Fleetie's Crossing Read online

  Naomi parceled out scrubbing rags, pieces of coarse steel wool, and scrub brushes. She was the cleaning superintendent for every window, wall, and ceiling. The women competed with one another to make sure each area received the same antiseptic treatment.

  In the kitchen, we scraped and blacked the coal-burning cook stove. The grimy sink, encrusted with rust and hard water residue, stubbornly resisted Dolly and Nona until George mixed a smelly combination of acids in a small bucket and doused it thoroughly. He warned Dolly not to touch the liquid, so she wrapped her hands in heavy rags and scraped and polished until the formerly disreputable-looking sink was restored to a nearly spotless white.

  The linoleum floor had long since lost any look of pattern or color under the layers of ground in dirt and grease. Here right before me was a possibility of pulling something back from oblivion. If that floor could be resurrected, it would be a near miracle. I volunteered and dragged Leatha and her two cousins, Nona and Peachy, with me. We dipped buckets of lye water from the washing cauldron and scrubbed the old rug with wire brushes. The lye water helped loosen the filth, and slowly, the dirt layers began to give way to the elbow grease. After a while, the squares and whorls of the once colorful brick-patterned linoleum began to surface. The harder we worked, the better it looked.

  “It’s almost pretty, Rachel,” said Leatha. “Maybe it was worth scrubbing this hard.” But with that, she threw her wire brush at me.

  I was ready to go after her with a soaking sponge, but Susanny walked into the kitchen. “Lordy, look at that floor, would you? Come here, everybody. You won’t believe what Leatha and them girls have done to this old floor.”

  With that, Leatha was one big grin like the whole project was her idea. That’s the way it goes sometimes. You just have to strap it on and head on out.

  The oak floors in each room were also scrubbed with a lye-and-soap mixture, rinsed twice, and then waxed with Johnson’s paste. Then the fun started for the little kids. After the paste wax set for a little while, they were given large dry rags and were told they could slide and scoot on the floor using the rags as their sleds as much as they wanted. Their shrieks and giggles filled the house, while Mary’s team was ironing. The old curtains, dispirited gray shrouds, were boiled, stirred, bleached, starched, and now werebeing ironed. The women had uncovered ruffles and folds long hidden in the dust and grime.

  Fleetie had earlier set a pot of soup beans to simmer on the back of the clean stove. Leatha and I ran down two bedraggled chickens lost from their flooded roost. It took some doing, but we managed to corner the doomed birds. Susanna wrung their necks and cleaned and tucked them into a scoured roaster found in the depth of Helen’s neglected oven. Dolly stirred up cornbread batter and set it aside, ready to pour into a smoky skillet for dinner. Each woman had a turn rocking the baby, moved now to the living room with his mother.

  By the time we stopped at noon to eat dinner nothing in the house was undisturbed. The Willis children, after making the floor shine, had mostly scattered far from the house. During the afternoon, all the windows, sills, and sashes were finished, and the last of the clothes were gathered off the line, folded, and stacked on the steps leading to the sleeping loft. As the day wore down, the women prepared to leave a house that looked much more like it had when the old Willises lived there. The long shadows creeping down the mountain warned everyone of the work waiting for them at home.

  “Lordy, I hate to leave you here, Fleetie,” said Susanna.

  I could feel the unspoken fear hanging in the air. If they left, no one would be there to push away the worry lurking over the fragile baby and his mother. All of us up and down the valley and into the hollers always felt safer with our kin around.

  George urged each one to stay and have supper.

  “Helen will drive us out with a shovel if we don’t go on and git,” said Dolly.

  George could figure that this rare gathering had little chance of being repeated. We all hated to see the day end for our own reasons, but George seemed to hate it most. All the work had uncovered forgotten traces of his old home place. As long as Geneva could not be moved, he would be able to enjoy the cleanliness and order the women had restored to his home. It would be a brief time for him. Soon as everyone disappeared, we knew Helen would go back to her old ways.

  “Leatha, go up the hill and get the young’uns,” said Susanna. “We’re goin’ to the settlement. Gather them up so we can git. We’ve got to milk and get supper for Henry and the boys.” Henry, her husband, and Hulan and Guy, her two grown sons, had left the house well before dawn, driving the county bulldozer to remove fallen trees and cut through mudslides on the roads. “Hurry up now.”

  It didn’t take long for us to find them. They were sitting at the top of the hill, watching the excitement going on. Fleetie was right behind us, demanding that each of them behave and help Susanny and stay out of Henry’s way. She never asked anyone to step in for her, but this time, she was helpless. She did not have a dry house, a bed, or a table to use to care for her own. I saw her shoulders slump as she watched each of the little girls trail down the long driveway to begin the long walk to Susanny’s. She wrapped her arms around herself as if she was holding herself from running after them.

  Dolly tried to comfort her, and she chided herself, “No use gettin’ them girls stirred up. Better they go on happy.” It was not her way to hold them close and refuse to let them out of her sight. “What was was,” Mammy had always told her. “Nothing to be done about it.”

  Standing on the driveway, we could see the men across the road working to set up one of the outbuildings. The force of the water had left the sheds and lean-tos lying on their side or caught at a crazy angle against a big tree. The ravaged wreckage of broken fences, shattered windows, and debris decorating every tree branch didn’t look that much improved. I had wondered for a long time why it was women could just go on and start working, but men had to stand around and spend time trying to figure out the best way. Seemed to me the best way was just to go ahead and tackle the mess. I bet if they had said, “I allow a man ought to…” once, they had said it a good dozen times. Daddy too. I decided it must be a man thing.

  For all its fury the night before, the water had nearly dropped below the floor of the house. By morning, the house would be empty of flood water, and the work inside the house could begin in earnest. Another long day tomorrow stretched out in front of everyone willing to help.

  Leatha and I immediately began begging to be allowed to spend another night together.

  “Don’t you two start nagging at me. You all are not spending one more night under Kathleen’s feet. She hasn’t taken the Sargeants to raise,” said Fleetie.

  We were still mumbling our disappointment when Daddy drove up in his old car and insisted on taking all the women home. There was no way to fit everyone in the Plymouth, and Dorotha and Leatha were left out of the car ride. I started begging again, and this time, Fleetie had to give in. The two girls would spend another night on this side of the river. It was going to take more maneuvering for them to be allowed to sleep at our house, but now there was a glimmer of hope. There was no place for them to sleep at the Willis house except on the floor, and even in all its clean glory, that would be pretty miserable.

  The loaded Plymouth bumped over the steep crossing as Mother and Aunt Roberta appeared over the rise of the long driveway. Their arms were loaded with clean laundry.

  Fleetie yelled at us, “Hurry, young’uns! Get up there and pack that load of clothes down here.”

  Along with clean sheets, quilts, clothes, and diapers, they were pulling the wagons loaded with covered dishes of vegetables and dessert. As soon as they got down the hill, Mother said, “Fleetie, since Geneva can’t come up the hill—and I know you don’t want to leave her and the baby—I brought some supper down. I thought we could all eat together tonight.”

  As soon as she stepped into
the Willis yard, I began imploring for the necessary permission. “Mother, if Leatha and Dorotha stay at our house, we can all help with the washing and carrying. We need them, don’t we?”

  Aunt Roberta put her finger to her mouth and winked a warning. My furious begging and Fleetie’s chagrin at the outpouring of clean laundry and supper bowls almost guaranteed the answer would be no. Fleetie would give away her most precious possession if she thought someone needed it, but when it came to accepting a kindness for herself, she just froze. By accepting, she felt shamed. People might think that she and Burl could not provide for themselves and their children. Standing there with her house in shambles and her family scattered, it was easy to see she was nearly frantic with helplessness.

  Mother, in spite of her lack of clan savvy, knew this time, she had to give Fleetie the upper hand. She put her arms around Leatha and Dorotha. “Please, Fleetie, could you lend me these two to help? They’re so good with the washing, and there’s another big pile to feed through the wringer and hang yet. I promise to send them to bed early.”

  “Are you sure, Kathleen? Those two can be a caution if you don’t watch.”

  Aunt Roberta added, “Mrs. Sargeant, they will be a big help if you can spare them.”

  Saying no to Roberta was not easy. Her bearing at five-foot-ten alone created a presence that could intimidate strong men, and Fleetie’s tiny five-foot frame was no match for her. Afterward, Fleetie would probably quarrel with herself over letting the girls go, but right at that minute, she could not find the words to refuse this tall, commanding woman with her quiet words. Aunt Roberta was a lot like Daddy, and folks mostly did what she suggested. Fleetie had been flummoxed, and I doubt she was fooled. No one but Burl could get one over on Fleetie. I guess being extra small also made her extra feisty.

  Chapter 13

  THE AIR DUCTS

  After the laundry was wrung out and the last line filled with the damp clothes, I tapped Leatha on the shoulder and nodded toward the cellar, our hiding place. Just as we lifted the cellar door, Janey started begging to go with us, and I let her trail along to buy some peace. If we ran away from her, she would scream to high heaven and bring Roberta and Mother both down on our heads. Better to put up with Ms. Question Box than to be given another big pile of work to do, Mother’s favorite way of keeping the peace.

  Leatha promised to French-braid my hair, and I was going to put hers up in my brush rollers. Yesterday, Mother gave us a brand new bottle of nail polish and warned us not to use it on our fingernails—toes only. She assured us fingernail polish was tacky unless you were at least eighteen. I wondered what it was that made fingernails at eighteen not tacky. Probably nothing. Most of the time, adults had a contrary opinion of almost everything kids like to do. It was irritating but predictable.

  As we brushed our hair, we could hear Roberta and Mother’s muffled voices through the air ducts. I followed the sound of their voices and went deeper into the furnace room, and I could hear every word they were saying.

  “If that man hurt her, we have to make sure she is okay,” said Aunt Roberta.

  “We don’t know what happened, Roberta. Maybe Dorotha was just mad at herself for not following the other children up here. I can’t bring myself to think that Hobe would lay hands on Burl’s child. The whole valley knows that Hobe abuses Mary and the children, but he has to know that if he touched that child, Burl and his kin would never let it rest. Barns could burn, gardens could get trampled, and apple trees could be found girdled. Mountain justice won’t let a man who would do this off easy. It’s the knowing revenge is coming that keeps much of the trouble down.”

  I could tell from the conversation that Roberta wasn’t buying the idea that Hobe was too afraid to hurt Dorotha.

  “Kathleen, it’s quite possible that Dorotha was raped, and if that happened, she needs an adult to step in right now before the night terrors set in to devil her. If this is left alone to fester and corrupt, she could be hurt for life. We don’t want her to be deviled with night terrors, depression, and festering angers that could haunt her. If Dorotha was just mad, she could have taken the path. Those scratches are deep. She was scared and running from something. We better be finding out what.”

  Their voices trailed off as they walked to the back of the house.

  Before supper, Roberta walked to the bathroom door, saying she was checking to see if we were washing our hands.

  “Aunt Roberta, we are old enough to get our hands clean.” I was tuning up to protest loud and long, but as we walked out of the bathroom, she stepped in front of Dorotha, and the door was pushed shut to keep us out. I stopped to listen, but the sound was so muffled, I couldn’t make out any of the words. Since there was no heating vent leading away from the bathroom, I had no way to listen in. After a few minutes, Leatha and I gave up and went on upstairs, even though my brain was wild with curiosity.

  It was nearly an hour before Dorotha climbed up the steep staircase to join us. Her face was streaked with tears. She closed the door behind her and walked to one of the twin beds. She wrapped herself deep in the quilts and fell silent. Leatha and I exchanged looks and then made a big show of ignoring her. But we couldn’t stand it long. I tiptoed across the room and pressed my ear to the cold air duct in the floor. It was a perfect sound funnel, and because of it, there were few secrets in our house, and today, it worked again. Mother was talking to Roberta.

  “You mean? Why do you think she is lying? Why on earth wouldn’t Dorotha let us help her?”

  “Because that little one is scared sick of something. Barn burnings and dead cattle come to mind. Even the very young children know what can happen when a family is wronged. The trouble can last for years. Dorotha is more than likely scared of what might happen to her daddy and mother. Mind my words, we have not seen the end of this. There will be more.”

  Part 2

  SCHERZO

  Chapter 14

  COPPERHEADS AND PICKET FENCES

  Early the next morning, Daddy announced there would be no school for Jane and me. The city school had not been flooded, but dry or not, I wasn’t going. All hands were needed for cleanup, and we were going to be part of a flood relief platoon. As Daddy told me, this was the perfect opportunity for me to witness firsthand the misery living on a riverbank could bring. Besides that, our neighbors needed us. He insisted that just because we lived high on the mountain didn’t mean we had a free pass to excuse ourselves from the needs of our friends and kin. He went on to say that until I actually lived it, smelled it, and had been repulsed and angered by the helplessness of it, I couldn’t really understand the devastation that was brought down by high water.

  We woke up very early the next morning and rolled out of bed, all four of us—me, Leatha, Dorotha, and Janey. We pulled on our clothes, swallowed down Aunt Roberta’s hot breakfast, and tore down the hill to join the neighbors in the big cleanup. As soon as we came to the brow of the hill, our excitement evaporated just about as fast as the creeks had poured down the mountain. Nothing in my life had prepared me for the havoc I saw around and inside the Sargeants’ house. Nightmares invaded my sleep and had as long as I could remember, but even my wildest, scariest nightmares hadn’t conjured up such destruction and havoc. Nothing was left in its original place. All the furniture had been swept into a jumbled, mud-encrusted heap stacked high against the west wall of each room. Mottled sun rays from the mud-splattered windows blotted out any trace of reality.

  As my eyes adjusted in the low light, loss after loss became evident. The first thing that I spotted was the basket that we had used to hold all the shower presents. Somehow, it survived, but it was now filled with mud, rags, and broken dishes. Tossed against the walls were soaked books, a twisted bedframe, and Fleetie’s beautiful braided rugs, now soaked in filth. The sickening smell both burned my nose and then settled deep in my throat as if it was going to take up residence inside me. Daddy had warned me that he had
never forgotten the smell of a flood. I hoped he was wrong because the smell seemed to me to be a devil’s blend of burned oil, rotted vegetation, and sulfur churned up from deep in some tortured hell. Human waste, animal dung, coal oil, and dead animals also added to the hideous mix. The sickening odor worked its way into the fiber of my clothes and even into my shoe leather.

  The men were busy shoveling the dead animals, frogs, snakes, cans, bottles, clothes, books, and trash of every description out the doors and the broken windows. There were several wheelbarrows under the windows and near the doors where all the damaged articles were pitched and would be later dumped onto a growing mountain of debris to be burned near the riverbank. The flood mark in the house was at five feet. A telling ring of mud measured the walls—above the mark, dry, and below the mark, water-soaked and damaged.

  The women carried each piece of furniture that could be saved out to the yard, where it was scrubbed and disinfected. The older children gathered up clothing, bedding, and any other flood-dirty fabric found in the house. Burl rigged an electric hookup on the front porch, and the wringer washer ran all day as it wobbled a slow ring on the flood-warped porch. Leatha and I hung and folded load after load of clothing and bedding during what was turning out to be a long, long day. Mother and Roberta brought down our old red wagons and hauled even more clothing up the hill to be washed. Mother asked me to walk up the hill and retrieve the wagons for the next load.

  I swear Burl and his brother Junior seemed to take delight in tearing down the warm morning heater and the cook stove. They were like little kids as they piled pieces all over the porch and into the yard. It took them forever to get on with the job. By the time they discussed and cussed each piece, they could have built a pyramid. “Was it broken? Did it need oil? How about scraping rust?” All of us lost patience with the project. It looked like it was going to take forever, but in spite of our doubts, sure enough, before the middle of the afternoon, the stoves were clean and reassembled. Soon, the heat from the two stoves began to dry up the dampness that remained throughout the house.