Chickasaw Indians. Later, Hernando de Soto—whoever he was, I thought, imagining a frown of displeasure on The Book’s chubby face—had followed it. So had the explorer Meriwether Lewis and the Indian-killer and someday president Andrew Jackson. The Trace became a post road after 1800. Most of the travellers, settlers and merchants who floated their wares on timber barges down the Mississippi River to Natchez, sold the boats because they couldn’t be poled back upriver against thecurrent. Then they hiked back north on the Trace.
In a strange sort of way I thought the ancient trail was part of my history, too. “None of you came from nowhere,” The Book had told us in our first class the previous February, smiling at our confusion. “That’s a
correct
use of a double negative. All of you came from somewhere. You have a history. This subject isn’t an abstract list of dates and wars and constitutions. It’s real. As real as you are.”
I read that the Trace would take me past farms and fields where slaves had bent sweating over rows of vegetables and cotton with crude hoes in their callused hands. Yeah, I thought, men and women like Pawpine whose parents and grandparents had been torn from their lives and homes in Africa, shipped across the sea, given strange names and put to work building a country they weren’t allowed to share in.
I turned the window defroster on high, spread the map open beside me on the seat and started the truck. When the windshield cleared I turned south again.
I didn’t get far. The road, a well-maintained two-lane with wide grassy shoulders, wove its way through gently rolling woods that opened up occasionally into farm land. The rain beat down with a vengeance and thunder growled in the distance. I passed Garrison Creek, pushed on until I got to a picnic area with a sign that said Old Trace and finally gave in, pulling off the road. The windshield wipers flapped in vain against the sheets of water pouringdown. At the far edge of the little parking lot a bush road led to a hiking trail. Remembering the cops in Ohio, I steered the truck into the bush until it was out of sight.
The few steps from the cab to the back door were enough for the roaring rain to drench me to the skin. Inside, I pulled off my wet clothes and tossed them into a corner. I clicked on my flashlight and lay down on the sleeping bag, head propped up on my clothes pack, and read a mystery novel, slapping mosquitoes that hummed in the humid air before taking turns at the feast.
Some time during the night I woke to the roar of wind, the drumming of rain and the hollow slamming of branches striking the top and sides of the truck. With the violence of a ship striking a reef, a thunderclap burst overhead. I sat up quickly, banging my head on the rear wall of the cab as I scrambled to my knees. I peered out the back window just as a flash of lightning crackled for at least two seconds, illuminating the parking lot and the meadow with a ghostly blue light. A deafening crack of thunder followed immediately. The storm was right above me, flinging sheets of rain against the truck. The wind came in furious waves. Another blinding bolt of lightning leapt from the dark sea of sky, driving me from the window just as thunder slammed the air and the floor shuddered under me. A second later, somethingexploded behind me and crashed down, rocking the truck on its springs like a toy boat.
I dove under my sleeping bag and rolled into a ball, wishing the storm would go away. Two more flashes lit up the sky, so bright the light pierced my bedding; two more eruptions of sound pounded above me before I realized the tumult was receding. As slow as a tide, the wind lessened in power and the deluge became rain again.
I’d like to say that I jumped out of the truck eager to do battle with the forces of nature and anxious to survey the damage, but I stayed inside, shaking and wide-eyed until dawn. I dressed in shorts and a T-shirt and climbed
In a strange sort of way I thought the ancient trail was part of my history, too. “None of you came from nowhere,” The Book had told us in our first class the previous February, smiling at our confusion. “That’s a
correct
use of a double negative. All of you came from somewhere. You have a history. This subject isn’t an abstract list of dates and wars and constitutions. It’s real. As real as you are.”
I read that the Trace would take me past farms and fields where slaves had bent sweating over rows of vegetables and cotton with crude hoes in their callused hands. Yeah, I thought, men and women like Pawpine whose parents and grandparents had been torn from their lives and homes in Africa, shipped across the sea, given strange names and put to work building a country they weren’t allowed to share in.
I turned the window defroster on high, spread the map open beside me on the seat and started the truck. When the windshield cleared I turned south again.
I didn’t get far. The road, a well-maintained two-lane with wide grassy shoulders, wove its way through gently rolling woods that opened up occasionally into farm land. The rain beat down with a vengeance and thunder growled in the distance. I passed Garrison Creek, pushed on until I got to a picnic area with a sign that said Old Trace and finally gave in, pulling off the road. The windshield wipers flapped in vain against the sheets of water pouringdown. At the far edge of the little parking lot a bush road led to a hiking trail. Remembering the cops in Ohio, I steered the truck into the bush until it was out of sight.
The few steps from the cab to the back door were enough for the roaring rain to drench me to the skin. Inside, I pulled off my wet clothes and tossed them into a corner. I clicked on my flashlight and lay down on the sleeping bag, head propped up on my clothes pack, and read a mystery novel, slapping mosquitoes that hummed in the humid air before taking turns at the feast.
Some time during the night I woke to the roar of wind, the drumming of rain and the hollow slamming of branches striking the top and sides of the truck. With the violence of a ship striking a reef, a thunderclap burst overhead. I sat up quickly, banging my head on the rear wall of the cab as I scrambled to my knees. I peered out the back window just as a flash of lightning crackled for at least two seconds, illuminating the parking lot and the meadow with a ghostly blue light. A deafening crack of thunder followed immediately. The storm was right above me, flinging sheets of rain against the truck. The wind came in furious waves. Another blinding bolt of lightning leapt from the dark sea of sky, driving me from the window just as thunder slammed the air and the floor shuddered under me. A second later, somethingexploded behind me and crashed down, rocking the truck on its springs like a toy boat.
I dove under my sleeping bag and rolled into a ball, wishing the storm would go away. Two more flashes lit up the sky, so bright the light pierced my bedding; two more eruptions of sound pounded above me before I realized the tumult was receding. As slow as a tide, the wind lessened in power and the deluge became rain again.
I’d like to say that I jumped out of the truck eager to do battle with the forces of nature and anxious to survey the damage, but I stayed inside, shaking and wide-eyed until dawn. I dressed in shorts and a T-shirt and climbed
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