Mary at the Old Railroad Trestle

Chapters 25-27

Chapter 25

          I waited for a couple of more hours, till the headache sledgehammering through my skull seemed to lift my hair in flyaway strands and reverberate with the pounding of the dam collapsing when the tornado of June 1908 struck it. I am sure that it probably was not that loud nor that encompassing, but being as I was on the receiving end of the headache, it was plenty loud enough. I would have done better to have guzzled Daddy’s strong Louisiana-style coffee all day long from daybreak rather than live with my head like this. For a moment, I really considered walking into the river, or jumping, except there was no high spot here where I sat, only grass, mud, and a swampy wet smell. That smell quickly became way too familiar to me; I scent that whenever I have visitors who had been involved with the Tamblen River or the Tamblen Dam-or the train wreck at the Old Railroad Trestle. That included Miz Pladgett, spinster schoolteacher of Canton and choirmaster of Cameron City’s First Baptist, her married fiancé Mr. Henry Weakes; and my brother Billy Raife and my cousin Wilson, the stoker. Now each and every one of their visits is preceded, accompanied, and succeeded by that swampy, miry, fragrance I have so learned to dread. When it is my brother Billy Raife with or without cousin Wilson, I get a scorchy, charred smell as well. When they come together, I smell a fire like it is burning right then and there, but still that swampy scent lies underneath it all, like a reminder that the River is still just a little distance away, waiting, waiting for another flood, another tornado, goodness maybe even a hurricane to come bustling up the Gulf of Mexico and deciding on landfall in our part of South Alabama. Maybe I exaggerate-I just do not know. But this afternoon my splitting head and my sore heart just made me feel like life just was not worth the effort of living any more.

Chapter 26
         I stood up and noticed my boot soles were trying to stick in the muck, as if the swamp at the river’s edge wanted to hold me back and keep me company, make me part of it. I did not want to be part of the River; I already lived in a swamp of my imagination with a nightly flood of imagery that now threatened to stove in to the daytime as well. Yet the mud seemed determined to hold me, and I stumbled as I pulled loose my left boot. Another thing Mamma would find to fuss at me about. “Money does not grow on trees.” “Since your Papa died.” And so forth and so on. Well, I would try to find a leaf fall or maybe some grass and clean some of the mud off while it was still fresh. If it had not been a willow I sat under but an oak or maple, I would have had leaves aplenty for my choosing, but willow strands-long and silky as they may be-would not work for cleaning swampy muck from my only pair of boots. My only pair of boots: I threw down the grass blades I had just plucked and said to myself, “Forget it! I am just so tired of being me! Mary the Crazy Girl who Sees! So tired!”
         Right then and there I wanted to throw myself into the river!
         All this pressure on me suddenly! I just wanted it to quit! I wanted it to be over, and standing there on the river bank ‘neath the willow strands I looked down at my muddy boots and then out at the flowing water and I SCREAMED!
         ”Yes! You will have me! And soon! But on my own time and not yours!”
          I reversed and walked away from the encroaching river, away from the now foul-smelling swamp mire, and back into the corn field. My shawl and skirts were next door to ruined as it was; all that had protected my bodice was the shawl wrapped closely across my shoulders and bosom. Even the tassels on the shawl, once black, were now a shade of dusty white.
          As I walked I stomped, or at least I placed my boots more firmly on the soil than I had when I raced from Mamma’s house through the corn field to the river back. I had made my decision, or perhaps my decision had been made for me. At any rate, I now knew how it would all end for me, and all that remained to discover was how it would play out until the end-my end as well.
Chapter 27
          I swished and stomped my way back through the corn field, little paying attention nor caring that one or two of the rows had been pretty well trampled in places while I had run to the river. This field was sharecropped by one of Aunt Grace’s numerous tenant farmers, Mr. Clayborn, and he probably wouldn’t even notice the damage until harvest time and maybe not then. I did not care either way at this point. A woman on her final weeks of life is not likely to be inspired by thoughts of the irritation or anxieties of others.
         Reaching our tiny back yard, I peered around the corner of the house but did not spy any carriage or wagon, so I scraped my shoes in the dry grass and pulled off my shawl, balling it up inside out so the corn field damage would be much less apparent. I opened the back door and peeked in. I could hear Mamma humming quietly to herself in the pantry, so I backed up and reached down to unhook my boots, when I heard,
         ”Mary Grace? Is that you?”
          So much for concealment. I tossed the offending shawl into the dark space below the stairs and stepped out on to the back porch to shake out my skirt, while calling,
          “Yes, Mamma, I’ll be right there.”
          There was nothing for it, the skirt would not be right again until I picked the tassels out piece by piece and then washed it in our old wash bucket in the yard, but that would be a story for another day. Clearly I didn’t have time for that now, as Mamma called out to me once again.
         ”Come in here, Mary, would you please?”
          Her voice sounded odd, but not angry; almost distant, as if she spoke from a far place. (The kind of place I saw in the back of her eyes earlier today?) I wondered. But I pushed aside that nonsense notion and stepped into the pantry, where I found Mamma just turning away to reach for some notions on the left-hand shelf. I noticed she was reaching to the shelf and spot just below where the strong box had been concealed, and my mouth quirked, but I did not speak.
         ”We had a visitor, Miss Mary.”
          Again, silence on my part.
         ”It seems your Aunt Grace is having a to-do again-tonight and tomorrow and maybe on Saturday night as well. She wants us to go.”
         I literally felt the blood drain from my complexion. (“Us?”) but I still held to my silence-blessed silence-and waited for Mamma to continue. By this point she had stuck pins in her mouth; clearly she was expecting to be laying out pattern, since no customer was present for a fitting. As I still said nothing, she mumbled, “I told her yes.”
         Wait! Mamma told Aunt Grace “yes”? When did she speak to Aunt Grace? As far as I knew, Mamma left her house not much more often than Aunt Grace left her own much larger establishment, which is to say not often at all, except that Mamma did attend services at the First Baptist every Sunday without fail.
         ”Wal, it was not your Aunt Grace that I actually spoke to,” Mamma claimed while still not looking up at me and continuing to lay out the pattern and pinning it down the sleeves.
                   ”She sent her new minister companion over here to give out her invitation. She asks us to attend her sayannce tonight. And we are.” On the last word she at last glanced up at me, and her eyes were the same odd distancing and color that I had seen in them earlier today. I almost felt as if I stood in front of a shell of a person and not really my dear Mamma. I still could not speak, so I nodded my head and when she finally broke contact, I murmured, “May I be excused?” By this time she had turned away again and stood gazing at the shelves, but I heard her respond in nearly as low a tone. “Yes, you will need to dress for tonight. Wear your Sunday best and your good shawl and not that old raggedy one.”
         I found this comment more than a trifle odd, since it had been Mamma who had crocheted me my black everyday shawl. Now suddenly she denigrates it?