than that fool boy from Kansas, that one who nodded off three Sundays in. Never heard that turnip truck coming, stupid little bastard. Smashed flatter than flat, and all those turnips spread across the road to hell and breakfast and the driver dead with his back broke.
I hate turnips. Nasty mealy things.
She starts rummaging in that bag of hers, leather bag still reeking of dead cow’s fright. Other bad smells too, stinky things, and plastic things. Mebbe a sandwich down close to the bottom, but not a meat sandwich. Good brown bread smell, but no meat. Not a bit.
She comes up with a conjure bag, and even hunkered way back here in the verbena my nose can twitch it out: store bought. The girl has brought a store bought conjure bag to the crossroads. I take a long whiff. No graveyard earth; no dead man’s piss; no John the Conqueror root; no blood from a lady’s monthly. Just some tired old oregano and a little mustard powder. Bag isn’t even flannel.
Silly girl. Ugly thing, short hair like a boy, little scrawny body, looking like no girl I ever saw. Can’t hardly tell she’s female. I got better to do than sit here babysitting. Nine Sundays is a long time, and she don’t have near the tenacity it’s gonna take to see this through. Waste of my time.
The night is full of good smells; honeysuckle and butterfly lilies, lantana and night-blooming jasmine. There’s a breeze from the river and the fireflies are all bunched up in the oak tree, moving through the leaves, little flicky-flick candle flames. Go home, girl. I’ve got my own business. There’s a fox down by the river needs me to show him who’s in charge.
She sets the conjure bag aside and pulls out the sandwich. Nope, no meat in there, not a speck. Tomatoes mostly, and green things. Waste of good brown bread. She settles back further against the tree, takes out a thumbed-up old book and starts reading by moonlight. I settle into the verbena. It’s a long ways ’til sunrise.
Second Sunday
She’s back under the oak tree, I’m back in the verbena. No breeze tonight, it’s hot and close, and Mr. Moon is half the fella he used to be. She’s got a lantern, makes a little circle of light, drawing every skeeter in ten counties, big cloud of buzz and bother. She’s all over coated up with some unguent from a plastic bottle. Nasty smellin’ stuff, and not hardly working by the way she’s cussing and slapping.
She cusses like a man, and she’s wearing those big old boots again. I expect she wishes she were beautiful. That’s what I’d wish for, if I was an ugly woman.
A skeeter lights on my ear and I take a scratch. She stops reading and looks back at where I’m hiding.
“Is someone there?” she says. She holds up the lantern. The skeeter cloud rises up with it, like the mist around Mr. Moon.
“Hello?” she says. She sounds small.
I stay still as still, still as death. Nobody here but us bad things, sugar.
She listens to the night noise for a while, then settles back down, slaps at the skeeters, eats her sandwich. Brown bread again, and eggs this time. I like eggs. Raw is better, but cooked is fine too.
The dawn comes, finally. I’m achy all over from lying still so long. She packs up her stinky bag, looks back at where I’m hiding, walks down the road towards town, scratching at her arms.
I start for home. I’m almost to the shack when Red Rooster steps out of the grass in front of me.
Hear you got a task, he says, strutting up and down like he does. Since the Dark Man gave him those fighting spurs, Red Rooster thinks he’s the prettiest trick around.
I’m keeping watch on a girl at the crossroads, I say, trying to slip past him. Keep her from harm, just in case she lasts all nine Sundays.
You think she’ll make it? Red Rooster juts his head out and back, up and down, and shakes his big haughty tail. In the dawn, his feathers glow like foxfire. He swaggers a little ways past me and turns back, like he’s giving me a show.
The skeeters like to eat her alive tonight, I tell him. I don’t know if she’ll be back.
And what is it to you, I want to say, but I’ve got to stay on his sweet side. The Dark Man, he loves Red Rooster, and