GodPretty in the Tobacco Field (8 page)

I
dyll days of August brought no peace to my bone-jumping demons. Nightmares of babies wouldn't stop. And the idea of Rainey leaving me here alone in the tobaccos was more than I could stand. The notion of him coming back wounded or worse, unbearable.

Evenings, I stretched the daylight into dark, escaping the bad dreams by working on my sketches, drawing cities and everything I imagined there. I studied book covers and thought about the piles of books I'd pored through in the back of Rose's truck. One morning I got up the nerve to show Gunnar my new drawings. I thought if he saw them on Rose's official artist pad, he might soften some, maybe even like them a little. But he'd pushed me away, calling them ugly, and I turned back to the fortune-tellers.

When I was sure Gunnar was asleep, I stole downstairs into the sitting room to get the tobacco paper for the fortunes.

Tonight, I eased open Gunnar's secretary drawer again. I looked over my shoulder at the tall bookcase beside the fireplace. Gunnar loved to see me reading, as long as it was the Bible or what he thought I should be reading. He called himself a learned man after getting one year of college in before his mama passed—the doing that brought him back to Nameless.

I snatched sheets of the tobacco paper out of his secretary, pressed them to my face, inhaling. Old man Graydon Turner made the paper for us once a year, pulping some of Gunnar's tobacco stalks to produce it. He'd let me watch him once and then gave me a stack of my very own, despite Gunnar objecting and saying it would be wasteful for my silly drawings.

We'd gone into Mr. Turner's barn and watched him chop up the stalks and mix it all into a huge vat. He cooked it like soup, stirring, fussing over it. After, he would strain dirt off the stock, then mixed in a little bleach to whiten and some starch to size. He poured the mixture into large screened pans where he let it dry with a woodstove and fans. Mr. Turner delivered the first rolled-up batch to Gunnar and sold the rest to the Feed & Seed. I loved the light brown speckled paper, its rich pipe tobacco smell.

I tiptoed back up to my room and snipped out a square to make myself a kissing fortune. I peered out the window. Gunnar's old tobacco barn sagged to its shadows and seemed to buckle into the earth. I drew the barn, detailing and shading just right, down to the tender poppies that hugged its weathered oak boards.

I cut out another square of paper for someone else. I crimped the creases counterclockwise. Carefully, I sketched another barn and an automobile, adding chickens onto the special fortune-teller with some pretty tail feathers, fat wattles, and fancy combs. I drew a tiny basket onto the last fold. After an hour of shading and perfecting the hens and basket, I pressed it to my heart, then put it inside Mama's pocketbook to cure along with mine. All my heartache seemed to disappear with it, leaving me lighter, and the tangled thoughts of the baby business and Gunnar's meanness gone.

Moonlight painted soft stripes across floors and I placed the purse on the sill to bask in its beams. Gunnar dared not come into my room. He considered it a breach of Southern manners, and had never once crossed the threshold since he brought me here. Knocking or yelling from outside the door was his calling card, but still I had to be careful; you never knew with a smart, eagle-eyed executioner.

I fell asleep only to wake hours later in a sweat of tightly tangled sheets. I sat up and rubbed my face. It was wet from tears. I'd been dreaming of Patsy and heard her crying, and in the background there had been another noise: hens cooing.

Despite it being the first night of August, I pulled on my quilt jacket and buried myself deeper under the covers.

Before the first sparrows could gather in the bushes, I slid out of bed, wishing I could slide right back in and take what my dreams had cheated me of. Shaking off the slumber, I dressed, smiling as I stuffed a tiny cheesecloth-wrapped package full of seeds into my pocket. Then I took Mama's purse off the windowsill, pulling out the fortunes I'd made.

My finest, especially the one with the chickens. I felt hopeful. And as usual, more thoughts flowed and I took my pencil to each of the flaps, writing two names on the one I would keep and only one name onto the other I would give. I slipped them under the seeds in case Gunnar had his sneaky eyes on.

But Gunnar was gone. He must've left early to work in the barn, so I hurried into the kitchen, grabbed a piece of bread, slathered on butter, and downed it. I buttered two more pieces, then stuck them inside my old Three States tobacco tin that Gunnar'd given me to scrub and use for my lunch pail.

Dawn gathered in the hills as I sat down on a quilt next to a tobacco row and worked the latest paper fortune-teller I'd made, stretching my thumbs and pointing fingers inside the four-pocket slits. Every minute or so I would stop, cock my ears, or look around for my uncle.

Landing on number six, I opened the triangle flap and peered inside at the boys' names.
Rainey,
it predicted. “Bur Hancock, three, Rainey Ford, four,” I whispered, and let my fingers gallop the folds again. I blew wisps of hair off my sticky forehead, the humidity making them clump. “Rainey, six, Bur, five,” it read.

“One more Rainey . . . c'mon
seven
.” I closed my prayerful eyes and mumbled, lighting into the fortune-teller again, knowing I wouldn't be satisfied until I reached my favorite number—seven—feeling foolish and carefree, but enjoying the tiny break before another long working day.

Startled by the sound of rustling grass, I twisted around. Baby Jane Stump circled a tobacco stalk. The sun rose over the mountain behind her, sending fog-soaked rays tumbling to the fields.

I blew out my breath. “You scared me, Baby Jane.” I squinted up at her, gathered Gunnar's old shirt tight across my chest. “Quit sneaking around like that. I thought it was Gunnar. Lordy-jones, you nearly popped the hairs off my head.” I smoothed down the apron covering my long dress and picked at the fabric with shaky hands. “What are you doing down here so early on Saturday? It's not even eight yet.”

I stuffed my fortune-teller into my pocket, annoyed that I'd been interrupted before landing on “seven.”

“I h-have to be at the Millers' early now. They told me to come early starting in August. And I—I wanted to be sure and see you 'fore your uncle made it out.”

“How's Lena?” I couldn't help asking.

She looked away nervously. “M-Ma says Sister's got the baby weeps.”

It looked like Baby Jane had been crying, too. She dropped her empty basket beside me and sat down.

I reached inside my pocket and pulled out seeds I'd been waiting to give her. “For your mama's fall garden,” I said, placing the tiny cheesecloth package into her hand. “Tell her there's twelve rutabagas. And ten turnip seeds and fourteen carrots.” I had to fib to Gunnar and tell him the price for feminine protection went up at the Feed & Seed.

Baby Jane stuck them inside her pocket, and murmured, “I like the rutabagas, 'specially like you cook 'em, mashed and all.”

“Grow 'em and I'll make you another dish.”

Baby Jane tapped my shoulder, dangled a rubber band. “Do my hair today?”

I took the rubber band. “Don't I always do your hair? But you need to learn to do it yourself, Baby Jane, in case I'm not here . . .” I thought about the city.

“You do it best, RubyLyn.” She turned around, swept her light brown hair over her small shoulders.

“Are you hungry?” I asked, combing my fingers through her locks. “Brought you some buttered bread.”

Baby Jane coughed and shook her head.

“Heard you had the fever. Feeling better?”

“Uh-huh. Ma gave me the coal oil.”

Mrs. Stump couldn't afford the town doc and relied mostly on concoctions of coal oil mixes and homemade brews from the bark of wild cherry trees and roots she'd have Henny dig up.

Gunnar preferred his medicine potions of bark, root, and coal oil, too, over the doc's visits. Most hill folk did. Once when I was little and couldn't shake a bad cold, Gunnar'd fed me heaping spoonfuls of coal oil and molasses for two weeks.

I brushed bangs away from her eyes, wishing I had a pretty ribbon. Scooping her hair up into my hands, I began braiding it for her like I did most mornings. When I was done I reached into my dress pocket and pulled out the special fortune-teller I'd made for her last night.

Baby Jane's eyes widened and a smile rosied her cheeks. “My own kissing fortune,” she said.

“Too young for kissing fortunes, and this is way better,” I fussed. “You're barely eleven and there's a reason I mark them G for grown-up. See?” I pulled out my own fortune-teller, turned the paper upside down, and showed her the “G” I'd written in red.

She bobbed her head. I shoved my own fortune-teller back into a pocket.

When she was older I'd put a few more suitors in the fortune like I did for the older girls around Nameless, but for now there would only be one for her.

Baby Jane fished three pennies out of her dress pocket. “Been saving, but here, want you to have it,” she said solemnly, holding out the coins.

“That's good you're saving,” I said, pushing her hand back, “but I don't sell my
special
fortunes.”

Her eyes rounded. “Is it bad luck?”

“Something like that.” I tugged gently on her braid.

“I love it lots, RubyLyn, thanks! And I'm gonna save enough money so I can buy me a hen just like the Millers . . . b-buy a nice dress and get myself a man so I can leave,” she said real quiet.

“Man?” I asked.

“Uh-huh, I aim to have me my marriage bed by the time I get my fourteenth birthday. Aim to get away 'fore they . . . they try and sell me . . . or lock me away up there . . . like Sis—” She dragged her words into a sob. Her face tightened and a fat teardrop fell from her wide honey eyes onto the three pennies.

“What? Oh, Baby Jane”—I pressed her head to my shoulder—“no one's gonna lock you away or sell you.” I stroked her long braid. Though I wasn't too sure of anything lately.

A trembling cry caught in her breath. “B-been selling some of the eggs I get for workin' for the Millers when Pa ain't countin' too hard.” She wiped her watery eyes with her tiny fists. “Don't tell no one.”

“I promise.” I reached over and pulled my lunch pail onto my lap. “Hungry?” I asked again, trying to cheer her.

Baby Jane licked her lips, swallowed hard, then looked away. “I—I ain't hungry,” she denied. “Don't need much to eat, neither.” She pressed a hand into her small belly, pushed.

“You love the butter and bread. Made you two today,” I coaxed.

Stubbornly she shook her head. “They see me eating, they might . . . s-sell me, too.”

The weight of my heart doubled and felt hot. At least I had food. And there was my land to bring to a marriage bed. I looked over at my own tiny patch in the five acres that would be mine someday. “Not yours yet,” Gunnar had said when he'd showed me the deed long ago, “and doesn't include all of mine,” he added. He'd tapped the paper. “Fully and legally on our daughter RubyLyn Royal Bishop's marrying day, or eighteenth birthday, whichever comes first,” my parents' Last Will instructed.

But I wouldn't be tied to the land like Gunnar. I was going to be an artist. Rose said it could happen. And Mr. Parker even hung one of my barn drawings up at the Feed & Seed. Weren't no time before he sold it to someone passing through for a whole five bucks. I had my tobacco to get me out of here, my art to keep me there. But Baby Jane . . .

“Long day. Here, eat.” I nudged, pulling out the slice of buttered bread and handing it to her. “And stop by this evening or in the morning. I'm running low on eggs.”

She sniffled, took a small nibble, then gave it back. “You are?”

I frowned and put it back in the lunch pail. “Yeah. And don't be worrying none about those baby-buyers and marriage, okay? Keep this fortune close.” I curled her hand over the paper and pressed.

Baby Jane looked anxiously up at Stump Mountain, then slowly opened the folds of the tobacco paper, running her fingertip over the drawings. She pressed it to her chest with a lopsided grin. “It's so beautiful, RubyLyn.”

“Special ones are.” I smiled.

“
Special
.” Her face lit as she inspected the folds of the paper fortune-teller, tracing the basket and chickens. She peered curiously at the name
Frank
and looked back up at me.

I nodded.

Baby Jane blushed.

I tapped the drawing of the chicken. “One day you'll have fancy chickens.”

“Chickens,” Baby Jane marveled.

“Sure will.” I couldn't help sending up a prayer. “The best birds in all 'tucky.”

She stared at her chicken fortune-teller, then leaned in, wrapped a sweaty arm around me and squeezed tight.

“Oh, thank you, RubyLyn!” she exclaimed. “This is the prettiest fortune
ever
. Even better than the pictures in the book you gave me!”

I laughed. When Baby Jane was five, I'd found an old book on Gunnar's bookshelf,
The Little Red Hen
. Baby Jane had pestered me to read it to her so many times that I finally gave it to her. Ever since, Baby Jane'd taken an interest in hens.

“Even better than Alma Smithy's fortune,” she said.

I winced.

“Lots better,” she repeated. “Boy, was her ma mad when she hooked up with that troublemaking boy.”

“Lordy-jones.” I lifted my swear, feeling relieved to put marriage behind us, but not wanting to think about silly Alma. “She should've known to follow the name I'd written for her. Should've known to kiss that redhead instead.”