some old, forgotten law had been broken and this was punishment. And it was true that when the road crews blasted their way through McCarren Hill, they turned up an Indian graveyard, so old that nobody knew it was there. For a while every bite of their shovels sent skulls and bowls and arrowheads rolling out into the light of day, the way they weren’t supposed to. People said that those dead Indians wandered about and moaned on nights when the moon was down, fretting and cursing how they had been thrown from their beds to walk the damp pine woods. Nobody went abroad at night, not knowing what a strip of fog might be, not knowing what a bullfrog’s croak might signify. People jumped at the caw of a tree frog and even the ridge runners, the bootleggers, stayed home at night, and dropped a couple of extra pieces of lightwood on the fire to keep the room from getting too dim. Nobody hunted, dogs ran alone after the foxes and the bobcats and the rabbits. And all around, houses began to show signs of magic—the mark on the porch post, the bottle swung from a tree, the circle of powerful stones. People who thought they had forgotten began to remember ways of working protecting magic.
It was in those days that Margaret was born. Her father was one of the surveyors for the new road. He spent two weeks in New Church that summer. He and another white man lived in a tent, and directed the first crews. After a couple of weeks the line of road moved too far toward the south to be in easy reach, so they took up their tent and packed it in the back of their state truck and went on. One of them told a young Negro girl that he would send back for her.
Most likely he never thought of it again. Most likely he didn’t even remember. But she did. Her mother fussed and screamed at her, and called her a fool, but the words washed right over her head. Like the words of the men who would have married her, men she had known all her life, good men from the New Church community. She was small and pretty, and they would have married her together with the baby girl she had borne that terrible season when Indian ghosts walked the hills.
She preferred to wait. When she tired of that, she left. Alone.
That was the story the old woman told Margaret. Told it quickly and flatly. When she was done, she sighed and blew into the lump of snuff under her lip, turned and walked away. She had work to do; it was midsummer and the tomato plants needed her time. It was a pretty poor woman who couldn’t grow enough tomatoes to line her pantry shelves for the winter.
Margaret watched her go, watched the horny yellow heels plop up and down in the dust of the swept yard. Then she herself left. Not thinking quite what she was doing, just moving. She got into the skiff, the light one that the smaller boys usually took, poled it out across the river and into the swamp. She put the full strength of her shoulder to the pole, sending the boat scooting through the shallow water, dodging around the cypresses, fish jumping out of her way, birds rising up overhead, furious at her passing. She crossed a wide slough, using the pole as a paddle in the still lead-colored scum-frosted water. Out of breath finally, she stopped with the bow of the skiff resting against the rotten pointed knee of a cypress. She shipped the pole and sat down, her body rocking rhythmically with the spasms of her breathing. The crows settled into the tops of the cypress trees again, and the black-and-red ricebirds came back. The mosquito hawks—mamselles, old people called them—skimmed the surface of the water, chasing the fluttering mosquitoes, while the croakers and the turtles and the frogs lunged after them.
Margaret sat and looked at the cypress knees, naked and slimy, at the still, unmoving swamp water. She peered down into its depths and saw the light spot that marked a place where bream had their bed. Then she looked at her own reflection in the water, distorted and glazed by the bright sky
It was in those days that Margaret was born. Her father was one of the surveyors for the new road. He spent two weeks in New Church that summer. He and another white man lived in a tent, and directed the first crews. After a couple of weeks the line of road moved too far toward the south to be in easy reach, so they took up their tent and packed it in the back of their state truck and went on. One of them told a young Negro girl that he would send back for her.
Most likely he never thought of it again. Most likely he didn’t even remember. But she did. Her mother fussed and screamed at her, and called her a fool, but the words washed right over her head. Like the words of the men who would have married her, men she had known all her life, good men from the New Church community. She was small and pretty, and they would have married her together with the baby girl she had borne that terrible season when Indian ghosts walked the hills.
She preferred to wait. When she tired of that, she left. Alone.
That was the story the old woman told Margaret. Told it quickly and flatly. When she was done, she sighed and blew into the lump of snuff under her lip, turned and walked away. She had work to do; it was midsummer and the tomato plants needed her time. It was a pretty poor woman who couldn’t grow enough tomatoes to line her pantry shelves for the winter.
Margaret watched her go, watched the horny yellow heels plop up and down in the dust of the swept yard. Then she herself left. Not thinking quite what she was doing, just moving. She got into the skiff, the light one that the smaller boys usually took, poled it out across the river and into the swamp. She put the full strength of her shoulder to the pole, sending the boat scooting through the shallow water, dodging around the cypresses, fish jumping out of her way, birds rising up overhead, furious at her passing. She crossed a wide slough, using the pole as a paddle in the still lead-colored scum-frosted water. Out of breath finally, she stopped with the bow of the skiff resting against the rotten pointed knee of a cypress. She shipped the pole and sat down, her body rocking rhythmically with the spasms of her breathing. The crows settled into the tops of the cypress trees again, and the black-and-red ricebirds came back. The mosquito hawks—mamselles, old people called them—skimmed the surface of the water, chasing the fluttering mosquitoes, while the croakers and the turtles and the frogs lunged after them.
Margaret sat and looked at the cypress knees, naked and slimy, at the still, unmoving swamp water. She peered down into its depths and saw the light spot that marked a place where bream had their bed. Then she looked at her own reflection in the water, distorted and glazed by the bright sky
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