Cynthia Bond - Ruby

“I ain’t going nowhere.” The New York woman had washed away, leaving the girl from Liberty.

“Come on in baby, you getting wet. Ain’t nothing out here won’t keep ’til morning.”

The sky rolled thunder like a pair of dice. Ruby bored holes into the black of the woods and mumbled, “Man get back inside, you — you a good man, but don’t mess with things you don’t understand.”

“School me.”

Ruby looked up again and shook her head in futility. The rain grew thin for a moment and he knelt beside her, put his suited knee into the mud. “Didn’t nobody ever teach you to test a bridge before you cross it? Try me.”

Ruby pointed her knife towards the dark woods and growled, “Git back!” Then she whipped around and snarled at Ephram, “You spoiling my concentration. Sit down or get back inside.”

So Ephram sat on the earth and got wet. Wetter, as Ruby stood the night vigil, knife at the ready. Finally she said, “You think I’m crazy.”

“Naw, I don’t.”

“Well, you wrong. I’m crazy, but that don’t make me stupid.”

“Then tell me what you’re watching.”

Without turning her head she took one step onto a bridge named Ephram. “A man. One without benefit of flesh and bone.”

Ephram stared into the black dark.

“Who is he?”

She paused, then whispered, “Don’t know.”

“What does he want?”

Ruby glanced quickly at Ephram. “My children.”

Ephram sat quietly. He wanted to reach out to her, touch her free hair. Instead he put both of his pinkie fingers into his mouth and whistled, sharp and clear through the rain.

“What—?”

He stopped for a moment. “They say haints hate the sound of it.” Then he resumed. It was a sweet, clear warble that sang through the raindrops and echoed against slick trunks. Ruby watched him, whistling in waves and crescendos, and sure enough the thing waiting in the woods slowly ducked back and slunk away. Her heart slowed in her chest and she looked at this man. After a good long while she said, “You can stop now.”

So he did. “Did it work?”

Ruby let a smile tremble on her lips as she nodded yes. The rain moved off to the southwest while the wind blew in warm, and carried a bit of lilac along its edges.

“Good.”

Ruby looked at the waving sky. Ephram reached his open palm to her. “Come inside?”

“I’m staying out here on this hill tonight with them.”

“Then I am too.”

“No,” New York crept back, clipping at the heels of her words, “they need my full attention.”

“Maybe I can help.”

“You can’t.”

“Maybe I can.”

“You don’t know nothing about them.”

“You could tell me.” He reached out then and brushed back a ringlet of hair from her cheek, slipped it behind her ear. He caught hold of her eyes and said, “Ruby, tell me about your children.”

“I’m cold.”

Ephram stood and went into the house.

The truth was that Ruby had stories decades old that she had folded up and tucked away between her spine and her heart, tears she had shed in silence, private moments of pride. The truth was that she wanted to share the burden. Ephram came back and held a blanket between them. She unbuttoned the shirt he had given her and let him drape the warm blanket over her shoulders. The night air dried like sheets on a clothesline, crickets commenced their nightly song and lightning bugs sparked in the distance. Ruby began to speak. The waxing moon lit the small graves that covered the land.

“They’re tarrens. Spirits of murdered children.”

“How — where they come from?”

“Different places. They’s too many stories to tell. Some found me. Some I watched the crossing. One hundred thirty-seven stories in all.”

“Tell me one.” Then he gently brushed his hand over the top of the nearest grave. “Tell me this one.”

Ruby let out a low breath and looked at him, unsure.

Ephram nodded.

“All right then. All right then.” She paused a good long while. “You remember Miss Barbara we talked about so long ago in Ma Tante’s house?”

“The one my mama worked for?”

“That’s her. Well, you know I worked for her too.”

“Yes.”

“You know how churches have bake sales to raise money?”

“Yes.”

“Well some of the people who hurt me, hurt my children, they had sales too, ’cept they didn’t sell cakes.”

“Tell me who this child is Ruby.”

“I’m telling. But it’s hard to grab ahold of where to start.”

Ruby felt Ephram slide closer and pet her tenderly on the forehead, then along the turn of her neck. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere, Ruby. You spin it how you see fit.”

SHE MADE several stops and starts, then, since there was no nice way to start, she just told him. About the place in Neches. About where she went when she left town. About Miss Barbara’s Friends’ Club and the change she collected in the candy dish. She told him about the first man, she told him about the last and the many in between. She told him what a quarter could buy.

She told him about when the little blond girl had run off and Miss Barbara had had a fit. How they had each of them been questioned until the rumor spread she’d run off with one of her “friends,” the one who liked to hit, hard. How Tanny and Ruby had talked about it and how they feared for her life. The two girls talked about a lot of things during the morning when they were supposed to be sleeping. Tanny would sneak into Ruby’s room and paint the world on the white of the ceiling. They talked about what they would do when they left, where they would go. Tanny said Albuquerque because she liked the way it sounded and she had seen a picture postcard of it once. Ruby said New York because that’s where she knew her mama had gone. Then Tanny said if that’s where Ruby was going she supposed she’d have to go with her.

In the four years Ruby had been taken to Miss Barbara’s, the girls had become something more than friends. Ruby was ten now, Tanny eleven. Some lucky days Miss Barbara put them together as a team. Those were the best because it wasn’t so bad to have company when face-to-face with a friend. Tanny would wink to her during the worst of it and make it pass all the better. The thing Ruby loved most about Tanny was that no one had taken the time to break her spirit before she got there. After four years she still stuck out her chin, still giggled with Ruby about the funny frog men.

“We lucky they keep us together sometimes,” Tanny said one evening after a man with a bad cold had left.

Ruby nodded, putting her tip in her dish, then handing Tanny hers.

Tanny smiled. “Ole Mr. Fart Face so ugly his mama slapped herself when he was born!”

Ruby laughed. “You really do remind me a’ my cousin Maggie. Maggie fights all the time.”

“Mama usta say I come out her with my dukes up.” Tanny smiled softly to Ruby. “It ain’t so bad, though, least these men got a time limit. Ain’t like we livin’ in they house.” Tanny leaned into her, eyes flashing. “But I tell you what. They send in another one sneezin’ all over me I’ma knock!” Tanny played like she was a boxer. “Him!” Fake punch in the air. “Out!” She held up her hands in victory. They laughed, leaned against the wallpaper.

“Damn, they’s a hole in the window in my room. Can’t tell shit time in here, day or night.”

“Seem like night.”

Tanny looked over at Ruby. “You know what? You sure pretty, girl.”

“Ugh ugh.” Ruby shook her head no. “ You is,” Ruby answered back.

They were quiet for a moment.

“Sometimes I wonder if that’s why they pick us. Cuz a’ how we look.”