Even if Callie hadn’t taken the path five hundred times, she’d have known she was getting close to the river just by the smell of it. Something wild and a little bit dangerous lifted into the air as you got close to the water. Something that said, Watch out.
Didn’t scare Callie a bit, of course. She wasn’t the kind of girl who was gonna get pulled under by some old river. The way she saw things, she and the river had a lot in common. They both could be calm and relaxed, but you never knew when a storm might stir them up, and when that happened, watch out. “Callie, you better mind your temper, girl,” Mama had said on many occasions, and you could say the same thing to a river, now couldn’t you? Things could start to boil over in the water, same way they could in Callie’s mind, and when that happened, you better scoot up the banks and head for home.
It was satisfying to think of yourself as a river, Callie decided as she made her way down toward the bank. Powerful and mighty at one bend, meek and mild at the next. Well, maybe not meek. Callie had always had problems with that part of the Bible, where Jesus tells everybody, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” She’d had to keep herself from shaking her head uh-uh right in the middle of church when Pastor Edwards got to that part. Meek folks never got nothing. Weren’t no gingersnaps left for the meek children when Mrs. Hudson passed out snacks after the Sunday-school lesson, especially not if Callie Robinson was in their class. Callie was always number one in the gingersnap line. Nothing meek about her.
At first Callie didn’t see anybody else around, and she didn’t see that old dog, either. But when she looked farther down the riverbank, she saw a boy with a red hound standing next to him. The boy was throwing rocks into the water, and the dog was barking at the splashes the rocks made when they hit the water.
Callie stood still as Sunday morning. It wasn’t like she’d never seen a white boy down here before, but usually she was with somebody, Daddy or Carl Jr. It felt different being by herself. The boy might think like he could say something to her, something mean and low-down, something that would make Callie feel like she had to defend herself. “White folks give you trouble, you just walk away,” Mama always instructed her children, but that didn’t sit right with Callie. Someone gave you grief, you had to give them grief right back.
The boy glanced over at Callie, but he didn’t say anything, just kept chucking rocks. Callie scooped up a flat stone and skipped it across the water. She’d just ignore that boy, and he’d most likely ignore her, and then one or the other of them would go on their way, no harm done. Maybe the yellow dog would show up, and Callie would follow him and discover his secrets. Maybe she’d write his story up for the Weekly Advance, the colored folks’ newspaper that came out every Friday. Mr. Renfrow, the editor, liked a good detective-type story. Back in March, Callie had written an article about somebody thieving up and down Church Street, taking small items off of folks’ front porches—cigarette lighters, nickels and dimes, keys, and such—and even stealing Mrs. Pinkney’s wedding ring right off her kitchen windowsill.
Callie had spent two weeks investigating after school, hiding behind bushes and peeking around corners. The day she saw a bird flying off from Miss Sally Henson’s porch with a pink eraser in its mouth, she knew she’d found the culprit. And didn’t Mr. Renfrow just eat that story up? Printed it on the front page.
Callie glanced at the boy again. What if the yellow dog had already passed by here and the boy had seen him? Callie could be wasting her time standing where she was. Maybe she should be moving down the riverbank. But how would she know? She ought to ask that boy if he’d seen anything. The boy wasn’t going to do nothing to her. He was just an old white boy with his dog. He was probably all right, even if he was white. Daddy said most of the white men he worked with at the paper mill were just fine, didn’t give anybody no trouble at all. Maybe this boy’s daddy was one of them. Maybe this boy’s daddy was the sort of man who told his children, “You be nice to everybody, white or colored.”
Besides, you ain’t scared of no white boy, she reminded herself. So she yelled across to the boy, “You seen an old yellow dog around here?”
The boy didn’t say anything right away, just looked over at her like he was trying to figure out who she was. Finally he yelled back, “He yours?”
“Nah, but I been following him,” Callie called. “Trying to figure some things out about him.”
The boy moved closer to the river’s edge, his dog following at his heels. “He won’t stay with you. Friend of mine who lives downriver from here tried to tie him up in his backyard the other day. Wanted to make a pet out of him. But the dog howled so hard Will had to let him go.”
“Don’t want him to stay.” Callie took a few steps toward the boy. “My mama won’t let us keep a dog for a pet. Cat neither. She don’t like fur on her furniture.”
“We got three dogs,” the boy reported, sounding proud about it. “But we keep ’em outside. Ain’t civilized to keep a dog inside.”
“I think an inside dog sounds nice. Keep you warm in the wintertime, if he sleeps on the end of your bed.”
The boy seemed to consider this. Then he shoved his hands into his pockets and looked up the riverbank. “Anyway, that dog’s already been here. What’re you looking for him for?”
“Just looking, is all.”
The boy nodded. “Well, good luck, then.” He whistled to his dog, and the two of them headed up the riverbank into the woods.
Callie watched the boy go, and then sat down on a piece of driftwood. She felt her excitement about chasing after the dog slipping out of her. For all she knew, he was halfway to Covington by now. She scratched at a mosquito bite above her left ankle. You want to write that article, don’t you? she argued with herself, trying to work up her energy again. She remembered how Daddy had cut her bird article out of the newspaper and carried it in his shirt pocket for a week. Just think how proud he’d be if she had another one in the paper for everybody in the neighborhood to read. He might take it to the mill with him, pass it around.
She stood up and stretched, trying to relight the spark of interest that had gotten her all the way down here at the hottest part of the day, but it was no use. She’d lost her fervor. Callie sighed. She hated when an idea that had held her in its grips suddenly let go. Now she’d have to trudge home, where there wasn’t one good thing to do, and nothing much to eat until suppertime. Since she and Cecily weren’t speaking to each other, she wouldn’t have no one to play with either. But she knew once the excitement of an idea cooled, wasn’t nothing she could do to heat it back up. She took off her shoes and walked to the water so she could dip her toes in before heading back on the path toward home.
“Hey, girl!”
Callie turned, and there was the boy and his red hound standing ten yards behind her, where the woods met the riverbank. Fear tugged at Callie’s gut. Had he come back to get her? To beat her up and cuss her out?
The boy waved toward the woods. “I just saw him, that dog—up there in the woods, about two hundred yards from here. Come on—I’ll show you.”
Callie didn’t answer. It could be a trick. He might be planning to whup her with a big stick. White boys could get into some evil mischief; she’d heard stories.
“Come on!” the boy insisted. “He’s gonna get away if you don’t get going.”
Callie slowly moved out of the water and picked up her shoes. “You sure it’s the old yellow dog?”
“Of course I’m sure. I wouldn’t have come back if I wasn’t.”
Callie slipped her shoes back on. She looked at the boy. How old was he—eleven? Twelve? Hard to tell, but he was pretty scrawny, and Callie thought she could probably take him if he tried to mess with her.
“All right, I’m comin’,” she said. “But that dog better be there.”
The boy looked at her. “I said he was. Why wouldn’t he be?”
“Don’t know. Just better be.”
The boy mumbled something under his breath, then turned and disappeared back into the woods. Callie followed him. Maybe she was making a mistake, hard to tell. She guessed she was about to find out.