Black Water (4 page)

She leaned down and picked up the bag, ripped it open and pulled out the knife, tossed the bag aside, gnashed through another contraction, and when it passed, slid down the tree trunk and spread her blood-streaked legs. Because her belly was so big, she couldn’t see it, but it felt like the slit between her thighs was ripping apart. Soon, the thing would show itself, then she’d get it. “Come on you little bastard!” It was like waitin’ for a gopher to stick its head out a hole so you could knock it off.

Then...it was coming! This was it! She gripped the handle with both hands, pointing at the place where the squirming demon would make its grand appearance. She was gonna stick it right smack dab in the top of its piggy little head, more than happy to end what little was left of Mule, the hog fucker. She wondered, would it be face up or down? Would it have a nose?

Another contraction and something gave way. It felt like somebody was wringin’ her guts like a dishrag, and she yelled into the roiling clouds, hoping God was listening. “I HATE you! I HATE you! I HATE you!” She looked back down, ever muscle twitching in anticipation. “Come on,” she crooned sweetly. Rain coursed down her face, blood stained the mud. “Thaaaaaaat’s right. Come on. Mama’s got a big s’prise for ya. Come on, you can do it.”

Two hundred yards up the road, a ruddy-faced, hollow-cheeked, hatchet-nosed, skinny-assed, thirty-eight-year-old simpleton by the name of Roach Komes and his plump, homely, forty-three-year-old, much more intelligent common-law wife, Pearl, the Seminole midwife, were huddled up tight on their rickety wagon, grudgingly pulled by a pair of mismatched mules. Almost as mismatched as Roach and Pearl.

Pearl had the cowl of her wrap flopped over her face in a worthless attempt at keeping out the wind and wet. She huddled around a coal oil lamp to keep it from going out. Earlier in the day, she and Roach had taken the wagon into Oledeux to trade what little preserves Pearl had put up and the few measly muskrat and gator hides Roach had trapped for supplies, and now they were headed back home.

Normally, Roach read weather signs pretty good, and he was concerned how he coulda read today’s so bad. He had an arthritic left leg he’d broke some years before that let him know a day or two in advance when the weather was turning. Ol’ boys’d meet him on the road and ask him what the leg had in store the next few days and he’d tell ’em, and more often than not, it’d be right. Typical of Roach Komes, the leg did all the work while he took all the credit. But this thing tonight, uh uh, noooo, this was different, and it was wrong; goose-flesh wrong. Going into town, the leg hadn’t bothered him a’tall, but now it was painin’ somethin’ awful and he kept stretchin’ it out and kneadin’ it with one hand while he kept a tight grip on the reins with the other.

It nagged at him that the reason the storm was able to sneak up on him was ‘cause it didn’t have nothin’ to do with weather. It was a thing, a sign, and it was malevolent. Hackles ran up his spine, feelin’ like somethin’ was about to jump out of the dark woods and bite him in the ass. He was prodding the mules to step it up when, up ahead, a great big ol’ lightnin’ bolt jigger-jagged its way to the ground. Instantly, ear-splitting thunder nearly finished it for the skittery mules. One of ’em took it so hard it raised its tail and splattered a steamy pile on the road. Roach worked the reins and brought ’em under control, but then, after he did, it took some doin’ to get ’em started again.

The mules were still jumpy when they come on the smoldering ruin of a tree that had been split by lightning. It was still smokin’ and steamin’. On the next flash, Roach caught a glimpse of a light colored somethin’ layin’ on the muddy hump in the middle of the wheel-rutted road and reined the mules to a stop.

Pearl saw that Roach was looking intently up the road with his bushy eyebrows scrunched down. “What’sa matter?”

“Probly nothin’,” he said, impatiently, and pushed the reins into Pearl’s hands, climbed off the wagon, and cautiously approached the thing. When he got to it, he leaned down to get a closer look and when lightning flashed again, he jumped up, shocked at the sight of a scorched human arm with a death grip on a knife. The prickles that ran up his spine told him the muddy, rain-splattered thing and the storm was hooked up somehow, and he didn’t like bein’ in the middle of it. He figured there wouldn’t be an arm layin’ in the road all by itself for no reason, and sure enough, looking around, he saw the rest of the chalky carcass, stringy white hair strung over its face, slumped at the base of the tree. He knew it musta just happened because steam was still snaking from the crispy stump where the arm used to belong.

“What is it?” Pearl yelled.

“Shit,” he said to hisself. He didn’t need these goin’s on.

“Roach! You hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear ya!” he bitched back. Then to hisself, ”How would I miss it?” Then he barked at her, “You stay there, it ain’t nothin’.”

Pearl was holding up the lantern, lookin’ like a hootie owl, bobbin’ her nosy head around.

He was trying to figure out how he was gonna get around the body without her seeing it. She had to know ever dadgum thing. He could turn the wagon around and go back the way they’d come, but then she’d wanna know why, but if he kept on the way they were she was gonna see it and then she’d wanna do somethin’ stupid like see if it was still alive and needed help. He didn’t understand why she couldn’t just mind her own dadgum business.

Although Roach had never had any professional doings with Smoke, he knew that’s who it was braced up agin the tree. Even blown apart, he knew an albino when he saw one. Now if he could just keep Pearl from….

“Roach?” She chinned to the body. “What is ‘at?”

“Nothin’!” he yelled. “You stay…there!” Then he jabbed his finger at her with each word. “Don’t…you…get…off…’at…dad… gum…wagon!”

Translated, that meant there was somethin’ he didn’t want her to see, so accepting the invitation, she wrapped the reins ‘round the brake handle, and holding the lantern tight, descended from the wagon. Slipping in the squishy mud and holding up the light, she started for the thing leanin’ up agin the tree.

Roach grit his teeth and huffed and puffed over to meet her. “I thought I tolju t’stay on th’wagon!”

The look she gave him let him know just how much weight that carried. Roach shook his head in frustration and fell in behind her when she walked around him and lowered the lantern to the body. Her hand went to her mouth and her face got all scrunched up like Roach was afraid it would.

“Ohhhhh, my Lord, Roach, it’s just a little girl.”

Roach took the lantern from her and holding it close to what was left, they saw the full extent of the damage. It seemed parts of her had exploded from the inside out, not the least was a lot of what used to be her face. He pointed his finger from the smoldering tree, down the trunk to the body. “Lightnin’ probly hit th’tree up there ‘n worked down ‘n she’s leanin up agin it.”

Pearl shielded her face from the rain with her arm and looked up into the shattered tree. Then she looked at where the arm used to be.

Nodding over his shoulder, Roach told her, “Arm’s over yondah.”

Pearl looked toward the appendage.

“Lightnin’ musta blowed it off. Coulda been somethin’ was comin’ at ‘er ‘cause there’s a knife still clenched in ‘er hand.” He took Pearl by the arm. “Let’s get back on th’wagon. They ain’t nothin’ t’do.”

She jerked her arm away and looked at him like he was crazy. “You don’t really think I’d leave ‘er here like ‘is, do ya?”

“I’ll come back ‘n get ‘er after th’storm’s over,” he said, hoping against hope that would cover it.

“No, we’re here now, we’ll take ‘er now.” She took the lantern back and helt it over the body. “Ohhhhh, Lord, she’s pregnant, too. Ain’t that a shame. Poor little thing.” She leaned down and pushed aside stray hairs off Smoke’s ruined face as if she were a baby sleeping in a crib. “It musta just happened, she ain’t even cold yet.” She shook her head in motherly sorrow. “She weren’t much more‘n a baby herself. This is such a awful waste.”

When she passed her hand tenderly over Smoke’s belly, she was stunned by a sharp movement. She set the lantern on the muddy road, kneeled beside the body, and smooshed both her hands tightly alongside Smoke’s belly. The baby kicked again.

The midwife in Pearl jumped to the forefront and she forgot all about the storm. She lifted the hem of Smoke’s tattered dress, flipped it over her chest, and pointed to the arm in the road. “Gimme ‘at knife.”

Roach was about to pull his hair out. His leg was killing him, he was hungry and wanted to go home! “Dadgummit, Pearl….”

Pearl turned on him like a rabid wolf. “Get the knife, Roach! If you think I’d leave a baby t’die yer even dumber‘n I give ya credit for. Now GET IT!”

Fists clenched up like a spoiled eight-year-old, he stomped stiff-legged to the arm. Then he hesitated, not in any hurry to touch it.

“Hurry!” Pearl snapped, while she rolled the flopping body off the tree trunk and laid it flat on the ground.

Roach picked up the arm and pried the cold, lifeless fingers off the knife handle. He dropped the arm back in the mud and moved over to Pearl.

“Hold th’lamp up,” she ordered, taking the knife.

He helt the lantern over the body and Pearl ripped Smoke’s dress up the middle. Then she took a deep breath and started cutting her belly open.

“I say we leave it, you cain’t even see whatchur doin’. Ain’tcha ‘fraid you’ll cut it?”

“Whata you think! Shut up ‘n let me do this!” She was sawing and ripping more than cutting. “Blade wudn cut soapy water. Move it over here,” she ordered, motioning Roach to move the lantern. Determining she had cut a gash long enough, she sat the knife down and commenced to probing inside the cavity, moving the tiny body around to see how it was positioned. Bracing herself, she pulled the bloody little thing out, trailed by the ropey umbilical cord. “Rip off a piece of her dress t’tie off th’cord!”

Roach set the lantern in the mud, and trying not to look at the gutted carcass inches from his shaking hands, ripped a strip off Smoke’s dress.

Pearl flipped the baby facedown in her left hand while she carefully, but firmly, slapped and massaged its backside with her right. Its little legs and arms flopped around as lifelessly as a plucked chicken’s wings. Concerned that nothing was happening, she shook it up some and slapped its backside again. “Come on! You can do it! Come on, dammit!” Agonizing seconds later, and scared to death it wasn’t gonna make it, she screamed, “WAKE UP!” and gave it one more sharp whack on the butt. That did it. The wrinkly little thing clenched its tiny fists, pulled in its little legs and arms into a fetal ball, shuddered, shocked up a lungful of stormy air, and yowled its little lungs out.

Pearl turned it belly-side up and pulled it close, into her. “Get th’knife ‘n cut th’cord,” she told Roach, then commenced to cooing to it that she was sorry she’d had to whomp it so hard.

Roach picked the knife up and wiped the muddy blade off on his pant leg. From the lamplight he noticed there was a dark splotch that ran from the baby’s left cheek, through the eye and high into her newborn, ill-shaped forehead. “What’s wrong with ‘im?”

“It’s a her,” she said, impatiently, bunching up the cord. “You mean t’tell me that you didn’t look between her legs to see what was or wasn’t there?”

“What’s wrong with her then,” he said, cranky about being corrected and accused all the time.

“I ain’t sure,” Pearl said, pinching the cord about three inches from the baby’s belly. “Might be it’s a lightnin’ burn, don’tcha think?”

“Lightnin’ burn? I wudn think so.” He nodded to Smoke’s body. “You see what it done t’her.” He squinted at the baby’s damaged face, figuring what the chances were how a body lightning struck could survive. Unless….

“Roach!” Pearl squawked, nudging his arm with her elbow, snapping him back to this planet. “Down here, come on, cut it by m’thumb, but be careful t’leave enough t’tie off.”

Roach moved in and sawed while the baby wailed. It finally pulled apart.

“Awright,” she said. “Tie it off, good ‘n tight.”

Roach double-knotted the cloth to the cord and Pearl pulled the baby to her chest, shielding it from the wind and pelting rain. She looked down at the body. “That’s Smoke, ain’t it?”

Roach pushed out of the mud and stood up. “What give it away?” The Lantern of Opportunity flickered in Roach’s head and he snagged it. “Pearl, th’livin’ youngun’s th’concern now, not ‘er mama’s dead body. I don’t believe we should worry ‘bout somethin’ we cain’t do nothin’ ‘bout. I think it’s best we get th’baby out o’ th’storm.”

Pearl struggled to get up. “Got out of it dincha,” she said, accusingly. “I c’n see yer just full o’ concern, so t’morrow, if th’storm’s died down, you’ll bring th’wagon back here ‘n pick ‘er up. I don’t care who ‘r what she was, she was this baby’s mama, and she deserves a decent buryin’. You’ll get ‘er arm, too.” She looked at the body, crossed herself, and said, “God bless you, child,” and the instant she did, a three-ring circus of thunder and lightning exploded all around, scaring the shit out a both of ’em. Pearl slogged back to the wagon.

Not one to discard something that might have a little value, Roach picked up the knife and nervously trailed behind Pearl. When they got to the wagon, she handed the baby to him and climbed up. When she got situated on the seat, she took it back and wrapped it in her coat. Roach ran around to the other side and mounted the wagon, grabbed the reins, and prodded the mules into action. He gave the body laid out at the base of the tree one last look as they passed by.

Pearl pulled her coat back and took a peek at the little thing. “Most likely ‘there’s nobody gonna claim ‘er.”

“That’s a safe bet,” he replied. Then it hit him! Pearl was gurgling babytalk and smiling. He had to head her off at the pass!

“Maybe we c’d keep ‘er,” she said.

Shit! Too late.

“It’s a little hard t’tell in th’dark, but I think she’s got color, not like ‘er mama.” The statement came from a woman who was innately a mother, who never had a child of her own, and, at that very moment, was probably holding her last, best chance of ever having one. She woulda latched on to it if it’d been an elephant-snouted, two-headed hermaphrodite with a hump and a pointy tail, but in Pearl’s heart, the fact that the child was damaged was actually a plus. It would need the love and attention she felt she alone could give it, free of charge.