Mama Stalks the Past Read online

  I was trying to sort out the tangled Covington family tree. “Why?”

  “She’s scared that once Uncle Chester dies, the land will be cut up and sold. So she has talked to Calvin Stokes to find out the best way to keep that from happening. Calvin suggested that the Covington Land Company be formed and that it be incorporated, and a Trustee be appointed. The Trustee would take care of paying the taxes, cutting the timber, and—”

  “Cousin Agatha might be jumping the gun,” I said.

  “A couple of months ago there was a big dispute over heirs’ property in Stewart County. Things were so bad that sisters and brothers wouldn’t even sit together at their mother’s funeral. Cousin Agatha doesn’t want that kind of thing tearing our family apart when Uncle Chester dies. She doesn’t want the land sold or lost for taxes either.”

  “The Covington family would never fight over property,” I declared.

  Mama’s lips pursed. “Don’t be so sure. James’s cousin Fred, your second cousin, has been saying things that hint that as soon as Uncle Chester dies, he’s going to insist that the land be cut up and sold.”

  “Why wait until Uncle Chester dies?”

  Mama explained patiently. “Because Uncle Chester is the last of Josiah’s original children. As long as he lives, those thousand acres are in his hands. Fred knows that Uncle Chester can’t allow the land to be sold. That is why Agatha is trying to get Uncle Chester to give her power of attorney so she can form the land company and incorporate it before Chester dies.”

  “So what’s the hang-up?”

  “Uncle Chester will have none of it.” Mama laughed. “Agatha just told me Uncle Chester hasn’t eaten anything in two days. Swears he’s not going to eat another mouthful until she forgets about getting him to sign the power of attorney papers.”

  “Tell Cousin Agatha to pretend that she’s forgotten about the papers until Uncle Chester has eaten.”

  “Agatha tried that. But Uncle Chester doesn’t trust her. He insists that she gives him those papers so that he can tear them up himself. He thinks that will be the end of it. And he can be a stubborn old man when he wants to be.”

  “Why doesn’t Cousin Agatha call Cousin Gertrude? After all, Gertrude works at the hospital—she should know how to handle old people.”

  Mama shook her head and didn’t reply. I could see that the possibility of yet another unpleasant squabble over land worried her. The one with Nat Mixon was surely unpleasant enough.

  I took a deep breath. “Mama, to be honest, I’m really not in the mood for Uncle Chester right now,” I said, thinking of how much I wanted to be with Cliff.

  Mama frowned. “Agatha needs help. Your daddy’s uncle can be a handful!”

  I waved my hands submissively. Mama had that look that told me it was useless to argue with her; she had already made up her mind. We were going out in the country to help Cousin Agatha get something into my obstinate great-uncle’s stomach before he starved himself to death in order to get his way. “Okay,” I relented. “Let me just change my clothes. I’d feel better force-feeding Uncle Chester dressed in a jogging outfit rather than this suit.”

  A smile creased Mama’s face as if a thought just occurred to her. “Maybe he’ll eat some of my lamb stew,” she said.

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  Daddy’s cousin Agatha and her father Uncle Chester live in Nixville near the Cypress Creek Cemetery. To get to their house, you have to drive through a hollow, a long, dark, low area with cypress, gum, and pine trees hanging over the road. There is always a dense fog in Nixville, and I can always smell rotten vegetation no matter what the weather.

  It was dusk when we left Otis. Thirty minutes later, we arrived at Uncle Chester’s house. The full moon stood watching over the barren soybean fields like a giant orange pumpkin. A brilliant sea of white stars flashed in the sky, blinking down through the darkness.

  Uncle Chester’s house is a small wooden frame building with four rooms. Still, it has character. It’s surrounded by a virgin forest of pines that is filled with squirrels, deer, and foxes. The house has been patched for over fifty years and not one piece of new lumber had ever been placed on it. As we drove up in the front yard, the shadow of some large animal streaked past the car. Involuntarily, I gasped. “What was that?” I asked Mama.

  “I didn’t see anything,” she said, turning off the engine and opening her door. She scooped up the bowl of lamb stew she’d brought.

  “Now I know why I live in Atlanta,” I grumbled. “The wildlife there moves on two legs.”

  Mama laughed as I followed her up the sagging wooden steps, onto the front porch, and into the house.

  Uncle Chester’s front room has a potbellied woodstove. Tonight the stove was brimming with oak wood. A kettle of water was boiling furiously on it. The whole place smelled like warm castor oil. In one corner, a large electric heater glowed.

  Uncle Chester, gap-toothed, with hair sprouting from his ears, slumped in a recliner, wrapped up in a homemade quilt. Somebody had cut off a woman’s stocking, tied a knot on its top, and pulled it down on his head like a bizarre cap. His eyes were deeply sunken in their sockets, his complexion a leathery mahogany with folds of skin hanging loosely under his chin and ears. He looked a hundred years old. Maybe older.

  Cousin Agatha rushed forward to greet us. My second cousin is an extremely tall, extremely thin woman. Her hair is white as snow and her complexion is the color of overripe bananas full of brown spots. She always covers her mouth shyly with her hand whenever she speaks. But Cousin Agatha’s timid appearance is deceiving: Agatha is extremely smart, good with figures, and handles all the Covington family’s property with the canny astuteness of a business major. Agatha is the oldest daughter of Uncle Chester’s first wife: He’s buried three. Cousin Agatha never married, and as far as I know, never aspired to. She seemed to enjoy staying home, keeping house, taking care of her father and the heirs’ property, property that has been in our family since Reconstruction.

  Uncle Chester never appreciated her, has indeed always taken his daughter for granted, but it doesn’t bother Cousin Agatha. The rest of the family isn’t so naive, however. We know that if it hadn’t been for Cousin Agatha, Uncle Chester would have been dead a long time ago and the family’s property would have been sold for the taxes a dozen times over.

  Within minutes of our arrival, the odor of castor oil was supplanted by the scent of Mama’s lamb stew. Needless to say, I was glad. I could stop taking deep breaths and holding them.

  It took Uncle Chester a while to smell the difference, however. “What you got there?” he demanded shrilly when his nose finally detected the stew above the pungent castor oil and medicines.

  Mama looked as if she didn’t know what he was talking about. “Where?” she asked innocently.

  He pointed a very long bony finger. “What you got on top that stove?”

  “Nothing,” Mama replied.

  A coughing sound came from somewhere deep inside Uncle Chester’s sunken chest. “ ‘Tis something,” he finally said when it cleared. He tucked his pointing finger underneath the quilt. “Don’t play crazy with me, Grace Covington!”

  I unsuccessfully stifled a giggle.

  “That’s lamb stew,” Mama told him.

  “Fresh?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Made it this afternoon.”

  “What James said about it?” Uncle Chester demanded.

  Mama shrugged her shoulders. “James ain’t had it yet.”

  “Might be poison,” Uncle Chester grumbled.

  Mama’s eyebrow shot upward. “When did you ever know me to cook up poison?”

  “I hear tell there somebody poisoning people around your place,” Uncle Chester insisted. His beady dark eyes were malicious. “Times has changed,” he snapped. “In my day, a person want to kill another person, he knocked him on the head.”

  “People still get knocked in the head.”

  “You know what the Bible says, you reap wh
at you sow,” Uncle Chester declared.

  “Yes.”

  “People ought to live right if they want to die right.”

  “I agree.”

  “It ain’t right to profit from somebody else’s killing. Lord remembers them kind of things when it’s time to die!”

  “You’re right,” Mama told him cheerfully.

  Uncle Chester sat up in his chair, his eyes glued on the potbellied stove. “You ain’t poisoned that there stew, now have you, Candi Covington?”

  Mama shook her head. “What kind of poison would I put into my food?”

  Uncle Chester’s gleaming dark eyes narrowed. “What I know, poison is poison.” He glared at Mama.

  “Well, you ain’t got to worry about me poisoning you,” Mama said, crossing her arms under her breast. “ ’Cause you ain’t going to eat my stew, now are you?”

  Uncle Chester took the challenge. “Who said I ain’t?” he demanded angrily.

  Mama unfolded her arms, pointed at Cousin Agatha, who had seated herself silently in the corner closest to the heater. “Agatha told me that you said you ain’t up for eating until—”

  “Don’t pay no attention to Agatha,” Uncle Chester interrupted obstinately. “I ain’t never paid no attention to her, now have I?” he said triumphantly.

  I burst out laughing, then hastily tried to muffle it. Uncle Chester glared at me. “What’s ailing you?” he shrilled.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing at all!”

  He turned back to Mama. “Let me taste what you’ve got in that pot,” he ordered. “See what you done put together for stew!”

  Cousin Agatha got up, silently went into the next room, and came back with a blue bowl and a spoon. She ladled the stew into the bowl and handed the bowl to Mama. In less than ten minutes Mama had fed Uncle Chester every spoonful.

  When he’d finished, he leaned back in his chair, still tucked warmly in his quilt. “Bring me more,” he commanded.

  Mama smiled. “Ill fix a pot especially for you and bring it later in the week,” she promised.

  Cousin Agatha smiled and nodded, too. But I doubted Uncle Chester saw her. He was snoring soundly.

  “Uncle Chester sounds so alert and intelligent,” I said to Mama as we drove back to Otis. “If it wasn’t for his old body, you’d never believe he was over ninety!”

  “That’s because the mind doesn’t age as fast as the body,” Mama said reflectively. “As the years pass, Simone, the chasm between what the mind wants to do and what the body can do grows, until the gap becomes so wide it can’t be bridged. That’s when you realize how many years have passed!”

  “I can’t imagine you and Daddy being that old,” I said.

  Mama smiled. “Time and life catch up with everybody, honey.”

  The thought of my parents growing old and dying reminded me of when I was a little girl. I used to pray every night that I’d die before they did; I didn’t want them to leave me.

  Mama must have read my mind. “Death is not something you prepare for, Simone, it’s something you accept.”

  It was after eight-thirty when we pulled onto Highway 633 and crossed Tenth Street. We crossed the railroad track in darkness lit by the enormous orange moon overhead and a half mile later turned off onto Smalls Lane. When we stepped out of the Honda, the cold autumn air pushed me to walk quickly into the house, but Mama hesitated. Her ebony eyes seemed glued to Miss Hannah’s house next door. “Shh!” Mama whispered, holding her finger to her lips. “Listen!”

  I stopped, and strained to hear the sound that had caught her attention.

  It came again, this time loud and quite distinct in the evening hush. A sharp snap, as if a twig had broken under a shoe. Then another twig snapped. A bush rustled.

  We stared at the spot where the noises were coming from—a bush near the foot of an old oak tree. The oak shook and leaves fell. The tree seemed to tremble as if something shook its trunk.

  “Who is that!” Mama shouted. I jumped.

  There was another sound. Then two huge German shepherds pushed their way through the brush in front of us. They glared at us. They growled.

  Mama rolled her eyes heavenward and stood her ground. But I wasn’t so courageous. My heart pounded as I grabbed her arm and pulled her toward our porch. As quickly as I could get the key turned in the lock, I pushed her into our house.

  Mama and I sat at the kitchen table, drinking chocolate almond coffee and reliving my fear. “You should have seen your face.” Mama laughed.

  “I was scared,” I said. “Okay?”

  “You were terrified!”

  “Who knows who or what could have been in those bushes?”

  “Simone, you’re right. There could have been three dogs instead of the two!”

  “Yeah, right,” I muttered, about the same time as my father put his key into the door.

  “What’s the security alarm doing turned off?” he said, by way of greeting. Daddy is a firm believer in the security alarm. There had been a few burglaries even in peaceful Otis over the past few years.

  “Thank God it was turned off,” I whispered, thinking of how much harder it would have been for us to get into the house and away from those nasty dogs.

  “We went out and forgot to put it on when we returned,” Mama told him.

  “Where did you go?” Daddy asked.

  “Uncle Chester’s house,” I answered somewhat sharply, annoyed at the habit my father had of wanting to know your every movement.

  Daddy scowled.

  “Your cousin Agatha called,” Mama explained, her tone still light. “Your uncle stopped eating again.”

  “I don’t know why Agatha worries about Uncle Chester. I’ve told her more than once, when he gets hungry he’ll eat,” Daddy said, his voice louder than it needed to be.

  “He hadn’t eaten for two days,” I said.

  Daddy scowled. “Don’t you believe that. I’m willing to put good money on Uncle Chester having food stored away. He’s just making Agatha think he’s starving.”

  I laughed. “Is he that cantankerous?”

  Daddy didn’t answer. When he stumbled toward the table, I exclaimed, “Watch out!”

  “I’m okay,” he snapped.

  “James,” Mama said, a protective tone in her voice, “I’ll fix you a cup of black coffee.”

  Daddy lowered himself onto the chair very carefully, perching on the edge of the seat. “I appreciate that, Candi,” he said, smiling thinly. “And you’d better check to see why that floor is so slippery.”

  “Remember, Mama,” I said, eyeing Daddy, “we have to go next door to look for that envelope.”

  “You ain’t got that envelope yet?” There was more sarcasm in Daddy’s voice than I thought necessary.

  Mama poured him a cup of steaming black coffee. “Simone wanted to wait until you could go with us,” she told him. “In case there are dogs.” She started to laugh.

  I cut in. “In case Nat comes home and finds us,” I corrected. “He’s got a healthy respect for you, Daddy.”

  “He doesn’t want me to get his behind in a sling,” Daddy said.

  “I’d feel better if you were with us,” I told him. “Maybe tomorrow night!”

  “You’re leaving tomorrow,” Mama reminded me.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said.

  Daddy glanced up at the clock. “What’s wrong with now?” he asked.

  “I don’t like the way you’re moving around,” I said.

  “Let me get some coffee in me, that’s all I need. Right, Candi?”

  It was past ten when my parents and I slipped through the freezing November darkness toward the Mixon house. We were less than a hundred feet from Miss Hannah’s front door when we heard a barking dog, and then the sound of a door slamming. “Mr. Brown has taken his dogs inside,” Mama whispered.

  We hurried to the darkened house. As Mama had predicted, we didn’t need a key. Daddy pushed the unlocked door open and turned on the lights.

  The li
ttle house smelled of rotten fish mixed with beer and cigarettes. Things were thrown about, stacks of newspapers, cans, and cigarette cartons. Piles of dirty clothes mounded in each corner of the sparsely furnished rooms. Mama shook her head in disappointment; Nat had already begun selling everything, I thought.

  “Let’s go to the bedroom. I want to get this over with,” Mama said, motioning me to follow.

  Miss Hannah’s bedroom was practically empty. There was a double-sized square of clean carpet where the bed had once stood. The curtains were still up, but you could see light spaces on the wallpaper where pictures had hung.

  We spent the next few minutes searching every nook and cranny of the one closet in the room, looking for personal papers, notes, letters, telephone numbers, a diary, or an address book. We found nothing. Nothing resembling the envelope Miss Hannah had told Calvin Stokes about.

  Mama looked disappointed. She started for the bedroom door and was about to open it when she stopped. A broom leaned against the wall, a dustpan was upright beside it, and in the shadows sat a small green footlocker.

  I took the broom and swept the cigarette butts and crumpled packs of empty Marlboro Lights in a pile. Mama opened the lid of the footlocker.

  “Look at this,” she said to me. Her voice was excited.

  Given the chaos of the house in which we found it, the trunk’s interior was surprisingly tidy. On the left, neatly folded and stacked, bath towels were beautifully monogrammed with Miss Hannah’s initials. Beneath the towels were sheets that had little pink roses on them. On the right-hand side lay an old Bible.

  Hannah Mixon’s name was on the flyleaf. Mama flipped through the book and found a folded-up sheet of paper tucked into its back. The crude map was a diagram of a farm. It showed where a barn was supposed to be, a machine shed, a grain bin, and fields. Paper-clipped to the diagram’s top right-hand corner was a photograph of an old house.