Cruel Harvest (21 page)

I started making up poems and songs in my head to help relieve the tension of life. This is one I wrote after I escaped.

C
OTTON
F
IELDS AND
F
AITH

Picking cotton for the farmer,

feeling dirty, sad, and low.

Blistering sun high in the heavens,

cannot let my feelings show.

Drag the cotton sack behind me,

feels so heavy on my back.

I dream of better days and freedom

as I pick and fill the sack.

My swollen hands are cracked and bleeding

from the sharpness of the boles.

Blood stains white cotton as I pick it

with each handful that I hold.

From dawn to dusk out here we labor,

until too dark for me to see.

The farmer waits up at the trailer

to weigh my cotton sack for me.

As I leave field and sack behind me,

slowly now I walk alone

To a sad and shabby dwelling,

the farmer's shack that we call home.

Not to a bed or clean white linen,

a frayed dirty quilt lays on the floor.

And a meager meal to share with

the little sister I adore.

My sister's cowering in the corner

as I walk inside the door.

Horror once again assaults me.

Mama's bleeding, daddy roars.

Whiskey breath and heavy footfalls

make me turn about to see.

The face of terror, that's my daddy,

screaming angry words at me.

When at last the whiskey takes him

to the sleep for which we pray.

Holding onto one another,

we two sisters kneel to pray.

Whispering quietly in the darkness,

to the Lord above we say,

Please, God, give us strength and courage

just to face another day.

God gave us strength to face each peril,

with His love He lit our day.

We could not have faced the horror

without His light to guide our way.

We knew He' d free us from our prison.

He always lights our darkest roads.

God kept us safe and gave us courage.

Jesus carried our heavy load.

So the cotton sack, though heavy,

and the terror of each night,

Did not ever break our spirit;

we kept Jesus in our sight.

Chapter 16
Attempted Murder

“Brenda, Susie, where
you at?!”

The shout woke me from a sound sleep. For a moment I was disoriented, thinking my sisters had returned. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness around me, I began to understand Daddy's words. More and more he was mistaking us for our older sisters, whom he blamed vehemently for sending him to prison.

Even in the partial darkness, I could see the blood. It stood out, a dark, black path down his face.

“Wake up!” he shouted. “I know what you told them cops. Only an evil daughter would testify against her own father. I'm gonna show you what happens to liars. Then I'm gonna beat you and that good-for-nothing sister of yours to death. I'll crush your skull with a rock and bury you at the back of this cabin. Do you hear me?” He punctuated every word, bellowing like a crazed bear. I used to wonder to myself,
Do
you think we're deaf?
How could everyone in the state not hear him?

He kicked toward the quilt, and we huddled together in the dark, trying to dodge his blows. There was nowhere left to hide but inside myself. I withdrew; each punch landed on a husk of a human. When he beat me really bad, or when I had to watch him hurt my sister, I tried to pull myself out of the scene. I asked God to give me strength and to take me away from this place. I tried to remember what Mama had told me before leaving me at Connie Maxwell.

“Be strong; take care of Nellie.” I felt guilty that I was unable to protect her. Even though Nellie was twenty months older than me, Mama had always treated her as the youngest.

Some nights, if he was in the house drinking, I would sneak out the door. There was a tree out front that had low-hanging branches. I climbed up and went as high as I could. There was a crook in the branches near enough to the top that I could nestle in and see the stars. I curled up there in the cool night air, the crickets drowning out the slurring cusses filtering through the open cabin door.

Those rare moments, I was free of him. He could never climb up a tree even when sober, let alone ripping drunk. Some nights he'd come out looking for me and would stand at the base of the tree and strike the trunk with his fists.

“Get down here, Susie! I'm gonna pay you back for sending me to prison.”

“I'm Frances,” I told him for the hundredth time, but he didn't seem to notice.

I stayed up there until he got tired or he went back in the cabin and passed out. He'd stumble inside, and I would go back to looking at the stars. Soon enough, though, I realized this was not real freedom. One night when he went back in, I heard his roaring curses and the sound of slapping and a thick thud. I tried to drown out Nellie's screams. I did not get out of my tree that night, but I knew I could never be free. If I broke free, then all his rage would fall on my sister. I never forgot the last words Mama spoke to me. Sometimes the guilt could be worse than just enduring his abuse. I tried to take Nellie's place to keep her from being beaten to death.

One night, after eating a sandwich, Daddy got up and went to the door. We thought he'd leave and we'd have some peace, but this night was different. He seemed to have a plan.

“Get on out here,” he said.

We followed him out to the car, wondering what new hell he had thought up for us tonight.

“Get in the backseat.”

Daddy drove us into town. He stopped at a beer joint on the side of the highway, and we all got out. Leading us inside, he told us to sit at a table near the door. He proceeded to take a seat at the bar. I watched as he spent the money we'd earned picking cotton on drink after drink. He swallowed down shots of whiskey. It seemed to me he was drinking a lot faster than usual.

A woman tended bar. After a while, she noticed us. When she came over to our table, she had two comic books and two Cokes.

“Here you go, kids, look at these,” she said in a kind voice. I hoped that she would talk to Daddy and keep him here until he passed out. He was so drunk already that I doubted he could drive us back to the cabin without killing us.

We thanked her, and I watched her walk away. I started to read, hoping the story would take me away. After I finished the first book, we switched. I heard the lady talking to Daddy.

“Those your girls?”

“Yup.”

“What's their names?”

“Brenda,” he slurred. “And that blonde one over there is Susie.”

“Pretty names,” she said.

“Not as pretty as you.”

Not long after that, Daddy slammed a shot glass on the bar.

“One more for the road!”

The lady filled him up with whiskey, and he knocked it right back. The stool fell over when he stood up, and he had to steady himself on the tables as he headed for the door.

“Get on out there,” he growled at us.

Nellie and I followed him right out the door. Neither of us made a noise as we climbed into the backseat. The car engine roared to life, and I could see Daddy shaking his head like he was confused.

“You think I'm gonna let you get away with what you did to me?” he muttered.

Something in the way he said that told me we were in real trouble. He had called us Brenda and Susie so many times that we knew it meant his mind was blacking out. Usually, this turned into a beating or some other abuse. That night, however, there was an intent in his drunken voice. He had threatened to murder us in the car so many times, but tonight was different. He had made up his mind. This was the night.

When he pulled out onto the road, it didn't take long for my fears to be confirmed.

“Let's see how brave you are when we're all dead,” he said.

Lights approached us from up ahead. I could see it was a massive semi. Daddy laughed like a wild man.

“It's all your fault. You drove me to this. I'm tired of putting up with you. You're gonna die tonight!”

He drove head-on right at that truck. The semi's horn blasted, and I heard breaks squealing, but they were not ours. Daddy swerved just in the nick of time to keep from crashing head-on into the truck.

“Stop, Daddy! Oh, please stop,” I begged.

Nellie shrieked like death itself. I continued to plead with him.

“Not this time, Susie,” he yelled back at me. “You're gonna die for the years I spent in prison. You and that lying Brenda. I'm gonna run this car into the next phone pole I see and kill you both. Right now!”

Screaming and laughing, he swerved off the highway toward a light pole. At the last possible second, he jerked the steering wheel, and the car narrowly missed the pole. Dust billowed in front of the car like a tornado crossing in front of us. Then he was back on the highway.

He seemed to be feeding on our terror. The car barreled out of town on a dark two-lane road. The farther we traveled, the fewer cars we saw. Eventually it was just us and the darkness, and Daddy started in once again.

“You think it was nice in prison, you lying heathens? Wait until your bloody brains are splattered all across the pavement. I'm gonna wrap this car around a light pole. See how smart you are then!”

The car swerved, and we popped into the air when it crossed the median. Daddy raced down the wrong side of the road, spouting more hatred and venom. I was near hysteria as I cried and pleaded. Suddenly, he pounded his fist on the dashboard. He whipped the wheel back and forth in an effort to flip the car over. The tires screeched, and we teetered on two wheels.

Giving the dashboard another pound, Daddy switched off the lights. Since there were no streetlights, we were thrust into total darkness. His driving calmed for a moment, and he went silent. I felt we had entered the eye of a hurricane, the calmness hinting at what was to come. I huddled close to Nellie, and we wrapped our arms around each other in the backseat. She was shaking; or I was. Neither of us was begging for our lives anymore. Instead, I whispered a prayer.

Just as suddenly as they'd vanished, the car lights burst on again. We entered a small town. It was after midnight, and everyone seemed to be asleep, but the streetlights gave me hope. I felt as though we had returned from the twilight zone and were back among the living. Then the lights from a service station appeared in front of us. When the car slowed and he turned in, I thought we were saved.

“Fill it up,” Daddy said to the man working the pump.

He got out and went to the bathroom. Nellie was still shaking.

“I wished we had run outta gas,” she said. “I gotta use the bathroom.”

To my shock and horror, she got out of the car just as Daddy disappeared around the corner. Nellie ran up to the service attendant.

“My Daddy's drunk,” she told him. “Keep him here talking 'til he sobers up.”

I could not believe it. My fear kept me planted in that seat. I felt sure he was going to kill us eventually, but if he saw Nellie out there talking to that man, we'd be dead for certain!

Nellie did not say anything about Daddy trying to kill us. She seemed to rethink what she'd done.

“Don't tell him I said anything about drinking.”

She hurried back to the car and got in before he reappeared. A drizzle started to fall just as he came back around and neared the attendant.

“Hey, buddy, how's it going?” the man asked.

“Not bad,” Daddy answered.

“Slow night.”

Daddy nodded. “Yeah, well, I gotta get goin'.”

The attendant seemed to be trying to come up with something else to say, but the words failed him. Daddy nodded once more and got into the car. In no time, we were back out on the deserted highway. The sprinkling rain turned into a drizzle. I saw a flash of lightning in the distance. The faint glow was enough for me to see that Daddy wasn't looking at the road at all. He was staring down as if lost in his own thoughts.

Daddy drove faster and faster, and the tires found less and less purchase on the slick roads. I lay down in the backseat so I would not see what was coming. Nellie did the same. We clung to each other, crying but not making a sound. Daddy started to cuss at us again, calling us Brenda and Susie. The car must have been going ninety miles per hour just as Daddy veered off the road. It catapulted across a deep embankment and plowed through a fence. Barbed wire whipped against the window just before it shattered into a million pieces. Clods of dirt flew into the car and seemed to swirl around as if caught in a tornado. My body left the seat and hovered in the air for just an instant before hitting the side of the door. The door gave way, and I flew through the air, losing consciousness when I struck the ground.