Hardscrabble Road Read online

  Jay said, “I got a bad feeling about this. Let’s run for the clearing.”

  Ry and I scurried after him. Ten feet from the open space, as we passed another huge cedar, a brown claw ripped across Jay’s face and the creature snarled. Jay screamed, covering his head. While I hollered, Ry snatched the claw and the sleeve-covered arm attached to it and hurled Chet into the clearing. Jay crawled on all fours, now laughing as he collapsed beside Chet, who lay on his back looking dazed again.

  “Hey,” Wanda said beside my ear. Screaming, I scampered under the torch, the only bright spot. Heat from the burning pine oil above my head soothed me as I shook. Even Ry looked jittery as he shuffled into view alongside Wanda. The old woman had a cotton satchel slung across her chest that she once said her mother had worn as a slave in Louisiana. Wanda would fill the bag with roots, herbs, and even the droppings of certain critters.

  She reached into the satchel and pulled out a buckeye nut, the very best good-luck charm. My brothers and I had spent many a day looking for buckeye trees. A pocketful of buckeyes would make everyone on the playground treat a boy like a millionaire. In the firelight, the nut looked like a large chocolate-brown gumdrop with an egg-shape on one side lighter than the rest of the shell. Within the oval was another dark patch surrounding a cream-colored center; this “eye” stared at me as Wanda displayed it between her fingertips.

  “Nice to see Chet get his comeuppance,” Wanda said and gave Ry the nut. “Why are you sneaking around with the MacLeod boys?”

  “They’re my friends.” He examined the buckeye, saying, “Does this poison fish too?”

  “Mercy no. That buckeye’s like a rabbit’s foot.”

  Ry thanked her and dropped the buckeye into the pocket of his overalls. Which would bring better luck, I wondered, a buckeye or the foot of the rabbit that kept snacking on Mama’s garden? I decided that I’d like to have both.

  Jay and Chet brushed off their bottoms, and Wanda said, “Let’s get’chu home. Your father’s gonna need y’all tonight.” Overruling all objections, she took us back the way we’d come, her flambeau lighting our way. The torch burned like an oil lamp, steady and soundless. Tree trunks shown yellow in the firelight and the forest floor became a carpet of orange.

  I asked Ry to show me the buckeye. He handed it over, whispering, “You can keep it.”

  “Don’t you w-want it?” It was slick from his still-damp overalls and felt as light as a wish. On the underside was a depression that just fit the pad of my thumb.

  “I don’t believe in charms or luck.”

  I rolled the nut between my palms as if rounding a mud ball and put it deep into my pocket before he could ask for it back. As we gathered our gear at the slough and threw sand on the smoldering fire, Jay said, “Does Papa really need us?”

  “Give him a shout,” Wanda said. “Later, you might have to twist his arm. Be sure to stop by your Uncle Stan’s place.”

  CHAPTER 12

  My brothers told Ry goodnight and headed for the barn to put up our gear. I hesitated, not sure whether to follow them or heed Wanda’s advice immediately.

  Ry asked, “Do you believe what Wanda said about your father needing you?”

  “Why not?” I made up my mind and led him across the yard.

  “Telling the future is like ghosts and charms. Those things aren’t real.”

  “But I’ve seen a haint c-called the Woman and—”

  “You thought you did.”

  “You think you’re so smart, Ry.”

  “No, I really don’t know much—yet.”

  We climbed the hog-wire fence bordering the road. I quick-stepped ahead of him and blocked his way. With his hat pulled down, I couldn’t see his expression; I didn’t know if he was merely egging me on. I raised my voice, saying, “Then why do you keep t-telling me what’s so and what’s not?”

  “Are you going to try to punch me again?”

  “I swannee, you’re the m-most—” I snatched the buckeye from my pocket and hit him in the chest with it. He didn’t even flinch when the nut bounced off his overall bib. “You keep it—I hate you!”

  “I still like you. You’re crazy, but I like you.” He picked up the buckeye lying at his feet, drew his arm back and heaved it. Ry threw like a girl, but still hurled the nut so far that I couldn’t hear where it landed in the dark. I must’ve gasped at losing my treasure because he said, “Don’t worry, it’s not gone.” He opened his hand. The buckeye nestled in the middle of his palm. He said, “Take it. You know you want it.”

  “Stick it.” I spun around and stomped down the road. Ry walked behind me. As we approached Uncle Stan’s ramshackle house, headlights slanted toward us from Hardscrabble Road. My urge to follow Wanda’s advice vanished; I imagined how Papa would laugh in my face and then beat me when I said I was there to help him. I scrambled into a ditch filled with tall grass and brittle Queen Anne’s lace.

  Ry climbed down beside me. He whispered, “Who are we hiding from?”

  “My papa—that’s his truck h-heading our way. You’re right about Wanda. Let’s let ’im be.” I peeked over the berm and ducked down as his tires chewed up the rippling ground and headlights sliced over me.

  With a squeal of brakes, he stopped his truck a few yards from our hiding place. The hinges on the driver door creaked open and his boots hit the ground. “Stan!” His shout made me flinch. “Get your ass out here and tell me something.”

  Uncle Stan’s voice slurred from inside the house. I had to strain to hear him over the truck engine. “Clear off, Mance. Sumbitch bastard comin in my yard…I’ll shoot you. Don’t think I won’t.” I heard sobbing from Aunt Arzula.

  “You’re too drunk to piss straight, let alone shoot,” Papa hollered. “Your shotgun probably looks as wavy to you as your pecker right now.” The truck door slammed, and he continued, “What were you and Reva talking about?”

  “I don’t talk to her.”

  Papa’s voice became playful. “Gee, why don’t you, Stan? She’s a fast, good-looking woman. Ready for anything. Why don’t you like my wife, Stan?”

  “Hey, Mance, I do like…I mean, shit, I—”

  “So, Goddammit, what were y’all talking about?”

  I eased out of the ditch and crept behind the rear tire. From there, I rose up on my toes and peered over the side of the truck bed as Ry joined me. The engine chugged, and cool, dusty metal vibrated against my fingers. Papa took a few steps toward the front porch and looked at the black rectangle of the doorway, hands on hips.

  Uncle Stan’s voice echoed a little, like he was deep within his house, hiding in the dark. “Your boys,” he said. “She was lookin for your boys.”

  “What else was she looking for, Stan?”

  “That’s all. I swear it. Now get gone!”

  “Tell me about my boys, Stan. What’d Reva say about ’em?”

  “Leave me alone, damn you.” His voice cracked. “I don’t talk to her.”

  “Since when, Stan?”

  “A long time. Go’way!”

  Papa folded his arms and relaxed his stance, settling in like he could taunt my drunken uncle all night. He called, “Since your baby died?”

  “Shut your mouth about her.”

  “I never seen Eliza Jean. Liza, Liza, Liza. Was she a pretty little peach?”

  “Stop!” Both my uncle and my aunt were crying now. Uncle Stan wept and mumbled what sounded like, “’Eliza Jean, poor baby.” He sobbed a little longer and then shouted out, “Seven, eight years back. I quit dealin with Arzula’s whole damn family then. All them Elrods.”

  “Reva too?”

  “She’s the one told me.” His voice screeched like he was pulling a long knife from his gut. “Told me I had to stay away. From the Elrod place and everybody.”

  Papa unfolded his arms and his right elbow jabbed outward like he was scratching his stomach. I realized that he was drawing his Colt revolver. He aimed the gun at the doorway; moonlight slid like oil across the blue-black
metal. Papa thumbed back the hammer and said, “Stan, I think you’re trying to put something besides words into Reva’s pretty mouth.”

  “You sumbitch—” Uncle Stan ran toward the doorway, his white shirt like the blazing target on a buck. His shotgun drifted downward as he stumbled on a pan Aunt Arzula had left on the floor. Both barrels fired, blowing a giant hole in the porch. His next step landed in that gap, and his leg disappeared beneath the floorboards. Uncle Stan pitched forward onto his face while his shotgun clattered down the steps. Black suspenders crossed his back in a big X. He lay still, as if Papa had shot him dead.

  Aunt Arzula shrieked my uncle’s name and then hollered, “Mance, don’t!” Papa mounted the stairs, pointing his Colt. He knelt beside the dazed man. His face was in shadows, but I could imagine what I’d seen too often: his cold expression and small, glassy eyes. He poked the barrel of the revolver behind Uncle Stan’s ear.

  A full, body-shaking cry took hold of me. I banged on the truck panel and screamed, “Papa, no!”

  He sprang to his feet and aimed toward me but then lowered his gun. “Bud? Goddammit, what the hell are you doing there?”

  I squeezed my eyes closed as I pawed away the tears and moaned, “Don’t, Papa. D-don’t do it. Please.”

  “He tried to shoot me. You want your papa’s head blowed off? You want me dead?”

  “I don’t want anybody dead.”

  “What’s he to you, boy? Just another Goddamn drunk. Another sonofabitch taking up with your mama.”

  “He wasn’t. They was j-j-just talking.” I pictured the pistol firing and the smoke licking the barrel and Uncle Stan’s head splitting like a melon.

  “Really, Mr. MacLeod,” Ry shouted. “That’s all they were doing.” He crossed in front of the truck where the yellow-white glare of the headlights splashed him. The boy looked tiny compared to Papa, who stood and gestured down at him with his gun.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Ry Shepherd, sir. We met this afternoon. I’m Bud’s friend. And Jay’s and Chet’s.”

  “What’re you doing here?”

  “Bud was walking me home, sir.”

  Uncle Stan groaned and Papa kicked the side of his head. Aunt Arzula cried out, “Don’t kill him, Mance.”

  “Who’s gonna miss ’im,” Papa shouted back. “Or a stone-crazy twat. Or even two little boys?” He still had the hammer cocked as he pointed the Colt at each of us in turn. “Who’s gonna miss any of y’all?”

  Ry said, “Would you shoot a girl, Mr. MacLeod? A little girl?”

  “Ain’t no girls here, you—”

  My friend curled his fingers over the front brim of his hat and drew it away. His other hand undid bobby pins and eased a long, coiled braid of black hair off the top of his head and over a shoulder. Ry glanced at me, face lit up by the headlamps, all delicate cheekbones and slender brows and liquid eyes. Now so clearly a girl. She said in that high, squeaky voice that suddenly sounded feminine to my ears, “My real name is Rienzi, Mr. MacLeod. If you still don’t believe me, I’ll prove I’m not a boy.” She hooked her thumb under one of the straps that held up her overalls.

  “Quit it. That’s enough.” Papa stared at her, blinking hard as if waking from a dream. Whatever rage had overtaken him seemed to retreat as he took a deep breath. His thumb eased down the hammer of his Colt, and a smirk thawed his tone of voice. “Bud’s kinda young to have a girlfriend.”

  “We’re just friends, sir. But I’d like to know him and his family better.”

  “Sure, sure. Stop by anytime.” He tucked the gun into his waistband and peered at Rienzi. “You ain’t from around here.”

  Sidling around the rumbling truck, I said, “He’s—she’s—half-Japanese.”

  “Like the fruitcake, huh?” He glanced inside the house and yelled, “Quit blubbering, Arzula. Stan’s not worth wasting a bullet on.” He gave my uncle a half-hearted kick and said to Rienzi, “Well, climb aboard, sweetie. We’ll take you home.”

  *

  Rienzi sat between us as Papa turned the truck around and drove us toward the highway. She told him where her grandparents lived, about five miles away, and we rode in silence. The truck continued to send vibrations through my body, and the poorly maintained roads jostled us quite a bit, but I blamed my shaking on Rienzi. Sparse, downy hairs on my skin stood out like feelers. Whenever she leaned my way, they quivered a warning.

  I’d chafed against her opinions when I thought she was a boy; recalling her bossiness now mortified me. Further, I hated that I’d been tossed around by a girl. Worst, she’d seen me naked. Twice.

  The Shepherd place looked much nicer than ours: a white-painted farmhouse and picket fence that seemed to glow in the moonlight, and outbuildings that looked brick-red in the sweep of the truck headlights. Papa pulled up behind a shiny Lincoln Zephyr parked near the house. He said, “What you saw tonight is our secret, OK, little lady? I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine.”

  She said, “Yes, sir. Thank you for the ride home.”

  “Hey, Bud, scoot out so she can go. Be sure to walk your sweetheart to her door.” He laughed as we exited.

  Shuffling beside her along a swept brick path, I felt Papa’s stare on the back of my neck. Rienzi carried her hat; her long braid swung between her shoulder blades. She said, “You’ll keep my secret too?”

  “I-I-I reckon. Why’d you pretend anyway?” I opened the white fence gate and walked through before remembering my manners around girls. I started to apologize, but she didn’t seem to notice my mistake.

  She latched the gate behind her and said, “Everyone talks to boys. Boys get to do what they want; girls get left out. Whenever I dress like I want to, Granny says I’m not ladylike.”

  “Are you go-going to pretend to be a boy f-forever?”

  “Absolutely. If you tell my secret, I won’t talk to you again. I’ll find new friends.” I rubbed my birthmark and she must’ve read my mind. “I know I look different. Someone else will be my friend, though. Somewhere.”

  I stuttered, “I won’t tell, but you gotta promise not to tell anybody that you beat me up.”

  “You beat up yourself—”

  “Promise!”

  “I swear I won’t tell anybody.”

  “Doggone, Ry-Rienzi, you ain’t supposed to swear: it’s a sin. You swannee instead.” She sighed and I went on, “And double-promise n-not to tell anybody that you saw me naked. Twice.”

  “I double-promise, one for each time.” She glanced behind us and asked, “Are you scared of your father?”

  “Yeah. Well, sometimes.” I tried to walk taller. “Not a lot, I mean, not really. No.” As she and I approached the porch, I said, “Can I touch your hair?”

  The front door opened. An older, bespectacled woman in a quilted housedress and felt slippers stood at the threshold holding a hurricane lamp. She said, “I declare, Rienzi, we was about to telephone the High Sheriff.”

  “Sorry, Granny. This is Bud MacLeod. His father drove me home.” She waved at the truck and Papa tooted the horn twice.

  The woman pursed her lips and her glance cut from the truck to me. “Nice to meet you, Bud. Your father’s a famous man.”

  “Is tha-tha-that a fact, ma’am?”

  “Oh yes. Everybody knows him.” She stepped aside, making room in the doorway for Rienzi, and said to me, “Have a good night now.”

  Rienzi lifted my hand and I thought she was going to touch it to her braid, but she put something curved and smooth into it: her buckeye. She whispered, “Good luck.”

  I thanked her and she went inside. After the door closed, I squeezed the nut in my fist. Starting back to the truck, I wondered what her hair felt like; I imagined hemp and then corn silk. Before other textures came to mind, her final words struck me. Maybe she thought it was a good thing that I believed in luck. I stared at Papa’s truck as he raced the engine, making it roar.

  When I clambered inside the truck, I’d expected him to beat me for surprising him at
Uncle Stan’s, but he sat there tapping his thumbs against the steering wheel, his face in shadows. Happy with my good fortune, I held the buckeye with fingertips only, like Wanda had, not wanting to use up its powers.

  Papa leaned an elbow out his window as he spun the wheel with his other hand, turning the truck in a tight half-circle. As we rolled down the driveway, he said, “Tell me about this girlfriend of yours.”

  I stammered, “I didn’t know she was a girl. She fooled me good.”

  “You do know girls from boys, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. Darlene’s a-a-a girl. And Mama. And—”

  He snorted. “Your mama stopped being girlish a ways back.” The truck shook as he drove along a washboard dirt lane, making a racket. He turned onto a smoother path bordered by harvested peanut fields, just ruts and barren rows. “It’s a strange girl that plays in boy’s duds. It’s right peculiar. She probably whistles too.”

  “Her gra-grandma knew of you, Papa. Do you know the Shepherds, sir?”

  “All I know about them is that no Shepherd’s ever bought a drop offa me.” From his flat tone, I couldn’t tell if he hated or respected them for that. Or both.

  While we drove home, a swirl of questions from Papa’s rousting of Uncle Stan addled me. Again I imagined the bang and the gun smoke and— To try to clear my thoughts, I leaned out the passenger window. The wind stroked me, ruffling my hair. The roaring air forced tears from my eyes while I lost myself in the sluice of a thousand fingers grazing my scalp and stripping my face clean.

  After a minute, Papa whacked my shoulder. “Goddammit, Bud, I’m talking to you!”

  I sat up straight, hands in my lap like he’d taught me. Polite and defenseless.

  “I said you also owe me a promise.”

  “I-I won’t tell a soul, sir. I double-promise.”

  We bumped up onto the highway where the tires keened against the smooth pavement. Driving fast now, Papa held the wheel steady with his left hand and said, “Hey,” to get my attention. I couldn’t see his face, but I felt his gray stare. With a short, fast jab, he punched my mouth.