East of Orleans (13 page)

“No, Granny, no, it’s not.”

“Isabella, I can’t see you offering yourself to just anybody. It didn’t happen that way, and Tom’s no fool, he’ll know that, too. And then I’m afraid you’ll be in a bigger mess than you are now.”

Isabella gazed down and walked toward the barn to see Sonny. He had recovered after her father’s death, and for that she was grateful.

When she finally headed back to the cabin the night seemed darker than most. She walked onto the front porch and heard the crickets chirping and the frogs croaking. Isabella sat down in the wooden swing that her daddy had built for her mama’s birthday last year. Tick raised his head, looked over at her and then laid his head back down. She could see a sparkle of lights through the woods; it must be coon hunters. She wondered if even a coon hunter would want a ruined woman. She figured not. Especially one that didn’t even know who had ruined her. She thought about Sam Johnson and Sadie Lee. She reckoned that she was in better shape than Sam was, but it wouldn’t be long until everybody in the valley would be certain that her mind was as unsound as Sadie Lee’s.

Isabella closed her eyes, breathed deeply and smelled the honeysuckles. She thought about when she was twelve and she had tried to follow Tom down to the river. He shooed her away. As he walked, he would turn around every so often to see if she was still following him and he would tell her to go home. After a while he got tired of looking back to see if she was still there, so he would stop and motion for her to come on. They would spend the afternoon fishing and throwing rocks in the river. In the evening, they would catch lightning bugs in the dark. But her favorite time was when Tom would tell her stories. She remembered listening to Tom’s voice and loving his words.

Isabella turned to the light of a candle inside the house. Granny and Mama had moved from the kitchen into the main room. They had been talking for hours. She was sure that they were talking about her and she did not want to listen.

She stared out into the woods and wondered where the Indian women with unsound minds were sent off. Maybe they were put out into the woods to starve. She wished if this had to happen, that she had lived during the war. She was certain that there were a lot of women who had been ruined with unsound minds back then. However, that was then, and this was now, and what was she going to do?

“I’ll write my cousin Allettie McGillivray. That’s what I’ll do,” said Granny.

“You sure there ain’t going to be a wedding? That would be the thing to do. I just don’t know what in the hell is going on in my own house anymore!” said Lila with a pained face. “There’s one other thing.” Granny slowed in her rocker and looked at Lila.

“What do you mean?” asked Granny.

Lila stared at the fire burning in the chimney and said, “Jules McGinnis. Have you thought about that bonnet and Jules McGinnis?” Lila leaned forward and looked at Granny. “Well, don’t tell me that it hasn’t crossed your mind.”

“I don’t reckon it has and even if it had, it’s too late to worry about it now. She ain’t talking. I’m not sure why she ain’t talking but she ain’t. No, I don’t believe that the father of that baby is Jules McGinnis.”

Isabella entered the house. “I’ll tell the both of you right now that it is not! Is that what you think of me? Is this what the two of you have come to, gossiping about me like you gossip with Sarah Brewer? Do you think that I would offer myself for a fancy hat? Is that what you think?” Isabella cried as she ran from the room.

Lila followed Isabella into her bedroom. She closed the door. Then she kissed her on the cheek. “Granny and I have discussed this. We both want you to go to
Savannah
.”

“
Savannah
? Why
Savannah
?”

“It will be best. We have a cousin there. Her name is Allettie McGillivray; she owns a tavern on the riverfront. She and her husband have been there for years. You can go there until you have the baby. When you come home, maybe things will have changed.”

“Changed?” Isabella said with a pained face.

“Yes, maybe by then we will have sold a crop of cotton and we won’t all be so worried. This is not a good place for a young girl who is about to have a baby,” Lila exclaimed. “Maybe by then, Tom Slaughter will realize what has happened and the two of you will get married like you should. I don’t know why in the world you want to make this harder than it is!”

Isabella leaped off her bed. Her eyes went to her mother. “I told you and Granny that I did not want a word of this mentioned to Tom. If I can’t trust you, I’ll walk out of this cabin right now and I will never come back. Promise me, Mama, that you will not breathe a word of this to anyone, promise me!”

“How are you going to take care of yourself?”

“I’ll take care of myself. I promise.” Lila put her arms around Isabella and gave her a tight embrace.

“Granny and I are going to worry ourselves to death.”

“Promise me, Mama, promise me.”

“Yes, I promise,” Lila said wearily.

The fog from the river was thick the next morning. Lila rose to find that Granny was not in the house. She walked out on the front porch and saw Granny coming up the long dirt road. Tick followed close behind. Dew covered the ground. A rooster crowed in the distance. Granny walked through the tall grass toward the house. Her shoes were wet and muddy.

Jesse had been chopping wood for two days. Winter was coming. Granny turned her head to a dim light that flooded the barn. She knew that Jesse was up. When she reached the old barn door, she knocked on it. Jesse opened the door and looked up at the sky.

“It’s ‘bout hog killing weather, ain’t it, Granny?” A bible lay on top of Jesse’s straw bed. Jesse watched the old woman walk over and pick it up.

“You read this, son?” Jesse stared past the door.

“A little bit.”

“Who taught you?”

“My pa could read a little. He taught me what he knew.” His face brightened. “The almanac says we going to have a cold winter.” Granny stood for a moment and looked at him, then she looked at the hole in his brown floppy hat. Suddenly, they smelled an awful smell.

“That dang pole cat’s in here again!” said Granny with blazing eyes. “That cat is always stinking up the place. You seen it yet?”

“I ain’t seen it, but I shure has smelled it.”

Granny stared at Jesse. “There may be some gossip around here soon that don’t need to be.”

“Yessum.”

“We don’t need people gawking at her,” Jesse shook his head. Granny glanced at him.

“You ever been to
Savannah
?”

“Yessum, I was there for a while and then I went to
Charleston
and worked on the railroad.”

“We’re gonna send Isabella to
Savannah
to stay with our cousin Lettie for a spell. Lettie used to sell rum to the Creeks and the Yamacraws, what there was left of them. Lettie is part Creek. It’s a well-kept secret. Her pa is English and since Lettie looked more like her pa, she didn’t want anybody to know. People have crazy ideas.” Jesse raised his brows and nodded.

“I just got back from mailing a letter to Lettie. Isabella should leave in a couple of weeks. I want you to go with her.” Jesse removed his hat and rubbed his head. Granny put her hand on his shoulder. “I mean it, son. I am an old woman. I love that child as if she were my own. The thought of her sent off somewhere with no one there to watch out for her is more than I can stand. I believe if I send her alone, it will put me in my grave.” Jesse scratched the back of his head. He searched the old woman’s face. “Do you have any more clothes I can wear? These might not make it to
Savannah
.” Granny’s weak blue eyes filled with tears.

“I know just the place to look for some. Thank you son, God bless you.” Granny put her arms around Jesse and patted him on the back. She then sprang toward the door. “Well, let’s go to the house and eat us some breakfast and then we got corn to shuck. We gonna take the hog to town and sell him. We ain’t gonna kill him.” Granny kept on talking as Jesse followed her.

Granny had still not stopped talking when she opened the cabin door. A pot of grits boiled on the stove. Jesse pulled his hat off and sat down at the table across from Isabella.

“The almanac says we gonna have us a cold winter,” Jesse said as he took a huge bite of a hot biscuit.

Isabella looked up from downcast eyes. “What you care for?”

“I care because we got to eat. If the ground gets too hard, what are we gonna eat?”

“Ain’t you ever heard of killing a rabbit or catching some fish? If you’d spend your days doing something other than following Granny around and playing that harmonica, maybe you wouldn’t have to worry about starving to death. You ain’t worth nothing! Daddy said that a sorry nigger ain’t worth killing and I reckon you about that sorry!”

“Isabella Grace!” Lila said in a harsh voice.

Granny fixed herself a plate of breakfast, then sat down with them. Lila stood and stared out the kitchen window as she mixed more dough. Isabella watched Jesse drag a biscuit through a pile of thick milk gravy. He sopped the gravy up, put it in his mouth, and chewed it. Isabella jumped up and stormed out of the kitchen. A moment later Jesse got up from the table and went out the back door.

Lila poured water from a pitcher over her hands and washed them off. She dried her hands on an old dishrag, poured a cup of coffee, and sat down across from Granny. “Her nerves are real bad,” Lila said. Granny nodded.

Jesse found Isabella down by the river. He sat down next to her. “I come to talk.”

“Ain’t got nothing to talk to you about. Ain’t you got chores to do?” Isabella’s voice was filled with irritation.

His eyes went to her. “You determined to run off down yonder without saying a word to Tom?”

“This ain’t none of your business!”

Jesse shook his head. “I suppose you right about that. Granny asked me to go with you.”

“I ain’t helpless. I got myself in this mess and I will get myself out of it. I don’t need you making things any worse than they already are.”

“That could be right. I know I got my own mess and I know that I was in a bigger mess when yawl came along. Yawl helped me and now it’s my time to help you.”

“Help me! For land sake, Jesse, you can’t even help yourself, how do you figure that you can help me? You can help me all right get in an even bigger mess than I am in now. You don’t stop talking from the time you climb down from that loft until you crawl back in there at night. There’s one thing for sure—I don’t need your help.”

Isabella jumped up and screamed. She backed up, placed her hands over her face, and screamed again. Jesse ran over to her.

“What you doing all that screaming for?”

Isabella pointed to the ground, her face distorted in horror. Jesse looked down and saw a nest of baby rattlers spinning their tails. He ran over to the edge of the woods and picked up a big tree limb. He walked over and struck the baby rattlers four hard whacks before he stopped.

“Did you kill them?”

“I got ‘em. They were looking for a place to nest. It’s that time of year.”

“I’m scared to death of snakes!” Isabella was shaking.

“And ghosts,” Jesse said with a smile.

“How’d you know?”

“Tom. I don’t know how you gonna make it that scared of snakes and ghosts,” Jesse said.

“What do you mean?”

“You mean you ain’t heard?”

“Heard what!”

“
Savannah
has more ghosts than any place in the world.”

“It does not.”

“Maybe not, but that’s what they say. And, of course, they got big snakes.”

“How you know?”

“I seen ‘em.”

“You did not. When?”

“I shure did. When I worked for the railroad.” Isabella’s face was flushed.

“I was gonna go down yonder with you for that very reason. I know you can take care of yourself. You don’t need Jesse, no, you shure don’t. You shure can take care of yourself.” Jesse looked at her and turned to walk away.

Isabella shook the twigs and dirt off her dress and ran behind him. Jesse walked faster and did not look back. She followed him into the barn. Jesse went to the back of the barn and started baling hay.