Some Small Magic Read online

  Do-tee say, “Dumb Willie, why don’t you go on back there and try to get you some sleep. It’s been a busy morning. Me and Abel need to talk a little.”

  “It’sa. Munster. Back there.”

  “No, there’s not,” she say. “I promise. We’re safe here, safest place ever. Here.” She takes off her hat and leans past A Bull, placing it on his head. “This will make that monster tuck tail and run.”

  It’s a small hat and don’t fit right, but it’s good because it smells like Do-tee. It’s a good hat. A Bull could pull a rabbit out this hat and Dumb Willie could eat it, he’s always hungry.

  “It’s okay, Dumb Willie,” Abel say. “You go on back there and sleep awhile. I’ll wake you up if there’s something good to see.”

  “Kay A. Bull.”

  He keeps the hat on with his hand on the crown, not wanting the wind to take it. There’s more light in the back now, but as Dumb Willie lies on the hard floor of the car and eases his head onto Do-tee’s leather bag, he decides that doesn’t matter. He’s got that hat on now.

  All those munsters are gone.

  -6-

  For hours and miles they ride in silence, Dorothy offering nothing but her company and Abel looking out over all that passes, trying to work out his thoughts. It isn’t so much what he needs to say. He knows the time has come to say everything, no more secrets, and in fact that time should have come long before. The question is rather how to say it. For now, that answer won’t come.

  He has never known the world could be so big and wide as this. Greenville is long behind them, having given way to the chopped mountaintops of West Virginia and glimpses of tiny towns and sad people, endless woods that look to Abel as though no man has ever stepped foot in them, and then flatlands of wheat and corn and grass so green it looks to have been painted. And now rising before them are mountains taller than he has ever seen and could ever imagine, rolling ones and ones with stubbed peaks of pine. Dorothy said they are the Smokies. It’s Tennessee they’re in now, and that means they’re moving south.

  He turns to make sure Dumb Willie is okay and is struck by how deeply his friend sleeps. Struck, but not surprised. It is as though Abel can almost see Dumb Willie’s memories slipping away each time his chest rises and falls. The old men at the barbershop and their escape, Dumb Willie’s picture on the front of the paper, all those stares and shouts, them running for their lives and trying to board this train. To Dumb Willie, all these things will be left behind, washed out and gone. To most in Mattingly, William Randolph Farmer is a dimwit to be pitied. To Abel, Dumb Willie had always been someone to be admired. The world holds few souls who live only forward, their pasts all but erased the moment they drift by.

  “I wanted to tell you,” he says to Dorothy.

  “Tell me what?”

  “What happened that night you saved us. I tried to tell you a bunch of times, but I never did. I didn’t think you’d understand. And I guess so long as I never told nobody, maybe that’d mean none of it ever really happened. I could outrun it and leave it all back.”

  “Don’t nobody leave anything back,” Dorothy says. She’s looking out toward the mountains, letting the wind play in her hair and tilting her face to the sun. “It all gets carried right along no matter where you go, and that’s the pain everybody feels. That want to lay things down that are meant to be carried, if only for a little while more. If only so you can learn how soft life is. It’s hard at the edges and soft in the middle, Abel.”

  Abel turns these words over in his head. They seem to bump into each other and go lopsided. “I don’t guess I understand much of that.”

  “You will.”

  “There was this boy I knew, Chris Jones. He was always mean to me because I’m cripple. He said he was gone kill me. Lots of kids say that when you’re my age, but they don’t mean it. It just comes out, like when grown-ups say they’ll pray for you because that’s about all they can do. But Chris meant it. He’s always calling me a bastard and saying I’ll never be nothing on account of the way I am. A freak. That’s what everybody calls me.”

  “Not everybody,” Dorothy says.

  “Guess you could say I poisoned him. Chris, I mean. But I didn’t think that’s what I was doing, or at least that’s not what I meant to do. I just wanted to get him back is all. But then he found out and said he was gone kill me, and I knew he would. Day me and Dumb Willie left, Chris tried to kill me twice. First time was when I was coming back from the Preacher Keen’s. I went there because I didn’t know what to think of Reverend Johnny and his power, even though I’d found my daddy’s letters already. Chris would’ve killed me for sure that time, but I was all done up in clothes and catcher’s gear.”

  Dorothy says nothing. Her eyes go from the mountains outside to Abel beside her. Nothing in her face says she’s shocked, or even surprised. Abel thinks this is good, because the bad part is coming. The part he has to say now because there’s no other choice.

  “I told Dumb Willie to meet me at the tracks that night. I couldn’t go all the way to Fairhope by myself, and if I left him at home, something bad would happen. Dumb Willie needs me because his folks are awful things. He got the way he is because this one time his daddy beat him all the way stupid. His name’s Henderson. He didn’t get in trouble because everybody thinks he’s a fine Christian man. Dumb Willie was only a baby then, so Henderson’s always said Dumb Willie was born that way. His folks never even took him to Doc March. I don’t even think Dumb Willie knows that’s why he’s so dumb, but he knows his folks treat him bad. I couldn’t leave him all alone.

  “Chris was there at the tracks too. Or he was at my house, I don’t know for sure, but he saw me and came running. He was gone kill me, Dorothy, I know he was. I ain’t never seen anybody that mad. He had me on the ground and was hitting me, and I can’t get hit. My bones’ll break if I do. Sometimes Momma won’t even hug me hard because she’s afraid what’ll happen. But then Dumb Willie got there. I don’t think he saw it was Chris. I think all Dumb Willie saw was one of his monsters. He believes in monsters and ghosts and all that stuff. He snatched Chris up off me. Dumb Willie just . . . tore him. He threw Chris away the same way that Reverend Johnny got thrown. Like it was some kind of thing that’s been in him all along suddenly came alive and wanted out.”

  A tear builds in Abel’s eye. The wind swallows it.

  “Dumb Willie killed him. He killed Chris. He meant to, Dorothy, I promise it, and I don’t even think he remembers. I knew they’d find out. I just hoped I’d be so far from home when they did that it wouldn’t matter. Momma must’ve gone looking for me but found Chris instead.”

  He leans forward and plucks the next envelope from his back pocket, looks at it.

  “I’m so sorry, Dorothy.”

  “For what?”

  “For almost getting you in trouble. Because you were right, and so was Reverend Johnny. The way is dark, and it’s because of what Dumb Willie did. And what I did. I don’t understand how things got so bad.”

  “Ain’t a thing in this world makes folk slobber more than a killing,” Dorothy says. “Especially when it’s a child and the killer got away.”

  “He’s not a killer.”

  “But he is, Abel. Dumb Willie is. Doesn’t matter that he didn’t mean to or he didn’t know what he was doing. Doesn’t even matter if all Dumb Willie was doing was trying to save you. He’s a wanted man,” she says, pointing deeper into the boxcar to the hulking body clutching her hat. “Word’s gone out. Story like that? Everybody will know. Them old men back in Greenville are like old men everyplace, got nothing to do all day but sit around and flap their gums. But such men are respected. Folk will believe what they say. They state as fact they seen a wanted murderer on their very streets, it’ll get taken as truth. And it’ll spread.”

  “But if we get to my daddy, we can take him home. Dumb Willie too. I can tell everybody what happened.”

  Gone are the smooth lines over Dorothy’s cheeks, that gentle uptu
rn of her lips. In their place comes a sad look that settles into her.

  “I don’t think you can do that, Abel.”

  “If I tell them,” he says, “they have to listen. Everybody knows what Chris was like. Principal Rexrode does. My momma. My momma will believe me, Dorothy. She loves Dumb Willie. My momma knows he’d never do nothing bad on purpose.”

  “You can’t go back.”

  “What do you mean I can’t? All you been telling me is how you got to get me home.”

  “That’s not . . .” She shakes her head, looking to struggle for the words.

  “I was promised,” Abel says. “‘Do not turn away,’ that’s what Reverend Johnny said. So I can’t, Dorothy. I can’t turn away. I’m going to Fairhope and getting my daddy, and then we’re all going home. Me and him and Dumb Willie. Even you, if you want. Reverend Johnny said I’d get healed on the way and I’ll get my reward.”

  “You said Reverend Johnny couldn’t heal you.”

  “But something can. He all but said so. If I can get healed, then there must be something to heal me.”

  “World’s full of people who need healing, Abel. Folk aren’t going to up and forget what happened to Chris Jones. There’s no running from a thing that bad. No hiding it. Folk everywhere will be looking for him. Long as they think Dumb Willie might be hopping trains, they’ll be searching every one. We’re not safe here anymore. We’re not safe anywhere. Folk everywhere will be coming to claim that reward, and they won’t care a whit if Dumb Willie’s live, dead, or more broke than he is when they drop him back in Mattingly. Any man who ends a child’s life?” She shakes her head. “Nobody’d think twice to either fill Dumb Willie with lead or hang him from the closest tree. Twenty-five thousand is more than most in these parts see in a year’s wage, maybe even two. More money than they can dream of having. It’s easy money, killing a man.”

  Abel turns the envelope over in his hands, wanting what Dorothy said to not be true. Wanting to believe Reverend Johnny was right, that somewhere between Mattingly and Fairhope he will be healed of all his troubles and then find his daddy, and that his daddy will somehow make everything right. But now all those miles between the place where this train rolls and where his daddy waits are laid with danger, and even when they get there . . . if . . . what then?

  “I’m scared, Dorothy.” It is a hard thing to admit this, especially to a girl so pretty. “I’m scared they’ll get Dumb Willie and take him away. I don’t know if I can save us again. That smoke bomb was the last one I brung.”

  Fear strikes him, a great sense of being lost, stuck between two places and yet finding a home in neither. There have been few times in Abel’s life that all has been well with his body. No bumps, no bruises, no casts. He has long been accustomed to things fracturing, and yet this thing he feels breaking in him now is no limb or bone but something deeper and more—not a snap, but a shattering. He collapses beneath the weight of it, eyes burning as tears flood and now fall with a speed that not even a wind made of steel and iron can carry away. They leak into Abel’s mouth, drowning his rows of brown, jagged teeth. Dorothy’s arms enfold him, squeezing hard. He wants to say, Not too tight, but knows himself already broken.

  “Now you just cry,” she says, “you just get it on out. Why don’t you go on and read that letter from your daddy.”

  “Don’t be mad at Dumb Willie,” he says.

  Abel feels her arms loosen but he won’t let her go, pinning them to him with his cast.

  “It ain’t his fault the way he is,” he says. “And I know you like him. You give him your hat. I seen the way you two talk, like there’s a secret you won’t say and neither will he. But he ain’t bad. Dumb Willie’s just scared, that’s why I got to keep him safe. He says there’s monsters and spirits and puts stock in things that don’t mean nothing.”

  “Never met a soul does otherwise,” says Dorothy. “Why you think the world holds such a sadness? Folk everywhere spend their whole lives putting stock in what don’t matter. Shiny things and fancy things, whatever won’t last. Shoot, they all like my old hat.” He feels her chin resting on the top of his head. “Even you, Abel. You put stock in some preacher you started out not even believing’s true.”

  “Reverend Johnny’s different. He proved himself true. He’s magic. That’s why you don’t understand.”

  “You think I don’t know about magic? How you think I got us past that cop? You know about magic, so do I. I know there’s big magic and small, and I know it’s everyplace but hid to most.” She waits, so long that Abel thinks her words are done. “Dumb Willie sees it. That magic. He’s special.”

  “Don’t say that. That’s an awful word.”

  “Not the way I mean it. I mean Dumb Willie’s special in the only way that matters. There’s most in this world go through their every day without regard for the world farther on. They think that world either don’t matter or ain’t there at all. They’re crippled.”

  “Like me?”

  “Oh no. Worse than you. You’re only that way in your body. They’re that way on their insides. There’s others who got their hearts to that world, but not their eyes. They look to it but don’t live for it, which makes them better off but only some. But then you got ones like Dumb Willie. They’re the special ones, Abel, and you know why?”

  Abel shakes his head against Dorothy’s chest.

  “Because they ain’t meant for this life at all. They’re so tuned to that next world that it leaks into this one here, turning it all to a wonder they can’t bear up against. You tell me Dumb Willie’s pa is the one broke Dumb Willie’s mind. I don’t know about that. I think maybe it’s more Dumb Willie’s always been so full of heaven that he ain’t got much use for earth. That’s how it is for those few blessed enough that their souls point to other lands, but cursed such that they got to live in this one. Folk call them dumb. Call them crazy. But they ain’t neither. All they are’s closer to heaven than anybody else.”

  That says it right, Abel thinks. That says it more right about Dumb Willie than he could ever tell in words.

  “What about me? Am I special too?”

  He feels her hand upon his hair, the way Dorothy’s fingers run through it down to his ear, touching the lobe.

  “Abel, you’re maybe the most special of all.”

  “Good,” he says, “because I love you.”

  That hand stops. “What?”

  “I love you,” he says again.

  Her soft voice trembles over the wind: “Why?”

  “Because you’re you,” he says, not caring what Dorothy answers, not wanting even that love returned.

  Wanting only that she hear the words.

  -7-

  5 March 2009

  Dear Abel,

  It’s been a long winter, hasn’t it? I can’t remember one messier, but then I guess that’s not saying much since sometimes I don’t remember so good. But a friend of mine said the same thing the other day. His name is Henry. You’d like Henry, I think, even though you have to be careful with him sometimes. Anyway, Henry said he can’t remember a messier winter so I guess that’s true. It’s been four straight days of rain here. Most everybody’s been stuck inside. It’s a cold pour like March ones are. Not sleet or snow, just 34 and rain. I told Henry nobody can do a thing about the weather and he said I was right. Everybody complains about things but it’s an empty complaining since nothing can get changed. You should probably remember that. It might come in handy someday.

  I was thinking today about how I never liked the cold months. Even when I was a kid like you I didn’t. The only good thing about winter was sometimes it snowed and there was no school. Plus Christmas break. Do they still call it Christmas break? Do you like winter?

  Anyway, I am looking forward to spring. That’s always been my favorite time. Everything looks so dead and gone and then it all starts growing back like the world’s been holding its breath and this is the exhale. I’ve always thought spring meant hope. Like it’s God’s way
of saying I know you’ll all screw this up again, but let’s try one more time anyway. One time I heard that the definition of a miracle is something coming from nothing. If that’s true, then I guess spring is the biggest miracle of all.

  Here’s something else I like about the warm months—the thunderstorms. Your granddaddy (you didn’t know him—he died a long time before you were born) used to love thunderstorms. He’d take me outside on the porch whenever one sprung up. You could watch them coming from way off, how the clouds would gather up and turn all black and angry. The wind would stir the corn in the field, and the rain would march right toward you in a long straight line and it would be lightning and thunder. Sometimes it got so bad I thought the whole world was going to end.

  But then it was over, you know? The clouds either moved by or gave out and the sun would sneak back and blue skies, and the birds would set to singing again. The air smelled so fresh and clean that it was like spring inside spring. That’s what I loved best. But those winter storms are a lot different, Abel. They don’t pass by so much as settle in, like this storm now.

  I guess what I’m trying to say, Abel, is that most of my life has felt like this last week, only on the inside—34 and rain. I’ve come to find it’s like that for a lot of people, especially around here. Everybody has to face storms sometimes. Sometimes they come and go fast like those Carolina thunderbumpers Daddy and me used to watch, and sometimes it’s like this.

  It’s a cold damp that starts out on your arms and legs and then ends up in your eyes and mouth and finally your soul. And the thing is, I think however the weather is in the world isn’t much different from the weather in you.

  Both can feel cold and hot or dry and wet.

  Both can leave you pining for death or happy for what life you got.

  The only difference is if it rains and snows out of the sky you can always find a roof somewhere. It storms that way inside you, though, ain’t much you can do. It’ll be like that for you sometimes, Abel. It’s like that for everybody and that’s what I want you to know. And it might even be worse for you because of me. That’s what I’m scared of.