Stone river crossing, p.11
Stone River Crossing, page 11
Lil Mo heard somebody laugh. No, he heard several somebodies laugh.
“Lil Mo,” said Martha Tom, in a singsong voice, “come out, come out, wherever you are!”
“Lil Mo left,” said Lil Mo. “He crawled out the window and drowned in the swamp. So don’t worry about Lil Mo anymore. Just be nice and go home.”
“There’s no window in Little Bear’s room,” said Bishkoko. More laughter, louder this time.
“Can everybody just go away?” Lil Mo asked. “Please?”
“Lil Mo,” Shonti said, “don’t be so silly! Your clothes are dry. Martha Tom, will you bring Lil Mo his clothes?”
“Shonti!” Lil Mo yelled.
Still more laughter, louder than ever.
“Only joking,” Shonti said. “Here!” Lil Mo’s clothes appeared over the curtain. “My goodness, you sure are acting like a scared little boy.”
“That’s because I am one!” said Lil Mo.
Later, after the sky cleared, Martha Tom led Lil Mo on a shortcut home. “Nobody ever uses this road,” she said. “Well, almost never.”
“Why is it here?” Lil Mo asked.
“Sometimes wagons carry things to the ladies,” Martha Tom said, in a voice so soft he barely heard her.
“Are you going to tell me about what I saw? Why that old woman in the corner was picking the flesh from bones? They looked like human bones.” Lil Mo stopped walking and waited for Martha Tom to meet his eyes.
“They were,” said Martha Tom. “Lil Mo, Funi Man has already told you some Choctaw ways. But he hasn’t told you everything.”
“You don’t have to convince me of that,” said Lil Mo.
“Bishkoko and Tilly are very special women,” Martha Tom said. “They might seem strange to you, but not to Choctaws. They are bone pickers.”
“They were human bones,” whispered Lil Mo, “weren’t they?”
“Yes,” said Martha Tom. “An older man died, a few days after the Miracle Night. We did not say anything to your family about his death. You did not know him. You had other things to worry about.”
“What happened to his body?” Lil Mo asked. “Why is he a skeleton?”
“A wagon carried his body down this path to a place in the woods not far from the bone pickers. When someone dies, the body lies outside till the flesh dries. Then the bone pickers remove the flesh and make a bone bundle. That’s what she was doing, getting his body ready for burial.”
“I remember Funi Man telling me something about bone bundles being buried in the woods, in small mounds,” Lil Mo said. “But I didn’t ask him where the bones came from.”
“So now you know,” said Martha Tom. “You should ask Funi Man to tell you more. I should not say anything else about it, not till Funi Man says it is all right.”
“Yakoke,” said Lil Mo. “I will.”
The two walked for half a mile without speaking. Finally, Lil Mo asked, “Why were you there this morning?”
“The bone pickers never go to town,” Martha Tom replied. “No one ever sees them but their closest friends. Someone has to bring them food and supplies. I was chosen by the council to be their helper.”
“So you visit them often?”
“Yes. Now a question for you, Lil Mo,” Martha Tom said. “Why were you at the house of the bone pickers?”
“I was chasing Ofijo. We got lost in the thunderstorm,” said Lil Mo. Martha Tom said nothing. “And I was following some friends of mine.”
“I think you have a secret, too,” said Martha Tom. “Who are these friends?”
“I guess it’s all right to tell you about them. Funi Man knows.”
“They are Bohpoli, aren’t they?” Martha Tom said. “You have Bohpoli friends, don’t you? How many?”
“Four,” said Lil Mo. “But I didn’t see them this morning. I saw the green light. They carry a lantern, and sometimes I just see the light. I think they led me to the house of the bone pickers and left me there. On purpose.”
“They are probably still laughing about you stumbling onto the house of bone pickers,” Martha Tom said. “They love to play tricks, you know.”
“I’m beginning to learn,” Lil Mo replied. “But that’s all right. They protect me, too.”
“You were chosen, Lil Mo,” she said. “Four is the most Bohpoli helpers I have ever heard of for one person. You could live your whole life and never know why they chose you.”
“You were chosen, too,” said Lil Mo. “You were chosen to take care of the bone pickers.”
As they approached town, mud puddles lined the road, and the two stepped carefully. Martha Tom took Lil Mo’s hand. They spoke not a word for the remainder of the walk, a walk that ended at Martha Tom’s doorstep.
Lil Mo lifted his face and looked at Martha Tom. She returned his look.
“Chi pisa la chike,” he said.
“Chi pisa la chike,” said Martha Tom. “Till we meet again.”
CHAPTER 31
Morning of Budding Romance
The next morning Martha Tom and her mother were cutting wild onions on the back porch. The sun was barely peeping over the pine trees, and the sky turned a brighter shade of blue with every passing minute. Red clouds streaked across the horizon.
“Maybe we can cook blackberry pudding for Lil Mo,” Martha Tom said, talking as much to herself as to her mother. “Yes, I think maybe I should pick blackberries. Would that be hoke, Ma, if I pick blackberries this morning?”
Ella laughed out loud. She put down her slicing knife and looked at Martha Tom.
“What is it?” asked Martha Tom. “You don’t think he would like blackberries?”
“Martha Tom, do you remember a time, several months ago, when I asked you to pick blackberries?”
“How could I remember something that happened that long ago?” Martha Tom asked, rolling her eyes. Her mother laughed even harder.
“What is so funny?”
“Sweet little Martha Tom, you should remember!”
“Why?”
“Because you and those blackberries are the reason you met Lil Mo in the first place!” said Ella. “Here, take this basket. Stay on this side of the river, please, and go get Lil Mo his berries! We can cook the pudding as soon as you get back. Now go!”
“Yakoke,” said Martha Tom, grabbing the basket and dashing across the fields to Lil Mo’s new home. Then she remembered she was not going to see Lil Mo, not yet. She was going to the riverbank to pick blackberries. She laughed at her own silliness and turned to the river.
Hours later, rolling rain clouds covered the western sky. Martha Tom sat with Lil Mo under a low-drooping cottonwood tree in her backyard. They had just finished a meal of banaha bread and pashofa, thick and creamy corn chowder. Martha Tom was saving the blackberry pudding as a surprise.
“Lil Mo?”
“Yes, Martha Tom?” He always squirmed when she started off a conversation like this.
“What was it like, life on the other side?”
“Very different.”
“I know that. But what did you do when you weren’t working?”
“I worked all the time,” Lil Mo said. They both knew he was lying just to irritate her.
“Hoke, if you don’t want to talk about it, just sit like a log,” she said.
“I can’t sit like a log. Logs don’t sit, they lie down.”
“Were you like this before you met Funi Man?” Martha Tom asked. “Always trying to be funny?”
“It just came easy for me.”
“Lil Mo, I am your friend, and I just want to know.”
“Hoke,” he said, smiling at how they teased each other. Joseph and Koi Losa, his other friends, were never like this. “I’ll tell you what life was like on the plantation. We were afraid most of the time. We didn’t think of ourselves as being afraid. If you asked any of the people who are still slaves right now if they are afraid, they would tell you no. They’d say they have family and friends. ‘What is there to be afraid of?’
“But they would even be too afraid to answer. They’d be wondering, ‘Who are you talking to? Will I get in trouble? Will anybody in my family get in trouble?’ We were all the time afraid of getting in trouble.”
“What happened when you got in trouble?”
Lil Mo did not reply.
“I’m asking what happened when you got in trouble, Lil Mo?”
“I did my best not to get in trouble,” he replied.
“Except with Joseph,” said Martha Tom. “You took a big risk for your friendship.”
“Yes, but we are like brothers,” Lil Mo said. “We’ve known each other from the time we were little kids.”
“But tell me, Lil Mo, what happened if you got in trouble? Say somebody caught you playing with Joseph. What would they do to you?”
Lil Mo thought for a long time before speaking. He picked dried mud from the soles of his shoes. Martha Tom waited. She wrapped her arms around her knees and looked at Lil Mo.
“I was thinking about what happened to my mother,” he finally said. “Bledsoe whipped my mother. Did I ever tell you that?”
“No, Lil Mo. I’m sorry I asked. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
“Ahm achukma hoke,” said Lil Mo.
“Ahm achukma hoke!” said Martha Tom, her eyes wide with wonder. “Lil Mo, you’re learning Choctaw.”
“Doesn’t that mean ‘I’m good, I’m all right’? Doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does. I am proud of you, Lil Mo.” She kissed him on the cheek.
Lil Mo jumped to his feet. “Maybe I won’t speak Choctaw anymore!”
“Lil Mo, don’t be silly!”
“Me?” said Lil Mo. “Me don’t be silly? I don’t think I’m the silly one here!” He turned to go.
“What if I promise never to do that again?”
“That’s not enough. You need to come up with something better than that.”
“Hoke, Mr. Lil Mo,” Martha Tom said in her singsong voice. “I was waiting for the right time to show you what I made today. Look at this!”
She lifted the bowl of blackberry pudding from the basket.
“Not worth it,” said Lil Mo, without hesitating.
“Not worth what?”
“You promised, hoke?” he said.
“Lil Mo, I will not kiss you again if you beg me! Is that enough?”
“Hoke,” said Lil Mo. “That and the blackberry pudding, that ought to be enough.”
“I brought two spoons,” Martha Tom said.
“Yakoke,” said Lil Mo. Soon the black clay bowl, unable to withstand the two-spoon attack, sat empty between them.
“That was good,” said Lil Mo, wiping pudding from his lips. “I should be going home. Plenty of work to do.” He turned to go, then stopped. He looked over his shoulder at Martha Tom.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Uh, do you need some help? Carrying everything in, washing things, anything? Hoke, never mind. I’m going. Hoke?”
“Lil Mo, I can carry the dishes to the house. I live here. My mother will help me wash them,” she said, pointing to her house fifty feet away and trying to keep from laughing. Ella looked through a window and waved.
“I know that!” said Lil Mo. “Hoke. Chi pisa la chike.”
“Chi pisa la chike, Lil Mo.” Martha Tom watched Lil Mo disappear into the woods. She smiled and shook her head.
She had no way of knowing that she would never see this Lil Mo again, for Lil Mo would never be the same — after he met the owl man.
CHAPTER 32
Lil Mo and the Stranger
“Did he like the pudding?” asked Ella, as she and Martha Tom cleaned the dishes.
“Yes, he ate almost the whole bowl,” said Martha Tom.
“Who was that man with him?”
“There was nobody with Lil Mo.”
“I saw a man walking with him in the woods as he was leaving,” her mother said. “I don’t know the man. That’s why I’m curious.”
“I’ll go see,” Martha Tom said. She wiped her hands and hurried across the yard and into the woods. Lil Mo always took the same path home. He crossed the common cornfield, shared by everyone, then made his way west to his new house.
Martha Tom ran as quickly as she could. She soon spotted Lil Mo and an old man walking by his side on the banks of the river — far from his usual path. The man took small steps and stooped as he walked. The brim of his hat was pulled over his brow, covering his eyes.
“I know that man,” she said to herself. She stopped and stared at him. Lil Mo was nodding his head and listening as the old man spoke. The man reached for Lil Mo, patting him on the shoulder.
“No!” Martha Tom said in a quiet whisper. She remembered how she knew the man.
She moved slowly behind a tree so they would not see her. Her mind flew to a time five years earlier. She was barely six years old. Her best friend at the time was a girl named Wilma. Wilma’s father was not Choctaw. He looked Choctaw, but he was from another nation of people.
Martha Tom was too young to remember much about him. Wilma and her family moved away, to land her father’s family owned. This was the first time she had ever lost a friend, and she remembered crying for days.
This man talking to Lil Mo was Wilma’s uncle. He had come to Choctaw town to help with the move. But he only stayed a few days.
“Why did he leave?” Martha Tom asked herself. “Something happened.” She looked again at the old man. He and Lil Mo were still talking, standing in the shadows of an old cottonwood tree. She crept close enough to hear what the old man was saying.
“Son, you are new here and you need to know how to protect yourself,” the old man said. His voice was deep, and he spoke Choctaw very slowly. Martha Tom knew by his way of speaking that Choctaw was not his first language.
Lil Mo doesn’t understand what he’s saying, thought Martha Tom. Lil Mo doesn’t speak Choctaw!
Lil Mo leaned close to the man, trying to understand.
The man soon realized Lil Mo didn’t understand him. He began speaking English, and Lil Mo nodded and smiled.
Why did he leave? Mother would remember, Martha Tom thought. She almost turned for home, but something stopped her. The old man now held a small fan made of feathers. He waved it slowly as he spoke. Lil Mo reached for the feather fan.
“Keep these feathers with you all the time,” the old man said. “If you don’t trust someone, wait till after dark. Find yourself a place no one else knows about, maybe close to the river. I will teach you a song to protect yourself.”
“No!” Martha Tom whispered to herself. She remembered more about the old man. As they were packing to move, Wilma’s father had argued with a neighbor over a calf. The men had even had a fistfight, Martha Tom recalled. The old man appeared one night at the neighbor’s house, and the next day the neighbor grew sick and almost died. The Choctaw council met and asked the old man to leave.
Finally, Martha Tom remembered.
The old man talking to Lil Mo is a witch, an owl witch! The Choctaw council knew he was a witch and made him leave.
The fan was made of owl feathers. She saw them now, five small owl feathers. Lil Mo held the fan as if it were a special gift. Martha Tom wanted to run, to let her parents know the owl witch had returned.
I can’t leave Lil Mo with him, she thought.
Martha Tom heard a fluttering of leaves. Two large owls settled in a low-hanging branch of the cottonwood tree. They gripped the tree limb with large claws. One owl lifted and lowered his wings in a silent showing of power. The other raised a claw, flexing it like the fingers of a hand, and pointed the claw at Lil Mo. Three more owls flew to the tree and landed on higher limbs.
“You have enemies everywhere,” the old man said, “more than you know. You have to watch and be very careful. People are saying things about you and your family. Bad things! You might think you are safe here, but you are not!”
“Everyone has been good to us,” said Lil Mo. He looked confused. He heard the rustling in the leaves and looked above him. He saw the owls staring at him, as if awaiting an order. Dark clouds gathered, smelling of rain, and a cold breeze whistled.
“Think about that!” said the old man. “Everyone seems so kind and generous. There is no place on earth where everyone is good, no place! People will betray you, Lil Mo, you and your family both.”
“Why would they hurt my family?” Lil Mo asked.
“A man or woman could get rich by selling your family,” the old man said. “Slaves would bring a very high price, Lil Mo.”
“How do you know my name?”
“I was sent to protect you. Trust me, I will be your protector.”
The old man took the fan from Lil Mo. He looked to the tree limbs above and began to sing. His voice was soft, and he moved his feet in a standing dance as he wove his spell.
He waved the fan and chanted. The clouds grew darker, an owl hooted a sharp owl call, and soon several owls joined in the hooting. The old man chanted louder till his voice blended with the wind, the owl calls, the swaying of the trees.
He ducked his head and sang, but Lil Mo heard a whispering sound. The old man, though he danced and sang, still spoke to Lil Mo.
“Learn my song, Lil Mo. Sing my song and learn it. When someone makes you angry, you must protect yourself. In secret, steal a strand of their hair. Wrap it around the handle of the fan. Sing the song and say their name. Sing it, Lil Mo!”
Martha Tom watched in horror as Lil Mo took the fan from the old man. He waved the fan and the owls screeched, louder than before. Lightning flashed, and Martha Tom covered her ears. A clap of thunder boomed and shook the tree.
Lil Mo stepped in time with the old man and rain began to fall. Hard raindrops pelted the two, the owl man and Lil Mo, but still they danced. Martha Tom shook her head. She screamed “Stop!”, but her voice was unheard.
