<< Go Back

Manuela Blayne (Covington Chronicles) (Volume 4)

By Mary Lou Cheatham

Order Now!

Chapter One
Herschel Blayne

Spring, 1910
“Girl, get your papa.” but
Although I’d heard Herschel Blayne yelling, I’d never seen him up close until the morning he drove his mule team near our front gate. Billy Jack, the twins, and me—no, I’m supposed to say I—stood outside looking for some mischief.
Herschel pulled his mule team to a halt. The dogs didn’t bark.
I started to go inside, about that time Papa Sam, holding his cup and saucer, stepped out onto the porch. “Morning, Herschel.”
When Herschel removed his hat, he showed us a frowning face. “Morning, Mr. Sam.” He lowered his head and shook it like he was overcome with despair. “Nettie’s done wandered off again. I need y’all’s help. We got to go look for her.”
“Trudy.” Bailey, my sweet little stepsister, pulled my pigtail. “Let me tell you something.”
“Shh.” I didn’t want Papa Sam to think we’d be too noisy or disrespectful, so I tried to shush the whispering.
Bailey threw her arms around my head. “Listen, Trudy.”
“What?” I wanted her to stop irritating me.
“I got to tell you something.” Bailey talked softer than a whisper. “One time when Nettie was working for Papa before you and me was sisters, I tried to get Nettie to tell me about her magic stuff. She wouldn’t though. She just got mad and told me to go play.”
“Really?” I spoke softly to her. “We’ll talk about it another time. Buddy, stop fidgeting.”
Arms folded in front of him and head held high, Billy Jack stood waiting. As usual he tried to look grown up. He was going into the ninth grade and considered himself a man. I had more maturity than he did. Only a few days ago I overheard Mama tell Papa Sam, “Trudy is so responsible.”
“Get your hats, kids.” Papa Sam walked back inside. “I’ll tell your mama.”
“We got to get going.” Herschel squirmed in his seat. He needed our eyes to help him. Nettie was so tiny she could be under a bush and he wouldn’t see her. Some horrible thing could happen to her, like a coyote could eat her up alive.
In less time than it would take a rooster to run across the yard, we loaded into Herschel’s wagon, and Papa Sam sat cross-legged in the middle of us. Herschel Blayne took up the whole front seat of the wagon. His belly hung so low between his legs he could barely sit. His back had no choice except to sway.
Stiff necked, he turned his chest around so he could aim his face towards us. That way he could see if we were loaded and we could understand what he was saying. “Y’all ready?”
“Go ahead, Herschel.” Papa made sure Buddy and Bailey didn’t sit too close to the back of the wagon.
We held onto the sides as Herschel clucked to his team and flicked the straps of leather that extended to the mules’ bridles. Off we went to look for Nettie.
None of us made any noise except Herschel Blayne. He put up a yelling noise like the kind he made when he was drunk. This morning, though, I was sure he was a sober man with the urgent business of finding his wife. He hollered so loud she would have to hear him if she was anywhere close unless . . .
“Ooo-ooh! Nettie.” His booming voice echoed through the hollow.
We started looking in earnest before we reached the edge of the back yard. Holding our hats in our spare hands, we peered into the woods. Papa Sam had a plan. “I’ll help you girls look to the left. Billy Jack and Buddy, your responsibility will be to look to the right.”
“We got to find her.” Buddy bobbed his head in an agitated motion. “We got to keep her from swallowing her tongue.”
Although I’d always heard of such a thing, I didn’t believe it was so. “How could somebody swallow her own tongue?”
“If you have a fit, your tongue will slide backwards down into your goozle.” Bailey, agreeing with her twin, looked at me as though I should have known.
“Oo-ooh! Nettie. Where are you, gal?”
Carrot-colored sludge filled the ruts in the road. No one seemed to notice the mud sloshing on us. We were performing a lifesaving mission. As soon as the mules pulled the wagon wheels through the bog to the dry spot of grass, Herschel tried to turn his head back toward us. “I’m gonna tie up to this here sapling.”
“Hop out.” Papa Sam jumped to the ground and lifted Bailey. “Listen up. We’re going to stay together. Don’t get separated.”
“Yes, sir.” All four of us kids spoke at once.
Papa told us, “If you don’t stay together in a tight row, you’ll have to hold hands.”
“Do I have to hold hands?” Buddy placed indignant fists on his hips. “I’m too big for that.”
“This is about finding Nettie and not overlooking her.” Papa Sam spoke in a stern tone.
We walked through tall grass and around blackberry bushes. Sweet gum balls crunched beneath our feet.
“Nettie,” Buddy called in his high-pitched, little-boy voice.
“Son.” Papa Sam grasped Buddy’s shoulder. “Let Herschel do the calling.”
We rushed on ahead. I so wanted to find her before some hungry animal came along and devoured her body, which could be lying, dead or in a trance, under a huckleberry bush. I shivered at the prospect of seeing Nettie dead.
“Whew.” Herschel, struggling to keep up, blew hard breaths.
Walking too fast, we weren’t allowing him time to search for her. Papa Sam slowed and held out the palm of his hand toward us. “Hold back.”
Nettie Blayne had a mysterious quality. When she had her spells, she left the ordinary world and went into some other kind of existence. She had power that none of the rest of us had. It seemed she went off into another world and experienced a secret kingdom we couldn’t know about.
I had a sensation she was somewhere close by. My brothers and sister may have sensed her nearness too, because a hush came over us.
Taking time to look under every bush and examine the tracks in the path, we passed through a thicket to a clearing.
Billy Jack, who memorized the foot and shoe patterns of everyone who walked near our house, pointed towards the ground with the acuity of a bloodhound. “She’s come this way. Here are her tracks.”
Following him, we accomplished our purpose. In a sandy spot lay Nettie Blayne. She flopped in every direction.
We four kids stood a good twelve feet away. Buddy grabbed one of my hands, Bailey grabbing the other. Billy Jack grasped Bailey’s other hand. We held onto each other in a chain formation.
“Don’t come any closer.” Papa Sam didn’t need to tell us. He removed his money purse from the back pocket of his overalls. Bending over her face, which was covered in foam, he tried to insert the leather purse into her mouth, but her teeth remained clamped tight.
She was too far gone to stop biting.
Buddy asked, “Why’d he try that?”
Billy Jack turned his head towards the rest of us in slow motion. “So she won’t bite herself.”
Her protruding eyes were rolled back so far they didn’t look any way but white. Sand stuck to her wet trousers. It smelled like she let her bowels go. I wished my nose didn’t work so well.
Every part of her moved in directions I couldn’t have imagined ahead of time. Her legs and feet pulled her body around like the hands of a clock, while her head, shaking side to side, stayed in the middle of the circle she was making.
After a split-second pause, she jerked forward and started rolling like a log.
A part of me prayed, another part stared with shameful fascination.
“It’s awful.” Bailey and Buddy hid their faces in my skirt.
Herschel looked down at her. “Nettie, I love you. I promise not to get drunk no more.” His voice quivered. “Please don’t leave me.”
Papa Sam backed away from her and came over to us. “Y’all all right?”
“Yes, Papa.” Our voices trembled.
Papa Sam patted Billy Jack’s shoulder, hugged me, and kept an arm around each of the twins. “I doubt if it’ll last much longer.”
 





Chapter Two
Nettie Blayne

A long time passed as Nettie flopped on the ground the way chickens did when Mama wrung their necks. It could have been a few minutes, but it felt like forever.
Nettie stopped moving. She looked as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened, but I didn’t dream it. She had made a circle in the sand on the ground. Sand clung to her dungarees, and a strong smell of number one mixed with the smell of number two. It was real. She shook her head and shoulders violently, then paused. Again she shook her head in a light repeated motion. The fit moved out, leaving her as still as dead.
Bending toward her with our heads craning, we eased a little closer. Two steps from her, the four of us kids stood in a semi-circle and craned our necks. Papa Sam and Herschel stood somewhere close by.
Whoa. She sprung up into a sitting position, we jumped back. She looked straight at us with a confused expression. “What are y’all doing here?”
“We come looking for you.” Having inched closer to her other side, Herschel, his belly interfering with his efforts to bend over, tried to help her stand up.
Swiping her flapping hands at him, she refused help. Nimble but unsteady, she raised herself until she stood.
He closed his hands on her waist. “I got to get you back to the wagon. It’s tied to a little tree up ahead.”
With one sharp nod, she showed she understood. Placing her foot in front of her as though she had to tell it what to do, she tried to walk. First she veered to the left and then to the right. Papa Sam and Herschel took her arms and led her.
Buddy, tugging at Billy’s shoulder, spoke too loud as usual. “Do you see what Papa’s doing? Can you believe it?”
“Lay down in the wagon.” Herschel helped Nettie stretch herself out. “We can make room for y’all.”
“No, we’ll walk.” Papa motioned for us to stand back.
“Much obliged.” Herschel gave Papa Sam a solemn look.
As we started back home, he told Billy and me—Buddy and Bailey already knew—what we were expected to understand about Nettie. “This happens every once in a while. Oh, I’d say every three or four weeks. She may go for months without having a seizure. Miss Nettie does fine most of the time, but now and then she tells Herschel she’s seeing stars in the middle of the day. She complains of a headache, and he puts her to bed.”
“How does she go off in the woods if he puts her to bed?” I asked.
“When he’s not looking, she wanders off. It’s like she senses she’s going to have an epileptic seizure and she wants to be by herself. Or maybe. . . .” Papa Sam hesitated. “Maybe she has something else going on inside her head that she doesn’t know how to handle. Something she can’t control.”
“I have an idea.” It seemed logical to me. “Maybe she thinks she can run away from the fit.”
Billy Jack slapped my shoulder. “Trudy Beth, when will you ever stop saying stupid stuff?”
“That’s enough.” Papa Sam cut his eyes at us.
We trudged in silence, fat raindrops patting our faces as we walked.
Billy Jack, whose official name was William Jackson Cameron, Junior, stepped in front of us and walked backward. “I have an announcement. Y’all listen to this. I’m about grown. I’m tired of being called Billy and Billy Jack. From now on, call me Will.”
“I like that.” Papa Sam shook Brother’s hand. “Now you are Will.”
“Hmm. I’m still Trudy.”
Bailey giggled. “Okay, Will, but if I forget and call you Billy Jack, you can still answer me.”
Papa Sam changed the subject. “Herschel told me their granddaughter Manuela is coming to live with them.”
 

Order Now!

<< Go Back