Fireflies in December (20 page)

When we entered the diner, two men were sitting at the bar, and a family of three sat at a table in the corner. The family smiled at us, something so rare it shocked me to see. But one of the men at the bar looked less than enthusiastic. He started to speak, but Mr. Decker put a hand on his arm, eyeing him sharply. The man reached into his pocket, plunked some change onto the counter, and stormed out. The other man at the bar just turned around and continued his lunch.

We dined on the greasiest fried chicken I’d ever had and cherry cola with two cherries floating inside. It tasted heavenly to us. When we’d had more than our fill, Miss Cleta paid Mr. Decker a fine tip, and the three of us headed off to complete her errand list. We visited the grocer, the pharmacy, and the candy store, while all along the way Mr. Stokes followed in his taxi, piling all her purchases into the car.

Miss Cleta kept her head held high wherever we went, a pleasant smile on her face, one hand on my arm, one hand on Gemma’s. We followed her lead and said hello to everyone we passed. In all, we had two smiles and hellos in return, but mostly we were met with disdain or simple disinterest. Miss Cleta’s stout confidence gave me and Gemma a much-needed lift, and by the time we headed for home, we felt more restored than battered.

“You done caused a commotion, sure enough,” Mr. Stokes said as we got into the car. “Sure enough, you done caused a commotion. I can see it with my own two eyes.”

“Sure enough we did,” Miss Cleta said as we drove off down the road.

“You don’t want to be startin’ things up, Miss Cleta. No, ma’am, you don’t.”

“Mr. Stokes, ain’t nothin’ bad ever changed to good without startin’ a little commotion,” she replied. “Long as we keep a good Christian attitude with people, a little commotion can change a lot of hearts.”

“Was it a good Christian attitude to warn those ladies about the shrimp?” I asked with a twinkle in my eye.

“Well . . . ,” she said with a sly smile. “We should have a good Christian attitude at least
most
of the time.”

I looked at Miss Cleta fondly, proud to have her as my friend and ally. We were in great need of them in those days, and I was fast discovering that the quality of her friendship was higher than most.

Chapter 18

Momma stood on the porch, one hand holding a dish towel, the other shading her eyes from the sun. “Well, look at you girls. Comin’ home in style, you are.”

We said good-bye to Mr. Stokes and sauntered regally up to the porch.

“Just jottin’ into town,” I said. “You know how us social girls live.”

“Takin’ taxi cabs!” Momma gave a low whistle. “Livin’ high on the hog, ain’t you?”

Gemma sat on a rocker and patted her stomach. “If we ate like that every day, we’d be turnin’ into hogs. I done ate enough to last me a year.”

“So it went okay, then?” Momma asked uncertainly. She hadn’t been too fond of letting us go in the first place, but Daddy had convinced her that we couldn’t hide from everything.

We followed Momma into the kitchen so she could finish her dishes while listening to us tell her about our day. We were in the middle of running down the list of things we’d eaten when Daddy stormed into the house.

“Harley, you’re trackin’ mud into my house,” Momma scolded, but she stopped when she saw his face. “What’s wrong now? Someone get hurt?”

Daddy just stood there, one hand on his hip. Then he said, “Sadie, Jessilyn, Gemma . . . you seen anyone in the back fields of late?”

We all shook our heads.

“What is it, Harley?” Momma asked impatiently.

“Somebody done slashed the tires on my tractor, that’s what. I just got me them new tires, and they ain’t no good to nobody now. And I ain’t got the money to go about replacin’ ’em.” He started to pace the floor, smacking his hat against his leg with every other step. “Who does things like that? Sneakin’ onto a man’s property and ruinin’ the things he works hard for. Who does that?”

Momma sighed and leaned over the sink, staring out the window. After a minute, she said, “Well, what’re we gonna do?”

“I don’t know.” Daddy paced the floor a few more times, and then he looked up at me and Gemma. He could see the worry on our faces, and that made him calm down a bit. He gave us a small, forced smile. “It’ll work out, girls. Ain’t no worryin’ to be done. It’ll get fixed like everythin’ else.”

“But you need that tractor for the farm,” I said. “What’ll you do if you can’t use it?”

“Jessilyn, that ain’t your worry. Like I said, it’ll all work out.” He walked off into the den, and Momma went after him. I could hear them talking quietly as they left.

I sat at the kitchen table, tapping my fingers thoughtfully. I wondered if Jeb had locked me in that shed last night to keep me from seeing him fooling around with the tractor. But then, why would he have told me that he’d locked me in? I’d been wondering about that ever since I found out.

On our farm, we had only five hands altogether, and outside of Jeb, all of them were colored men who had small, worn homes and large families. But Jeb was alone in the world, and he lived an acre away in an old shack that sat on our property. We didn’t even know where that shack came from, but Daddy let Jeb use it for a home, what little there was of it. The lean-to, though, kept some of his personal effects and a few tools he’d brought with him when he came to Calloway.

I believed he’d had plenty of opportunity to lock me in as he’d said, but I couldn’t figure out why it would benefit him to do it. Each time I thought of Jeb, I questioned him even more. And each time I thought of that lean-to, I wondered just what he kept inside.

The week before the start of school, Gemma and I were helping in the fields to take some of the pressure off Daddy. He never liked us doing those sorts of chores. He’d always said, “Girls are delicate and they shouldn’t be doin’ dirty work in the fields.” But I didn’t mind so much unless it was a scorcher, and this day in particular was only eighty degrees, cool by Calloway standards.

We had no more information about the tractor than we’d had the day Daddy found it beat up, and Daddy was spending most of his time trying to patch the old steel wheels he’d taken off for the fancy new tires. They were bent up and tore up the ground they ran across, but he had no choice. A working farm needed a working tractor, and that was all there was to it.

As we worked that morning, I watched Jeb closely. He gave nothing away and seemed innocent as a dove. I couldn’t imagine not being able to trust him, yet that conversation with Walt Blevins kept running through my brain. He’d known about Walt bothering me, and he’d warned him, but I also realized that he’d only warned him for his own benefit, to keep his plans intact. What were those plans? There was no longer any question if Luke was right that Jeb had been hiding something. I had only to wonder exactly what it was that he was hiding. I did nothing but wonder.

By noon, Daddy told us we’d done enough.

“We ain’t but got through two rows,” I told him.

“You shouldn’t be doin’ any rows,” he said. “Look at y’all’s hands. All dirty and rough. You head on in and get some dinner, and if there’s any woman’s chores to be done, you can help your momma. It’ll be gettin’ hotter throughout the afternoon, anyhow.”

Gemma and I trudged up the path examining the beginnings of blisters on our hands. “Shoot!” I said when I found one on the inside of my finger. “The finger next to it will rub it like crazy.”

“Shoulda worn gloves like I done told you,” Gemma said.

“I hate wearin’ gloves; you know that. Keeps me from feelin’ what I’m doin’.”

“Well then, don’t complain about blisters.”

“You wore gloves, and you got a blister comin’ up.”

“Only a small one,” she said in her defense.

“Ain’t no comparin’ big ones and small ones. You got a blister, then you got a blister. Ain’t no difference between the two.” I slowed as we neared the old shed and walked over to the lean-to, examining it as best I could in the bright sun. Then I looked around to see if we had any company.

“What’re you doin’?” Gemma asked impatiently. “Dinner’s gonna get stale waitin’ for us.”

“Just a minute,” I hissed. “You ate two tomatoes while we were pickin’, anyway. You can’t be that starved.”

“Well, what’re you pokin’ around the shed for?”

I stood back. “What’s he got in that thing?” I tried the door of the lean-to unsuccessfully.

“You get your nasty self away from that lean-to,” Gemma said. “That ain’t your stuff. It’s Jeb’s.”

“It’s on Lassiter property.”

“So’s my trunk, but I expect no one goes diggin’ through it.”

I tried the door again, tugging harder this time.

“Jessilyn!”

“I just want to know what he keeps in it.”

“What for? He ain’t done nothin’ to you.”

“Ain’t so sure,” I said seriously.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I ain’t so sure.”

Gemma didn’t get my meaning, and I didn’t expect her to, but all the same I was determined to get a peek inside that lean-to. I found a sort of crowbar in the shed and used it to jimmy the door open, with Gemma flapping at me the whole time.

“You’re gonna break the law,” she whispered, her arms spread out in front of her like an attorney presenting his case. “That’s what you’re gonna do. I ain’t never known you to be a lawbreaker.”

“It’s Lassiter property,” I remarked again. “Ain’t no law breakin’ in that.”

The door creaked slightly as I opened it. The space was so small you almost had to crawl into it, and I bent down and did a sort of duckwalk inside, the sunlight illuminating its contents. Several crates were stacked in one corner and a pallet lay rolled up in another.

Gemma came in behind me. “Uh . . . uh . . . uh . . .”

“Would you hush up?” I wailed, my nerves already frazzled enough.

“Can’t help feelin’ the way I’m feelin’. Least one of us has some conscience left.”

“Oh, hush!” I took a furtive look out the door, saw no one, and proceeded to work at one of the wooden crates.

“Now you’re gettin’ worse. Lookin’ in a man’s things.

That’s a sin.”

“It ain’t no sin.”

“Sure as sunshine, it is!”

“When you ever seen the Bible say, ‘Thou shalt not look in another man’s crates’?”

“Don’t you make fun of the Bible,” Gemma demanded, her face stricken.

“I ain’t makin’ fun of the Bible. I’m makin’ fun of you.”

“Well, I ain’t gonna let you do it.” She grabbed my hands to keep me from removing the top of the crate.

“Leave me be!”

“No!” Gemma argued. “I ain’t lettin’ you pry into Jeb’s things and feel awful about it later.”

I leaned my hip into her side, trying to shove her away, but she retained a steady grip.

“Quit pushin’ me,” she said, breathless from our struggle. “You ain’t gettin’ me away that easy.”

“I want to see inside,” I grunted, still pushing her with my hip. “Now leave me be.”

“No ma’am! I ain’t raised to do such things and neither were you. Ain’t nice to let friends make mistakes like you’re gonna make.”

“I’ve made lots of mistakes,” I said, “and you ain’t been able to stop me those times, neither.”

“I will this time.” Gemma’s voice was strained as she pushed her weight against mine. “You ain’t gettin’ in this crate.”

We were both breathing hard from fatigue, standing with our feet wide apart, digging our sides into each other. Back and forth we’d lean, one of us giving in for a second before pushing back with all our might. We were grunting and groaning, and the crate creaked under the pressure.

I gave the top another tug, and I could feel it loosen. “I’ve almost got it. Now get off so I can see inside before someone gets here.”

“No, I won’t. I ain’t gonna let you do it.” Gemma clutched my hands more tightly, but her hold only enabled me to pull the lid off, and the two of us toppled to the ground as it released.

Gemma started to sputter at me, but she stopped dead when she got a glimpse at what had tumbled out of the crate. Half hanging out was a mass of white fabric, and we instinctively knew just what that white fabric was. We’d seen it up close and personal.

I jumped up and took a closer look in that crate. I dug around and found a matching hood, hollow eye slits staring at us like a demon. “Klan,” I whispered, my heart dropping with the realization of what Jeb was.

“You mean we got Klan right here?” Gemma gasped. “We got Klan on Lassiter property?”

My ears pricked up when I heard the voices of some of the men on the path. “They’re breakin’ for dinner. We gotta get out.”

Gemma helped me stuff the robe back into the crate and replace the lid. We flew outside, tossed the crowbar back into the shed, and made it down the path and out of sight without getting caught.

Once we were near the house, I led Gemma off the path toward the cover of some trees. “Don’t you tell no one,” I said.

“Tell no one what? What we saw?”

“Don’t say nothin’ about what we saw, and I don’t want you tellin’ what I’m about to tell you, neither.”

“What?”

“Well, do you promise not to tell no one?”

Gemma shrugged like she didn’t think I was going to say anything worth sharing.

“What’s that?” I asked. “That mean you won’t tell?”

“No, I won’t tell. Mercy’s sake!”

“All right, fine.” I took another look around for eavesdroppers. “The other day, when I was goin’ to find Jeb for Momma, I saw him in the woods by the top fields talkin’ to Walt Blevins.”

Gemma looked genuinely puzzled. “What for?”

“Don’t know what for exactly, but he told Walt to leave me alone.”

“Maybe he saw Walt sneakin’ around and took care of him for your daddy.”

“Don’t think so, ’cause he talked to Walt right friendly, like he knows him. He said that messin’ with me would spoil his plans.”

“Plans?”

“He didn’t say nothin’ else. Just said he didn’t want Walt messin’ up his plans.”

“That don’t make no sense.”

“It does if Jeb’s in on all the trouble.”

“You in more trouble than you’re tellin’ me?” she asked with a shake in her voice. I was surprised by the fierce look in her eyes. “You tell me straight.”

I paused and then said, “Gemma, you got enough to worry about. You ain’t got to be worryin’ about me.”