Fiction Friday

 

ARTIFACTS

By Jimmie vonTungeln

 The fierce August heat poured from the sky without mercy upon the solemn fields. Below, nothing moved or showed any signs of life except the efforts of a small boy darting like an atom below the cruel sun. He hopped along a turn-row from one stalk of cotton to the next. The loose soil burned hot enough to scorch the soles of his feet, but at row’s end, the cotton threw a small circle of shade, providing relief for the traveler. He rested in each shadow for a moment before hopping to the next and, with this strange rhythm, reached the trees along the edge of the bayou where the dark forest promised relief. He reached into the pocket of his overalls to make sure his prize was still there, that it hadn’t bounced out or found a hole and escaped. Feeling its cool, polished form, he smiled and entered the woods, safe from his ordeal by heat. The woods enveloped him like a mother’s arms might wrap around a young child and the vast fields of cotton again lay unmarked by human activity.

            Inside, giant, brooding trees shut out most of the sun’s light so that the boy felt the cool damp soil against his bare feet. He eased to his right and found a familiar trail, then struck for the bayou. The forest was quiet like the world on a frost-covered morning and the boy shivered at its majesty. He moved with a knowing assuredness among the vines and bushes. Before long, he spotted his target. He approached without making a sound on the soggy leaves.

            The old man sat in his place, like a piece of the ancient vegetation itself. A rusted five-gallon bucket provided a seat. He held a long bamboo fishing pole over the water and a white flour sack on the ground held, the boy knew, both bait for fishing and food for the old man. The man sensed, rather than saw, the boy and he spoke without turning his head or removing a battered pipe from his mouth. “Marse Robert,” he said.

            “Hey,” the boy replied. “They bitin’?” He found a spot to the old man’s right and sat.

            “Mostly slow, today,” the man said. “How you doin’?”

            “I’m almost six years old. My birthday’s day after tomorrow—August 21.”

            “Well now isn’t that something?” The old man eased the fishing pole forward until the baited hook emerged. Then he swung the line toward him, grabbed it and inspected the bait. A mangle of worms dangled in several directions and he found no sign of molestation. He adjusted the cork—a relic that had long ago been retrieved from the top of an empty snuff jar—then slid his hand along the line towards the hook. Turning away from the boy, he spat on the bait and tossed it back into the bayou. Late summer rains had flooded the banks and the dark, sluggish water pulled the cork toward some unseen destination until the line went taut and stopped it.

            “I was born in 1920,” the boy continued when he saw that the man was no longer occupied.

            “You don’t say,” the man said, pulling the pipe from his mouth and exhaling a puff of smoke which floated across the bayou like ghost seeking a companion. “You be grown before we know it.”

            “How old are you?” the boy asked.

            The old man looked at his pipe. “The ‘chidren’ says I must be pushin’ on the door of 90 years or so,” he said. “I don’t rightly know.”

            The enormity of the number stunned the boy and he drew is knees up and stared at the meandering water. Then he remembered. He stood up in that single, fluid movement that only the young can accomplish and thrust his hand into his pocked. He retrieved his prize and thrust it toward the old man. “I fount an indian ‘arrerhead,’” he said. He held a perfectly formed artifact of pure black stone, contrasting against his small, white hand. The stone approached five inches in length and still held the sharp edges and fine point that its maker had first chipped into it.

It was too large to fit an arrow’s shaft. It doubtless had formed the head of a small spear. The old man regarded it, admiring its symmetry and the perfection of the creator’s art. “You shore fount a beauty there. Wherebout’s did you get it.?”

“Up the bayou aways, on the edge of the field the day after it rained. Hit was just a layin’ there. Poppa said Indians used to live here before we did.”

“They did indeed,” the old man said. He took the pipe from his mouth again and looked at the boy, bent toward him slightly to increase the importance of the moment. “Would you like to know something?”

“Sure,” the boy said, infected by the old man’s solemnity.

            “I remember when there were Indians here, at least one family. I remember when that last family left.”

            “You never…,” the boy started. The man’s look stopped him. “How could you remember indians? Ain’t that been long time ago?”

            “It has for a fact,” the man said. “But I’m an old man and I wasn’t much older than you when the last ones left.”

            “Where were they at?”

            “Right down on this very bayou. This land wasn’t all cleared then and they lived in a lean-to right down near the edge of the water.”

            “Did you ever talk to them?”

            “Never did,” he said. “They kept to ‘theyselves’ and nobody ever went near them far as I knows.”

            “What happened to them?”

            “They just disappeared one night. Somebody noticed they left and nobody ever knew a thing about where they went.”

            “Did they leave anything?”

            “Not that I ever saw. When folks disappear like that, ain’t usually much left of them, ‘cept something like that there thing you holdin’. Folks finds things like that ever now and then.” He nodded for emphasis.

            They boy stood without moving, absorbing this information and turning it around in his mind. The man returned to his fishing and his pipe. After a time, the boy closed his fist and returned the artifact to his pocket. “See you around,” he said and started walking upstream.

            “Yassuh,” the old man said and moved to inspect his bait again.

            The boy found a trail and followed the water as it edged sullenly toward its destination. From time to time, he felt in his pocket for his prize. It seemed to grow larger, he thought, the farther he went upstream. He thought about what the man had told him, and he thought about how the old man’s eyes had seemed to sparkle as he talked, almost as if a mist settled on them. He seemed to see the mist again and he felt as if he could see through it right into his own existence until he could almost see the very essence of what made him himself. He shuddered, “Indians,” he said to himself. Then he stopped. He had made a decision.

            The bayou was about to make a bend and he knew the trail would end. This was the perfect place. He searched among the trees until he found what he needed—the stump of a large tree left when a storm had taken its top. He scooped up a double handful of the soft mud at the water’s edge and carried it to the stump.

            He formed the mud into a small, smooth base. Then he went back to the water and washed the mud from his hands and wiped them dry on the legs of his overalls. He walked back to the stump, and looked at it, examined the small mud bed he had formed, and evaluated the worthiness of his handiwork. Then he took the artifact from his pocket and examined it as if he were seeing it for the first time. He held it in both hands, aiming the point upstream and into the impenetrable forest ahead. He slowly, and with as much respect as he could muster, laid the object on the bed of mud, pointing into the unknown. Then he backed away and stood still until he felt himself merging with the woods, the bayou, the artifact, and even the old man still fishing downstream. Maybe even, he felt, with the vanished ancients themselves. He felt himself becoming dizzy and then he felt a shaft of light coming from beyond the trees. He turned towards it and started from the forest.

            He whistled now as he walked.