Alafair Tucker 01 - The Old Buzzard Had It Coming
this boldness and she glanced sidelong at Shaw. His face had become the picture of inscrutability. “I expect,” he replied coolly.
Naomi came out onto the porch, shepherding the younger children before her. They all spilled down the porch steps toward the buckboard, followed by a pack of Tucker children, closely followed by John Lee, Alafair and Shaw. As older people lifted younger people into the wagon, Alafair managed to maneuver herself through the throng to stand next to John Lee. She leaned in to murmur into his ear.
“Tomorrow is the weekend, and everybody will be home. But when you come back from visiting your ma on Monday, come on over here late in the morning while everyone’s at their tasks and let’s see if we can find your daddy’s still.”
John Lee skewed a sharp look at her, then nodded once before he climbed up into the driver’s seat and unwound the reins from the brake. Alafair picked up Alfred and handed him to Naomi, who settled him on her lap. “You all have been right kind,” Naomi acknowledged.
“Call on us if you need anything,” Alafair told her.
“Yes, ma’am,” the girl stated in a tone of voice that was not particularly enthusiastic.
Shaw and Alafair, Martha and Mary, Phoebe and Alice and Gee Dub shooed little hands and feet away from wagon wheel and mule hooves as John Lee released the brake and clucked at the mule, and they moved slowly off into the darkness. Most of the Tucker family headed back up the porch steps toward the warmth and their beds, but two or three little ones escaped into the yard, skipping and shrieking.
“You kids get inside before you freeze,” Alafair called.
“Mama, Charlie tied a knot in my hair,” Sophronia’s voice yelped out of the darkness.
“You children get yourselves inside,” Shaw interjected, “before the panthers get you. It’s a cold night and the panthers need to eat little children to keep warm.”
The quality of the shrieking changed as Charlie, Blanche and Sophronia charged around the corner of the house and up the steps in a rush to elude the panthers.
***
Alafair dreamed that night. “Bobby!” she screamed, and the baby gasped and dropped the glass jar he had just drunk from. She scooped up the little boy in her arms. The parlor floor was covered with coal oil and glass shards and her bare feet were cut and bleeding. The baby was choking and turning blue. She crashed out the front door, leaving a trail of bloody footprints down the porch steps and across the yard. She started awake, and got up to check on her sleeping children.
***
Alafair was too busy on Sunday morning to worry much about her upcoming foray into the woods with John Lee to find Harley’s still. Shaw and Alafair rousted everyone out of bed long before dawn, so that cows could be milked and all the animals fed before breakfast, and Alafair and the older girls could prepare the dishes they would take to Grandma’s house for Sunday dinner. Before eight a.m., everyone was fed and washed and dressed, and packed into the wagon for the trip to town. They stopped by Shaw’s parents’ house on the outskirts of Boynton to drop off the food, then proceeded to the Masonic Hall, where the First Christian Church met.
After the service, Alafair lagged behind in the cloakroom with the younger children, so that she could supervise and assist as they put on their coats and hats.
“Fronie has a loose tooth, Mama,” Blanche informed Alafair.
“Is that so?” Alafair asked as she wrapped Blanche’s scarf around her neck.
Sophronia gaped wide and wiggled a front tooth for her mother’s inspection. Charlie, who was sitting on the floor adjusting his boots, looked up, intrigued. “I think she should show it to Grandma,” he said.
Alafair shot Charlie a stern look. Grandma was notorious for asking permission to inspect a loose tooth, then jerking it out of the unsuspecting child’s mouth amid howls of outrage from the victim and laughter from the siblings. Unabashed, Charlie returned an impish grin.
“Oh, I will!” Sophronia exclaimed, while skipping about and manipulating the tooth with her index finger. In spite of feeling guilty, Alafair smiled and kept quiet. Sophronia would undergo her rite of passage and join the sorority of the untoothed.
Alafair inspected buttons and knots, and dismissed the children one at a time. Blanche was suffering from a bunched-up sock, so Alafair knelt down to make the necessary adjustments, drawing off
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