Chapter 20

Olive Augusta Radley, 1909

Some attorneys cooperate with "flappers" to ensnare wealthy, young Indian men into matrimony. Soon thereafter a divorce usually follows, and the court allows liberal alimony to the flapper wife, which she shares with her co-partner, the attorney.

—Gertrude Bonnin, 1924, research agent, Indian Welfare Committee, General Federation of Women's Clubs.

My heart's pounding, and my legs are near falling off before I make it all the way to Jack Crossing. I'm wore out after serving lunch, then helping the clubwomen clean up the mess. Lucky for me, Mrs. McDougal never did ask where she knew me from, and after the meal, she went to the doctor for her hurt ribs from the terrible trouble with the library wagon on the way into town. Mrs. Tinsley and some of the other ladies walked outside to see about damage to the book crates, and Kate Barnard headed to the Commercial Hotel to rest.

I wound up with five nickels for the day's work, plus Mrs. Paulson loaded me up with pit-smoked pork, roast turnips, and lemon tea cookies to carry home to my ailing mama. I can't wait to give the food to Nessa, Tula, and the little ones. Hopefully those turnip-thieving boys have wandered back into town by now because Tula and me need to talk. Word came this afternoon that the bad men who'd been raiding farms and road wagons north of here had raised trouble farther south now. The Talihina deputy gave orders that folks not leave town except in groups of several parties together. Then he gathered some men, and they galloped off to make sure the academy girls and their teachers didn't meet with trouble on the road home.

Mrs. Grube has to hold over to catch a line of wagons going her way in the morning, and she is in a nervous fit about the whole big mess. I didn't know how I'd get shed of her so as to go to Jack Crossing, till she heard that Miss Kate was staying overnight at the Commercial Hotel, and she decided to try one more time for a conversation.

"You keep close to camp, Hazel," she told me. "I may be awhile."

Soon as she picked up Baby Beau and left, I grabbed the extra food from where I'd hid it and took off cross-country toward Daddy's old camp spot to check on Nessa.

A nightjar's call catches my ear when I start into the brush by the creek, chuck-will's-widow,chuck-will's-widow. This late in the day it could be a real nightjar or it could be Tula. I answer back as I push my way through the cedars and grapevines and greenbrier.

Chuck-will's-widow,chuck-will's-widow. The call comes again, and quick as a blink, I'm a little girl, camped here with my daddy on a pack trip. He's got a fire lit and the horses fed. I feel safe as can be while I explore around, looking for lightning bugs and glittery rocks and a place to build a fort where me and my rag doll can have a playhouse.

Chuck-will's-widow.I don't answer, because I want to keep my pretend world real. My daddy is right there at camp, watching over. He's singing old songs while he does the chores. Soon enough we'll sit down at the evening fire for food and stories. I'm not an orphan. I'm Olive Augusta Radley…Keyes Radley's girl, and that's a thing to be proud of.

Chuck-will's-widow.

"Tula?" I whisper.

The air goes still, and a chill runs through my bones. Silent as the dawn, a face melts from the brush, a thin face with dark eyes that seem too big, just like the first time I saw her and thought she was a elf child.

"Tula?" I say, because down here in the shadow-light, I'm spooked. "Tula?"

She doesn't answer, just tips her head off to the side and looks at me like she never saw me before in her life. "That's you, ain't it?" My voice goes to trembling. "Y-you better…better ans…answer me."

Holding the food pack tight against my body, I stumble back a step. Black locust branches grab me with their long thorns, and I gasp, "Where's Nessa?"

Noise troubles the air. Just a slip of sound, but I know it right off. You don't live with somebody for three years and not know her giggle, even if she is trying to cover it. "Nessa Bessie! That ain't funny. You get out here right now."

Snickers and laughs come from all directions. Tula and the little kids bust from the bushes wearing big ol' grins, proud of their trick and that I fell for it.

"W-w-where's Nessa?" a voice singsongs, mocking me. It's one of those boys. Tula and the others helped them make me look like a fool.

Something hits my head and bounces off, and they all laugh harder. Up the creek bank, Dewey Mullins sits on a sycamore branch with a handful of pebbles in his hand.

"Sissy," he says, and tosses another one. "We fooled you good."

My face goes from cold to hot. "Why don't you come down here and say that?" Tucking the food bundle by a rock, I get ready for a wrangle.

"No, Ollie!" Nessa scoots from the brush and latches on to my one arm, which I was about to load for a punch. "Them boys are our friends."

"They ain't friends." I try to shake her off while Dewey shinnies down the tree. "I'm mad at you, Nessa, but I'm even madder at him."

"Here, now, y'all two. All us is friendly-like." Out of the brush comes Amos, his hands pocketed in his raggy canvas trousers. "We's just funnin'. No harm done."

Tula tries to tell me in Choctaw that they didn't mean anything by it. She's all sorry now, of course.

"When did you get mean, Tula?" Tears prickle in the back of my throat. They made fun, same way Tesco Peele picks on people and laughs about it. "Here I been running my legs off to bring you some supper and working all day to get money for us. Well, now I'm sorry I did." I snatch up the food bundle and turn back the way I came. "I'll take my leave and say my goodbyes. Nessa, you comin'?"

"Stay," she sniffles. "I got a book. You can have it, Ollie. All for your own."

"C'mon, stay. Share them vittles." Even Dewey wants to be chums now that he knows there's food.

"Book?" I turn back to Nessa. "Where'd you get a book?"

"Outta the wagon." She's already dancing off down the creek bank, wanting me to come after her. "Come look."

"Nessa, you didn't go into town, did you? I told y'all to stay put."

"They been put." Dewey struts on by. "That book wagon might've come through Jack Crossin', and somethin' might've spooked the horse into a runaway, that's all."

A breath catches in my throat. At lunch I heard Mrs. McDougal say that right before the wagon horse bolted, there were voices in the woods. Children's voices. And that her and the driver could've got killed in the wagon wreck, except the runaway horse eventually plowed into a thicket and got stuck. It took two men with axes and timber saws to cut that rig loose so it could limp on to Talihina.

"What did y'all do?" I choke out.

"They oughta put a better driver on that wagon than a couple womenfolk." Dewey grins over his shoulder, heading down the creek toward the old camp place.

When we get there, I see books all right. A half dozen and a busted crate that's stacked with the extra firewood, plus a ruined silk parasol the same dark purple as Mrs. McDougal's dress.

"You stole their books?" I babble out.

"Them books just…fell off the wagon while it was bouncin' around." Dewey lifts his hands, palms up. "Landed in the water, though, so they're ruint. If we knew them crates was just carryin' books, we woulda let that wagon pass. Next time, we'll pick more careful when we jostle a wagon at the crossin'."

"What?"

"Raid it, just like Robin Hood and his merriment. That's a tale I heard, workin' down in the mines, and it's a good'un. What you got to eat in that pack, anyhow?"

He's already trying to grab the food, and so I hand it to Tula. "It's for Tula and Nessa and Pinti and Koi." I look round that fire, where they've all squatted down licking their lips while Tula opens the food pack. "Tales don't fill a belly, or thieved turnips, either. At least they shouldn't."

Dewey's bony shoulders rise and sink under his overall straps. "That reverend's got plenty."

"Point is, it's against the law. Once the deputy is back in town, you better mend your ways, Dewey Mullins. Those clubwomen are mad about the wagon and their books. Ain't my worry, though. Come tomorrow, us girls are leavin', and you can sort it out for yourself."

Tula shares the food around with everybody, and while they're busy, I whisper the plans into Nessa's ear, so Nessa can tell Tula in Choctaw. Tomorrow I'll get Mrs. Grube to hand over some food for my baby brother and sick mama before she leaves out with the other wagons. Then I'll come back here with Skedee and the packs, so we girls and little Koi can head into the Winding Stairs. With Pinti and Koi being so small, it'll take us three days or so to make the trek up the back trail to the old place. Daddy and I could do it a lot faster, but that's all right. I know good camp spots on the way—places where nobody can find us.

Nessa tells Tula the plan, but I notice Tula's not nodding or answering. She keeps her head tucked like she's studying on her food, real hard.

Dewey's the one who pipes up first. "Don't know why you'd want to go way up in them mountains. That's what you're talkin' about, ain't it? Amos here speaks good Choctaw. He learned me some of it." Half-chewed pork meat shoots past Dewey's chipped tooth while he talks. "Ain't nothin' up there. How you mean to make your livin'?"

"Hunt. Fish. Harvest from the woods. My daddy showed me how." I hand my food over to Nessa, because I can get something else at Mrs. Grube's wagon. "None of your business anyway."

Dewey flicks his fingers at me, scattering black grease. "I say we can do fine right here. Jostle us a few wagons. Take from the rich and hand to the poor, like Robin Hood and his merriment. Get back for the wrongs that's been done us. See?"

"What wrongs?" I don't like it that they've been talking so much here on their own.

"Well, Miss Fancy in your nice clothes"—Dewey gives me a pig-eyed look—"just take ol' Amos here, let's say. He is a official Choctaw freedman, so when the gov'ment cuts up the Choctaw lands, few years back, Amos gets his own patch like all the other Choctaw freedmen. Plus after his folks pass on from the malaria sickness, Amos owns their land and the cabin he growed up in. Then one day comes a man who says, ‘I'm your ma's half brother. I am to take care of you, 'cause you ain't got no folks now. For you to keep this land, you need to marry up with a woman. I found you a woman, and we'll go to the justice of the peace to marry. Once the knot is tied, we'll all have ice cream and get you a fine horse and saddle and a new rifle, so you can be a husband.' Well, don't that sound good to Amos? Horse, saddle, new rifle, plus you keep your house with your folks buried out back?"

He turns to Amos, who leans his elbows on his knees and hangs his head. "Yeah, it did. I was a fool, though."

Dewey pats him on the back, hard. "There now, it ain't your fault. How was you supposed to know any different?" Fire sparks glitter in Dewey's muddy brown eyes when he looks my way. "So there's Amos. He's only just turned fourteen that month. Off they go in a wagon to some town that's a far piece away. Sure enough, a woman's there waitin'. She's a bunch older than Amos, but she don't seem to mind, and he's wantin' that horse and saddle and gun—and ice cream. They see the justice, say some words, mark some papers, go to the ice cream shop, just like the plans is. Next thing Amos knows, he's all alone there on the boardwalk, waitin' on a horse, saddle, and gun that ain't comin'. He don't have to worry about that land or cabin, either, because by the time he finally finds his way back there, the wife and half uncle have moved in, and she's getting a divorce from Amos and taking the land as her part. So what you think of that, Miss Fancy?"

I look at Amos, slumped over, stabbing a stick into the ground with one hand and rubbing Koi's head with the other. Koi grabs Amos's lemon tea cookie, and Amos doesn't even care.

"Well?" Dewey leans toward me, and I notice that a chunk of his ear is missing on the same side as the broken front tooth. "Ain't that a wrong thing against Amos? Don't he deserve somethin' to pay back for that?"

"But not from stealing." I mean it when I say it, but I also think about Amos, who seems kindly, even if he does keep bad company. I'm mad about the men who tricked him. "He should go to the judge. There's courts and sheriffs and that kind of thing." On Mr. Lockridge's porch all the men talk about is courts and lawyers.

"Only gettin' back for what was stole from me." Amos looks at Dewey when he says it, pulling those words right out of Dewey's mouth.

"Hear that, Miss Fancy?" Dewey snaps his fingers. "And let me tell you what'll happen to Amos if he goes tellin' his tale. He'll wind up dead or in jail. Them people warned him when they run him off. I found Amos hidin' in the Jack Fork Mountains, eatin' worms and bugs and minnows out of the crick. It was a sad sight, and so I told him, ‘Since I'm on the road from bad to better, we oughta travel on together. Join up. Ain't nobody in this world cares about a orphan…but a orphan.' That's somethin' you oughta think about, Miss Fancy. Ain't nobody else cares. Them pretty clothes get dirtied up, they'll chase you off their porch, just like us."

"Yeah, that's true." Amos says. "Dewey and me, we joined up. It's good, joinin' up." Perfect round circles of firelight move on his cheeks when he nods. The evening shadows are long and thick, but not so thick that I can't see Amos looking over at Tula and Tula looking at him. Those two are going sweet on each other.

Wonder what Dewey will think when he figures that out.

"See." Dewey grabs up a pine twig. "You tote this lil' stick all by its lonesome, you can't do much with it—bends too easy. Breaks too quick." He fishes around for another twig. "Join these two up, it's stronger, like me and Amos."

Tula squints at Dewey with her thinking look, trying to make out the words. Nessa watches, too…both the twigs and me, back and forth.

Setting those two sticks on the ground, Dewey points around the circle at each of us. "You take one, two, three, four, five…and six 'n' seven—" He counts up a handful of twigs and lays them out, seven, then holds them in a bundle. "You take seven together, well, there's no tellin' what you could do."

Tula nods and says, "Ahli" which means she agrees it's true. Pinti and Koi scrabble closer to look at the bundle in Dewey's freckly, scarred-up hand.

Nessa ducks her chin till all I can see is the top of her head, then she says, "C-could dig taters." Her voice is just above the night bugs' songs, but it hits me the same as if she was yelling. They've all been planning this.

"Could scrape a hide for tannin'," Amos pipes up. "If you sharp them sticks on the ends."

"Tunnel out a shelter in the side of a hill," Dewey throws in. "Start a fire for cookin'. Fix a fish trap and catch a fish. You could…"

He keeps talking, except I don't want to hear it. I push to my feet and turn to Nessa and tell her, "I've got to get back to the wagon camp before it's too dark to see. Don't you go anyplace till I come in the morning with Skedee, Nessa Bessie. You hear? You stay right here in this camp. We're heading to the mountains like we planned, to the old place under the shelterwood trees, you listenin' at me?"

She just stares down at those sticks.

My heart squeezes. All Nessa and I have now is each other. "Hazel left you with me. Remember that. She left you with me."

I turn and run for town, and don't stop till I get back to the campgrounds.

When I round the corner to our wagon, there sits Mrs. Grube on her milking stool by the fire, holding a tin cup in one hand and a dinner plate on her lap. She ain't eating alone, either. Across from her on the upside-down bucket that was my seat last night sits the blue-eyed newspaperman.

While I stand there with my chin hanging, Mrs. Grube looks up peaceable as you please and says, "Oh, Hazel, where in heaven's name were you? Well, it's no matter now, I suppose. Come and sit. I've just been talking with Mr. Brotherton about the elf children."