Cherokee Blood

Chapter 1

“Cherokee blood?”

“That’s what I said. You got a problem hearing?” His chiseled face glistened in the moonlight, and he took a solid step forward.

“Naw. Naw. I was just thinking that you might be related to some of my folks. You know they had Cherokee blood running through’em. Well, I guess that means I got it too. Heck, maybe we’s related.” He chuckled.

Jim was tired from helping Mr. Crowe finish stock the store and sweep the make-shift wooden floors. He was tired of the Snell boys, too. Every night, or at least it felt that often, one of them would be waiting for him. They would throw comments his way. He could not figure out what they wanted from him or why they thought it was a wise idea to taunt him. When he was angry, he could create a might of hurt, but his mama had taught him to count to ten and say a little prayer before doing anything he might regret later. The numbers and prayer had helped. He hadn’t been in a fight since he had beaten the Johnson boy deaf.

He had deserved it, though.

Tonight it happened again. Sam Snell had met him on dusty Hwy 64. He was short, about the same height as Jim’s baby sister and had a mess of red hair. Jim wondered why Sam’s mama didn’t take lye soap to his pimpled face. Jim just walked past Sam.

“You ain’t gonna say hello? I heard you Injuns weren’t too friendly, but that’s just rude. You raised in a barn?”

10. . .9. . . .8. . . .7. . . “Injun? Sam you know I ain’t no Injun, and if it makes you feel better ‘bout yourself, hello.” Jim snapped around and looked Sam in the face.

“I heard you got Injun blood.”

6. . . 5 . . .4 . . . “Well, I suppose I got some Cherokee. My mama’s grandmama was full blooded.” Jim always felt proud when he talked about his mama’s grandmamma. She was a regal woman with dark skin and coal eyes. She could talk the fire out of burns and spin fantastical stories about her Indian kin. . . .3. . .2. . .1 . . Dear Lord: Please prevent me from hurting this fool. Thanks, Jim.

There they stood with Sam chuckling as he thought about his make believe Indian family. He was playing with the buttons on his shirt and nodding his head.

“Sam you ain’t no Cherokee. Your family’s from Ireland or England or some other Yankee place. They might even be I-talian. You better just go on home, and tell your older, bigger brothers to come out next time.” Jim turned, waited, and when he heard Sam’s feet crunch the dried grass, he started to walk again.

Every tree, shrub, and flower was dead, scorched from the Georgia sun. The residents of Brooksville had a hard time living through August. The heat was without mercy, and as the heat rose, so did tempers and long-standing feuds. More people died in August than in any other month, and most of them were not heat-related deaths, at least not directly.

Jim looked down the road, and for as far as he could see there was a pinkish-red ribbon running straight to the horizon. What would happen if he just kept walking? He could follow the red clay to the edge of the earth and perhaps fade into it. He might like to fade into whatever lay beyond the end. A traveling salesman wearing a light brown suit and a fancy cap told Jim that in other places the dirt wasn’t red; it was black. He had told the salesman he was crazy, but he believed the salesman. He couldn’t imagine it, but he believed him.

Maybe the grass was grey and the sky was yellow in other places. Then, there was the ocean. There had been a girl at school who had seen the ocean once. Her name was Lucy. Lovely Lucy, he had called her because she had a habit of saying everything was, “Just lovely.” She had helped him pass their geography test.

“Oh, the ocean is just lovely. Deep blue reaching to the light blue sky, and then they just run together, and there are waves with white foam that rush up on the sand. I miss it. It was so lovely. Georgia borders the Atlantic Ocean.” It was on the exam.

What did the Snell boys want with him? He had thought that perhaps they were just jealous because he was tall and lean, and all of the Brooksville women called him handsome, but it wasn’t like boys to get into fights over who looked better. That was a woman’s fight. They were mad about something, though.

He tried to remember what he might have done to offend the Snell’s. He wasn’t scared; just perplexed. The entire family came to Mr. Crowe’s store on Saturday mornings, and he had always been friendly and helped Mrs. Snell pick out a good ham. Mr. Snell had died about one year ago, and since then, Mrs. Snell had stopped keeping pigs. She wanted her boys to focus on their studies, and she had never much cared for the pigs anyways. The Snells once had a pig that won the county fair. It had painted toe nails and a perfect curled tail, but Mrs. Snell didn’t even go to the contest. Even so, Jim had always been nice to her. He knew that he had never uttered a cross word or even looked at the Snells the wrong way.

He had followed the road as far as it would take him tonight. He was home, and he could see the lantern still burning in the kitchen. He had told her he was not afraid of the dark, and there was no need to waste the fuel, but she didn’t listen. She still left it out, and he had started to think that perhaps Mama was afraid of the dark. She said she was afraid that he wouldn’t see his dinner left on the kitchen table, and a 17-year old boy needed to eat. His dinner was in the same place night after night. He couldn’t miss it, and he could have sniffed it out if she decided to trick him and move it. Mama didn’t play tricks.