“I don’t need to do nothing if I don’t want to,” he mumbled. He limped back inside the house to wait for the sun to burn away the damp.
By the time Obie made his way back outside, the sun was high and the air was full of dry heat. The summer rains had ended a few weeks before and the cattails were burnt and browned out. He dragged his chair into the shade beneath the eave of the house and sat down. He leaned his head back against the wall and folded his hands across his stomach. A flock of small swamp birds was flitting about just past the porch. Obie watched them hop from one cattail to another until, like every other day, his eyes closed and he dozed off.
He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep when he became aware of something making its way through the weeds near his house. At first he thought it might be mule deer walking down to the water for a drink. Or maybe that pack of dogs he’d seen now and again roaming the riverbank for washed-up garbage or dead fish. Whatever it was, he thought, it was making one hell of a noise. He cracked open his eyes and when he turned his head, he caught sight of a little boy and two girls making their way through the tall grass at the edge of his house.
They were walking in a line and carrying sticks to keep the snakes at bay. The boy was last. He was short and stocky, and every so often he’d glance edgewise at the house like he knew they were where they shouldn’t be. The girl in front of him was built similarly and looked close enough to be his big sister. A line of belly fat was hanging over the top rim of her shorts and a sour look was on her face. But Obie only gave those two a quick glance. It was the girl leading the way who caught his eye.
She was mouthing out a song and swinging her stick at the grass like she was holding a ball bat. She was a skinny girl, taller than the other two, and she moved almost like a boy somehow—slow and easy and still too young to know how good she was. Obie sat in the shade on his porch and listened to her sing in a high, reedy voice.
“I know a boy who’s as sweet as pie,” she sang, and slash went her stick at the grass.
“I know a boy who can make me cry.
I know a boy who’ll make me bad.
I know a boy who’ll make me sad.
Jump high, sweet girl, and don’t come down.
The rope gonna catch you and knock you down,” and here she beat at the weeds like she was trying to kill them.
Obie let out a grunt and roused himself. “Hey,” he yelled out. He leaned forward and slapped his hand down hard on his thigh. “Who you think you are? You go on now and get out of here.”
The fat little girl gave a jump. She turned around like she’d been shot at and went running. But the boy stopped dead in his tracks and then edged back a foot or two.
“That’s right,” Obie said to him, nodding his head. “You go on home. And don’t come back here no more.” Then he turned his eyes to the girl in front.
She was standing with her face turned away from him, one hip cocked out. At first he wondered if she were deaf. She was swinging her stick like she hadn’t heard a word he’d said, and even though she’d stopped her singing, her upper body was moving from side to side as if the song was still going in her head. It struck him that not only had she heard every word he’d said but she didn’t give a good damn one way or the other about it.
“Go on now,” he said to her, flapping his hand. “You trespassing on my property.”
“This isn’t your property,” the girl said, as quick as that.
“Well, it sure as hell ain’t yours,” Obie said, his voice raised.
“We walking the path down to the river,” she said, without so much as a glance at him.
“I don’t give a damn where you going,” Obie said. He’d known this girl just one short minute and here they were, having an argument. “You want a path to walk on, go somewhere else and make your own.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the boy take a step forward.
“You going the wrong way, boy,” Obie yelled at him. It occurred to him that things were getting a little out of hand. If he wasn’t careful he might end up with a bunch of worthless kids running all over his property. He made to rise out of his chair. “Now you get your fat butt out of here before I do something.”
“Rachael,” the boy called out, his voice high and pinched, “I’ll meet you back home.” And he began to move backward, around the corner of the house.
“We’re going down to the river,” Rachael said, as if the boy hadn’t spoken to her. She was standing still now, pointing her stick off toward the river as if that, too, belonged to her.
“Goddamn it, girl,” Obie said, shaking his head. “I don’t care where you going. You just go some other damn way.” In all this time, she hadn’t bothered once to look over at him. She was wearing a pair of raggedy shorts and her T-shirt was pressed tight and flat against her chest. She’d done her hair in tight braids, and each one was wound with a little bit of dirty ribbon. She didn’t look any different from any other little girl he’d seen wandering the streets of South Cairo.
“You go on now,” he said to her, his voice calmer. “Before I find out who your mama is and have a talk with her.”
“I don’t have a mama,” Rachael said. She lowered her stick and took a swing at a clump of thistles. “She run off when I was little and stuck me in the South Cairo Home.”
Obie let out a grunt. “Well, that don’t surprise me none. If you was my little girl, I’d run off and leave you, too.”
At that moment, the sun dipped below the trees along the far side of the river. A shadow ran across the swamp grass, pushing a little wind ahead of it. Obie shut his eyes and leaned back so that the breeze cooled the heat on his neck. “My,” he said softly. “Don’t that feel nice.” He moved his head back and forth slowly and pulled his shirt away from his skin. Then he let out a long breath and opened his eyes.
The girl was still there, but now she was turned around facing him. For a moment, Obie just sat in his chair and stared at her, his mouth half open.
“Hey,” he breathed out. “I know you.” In that second, he could have sworn that instead of a skinny little girl, Madewell Brown was standing not twenty feet away. There he was, his long arms dangling, his mouth wide and easy. He was gazing just off to one side, as if he could see something no one else could. And he was holding himself the way Obie remembered—a little on his toes like anything might happen.
“Madewell,” Obie whispered harshly, “where’d you come from?” Then something shifted in the air and what he’d seen was gone. Where Madewell Brown had been was that girl standing in the swamp grass. Obie pushed out of his chair and went over to the railing.
“What’s your name, girl?” he asked.
Rachael didn’t answer. She could see that the old man was leaning so far over the railing that he might topple over and break his neck. She thought that he was just another old man who didn’t have anything better to do than mess with people. She looked away and started tapping her stick on the ground.
“My name’s Rachael Parish,” she said finally, her voice singsonging again. “That’s what my mama named me. Not something dumb like Madewell.”
Obie could see how high her forehead was and how the slant of her eyes gave her almost a sleepy look. Again he shook his head. “You got your granddaddy written all over you. Come here so I can get a good look at you.”
“Ha,” she spat out, taking a step back. Already she knew enough about men to keep her distance. Even from one this old. “You a crazy old man living way out here by yourself. I don’t have a granddaddy. I never had a granddaddy.”
“You sure as hell had a couple of them once,” Obie said. All of a sudden, he