“Ginger don’t help chocolate none at all,” Grandma said.
“We’ll just sit here and wait on them done pies,” Miss Maggie said.
While we waited, Miss Maggie said, “That boy there done told you about seein’ that Goat Man?”
Grandma looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Goat Man?”
“Yes ma’am,” I said. “Me and Tom seen it.”
“Now, I know you probably didn’t want nothing said, but I wanted your Grandma to know there’s been things goin’ on in them bottoms. She’d want to watch for you.”
“I heard there was some murders,” Grandma said.
“Uh huh,” Miss Maggie said. “But they wasn’t just no common murders. And I ain’t talkin’ out of school here, child,” she said, looking at me, “it’s all over colored town here, and over in Pearl Creek, which ain’t nothin’ but coloreds. This here is one of them funny murderers. A Travelin’ Man, maybe.”
“Travelin’ Man?” Grandma asked.
Miss Maggie told her the story she had told me, but a truncated version.
“Ah, tush, ain’t no such business,” Grandma said.
“Well, that boy there, he done see the Goat Man hisself. And that Goat Man is probably a Travelin’ Man.”
Grandma looked at me.
“Just like I said, Grandma. Me and Tom seen it. It had horns.”
“You must have seen somethin’ else and thought it was a Goat Man.”
I shook my head. “No ma’am.”
Grandma pursed her lips. “Well, you say you seen a Goat Man, then that’s what you think you seen. I haven’t got any doubt on that. But that don’t mean that’s what it was.”
“Whatever you believe, you best keep them young’ns out of them woods,” Miss Maggie said. “Well, I do believe them pies is ready.”
Tom and me was set up as judge, and they were both delicious, neither better than the other, just different. We declared it a tie. Both Grandma and Miss Maggie were happy with that. We ate half of each pie. Then Grandma said we had to go. Miss Maggie put all the pie in one metal pan and wrapped it with brown paper.
“This way, you got to bring my pan back,” Miss Maggie said, “and I could sure tolerate the company. I like my mule, but ole mule doesn’t say much.”
“Kind of like some men I’ve known,” Grandma said.
Miss Maggie chuckled over that. We got our pie, said our goodbyes, and went out of there.
On the way home Grandma drove a little more slowly than usual, which was good news for a couple of slow stray dogs and a startled squirrel.
Grandma quizzed me about the murders. I told her what I knew. Like Miss Maggie said, wasn’t any of it a secret, and she’d done told Grandma pretty much what I knew. I even told her about the body I found, and before I could help myself, I was telling her about being on the roof of that icehouse, looking down, seeing that poor dead woman.
“Well, now,” Grandma said. “This ain’t nobody gettin’ off a train at random, ’less they’re somebody lives close, catches that train to get into the area where they can do what they want to do. How many random hoboes you think gonna come through and do the same thing?”
“I don’t know Daddy thinks that,” I said. “Whites are pretty sure a colored is doin’ it.”
“Wait a minute. That’s what’s goin’ on with Mose, ain’t it? Somebody thinks he did them murders. That’s why your Daddy’s so hush-hush about him… Ain’t that it, boy?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You just said yes,” Grandma said. “You don’t tell a lie worth a damn.”
I thought about what she had said about Red’s tattoo and Mama. Neither did she.
Late that afternoon, when Daddy got home, Grandma was laying for him. She kind of directed him onto the back screen porch with Mama, and I sidled over to the door to listen. After a moment, Tom saw me and asked what I was doin’. I hushed her and waved her over. We both put our ear to the door.
We couldn’t catch all that was being said, but I could hear my name coming up, and Grandma explaining I wouldn’t tell her nothing, but she said she “deduced it from circumstances.”
I heard them moving toward the door. Me and Tom slid over to the table and sat down. When Mama, Daddy, and Grandma came in we were sitting there, our hands folded in front of us. Daddy looked at us and said, “Y’all just sittin’?”
“Yes sir,” Tom said. “We was talkin’.”
“Say you were,” Daddy said. He reached over and got me by the shoulder. “Come with me.”
We went out the front door and started walking down the road. Daddy said, “Grandma told me she figured out about Mose.”
“Yes sir.”
“She said you didn’t tell her nothin’.”
“No sir.”
“I want you to know I believe that. You can’t hide a darn thing from that woman. Too nosy, and too smart.”
“She’s a lot of fun, Daddy.”
“In some ways,” Daddy said. “I want you to know I appreciate you tryin’ to not let your Grandma know, and I want you to know I know you kept shut about it.”
“Yes sir.” I was actually thinking: well, mostly.
“You hungry?”
“Yes sir,” I said, even though I was still full of pie.
“Let’s walk back and see if we can get Mama to rustle us up some supper.”
15
It must have been about two days later, early morning, just before daylight, when we were awakened on the sleeping porch by a pounding on the front door. It sounded as if someone had a log and was ramming it. It didn’t even budge Tom, who could sleep sound as a fence post.
I leaped up, pulling on my overalls, and ran into the kitchen. Daddy was already there, one overall strap in place, the other dangling, a pistol in his hand. He went to the window, looked out, grabbed up a lantern, lit it, and with his pistol in his right overall pocket, opened the door.
In the distance we heard a car gun. I looked out the window. Down the road I saw taillights. One of the lights had been busted, showing both tinted red glass and raw yellow light. The car sped from sight, dust swirled up to be tinted by the red and yellow, then that was gone, and there was only the moon to illuminate the dust, make it gold and fairy-like till it settled to the ground.
I saw Toby, who wasn’t quite as alert as he had once been, come limping around the side of the house, barking shrill enough to pop your eardrums. He hobbled down the road in the direction of the car, then made his way back to the house, looking embarrassed.
Stuck in the door with a red-handled pocketknife was a note. Daddy pulled the knife out and brought the note inside. He lay the note on the table and looked at it while he folded up the red-handled pocketknife and dropped it in his overalls next to the pistol.
Mama drifted in from the bedroom, her hair hanging, her face marked with concern. She looked at the note. So did I. It had been written in thick black pencil. It said:
MOSE IS IN TROUBLE. YOU OUGHT TO GO SEE TO IT.
Daddy didn’t say a word, he just hurried to get his shoes. I went out on the back porch and put on my own, slipped out the back way, got in the car, lay down in the back floorboard, up close to the seat.
It wasn’t a couple minutes before I heard the car door open and slam, heard Mama yell, “Jacob, you be careful. It could be some kind of setup.” Then the car was rolling.
I knew I had fixed myself up for a well-deserved walloping, but I felt as if I was a vital piece in these events, and to not have me in on it was playing a checker game without all the checkers.
After a while, the car bumped and slammed, and I was banged up and down hard enough to bruise my ribs. I knew then we was off the main road, on the path that led to the river and Mose’s shack. Eventually the motor quit and Daddy got out.
I waited a moment, sat up, looked over the seat, out the windshield. We were parked near the river, up the path a piece from Mose’s shack.
It was early morning still, and the rising ruby and amber sunlight tumbled through the trees like nectar busted from exotic overripe fruits.