When I awoke, my head was in Gran's lap, but she didn't care. When she was worried about Ricky, she wanted me near her. The piano was now playing, and the choir was standing. It was time for the invitation. We stood and sang five stanzas of "Just As I Am," and then the Reverend dismissed us.
Outside, the men gathered under a shade tree and started a long discussion about something or other. Pappy was in the middle of things, talking in a hushed voice, waving his hands in an urgent manner. I knew better than to get close.
The women grouped in small clusters and gossiped along the front lawn, where the children also played and the old folks said their farewells. There was never any hurry to leave church on Sundays. There was little to do at home except eat lunch, take a nap, and get ready for another week of picking cotton.
Slowly, we made our way to the parking lot. We said good-bye to our friends again, then waved as we pulled away. Alone in the back of the truck with my father, I tried to muster the courage to tell him about watching the fight. The men at church had talked of nothing else. I wasn't sure how I figured into the plot, but my instincts told me to confess it all to my father and then hide behind him. But Dewayne and I had promised to keep quiet until confronted, then we'd start squirming. I said nothing as we drove home.
About a mile from our farm, where the gravel thinned and eventually surrendered to dirt, the road met the St. Francis River, where a one-lane wooden bridge crossed over. The bridge had been built in the thirties as a WPA project, so it was sturdy enough to withstand the weight of tractors and loaded cotton trailers. But the thick planks popped and creaked every time we drove over, and if you looked at the brown water directly below, you'd swear the bridge was swaying.
We crept across, and on the other side we saw the Spruills. Bo and Dale were in the river, shirtless, their pants rolled up to their knees, skipping rocks. Trot was sitting on a thick branch of driftwood, his feet dangling in the water. Mr. and Mrs. Spruill were hiding under a shade tree, where food was spread on a blanket.
Tally was also in the water, her legs bare up to her thighs, her long hair loose and falling onto her shoulders. My heart pounded as I watched her kick the water, alone in her own world.
Downriver, in a spot where few fish had ever been caught, was Hank with a small cane pole. His shirt was off, and his skin was already pink from the sun. I wondered if he knew that Jerry Sisco was dead. Probably not. He would find out soon enough, though.
We waved slowly at them. They froze as if they had been caught trespassing, then they smiled and nodded. But Tally never looked up. Neither did Hank.
Chapter 9
Sunday lunch was always fried chicken, biscuits, and gravy, and though the women cooked as fast as they could, it still took an hour to prepare. We were famished by the time we sat down to eat. I often thought, to myself of course, that if Brother Akers didn't bark and ramble so long, we wouldn't be nearly as hungry.
Pappy gave thanks. The food was passed around, and we were just beginning to eat when a car door slammed close to the house. We stopped eating and looked at one another. Pappy stood silently and walked to the kitchen window. "It's Stick Powers," he said, looking out, and my appetite vanished. The law had arrived, and nothing good was about to happen.
"A Painted House"
Pappy met him at the back porch. We could hear every word.
"Good afternoon, Eli."
"Stick. What can I do for you?"
"I guess you heard that Sisco boy died."
"I heard," Pappy said without the slightest hint of sadness.
"I need to talk to one of your hands."
"It was just a fight, Stick. The usual Saturday foolishness that the Siscos have been doin' for years. You never stopped 'em. Now one of 'em bit off more'n he could chew."
"I still gotta investigate."
"You'll have to wait till after lunch. We just sat down. Some folks go to church."
My mother cringed when Pappy said this. Gran slowly shook her head.
"I been on duty," Stick said.
According to the gossip, Stick had a bout with the Spirit every four years, when it was election time. Then for three and a half years he didn't feel the need to worship. In Black Oak, if you didn't go to church, folks knew it. We had to have somebody to pray for during revivals.
"You're welcome to sit on the porch," Pappy said, then returned to the kitchen table. When he took his seat, the others began eating again. I now had a knot in my throat the size of a baseball, and the fried chicken simply wouldn't go down.
"Has he had lunch?" Gran whispered across the table.
Pappy shrugged as if he couldn't have cared less. It was almost two-thirty. If Stick hadn't found something to eat by then, why should we worry?
But Gran cared. She stood and pulled a plate from the cabinet. As we watched, she covered it with potatoes and gravy, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, two biscuits that she carefully buttered, and a thigh and a breast. Then she filled a tall glass with iced tea and took it to the back porch. Again, we heard every word.
"Here, Stick," she said. "Nobody misses a meal around here."
"Thanks, Miss Ruth, but I've already ate."
"Then eat again."
"I really shouldn't."
We knew that by then Stick's fleshy nostrils had caught a whiff of the chicken and the biscuits.
"Thank you, Miss Ruth. This is mighty kind."
We were not surprised when she returned empty-handed. Pappy was angry but managed to hold his tongue. Stick was there to cause trouble, to interfere with our farmhands, which meant he was threatening our cotton. Why feed him?
We ate in silence, which allowed me a few moments to collect my thoughts. Since I didn't want to act suspiciously, I forced the food into my mouth and chewed as slowly as possible.
I wasn't sure what the truth was, nor could I distinguish right from wrong. The Siscos were ganging up on the poor hillbilly when Hank went to his rescue. There were three Siscos, and Hank was alone. He had quickly stopped them, and the fight should've been over. Why did he pick up that piece of wood? It was easy to assume the Siscos were always wrong, but Hank had won the fight long before he began clubbing them.
I thought about Dewayne and our secret pact. Silence and ignorance were still the best strategies, I decided.
We didn't want Stick to hear us, so we said nothing throughout the entire meal. Pappy ate slower than usual, because he wanted Stick to sit and wait and stew, and maybe get mad and leave. I doubted if the delay bothered Stick. I could almost hear him licking his plate.
My father gazed at the table as he chewed, his mind seemingly off on the other side of the world, probably Korea. Both my mother and Gran looked very sad, which was not unusual after the verbal beating we received each week from Brother Akers. That's another reason I always tried to sleep during his sermons.
The women had much more sympathy for Jerry Sisco. As the hours passed, his death became sadder. His meanness and other undesirable qualities were slowly forgotten. He was, after all, a local boy, someone we knew, if only in passing, and he'd met a terrible end.
And his killer slept in our front yard.
We heard noises. The Spruills were back from the river.
The inquest took place under our tallest pin oak, about halfway between the front porch and Camp Spruill. The men gathered first, Pappy and my father stretching and rubbing their stomachs, and Stick looking particularly well fed. He carried a sizable belly, which pulled his brown shirt at the buttons, and it was obvious that Stick did not spend his days in the cotton fields. Pappy said he was lazy as hell and slept most of the time in his patrol car, under a shade tree near Gurdy Stone's hot dog stand on the edge of town.