Dogs can see ghosts and will bark when the ghosts are nearby.
I handed Pa the horn and pouch. He looped the long straps around his neck, then looked round the messy kitchen. “What you been doin here all mornin? Don’t you know how to work?” he asked as he jabbed the barrel of the gun into the center of my chest.
I didn’t dare look at him or let him see he’d hurt me.
Pa picked up his victuals sack, walked out the door, and slammed it hard. From the small, hazy mica window, I watched as the dogs circled his legs like they hadn’t seen him for days. The neighbor’s hounds, who’d been sniffin all around the yard, turned and headed back toward the porch. I could hear him yellin at them. Tellin them to get off his farm (like they knowed this was his farm), and threatenin to shoot them if they didn’t.
Pa walked acrost the yard with half a dozen dogs slinkin behind him, noses to the ground, tails down. Then they stopped, circled him, snuffled their noses into the soil and up into the air, like they was smellin fresh-killt deer. They turned and made a yelpin run for the porch again.
He picked up a water bucket, hurled it at the dogs, and promised to shoot them all. “Worthless!” he said, and yelled a string of words he usually saved up for me.
I watched till I couldn’t see Pa or hear a dog barkin anywhere near. From somewhere in the woods, I heard the muffled sound of a shot. Close by, a raspy blue jay scolded, and a redbird hidden in some bushes called purdy, purdy, purdy, purdy.
I wondered where my brothers was. With my luck, they would come home too and expect me to fix up more victuals for the hunt. I were gettin tired of liftin up that door and worryin about all the things that was a tick away from goin wrong.
Two years ago, the last time Grandpa and me went to church afore he passed, the preacher told me that my “good common sense” kept me alive. My good common sense told me to go get that girl out of the cellar and out of my life, but my heart, the thing that gets in the way of my common sense, were tellin me somethin else.
“Mama, what should I do?” I asked. “Am I goin to get the beatin of my life tryin to help her?”
“Mama, please, just give me a sign what to do.”
No answer.
I wished that just this one time my mama could answer. That someone could tell me what were right and what were wrong. And why did I have to take a beatin for someone I didn’t even know, or care about? Someone who probably wouldn’t give me a butter bean if I were the hungry one. Why should I risk my own hide for her?
I quick-like righted the kitchen and picked up my big fanny basket but then set it back down. I wanted to go out and pick some tomaters and work around in the garden, but I needed to tell that whatever-her-name-was trouble girl that things was safe for now, so long as she stayed put and kept quiet. Why should I worry about easin her when I were nervous as a hen in a fox den? What did I care if she were scairt down there? I were gettin mad just thinkin about the fix she’d put me in.
I spun round, went straight to the bench, and clunked it on the floor as I moved it. Maybe put the scare into her, maybe so much of a scare she’d take off and head for the … the what?
I lifted the trapdoor just a sliver. I needed to make sure I could put things to rights if the boys surprised me.
“You in there?” I asked as I bent over the hole and squinted into the blackness.
“What you think?” she answered.
That made me mad. “Don’t go smartin off, or you’ll be sorry,” I barked. Oh sweet Lord. I sounded like Pa.
I knelt down and leant forward. “You gonna have to stay quiet here till tomorrow mornin. You cain’t go out yonder with all them hunters and dogs runnin the woods.”
She snuffled loudly but didn’t say a word.
“I’m goin to do some pickin and my chores, but I’m not goin to take any chances talkin to you again today,” I said. “Don’t cry. And don’t you move and knock into anythin else. Understand?”
“Bless you,” she whispered. Her words made me feel like the mud Pa had knocked off his boots.
I passed a crock of water and a tin cup down to her and let the door drop. I set on my haunches, rocked back and forth, back and forth, and tried to imagine how I would feel down there alone. Alone, in the dark, knowin that traders and slave catchers and packs of dogs was searchin the woods and fields for me.
I almost cried for her.
And then she sneezed.
I stomped on the floor, then knelt down till my lips almost touched the crack around the trapdoor. “One sneeze like that when everyone’s to home, and you’re dead. Dead like the possum Pa skinned last night.” I glanced up at the window to make sure nobody were lookin in, then blew on the sand and watched my handprints disappear.