Nancy A. Collins, page 8
Just as he was finally beginning to feel that things were nowhere near as bad as they looked, the bell over the door rang again, and Joslin Simms walked in. The breath left his body as if he’d been sucker punched. Although he knew that he would eventually run into her, it hadn’t occurred to him it would be so soon, and in one of their old haunts.
When he left Seven Devils, Joslin was seventeen-year-old girl who wore bobby socks and saddle oxfords. Now, nearly three years later, she was a woman of twenty who dressed in pullover sweaters, tight skirts and patent leather pumps. As much as it pained him to look at what was no longer his, he could not find it in himself to feel anything but awe in the presence of her beauty.
When he saw who she was with, his stomach cinched itself into a seething bag of bile. Virgil Bayliss followed Joslin across the open threshold and into the restaurant’s main room, favoring the leg he had damaged so heroically in the final game of the season, back in ‘42.
Hollis looked down at his hands and realized that he had twisted his cloth napkin into a garrote.
The twosome selected a table near the picture window facing the street, and Bayliss held out a chair for Joslin. As she placed herself in the seat, Virgil looked up and stared right at Hollis. A frown crossed his chiseled features.
“Hollis? Hollis Railsback?” Virgil stepped forward, smiling broadly, his hand held out in greeting. “I’ll be damned, it is you!”
A pained rictus that might pass for a smile appeared on Hollis’ face as he rose from the booth and moved to intercept Virgil’s greeting. “Hello, Virgil.”
Virgil grabbed Hollis’ hand with both of his, pumping his arm vigorously. “You old son of a gun! How long you been back?”
“Not long,” he replied, trying hard to fight the urge to ram a coffee spoon through the bastard’s right eye.
Virgil finally let Hollis’ hand drop and turned to smile in Joslin’s direction. “Honey! Look who’s here!”
The Joslin Hollis had known was easily flustered in day-to-day social situations and invariably looked to her date to set the tone for her reaction. Judging from how she was trembling like a deer, an anxious smile plastered across her face, it was clear to him that aspect of her personality had not matured with her taste in clothes.
“Hello, Hollis,” she said in a wispy, little-girl voice. “It’s great to see you again.”
“It’s great to see you, too, Joslin,” he replied, trying his best to hide the hurt in his eyes, not so much for Joslin’s sake than to keep Bayliss from catching on
“How’s your father doing?” Bayliss asked, an edge of concern in his voice. Hollis took a deep breath and shrugged his shoulders. “He’s doing, I guess.”
“Well, when you’ve got yourself squared away, come out and see me. I got a few things I’d like to discuss that could be to y’all’s advantage. The Railsback name means a lot to farmers in this neck of the woods. Your daddy’s done more than his fair share for o Choctaw County, and folks don’t forget that.”
“That’s kind of you to say, Virgil.”
“Pshaw! It’s the truth, ain’t it? Promise me you’ll come out and see me in a couple of days?”
“I’ll let you know. I best be going …I’ve got a lot of things to catch up on, now that I’m home.”
000
Son a bitch simply couldn’t let him go and be done with it. No, he had to make him writhe and twist like a worm on a hook. And to top it off, he had the audacity to try and work business into it on top of everything else. `The Railsback name means a lot to farmers in this area.’ Damned right it did. Everyone knew Horace Railsback was a friend to farmers, and could be counted on for sympathy and understanding when it came to boll weevils, droughts, and the runs on the bank. The Railsback name not only meant something, it was worth something, too. He could see where Bayliss was headed. He wanted to buy up the Railsback name and the last of their trade. And judging from how butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, Virgil probably figured he could get what he wanted for a song.
Hollis felt as if there was a hornet’s nest wedged between the folds of his brain, and every time he thought of Virgil Bayliss, it was like stirring the hornets with a stick. And just as it felt as if couldn’t get any worse, he stepped onto the front porch of the house and saw the newspaper, The Seven Devils Advocate, lying on the welcome mat.
He automatically bent over and picked up the paper, glancing first at the headline then flipping it over to see what was printed beneath the fold. He found himself staring at a photograph of Virgil Bayliss dancing in the Mammon Bayou Country Club’s ballroom with Joslin, both of them smiling to beat the band. Underneath the picture was the headline: Bayliss-Sirums Engagement Announced.
Hollis closed his eyes to shut out the sight, but he could still see Virgil Bayliss’ bland, self-satisfied smile swimming before him, accompanied by the buzzing of hundreds of angry hornets
000
Choctaw County was a dry county, at least in theory. But being dry never kept folks from getting drunk. Hollis Railsback, like every county boy over the age of thirteen and man under the age of dead, knew exactly where to go and who to see about acquiring liquor.
If you wanted the kind with labels and screw-top lids, you went to Miz Maybell’s Honky-Tonk, out on the old Monticello Highway, where you could either get it by the drink or by the bottle. But if you wanted moonshine, then the man to see was Pappy Pritchett, out on Indian Mound Road. Pappy’s liquor came with a screw top, too, but that’s because it was in Mason jars.
The Pritchett’s place was a sprawling amalgamation of rusted-out tractors, gutted jalopies, sagging outbuildings, the center of which was the large, ramshackle shack that had served as the clan’s homestead since before the Civil War. The only visible concession the Pritchetts had made to the modern world was the Coca-Cola machine parked on their front porch.
As Hollis drove up the rutted, mud-and-gravel drive, a pack of skinny-shanked coonhounds poured out from under the stoop, baying so lustily you’d think Sherman was on the march again.
Pappy was working on one of the trucks parked in the dooryard, buried up to his waist in the engine. Upon hearing the dogs, he pulled himself free of the truck and stared at the approaching vehicle, idly rubbing his hands with a rag only slightly less oily than the engine he’d been working on.
The coon dogs boiled around the Packard, barking loudly and scratching at the doors with muddy paws. One hound got onto its hind legs and, supporting its upper body on the hood of the car, glowered balefully into the driver’s side window at Hollis.
“Y’all dawgs, hush up!” Pappy said, flapping his hands at the pack as he waded through their number, sending a hound or two flying with a sharp kick. “G’wan, y’all mangy critters! Git!”
The dogs looked at Pappy, then at the Packard, before retreating en masse. Hollis opened the car door and got out, nodding a greeting to the moonshiner.
“Hey, Pappy.”
“Hey, Hollis. My boy Ezra tells me you been off to some war or t’other,” Pappy drawled as he tucked his rag back into the hip pocket of his greasy overalls.
“Yes, sir. That I have.”
Pappy sucked on his teeth and nodded his head for a couple of seconds. “Did y’all win?”
“Yes, sir. That we did.”
“Good enough, then,” Pritchett replied. “So, how much y’all want?”
“Gimme a six pack,” Hollis said, handing over six dollars. Pappy took the money and diligently counted it before tucking it into the front pocket of his overalls. He stepped into a nearby shed and returned with a cardboard box with six sealed Mason jars inside.
“Y’all havin’ a party?”
“No, sir.”
“Y’all havin’ a wake, then?”
“Not exactly. But you ain’t far off.”
“Well, whatever th’ occasion, I’d kindly appreciate you don’t commence to drankin’ until yore off my property. Last time some good ole boy got his-self likkered up he knocked over my outhouse. That weren’t too bad, except that Mam-Maw was inside at the time.”
Hollis took the box from Pappy and carefully placed it on the passenger side floor. “Can I get to the levee takin’ this road?”
“Sure, but it ain’t th’ easiest way. Keep on down th’ road apiece-when y’all come to a fork in th’ road. Th’ right fork goes to the levee. Th’ left fork don’t go nowhere but to the injun mound an’ Granny Grimes’ place.”
“Granny Grimes? That old witchy-woman still around?”
“Granny Grimes always been `round,” Pappy said darkly, spitting to ward off the evil eye. “Reckon she always will be. Funny how some things grow old, but they never die.”
000
The levee was built by the Army Corps of Engineers following the disastrous Flood of 1910, which sent Mississippi river water into literally every home in Choctaw County, leaving catfish stranded in front yards and alligator garfish flopping on curbstones. Where once the Father Of All Waters ran free and unbridled through the delta, it now was channeled behind a winding wall of quarried stone, covered with a protective layer of dirt and sod.
Hollis remembered the shock he’d experienced when he learned in the third grade that the levee was not a natural phenomena, but a man-made structure, not unlike the Caddo burial mounds that dotted the area. Although the river was no longer free to invade the surrounding countryside with every hard rain, which did not mean the Mississippi had been erased from the consciousness of those who lived nearby.
As a teenager, whenever things got too much for him to handle, Hollis used to come out to the levee and watch the river. There was something about how the muddy waters rolled along in majestic indifference to mankind’s attempts to tame it that calmed his inner demons. Hollis had seen a lot of water in the last three years, but none of it held the same mystery and romance for him as the Mississippi.
Hollis sat on the hood of his car and passed the day by alternating staring at the murky brown water with drinking shine straight from the jar. Somewhere halfway through the afternoon and his third jar of squeeze, he passed out. When he woke up the sun was gone and the stars were out, and the last of the shine he had spilled was taking the paint off the hood of the Pontiac.
Earlier that the day the drive out to the levee hadn’t seemed that bad, but now the sun was down it was like driving down a coal mine, with precious little in the way of landmarks to go by. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally reached the fork in the road and turned in what he believed was the direction of town.
After a couple of minutes, when he had yet to pass the Pritchett’s homestead, Hollis realized he must have taken a wrong turn. Cursing vigorously, he slowed down to look for a place to turn the car around and saw a light ahead in the darkness. As he got closer, he saw a small shack set a hundred yards or more back from the road, next to which was the largish pumpkin patch he’d ever seen. With a start, Hollis realized he was looking at the cabin of Granny Grimes.
Granny Grimes was a living legend in Choctaw County, and was as much a local fixture as the river. Hollis had heard tell about the Granny Grimes since he was a little boy; yet he had never once laid eyes on the woman, as she refused to set foot in town. According to the stories, Granny Grimes was a midwife, of sorts, who helped the blue gummers deliver their babies. But she was better known for her hexing. Some in town called her a `folk doctor’, while others less prone to charity called her a witch. But, rumor was, there wasn’t a man or woman born in Choctaw County who hadn’t found their way to her cabin, one time or another, in search of a charm or a spell, including the Baptist minister.
Hollis pulled his car up in the yard, picked up the cardboard box with its three remaining jars of shine, and walked up the drive towards the old woman’s house. As he drew closer, he spied the figure of a woman with white hair, wearing a shawl draped about her hunched shoulders, and puffing on a corncob pipe, sitting in a rocker cm the front porch, a Coleman lantern resting at her feet.
“Hey there!” he hollered, in case the old lady was deaf. “You on the porch! You Granny Grimes?”
The old woman halted her rocking and looked in his direction, apparently unconcerned by the sudden appearance of a drunken stranger in her dooryard. “I be Granny Grimes, jest as ye be Hollis Railsback.”
Hollis felt a cold finger travel down his spine. “How’d you know who I am?”
The old woman chuckled, amused by his reaction. “Ain’t that why ye come out to see ol’ Granny? On account I got witchin’ ways? Besides, jest cause I never go t’town don’t mean I don’t know who’s who in Seven Devils.” She leaned forward in her rocker and gestured with a gnarled hand for him to come forward. “Step on up, son, so’s I can get a good look at ye. My eye sight ain’t what it used to be.”
As Hollis neared the shack, there came a low, guttural growl and two eyes, red as blood and bright as fire, blinked open in the shadows under the porch. He stopped in his tracks and swallowed hard, unable to look away from the baleful gaze.
“Old woman, you got you a dog under there?”
“Somethin’ like a dawg,” Granny Grimes said, rapping the bowl of her pipe against the arm of her rocking chair.
“Will it bite?”
“If’n I tell it to.” She studied him for a second. “I reckon ye ain’t no trouble. Least not far as I’m concerned. Hush now, Sathan,” she said, apparently to the thing under the stoop. “Y’all can come up on the porch, Mr. Hollis.”
Hollis did his best to ignore the creature under the stairs as he stepped onto the porch. Now that he was close enough to get a good look at her, Hollis realized Granny Grimes was the oldest woman he’d ever seen outside a pine box. She was ugly as a mud fence, with sparse hair whiter than a bar of Ivory soap, and skin like a dried apple. She was bent over with widow’s hump, and arthritic hands dangled like the claws of a bird from her stick-like arms. Given her advanced age, it was impossible to tell if she was Black, White, or Indian, or a mix of all three.
“You live out here all by yourself?” Hollis asked.
“That I do,” Granny said, nodding her snow-white head. “Been on my own since th’ Flood. Not that it bothers me none, although I admit I don’t chop wood and draw water like I used to. But ye ain’t here to chaw th’ fat with an ol’ woman. Ye come here cause ye got yerself crossed. ”
“Beg pardon?”
“I’m talkin’ about yer luck, boy! I can tell jest by lookin’ at ye! Ye got yerself bad luck in money an’ love, am I right?”
“Are you sayin’ someone’s hexed me?”
“It’s possible, but sometimes a man don’t need to have someone curse him to make his luck get all cattywumpus. Sometimes it’s on account of bein’ born under bad stars. I reckon thas yore problem.”
“Is there a way to fix it?”
Granny Grimes shook her head. “I cain’t fix bad luck. If thas what the stars have in store for a man, then thas his luck. However… I can deflect it.”
“Could you do that for me?”
“Perhaps. It depends on whether you can pay my price.”
“I can’t afford much, I’m afraid. I got less than twenty dollars to my name, since I bought this shine.”
“There’s more than one way to pay me for my services,” Granny said with a cackle. She pointed to the pumpkin patch growing beside the cabin. “I need ye to go out in th’ punkin patch yonder an’ pick out th’ nicest, plumpest, prettiest punkin ye can carry under yore arm and set it on the porch.” Granny nodded at the lantern sitting on the edge of the porch.
“Take some light with ye, so’s ye can see what yore doin’.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Hollis said, picking up the lantern.
In dark of night, the pumpkin patch was as silent as a graveyard and just as inviting. As he moved amongst the humped rows, lantern held high to light his way, Hollis imagined the round fruits scattered about him looked like mounds of skulls. Sensing that he was being watched, he turned up the flame on the lantern and was startled to see a vast, dark bulk loomed before him. He gasped and took a step back before realizing he was looking at the old Caddo burial mound that gave the road Granny lived on its name.
After five minutes, Hollis found a nice, fat pumpkin the size of a cured ham that was as golden as a harvest moon. Using his army-issue pocketknife, he severed it from its vine. In the stark shadows thrown by the lantern, the sap that leaked onto his hands looked like blood.
Hollis took the pumpkin back to the cabin and set it on the porch, at the old woman’s feet. Granny Grimes nodded in approval and puffed on her pipe.
“Thas a fine `un, no two ways about it. Now I needs ye t’go out and find th’ most dried-up, blighted punkin and bring it back as well.”
“What’s’ this have to do with gettin’ my luck uncrossed?” Hollis grumbled.
“It’s not yore place to ax me such questions!” Granny Grimes replied tartly. “Now go out and fetch me a sick punkin!”
Hollis wasn’t used to having folks that weren’t exactly white talking to him in such a manner, but there was something in the way the old woman’s eyes flashed that made him hold his tongue this time. He trudged back out into the patch and, after a few minutes of searching, returned with the second pumpkin.
Where the first pumpkin was nice and firm and glowed with health, the second was lopsided and covered with scabby gray patches that had eaten quarter-sized holes in its rind. Granny Grimes grinned, extremely pleased by the selection.
“Yes, these will do nicely! Now, be a dear boy and help me get `em into the house.” Granny took the lantern from Hollis as he stooped to gather up the pumpkins and walked ahead of him into the darkened cabin.
The interior of the shack was cramped and smelled strongly of sassafras and turnip greens. An ancient Ben Franklin stove dominated the center of the cabin’s single room, and the plank walls were covered with makeshift shelves filled with jars and rusty coffee cans. Dried herbs, roots and wildflowers hung upside from the rafters like clusters of bats. The only furniture inside the cabin was a rickety chair set beside the stove, a workbench that was placed against the far wall, and a narrow mattress stuffed with straw and covered with a tattered hand-made quilt.
