both? I only wish I'd taken the jar of peaches. No peaches better than the ones from those two trees in front of Little Bit's house. Little Bit and Jack are two lucky people, to have all the fried chicken and peaches they can eat. Do they know their own good fortune?
No-Bob is not but six miles long and three miles wide, but who's to say really where it starts and stops?
I need to get far away from No-Bob. I set out for my very own forty days and forty nights.
I walk and walk and walk some more, and when night comes, I set up camp along Leaf River. It has warmed up some, and my coat is hot and heavy. I take it off, then my shoes and all the rest. I think to use the white sand along the shore to scrub my body clean. Then I plop myself all the way into the river and bathe myself. I've walked so far and I am so dirty, the icy water feels good and clean. I think about Little Bit then, how she said she was baptized and her ma was baptized in, where was it, Magnolia? I look around at all the trees and name the ones I know. Papaw, black tupelo, sweet gum, sassafras. I wish I had some other words to say, because this here
bathing is not like any other. Maybe it is the cold water. Maybe it is this here river and the black, wet, sweet-smelling land all around me. Or maybe it is because I have run away.
Lord,
I say.
I am very much alone right now. Would you mind please holding my hand?
It is quiet, like church before the O'Donnells come in, prop their guns up in the corner against the back wall, then praise and sing. The moon is high in the sky, full and bright, and if it could make a sound, it would sound like moths in a lantern trying to get out.
I bundle up in my coat and quilt and make a bed of dried leaves so that I am not sleeping on the cold ground. As it gets darker, I hear panthers screaming way off in the forest and the wildcats howling and now I miss miss miss Momma and Pappy and I think,
How did I ever get into this pickle?
This land? This land is just barely tame, and I think,
What am I doing in it?
You can't ever tame it. You can't grab a hold of this land. It grabs a hold of you. I tell myself I know these woods as good as any, but even I have to admit I picked the wrong time of year to leave shelter. I think to stay here only as long as it takes for me to think up another plan.
The trees look like they're cut out from black paper against
the sky, and the sound of wind rustling through cane is like no other. It's not a happy sound, not like the rustle of a woman's petticoat, nor is it lonely like the
swoosh
going through the tops of longleaf pines. It's mournful-like. Wishful, like maybe someone's out there calling for you, and you know it's the wrong thing to do to get up and go toward that sound, but still, you want to.
I look up and wonder if the stars will fall tonight, the way they did back when Pappy was a young man. He said that the night he saw stars fall, they didn't fall on anyone and they didn't hurt nobody, but nobody knew where they went. Maybe they fall through the cracks in the ground. Maybe they land in the streams and ponds where the water puts them out.
When Momma shut me up in the chifforobe and I rubbed my eyes with my knees, I saw pictures behind my eyelids and counted the stars inside my mind. Now I can see them with my eyes wide open, right in front of me up there in the sky. And even though I don't know everything there is to know about stars, and I don't know what will or will not hurt me, I am not so scared anymore because I am glad I am out of the chifforobe.
I fall asleep thinking on those falling stars.
***
The next day I walk on, deeper into the forest, across Leaf River. I pick up a good stick and make a notch in it for the day I've been gone.
I stand before the hackberry tree on Fisher Creek. This is the tree that is supposed to have water dripping from its branches and leaves. Momma told me the legend of an Indian maiden named Onumbee, or "Gentle South Wind."
Onumbee's
No-Bob is not but six miles long and three miles wide, but who's to say really where it starts and stops?
I need to get far away from No-Bob. I set out for my very own forty days and forty nights.
I walk and walk and walk some more, and when night comes, I set up camp along Leaf River. It has warmed up some, and my coat is hot and heavy. I take it off, then my shoes and all the rest. I think to use the white sand along the shore to scrub my body clean. Then I plop myself all the way into the river and bathe myself. I've walked so far and I am so dirty, the icy water feels good and clean. I think about Little Bit then, how she said she was baptized and her ma was baptized in, where was it, Magnolia? I look around at all the trees and name the ones I know. Papaw, black tupelo, sweet gum, sassafras. I wish I had some other words to say, because this here
bathing is not like any other. Maybe it is the cold water. Maybe it is this here river and the black, wet, sweet-smelling land all around me. Or maybe it is because I have run away.
Lord,
I say.
I am very much alone right now. Would you mind please holding my hand?
It is quiet, like church before the O'Donnells come in, prop their guns up in the corner against the back wall, then praise and sing. The moon is high in the sky, full and bright, and if it could make a sound, it would sound like moths in a lantern trying to get out.
I bundle up in my coat and quilt and make a bed of dried leaves so that I am not sleeping on the cold ground. As it gets darker, I hear panthers screaming way off in the forest and the wildcats howling and now I miss miss miss Momma and Pappy and I think,
How did I ever get into this pickle?
This land? This land is just barely tame, and I think,
What am I doing in it?
You can't ever tame it. You can't grab a hold of this land. It grabs a hold of you. I tell myself I know these woods as good as any, but even I have to admit I picked the wrong time of year to leave shelter. I think to stay here only as long as it takes for me to think up another plan.
The trees look like they're cut out from black paper against
the sky, and the sound of wind rustling through cane is like no other. It's not a happy sound, not like the rustle of a woman's petticoat, nor is it lonely like the
swoosh
going through the tops of longleaf pines. It's mournful-like. Wishful, like maybe someone's out there calling for you, and you know it's the wrong thing to do to get up and go toward that sound, but still, you want to.
I look up and wonder if the stars will fall tonight, the way they did back when Pappy was a young man. He said that the night he saw stars fall, they didn't fall on anyone and they didn't hurt nobody, but nobody knew where they went. Maybe they fall through the cracks in the ground. Maybe they land in the streams and ponds where the water puts them out.
When Momma shut me up in the chifforobe and I rubbed my eyes with my knees, I saw pictures behind my eyelids and counted the stars inside my mind. Now I can see them with my eyes wide open, right in front of me up there in the sky. And even though I don't know everything there is to know about stars, and I don't know what will or will not hurt me, I am not so scared anymore because I am glad I am out of the chifforobe.
I fall asleep thinking on those falling stars.
***
The next day I walk on, deeper into the forest, across Leaf River. I pick up a good stick and make a notch in it for the day I've been gone.
I stand before the hackberry tree on Fisher Creek. This is the tree that is supposed to have water dripping from its branches and leaves. Momma told me the legend of an Indian maiden named Onumbee, or "Gentle South Wind."
Onumbee's
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