent, and then started fighting his leash.

“Vernon,” I could hear one of the men say, “best we check down under the boat dock.”

Their voices fade to silence.

But still I stay in the thickest and darkest of cover, seeking deep shadow, mindful of the overhead moon. As I walk on tiptoe, I watched where I was stepping, fearful that my foot could rattle a tin can.

By the time I'd made it back to Mrs. Newell's rear door, my body was close to tuckering out. My eyes were saggy and I still smell of ammonia. While sneaking in the door, through the kitchen, I heard the clock strike.

Bong! Bong!

The sound near to stopped my heart. But I figured it wouldn't wake up Mrs. Newell as she'd heared it strike the hour for a spate of years.

In bed, I couldn't sleep. So I toss around some, trying one hip, then another. My eyes were close, yet my memory kept seeing one sight, over and over.

Huff's hands through the bars.

I final slept.

In my dreams, however, I kept hearing the bugling and sniffing of those redtick hounds. Plus hearing the voices of the men with guns.

Broda's men.

Captain Tant's men.

I could smell the hot breath of Roscoe Broda's horse, feeling his rope around my neck, dragging me back to Shack Row. His voice cut me like a whip. Also in my dream Knuckle Knapp was playing the piano. The music drifted to the jailhouse from the Lucky Leg Social Palace.

Worst of all, the painted face of Essie May Cooter kept staring at me, from inside the Lucky Leg, looking out. But there were bars at the window.

“Essie,” I shouted in the night. Yet as I yelled, no words come out my mouth. Only a empty echo of silence.

Essie May Cooter could no longer hear me.

She was gone.

The sorry dreaming come to a finish, waking me awash with sweat. My nose could still smell the iodine on my cuts and rope burns.

At first, in the morning light, I didn't know where I was. There weren't no shack roof overhead. No roof at all. Instead, a big white square with no holes in it. Didn't even look like any roof I'd ever saw. Rolling over, my body hurted and smarted.

Iodine was near worse'n injury.

I could still taste Roscoe Broda's spit on my face. Tobacco spit. Brown and sour. It seemed to stink of crushed sugar cane, mule dirt, and the dusty sand of Jailtown.

I got up.

My clothes were different. Then I recalled last night, and my brain crept into the daylight too.

Somebody knock. The door open a crack, just enough to allow me to see Miss Hoe, smiling. She sure did own a good smile, bright and shining, the same way she look on the Sunday when she paraded down the gangplank off the Caloosahatchee Queen. Like she could rinse all the dirty off Jailtown and buff it into a sparkle.

“Arly,” she said, “you're already up.”

“Yes'm.”

“I have good news.” She took my hand and held it. “Verna Newell received a letter from Moore Haven, from her cousin.”

“The schoolteacher man?”

“Correct. And I've called on Miss Liddy Tant. She has promised to see that Mrs. Stout clear the books, and properly. The Pooles no longer owe at the store, not for rent or for anything else.”