Chapter 18

It was 1949. Summer days, Lily spent hours learning about Turtleback and its gifts with the granny. Summer nights, Lily kept a jar of fireflies stolen from bushes at dusk to keep evil away. The jar, refilled each evening, rested on the slat table by the front window. Each morning, Lily found the bottom of the jar covered with dead insects. The fact that the dead bugs didn’t shine bothered her in a way she did not understand. Still, lack of understanding did not prevent her capturing more lightning bugs. In the darkness, comfort came from what bit of glimmer they provided.

Granny initiated a ritual with Lily. Each Wednesday she took Lily up the high ridge. “Going to save a sacred tree,” Granny said on the first trip. Though not yet five years old, Lily realized they were on a path she had not traveled before.

“How?”

“It’s a magic oil in this here can.” Granny sloshed the can so Lily could hear that it was not empty. “You are going to help me and the tree.”

“The wind says there’s magic. Does Gabe and Mama know?”

“No. This is our tree. You don’t tell nobody where it is or what it’s for.”

Lily puffed from the climb. “What’s it for, this tree?”

“It’s a sacred tree meant to honor Great Spirit. He controls what happens in our lives.”

“I thought Mama did that.”

“She does for some things, but Great Spirit decides the big things like who lives and who dies, so we have to show him honor by growing him a perfect cedar. And I found the right one.” At the top of the ridge stood a thin cedar. It towered over Lily at twice her height. But it was skinny, so skinny it looked sickly. Lily walked around the tree. “It don’t look so special to me,” she said.

“It will. It’s them other trees that are squeezing it out,” Granny said. “We got to give it room. Room for Sister Sun.” Granny screwed the potato off the can’s spout and poured greasy oil around the base of a tree beside the cedar. “Come over her and help me,” she said. “You got to say this prayer when you pour: ‘Great Spirit, give your sacred tree her ground. Destroy what stands in her way. We honor you, Great Spirit, with this magnificent tree’.”

Walking bent over in what she perceived as reverence, Lily poured the stinky liquid around the surrounding trees. Ignoring the burn to her nose, Lily chanted Granny’s prayer at each trunk. “Great Spirit,” she said. “You are a tree.” She inhaled a breath. Not sure of what came next, Lily stopped pouring. She tried again, saying without taking a breath “Stand by my tree.” Before she finished, she had learned to pinch her nose together to keep out the smell. Holding her nose made her prayer chant into a whine, but Lily didn’t mind. After dousing the last tree, she stood upright and puffed out her chest. She had honored Great Spirit.

“When will they die, the trees?”

“In time,” said the granny. “Give it time.”

 

“Brother Moon, do you think Great Spirit will be mad if I send out a bolt of radiation to strike down this crone?” asks Sister Sun.

“Better tend to your own business is what I say,” answers Brother Moon.

“Were you tending to your business when you let Rafe appear nights at the woman’s back door in Breakline?” Sister Sun demands. “Were you tending to your business when you told Great Spirit that I was late coming over the mountain that night her husband was killed?” Sister Sun glows orange with anger. “Now he blames me, and I never wanted that kind of killing power.”

“I was not sending Rafe to that house. It had to be that mountain granny doing that. She sells spells, you know. Besides, you’re the sun. You’ve always had power of life over death and death over life. What’s wrong with you? Is your core low on helium?”

Sister Sun shoots a solar flare in his direction and says, “My helium is fine. Leave me alone.”

 

Within two months, Lily could trek the route to the cedar alone, her shoulders straight with pride. She carried the heavy kerosene can, switching from hand to hand, happy to be entrusted with the sanctity of the cedar.

On an autumn day that same year, the echo of metal hammering on metal resounded throughout the forest. Lily sought out the source. She found the granny squatted in damp leaves beneath an oak, its trunk more than twice as thick as Lily’s waist. Beside the granny lay an iron spike and a hammer. Before Lily could speak, the granny pounded the spike deep into the trunk. Lily plopped down beside her. Near the protruding spike was a hole, beneath it a deep dent in the bark. Lily counted four holes before they ringed around the trunk and out of sight.

“What’re you doing?” Lily asked, as she stuck her thumb into the nearest hole.

The granny reversed the hammer and braced its head against the trunk. The spike screeched against the oak’s core as the hammer dug into the bark. She did not speak until the trunk released the spike. Loss of the spike’s resistance took her momentum and dropped her back on the ground.

“Killing this tree,” she answered. She moved the spike over a few inches, screwed up her lips and hammered again.

“Why? It’s a nice old tree.” Lily flicked a bit of loose bark from the hole. “It don’t seem too close to our cedar.”

“Great Spirit’s cedar. Not ours. And he says it has to die,” the granny said.

 

“He did not.” Sister Sun spits her words out with a fiery tongue. “I’m telling Great Spirit.” She vanishes behind popcorn clouds.

 

“Why not cut it down, instead of making it suffer all winter before it dies?” Lily frowned.

“The cedar is the chosen one. It must live.” The granny pulled out her spike. “This oak rots within. It will die on its own, in its own time. By then, the cedar will be stunted and misshapen. Great Spirit would be disappointed in us.”

“If you have to kill it, why not let Great Spirit hit it with lightning or use Gabe’s axe? Then it won’t take so long for it to die.” The concept of destroying what seemed valuable refused to register with Lily. This white oak provided constant shade, never dropping its leaves even in winter, to make soft ground so earthworms could eat soil and open the earth to fresh air. It produced acorns for deer. Lily had examined its leaf with its five fingers and thought of the white oak as her sister. It stood tall, a mammoth tribute to the power of Great Spirit.

“It’s bigger and prettier than the cedar,” Lily said. “Great Spirit might like it better.”

“Ever’ place has its own life-force. Here is the place of the cedar.” Granny continued, “This way is better.” The granny pointed with her forefinger, “See that nest up there?”

Lily recognized the cluster of leaves secure within the fork of two branches. “Baby squirrels,” she said.

“Cut down the tree and the nest will go.” She inched the spike to a new location. “If I kill the tree, no squirrels will nest here.” The granny kept her face on the deep punctures running horizontally around the tree’s base. “No baby squirrels.”

“What about the mother squirrel?” Lily asked. “Don’t she matter?”

The granny paused, her hammer midair. “With no young, the mother will move to another tree.” She dropped her hammer. “Make a better life for herself.”

Lily tilted her head.

“We must accept the way of Great Spirit. He knows everything. He judges us by what we do.”

“Can I try?” Lily asked.

The granny placed the hammer and spike in Lily’s hands and smiled. “Don’t tell your mama,” Granny said. “She might not want you hammering such a spike the size of this here.”

Lily noticed that the granny no longer smiled when she talked about her mama knowing what they were doing.

Anna and the granny were alike, but not the same. Both loved Lily, but for different reasons. For Anna, Lily was her child, her one piece of Winston Rafe. For the granny, Lily was her hope for a true Beloved Mother to come.

Anna never thought about the granny training her child. Numbed by her loss of faith in Winston, she lived a life of rationalization. A belief in the Cherokee way, even if perverted, could be no more damaging than loss of faith in the word of another. The Cherokee belief might be better for her child.

The sun rose, the sun set. Oak and hemlock, green and cool, larger than the house itself, cast shades that fertilized mosses growing heavy on wooden roof shingles. The moon moved through its phases without fail. Rain washed poison green water out of the old abandoned mine shaft near Boone Station and filled the ditch that bordered the road between the house and a tall bluff. A new season moved up the mountain. Nights were colder and the morning sun came later over the mountain. Gabe came every Monday with supplies and news for Anna. He brought laughter for Lily.

 

One day with no warning, Lily’s childish laughter, partnered with Gabe’s throaty chuckles, spoke to Anna. She stepped out, raked leaves from the cisterns and, using her shovel, scraped away moss. Turtleback’s stream poured in fresh, cold water again. It pooled, transparent, reflecting the colors of surrounding hardwoods, as it had for her ancestors.

Anna still argued with herself about Winston. Never did she question the power of the drinks Granny gave her. She accepted the nights spent awake and the days grasping chairs against a fall. She laid cool rags on her head to relieve constant headaches. This was her yoke, and she must accept its weight. Each day she drank the granny’s brew.

If her God had wanted her to know the truth, why did he leave it to her to search out the answer? God had spoken to Moses through a burning bush. He had sent an angel to fight with Jacob so he could know the truth. If God had wanted her to see the real Winton Rafe, she would have seen him.

The season gradually changed from the lushness of summer to royal colors of fall. Fall brought with it a specter of Winston Rafe. Each time he appeared, he was outside the house. She understood that he was a ghost conjured to tease her. He stood afar to her left and did not move. He watched her, but Anna was not sure why. She accepted that he was there in spirit only, for she realized she was no longer a priority in his life. He never emerged at the foot of the bed or within the house.

Later, when winter had Anna housebound, she glanced up and there he was, close, watching her through the windowpane. A faint spirit. He was as she remembered him. His smile, in some undefined way, strangely like Gabe’s. His dark eyes and rumpled hair. Remote, yet close enough for her to smell his cigarette smoke. Each time he appeared, she walked to the door to see if his Buick waited outside Boone Station. It never did. Nor did he.

Grey light opened the morning. The sun came up slow, a pale, flat disk too weak to dry the dew. It had not yet brightened the trees. Turtleback’s fog had barely burned away. This was a mist Lily loved. Once outside, she would stretch her arms, twirl around, singing, “I am a cloud, I am a cloud. You can’t touch me. I am a cloud.” She had done so this morning before Seth White’s school truck arrived to take her to Covington.

Anna went barefoot to her pea patch ahead of schedule. Within minutes, her naked feet went cold against the damp ground. She stood and stomped them for warmth. She could go back to the house for shoes, but she wanted this chore finished. She squatted to the ground. The earlier she began, the earlier she finished.

She glanced up to wipe her face. There stood Winston Rafe. For Winston to appear mornings at the far edge of the patch did not surprise Anna. His image had come to the garden before. What surprised her was that he was here so early. The sun was usually surveying her work when he appeared.

She took another fleeting look down the row of pea vines. This could not be Winston. It must be Gabe. Winston was in Colorado, helping the government create more effective mining techniques. He existed only in her mind; yet today his presence was as clear as if he were standing a few feet away. He grinned, a particular grin that drew a thin line from the corners of his eyes to his temple.

He stood statue-like, early morning mist swirling around his ankles, as she pulled weeds from around her pea vines. She rose, put her hand to the small of her back and stretched. For the breath of a moment, she looked past him, into a faraway time that took her to when the Winston in the distance would have been real, not just a wish.

Anna roped her consciousness back in. The Winston she saw wore drab green, almost brown, with one hand hooked into a charcoal-colored bomber jacket flung over his shoulder. She squatted and clasped her hand over her mouth to stop her tremors, afraid she would cry. So real was he before her.

Anna resumed weeding. She yanked, rather than eased, weeds from the dirt. Stems broke from roots, negating her efforts and allowing weeds a stronger foundation for new growth. She took a dull knife from her overall bib and stabbed at stubborn roots as if she meant to dissect them. She gouged them out and flung them aside so the rising sun could suck out their life. Though he was behind her, she could feel him smiling.

Mid-row, she lifted herself again. Winston was still there. He lifted his hand and smiled. It looked as if he had come closer. She gauged the far edge of the garden against where he waited. He was closer. And he was moving toward her. Vapor that had moments ago eddied around his feet was gone, drawn up by the sun’s warmth. As she stared at him, he dropped his jacket. Anna let her knife fall and wiped gritty palms against her overalls.

“Winston?”

“It’s me, Anna. Returned from the Army.”

Anna’s blood throbbed in her ears. The imagined Winston had never spoken to her. She dropped her trowel and waited for him to reach her. During the standing time, she reminded herself that it was he who had left. He was who had sent word by someone else that he was gone, no longer a part of her life or she his. She had waited these three years. She could wait a few steps more.

Winston moved down the furrow that led to Anna, his shoes picking up mud as he came. When he reached her, he put his arm around her waist, bent down and kissed the crown of her head. She fell into step with him. As they walked to the house, a mockingbird sang a song of reproach from across the road, the same road Winston had walked up in darkness from Covington.

Accepting Winston back into her life came easy, as if she had taken life-giving breaths after being long underwater. That afternoon when both sun and moon inhabited the sky, Winston left. Though he continued down the far side of Turtleback to Breakline Camp, to Gladys and their daughter CeCe, the taste of the day lingered sweet on Anna’s tongue.