Fireflies In December Part 28

All my daddy could say to Mr. Tinker as Jeb chained his hands together was "Why?"

"You'd never understand," Mr. Tinker said. "You never did."

"I understand more than you like to think," Daddy replied. "It's my understandin' that kept me from becomin' like you."

"There you go again," Mr. Tinker railed. "You act like we're the ones stirrin' up trouble, but ain't you got the sense to see it's you that's got the trouble? Ain't no way we can start lettin' n.i.g.g.e.rs run our country, Harley. Ain't no way we can let that happen and keep civilized." Mr. Tinker's face was earnest, his tone pleading.

I realized he was as certain of his beliefs as my daddy was of his. "You sayin' Gemma ain't civilized?" I asked him suddenly. "My Gemma?"

His face changed when he heard my voice, a sort of softness creeping back in, reminding me of the opinion I'd had of him only a few short hours before. "Honey, you ain't got to think 'bout none of this. It ain't for children to worry 'bout."

I studied him, dismissing his patronizing talk, and walked closer to him. "If I'm too young to worry about it, then how come you let me think I'd done your killin'?"

Mr. Tinker dropped his eyes in a slow, drooping way and stared at his feet. He'd run out of answers. He could look my daddy in the eye, even after all those years they'd been friends, and he could stand up against him sure and steady. But the minute he looked at my eyes that were too young to understand all the darkness that could inhabit a man's heart, he lost some of his swagger.

I asked again, "How come, Mr. Otis?"

Daddy was the first to speak. "Otis don't know why, baby girl. There's a lot Mr. Otis don't know about."

Otis Tinker never said another word to me for the rest of my days. The law came down on him hard for killing Cy Fuller and Walt Blevins. It hadn't been a colored man he'd killed but two white ones, and for that he was sentenced to pay with his own life. I couldn't help but think of poor Elijah Baker and how he'd suffered at Walt Blevins's hands. Walt had never paid a cent for what he'd done, at least not until the day he was shot through the heart by one of his own. The disparity of it muddled my head. For all my trying to understand some men's minds, I couldn't see any difference in people just for their color. But then I figured I was better off not understanding such things.

The morning after we'd watched Jeb lead Mr. Tinker away in chains, I poked my head out the window bright and early to see my daddy and Luke working their hands to the bone in the fields. I couldn't quite believe the amount of work that would need to be done to restore all my daddy had toiled for over the years. But when I saw Momma there beside Daddy, dirtying the small hands that Daddy had always refused to let see hard work, I knew I had to skedaddle out of bed and do my part.

Gemma was already up, and I could hear her in the kitchen.

I stuck on my overalls and hurried downstairs. "You been up long?" I asked her. "I don't want to look lazy."

"I just got up, and anyways your momma and daddy don't even know I'm up yet. I thought I'd get some coffee on. They're sure enough bound to like some."

I shook my head and got a few biscuits from the bin to take out with the coffee. "Ain't no way to fix what's been done out there. Just ain't no way."

"Ain't nothin' impossible, Jessie. That's what my momma always said."

I could never argue with anything Gemma told me when it came from her momma, rest her soul, so I kept my mouth shut and spread honey on the biscuits.

When the coffee was done, we put our fixings on a tray and carried them outside to Momma and Daddy and Luke. They dusted their hands on their britches and thanked us for the food, but little else was said as they ate wearily.

After Daddy gulped down his last bit of coffee, he smacked his hat back on his head with a loud sigh. "Gonna take us a couple years' work to get half of this done ourselves. And I ain't got the money to hire more help. I ain't even got the money to pay the men I got."

"We gotta try," Momma told him. "Ain't no other way but to try."

Daddy dug his boot into the ground, scanning the fields critically.

I looked at Luke for rea.s.surance that things would be better than Daddy said, but he just smiled weakly at me, and I could see in his eyes that he felt the same.

I heard Momma murmur one of her impromptu prayers-"Dear Jesus, send us help"-but I didn't quite think it would do any good. We were in a bad spot, and nothing short of Jesus and His angels coming from the sky with picks and hoes would save my daddy's farm.

But G.o.d taught me a lesson about angels that day. They don't always wear wings and carry harps. Sometimes they can just be people. People who open their hearts up to do things G.o.d tells them to do. I saw some of those angels that morning as I stood with a tray of empty coffee cups. They came from the front of the house, all fifteen of them, carrying tools and wearing gracious smiles. Some were white, some were colored, but they were united by one purpose.

"Ain't got enough hands, as I see it," Miss Cleta said, a basket of baked goods slung over one arm. "S'pose you'll have to let us lend you some."

Daddy took his hat off and stood there with it in both hands, tears threatening his eyes. "Can't pay you a cent. Can't do a thing for you."

"Ain't a one of us who wants nothin', Mr. La.s.siter," said a colored man I recognized as Jimbo Turner, a dishwasher at the Rocky Creek Diner. "We's just come to help, is all."

The pastor of Gemma's old church and our pastor Landry stood side by side. Miss Cleta held the hand of Toby Was.h.i.+ngton, the colored teenager who ran errands for her, in a display that would surely have turned the stomachs of some.

Tears stung my eyes to see them there, our ragtag, multicolored band of angels, and I stepped forward to accept Miss Cleta's basket. "I best make some more coffee," I squeaked out, my throat tight. And before the tears could come in front of everyone, I rushed past them and into the kitchen.

As I poured more cups of coffee, I said a prayer of thanks. Some tiny part of Calloway had started to heal, and though I didn't yet understand much about prayer, or about G.o.d for that matter, I figured I owed my thanks for such a thing.

Miracles didn't just happen on their own.

I remember clear as a bell the day they hung Otis Tinker. He was hung just like many a colored man had been, only Mr. Tinker wasn't innocent as so many of those colored men had been. He had blood on his hands, blood that I had once imagined was on my own. And on that day, a day when Daddy refused to leave the house to witness the final decree, Mr. Tinker breathed his last at noon on the mark.

As the time neared, Daddy rocked on the front porch slowly and methodically, his pocket watch in his hand, watching the seconds tick by. He opened that watch at eleven forty-five, and he sat for the next fifteen minutes staring at it without uttering a word. I sat on the porch steps next to Luke, who was keeping an eye on his own watch, which he had opened and laid on the step between us. Gemma was on the step below me, her back resting against my legs.

By eleven fifty-five, Momma was standing at the screen door, whispering prayers I couldn't understand, but I guessed at what she was saying. She'd be praying for his soul till the very last, hopeful until the end that Mr. Tinker would repent of his ways. "Weren't all of that man wicked," she'd said to me that morning. "Ain't no man with some good in him that shouldn't have a chance of escapin' an eternity of h.e.l.lfire. He saved you in the end, don't forget."

I didn't have enough of a grasp on the situation to judge one way or another, so I hadn't replied to her declaration. But when I heard her whispered pleas just before noon on that first day of November, I whispered my own prayer for the man I'd thought of for most of my life as a kind, decent person.

Daddy's watch stayed open as the seconds ticked down. But with two minutes to go, he stopped rocking the chair, Momma stopped whispering her prayers and stepped softly onto the porch, and silence filled the air. Luke put an arm around me, and I let my head rest on his shoulder, my heart thumping in time with the watch. At noon, I jumped as the chimes started to ring inside the house like a death knell. Each clang of the clock made my stomach sink further.

The moment the last bell rang, Daddy snapped his watch shut, stood up quietly, and walked over to lay a hand on Momma's shoulder. "I'm gonna take a little walk, darlin'," he said, his husky voice barely audible.

Momma was crying softly, and it wasn't until Luke handed me his handkerchief that I realized I was crying too. Daddy put a gentle hand to my head and then to Gemma's as he walked down the steps beside us, and then he wandered off with a gait that spoke of his heavy heart. He disappeared past the shed and into the woods.

Momma had once said to me, "Daddy takes his thinkin' walks because sometimes a man needs to be on his own to figure things out and find some peace again." That autumn afternoon, I hoped more than ever that my daddy would find some peace amid those half-leafed trees.

We sat that way for a good hour, with no sign of Daddy, not one of us saying a word, likely because no one knew what to say at times like those. Momma had just murmured something about getting the stew started when we heard footsteps crunching around the bend in the road. Luke stood to see who was coming, and I climbed to the top step to see over his tall frame.

I was torn in two as I caught sight of Mrs. Tinker coming into view, her hair pulled tightly away from a tearstained face, the skirt of her black dress rippling in the breeze. Momma gasped and gripped her collar before running past us and down the steps to embrace Mrs. Tinker.

At first I wasn't sure how Mrs. Tinker would take that. After all, we were the ones who had stirred things up that summer. But Mrs. Tinker did nothing but melt into my momma's arms, her sobs coming in long, wheezing exhales. There wasn't a dry eye between the four of us when Momma calmed her down long enough to coax her inside for tea. Even Luke had tears in his blue eyes, and I made a mark in my memory of the first time I saw Luke Talley cry.

Daddy returned within another half hour, and I ran to him when I saw him, my arms outstretched.

For the first time since I was five, my daddy picked me up and held me, even though I was tall enough for my toes to touch the tops of his shoes. "It'll be all right, baby girl," he whispered into my hair.

"Mrs. Tinker's here. She's awful tore up," I said, my voice shaking. "Mr. Otis did what he did, and now Mrs. Tinker ain't got a husband, and her boys ain't got a daddy. Why do people do things that cause so much hurt?"

"I ain't got an answer for that." He set me down and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. "Ain't no one but G.o.d got an answer for that. Best we can do is pray we don't do the same."

"I ain't capable of hatin' like that," I told him adamantly. "I could never hate a body like Mr. Otis hated Gemma and people like her."

"Jessilyn, ain't no man can't get someplace he never thought he'd get to. You let enough bad thoughts into your head, you can end up doin' all sorts of things you never thought possible. Otis let evil into his mind and it took over his heart. We best be on our guard and keep our minds on what's right and true so we don't become things we'll regret."

His words scared me. I wanted to always be able to trust people, to know that good people stayed good people, but I was realizing all too quickly that the human heart is fragile and needs constant attention. I'd seen enough bleakness in my own heart to know my daddy was speaking the truth.

"That's why we all need to know Jesus in our hearts," Daddy said. "Ain't no one else who can keep watch over our hearts like He can. Ain't no one else who can take the bad out and replace it with good. You best put thought to that, Jessilyn. Ain't no more important decision you can make, you hear?"

I'd heard similar words from both my parents many times in my life, but this time they struck deeper. I nodded at him as I always did in response to such talk, but I knew this time I'd be putting thought to it in a way I hadn't before. Life had become too real for me to dismiss the importance of Daddy's words.

In the shadow of Mr. Tinker's death, I took life more seriously.

Maybe that summer was the worst of my young life, but maybe it was also the most important. Time meandered on without Gemma's momma and daddy, and it meandered on without Cy Fuller and Walt Blevins. And just the same it meandered on without Otis Tinker. But those of us left behind viewed life more dearly, felt it more keenly. I'd learned a bit more about G.o.d, and I'd seen His powerful hands at work. As I was growing, my heart was changing, and the way I figured it, there were lessons learned in those dark days that would help me for years to come. In fact, they were lessons that would help us all in years to come.

Jeb succeeded in finding the evidence he sought against the Klan, and the remaining members who had been discovered were sent to prison for mail fraud. It seemed the local Klan had an interest in making money, just not in legal ways. I didn't understand all the particulars as Daddy tried to explain them to me, but I was grateful to see them gone, knowing full well that a local court would never have made an example of them as the federal courts did. Still, prejudice in Calloway existed in plain form. Klan activity was only a small part.

We were to see much more of those Mr. Tinker left behind in the bleak days that followed his death. Mrs. Tinker spent much of her time with my momma, and Gemma and I watched the boys while our mommas sewed and cooked together. And every time the boys' wild ways would try my patience, I remembered they'd lost their daddy through no fault of their own, and I'd scold them with less sting in my tone.

Luke still took suppers with us almost every day, and as the brisk autumn evenings turned into cold winter ones, he'd sometimes stay the night on our couch to avoid a bitter walk home. I liked having him nearby. As I was learning to adjust to life as it had become for me, his presence made things feel more stable.

As for me and Gemma, we went on as before, but Gemma was a little less like a momma to me and more like a friend. I suppose that happens between two people when the younger one starts catching up to the older one. I'd been forced to see life from a place I'd never wanted to go, just as Gemma had in her own way when she'd lost her momma and daddy. We could relate better then. We got on well most days and fought a bit less than we had . . . but we still fought. I suppose that, too, is what life is like between people. Some good things, some bad things, a good bit of understanding . . .

And a lot of love.

As I sat on the porch blowing steam into the biting cold of a December night, I glanced over at Gemma, where she sat on the rocker, her knees bundled tightly under her chin. Her face was scrunched up against the cold, her teeth chattering. She hated being cold, but I knew she sat out on that porch because I wanted her to be with me, and her sweet spirit made me smile.

I leaned my head against the porch rail and sighed deeply. The way I figured it just then, my summers may have been full of bad luck, but my life wasn't. And even though Momma told me time and again that there was no such thing as luck, only blessings, I figured as far as family went, I was one of the luckiest girls alive.

Momma opened the front door and looked through the screen at me as though she knew what I was thinking and was correcting my thoughts. "What're you thinkin' about, Jessilyn La.s.siter?"

"Just thinkin' about how . . . blessed blessed I am," I said, replacing my word with hers. I am," I said, replacing my word with hers.

She smiled at me and tossed her dish-drying towel over one shoulder. "Sure enough," she said brightly, staring out at the leaden sky. "Sure enough we all are."

Momma went back to her dishes, and I turned to share a knowing smile with Gemma. Inside, Daddy's guitar and Luke's vibrant whistle made a sweet melody, and I could hear Momma's hum joining in a bit offbeat. There was a crisp stillness in the air, teasing us with the thought of snow, and I tucked my blanket more tightly around my shoulders and smiled.

"Sure enough, Momma," I murmured even though she couldn't hear. "We all are blessed . . . beyond measure."

About the Author.

Jennifer Erin Valent is the 2007 winner of the Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild's Operation First Novel contest. A lifelong resident of the South, her surroundings help to color the scenes and characters she writes. In fact, the childhood memory of a dilapidated Ku Klux Klan billboard inspired her portrayal of Depression-era racial prejudice in Fireflies in December Fireflies in December.

She has spent the past fifteen years working as a nanny and has dabbled in freelance, writing articles for various Christian women's magazines. She still resides in her hometown of Richmond, Virginia.