“Not a chance of that. I guess they both still sleeping in there.”
“God, yes—Ophelia is out cold.”
“We coulda left at noon and found her that way. Well, now I know for sure you ain’t much of a fisherman.”
“Huh?”
“There ain’t a serious fisherman on this island who would speak to any old woman before he casts. Bad luck.”
“I’ve always made my own luck.” A good firm laugh with maybe just a hint of bitterness. “Always.”
“That ain’t a foolish policy. One I leans toward myself. But if the tides was against us, we’d have to be frying both good and bad luck for breakfast.”
“Not necessarily. With the proper engineering, reels can be designed to work well in high and low tides.”
“Maybe so. But they ain’t designed fish like that.”
She sees he’s not gonna argue no more, although he don’t agree with a word she says. Polite. He thinks he’s talking to a doddering old woman, and if he had just thought it, she was willing to let it be. His undoing comes when it slips over to give a kinda oily coating to his voice.
“I’m sure they haven’t, Miss Miranda. I guess we should be on our way. Where’s your walking stick?”
“Where it belongs—in the house. I’m feeling more than good this morning.”
“No, I don’t think you should take any chances. It’s a pretty long hike to The Sound.”
“Ya know, I think you’re right.” If he notices the narrowing of her eyes, he don’t know what it means. “Run on over to the trailer and get my stick. We’ll head out to the ocean instead—through the east woods.”
They walk east into the sunrise, Miranda taking the lead. She don’t know these woods as well as the ones in back of her house, but none are too strange to her. She coulda easily taken him the opposite way hopping on one leg, through that smaller set toward The Sound. But there were more lessons to be learned in these. They were a bit wilder, stray creepers to tangle up his foot and let him stumble, a sight more hilly so he’d get a little winded, patches of waist-high bulrush for him to wade through. She’d keep him from the real danger: stinging nettles, poison sumac, or the suck mud that could break an ankle. This here was just to be a little spanking.
He takes it like a man, though, and she’s gotta admire the set of his top lip as he wipes the sweat off it quietly with the back of his hand. Never calling out when he skids to his knees on a wet clump of decaying toadstools. She stops every now and then to point out nesting cat birds or the rare glimpse of a red fox, so he can catch his breath. These here woods were terrible, she tells him, when her daddy was a boy. Weren’t nothing to see whole families of copperheads coiled around them low branches, and that little bit of slimy mud coating his suede sneakers and the hem of his pants is all that’s left of a tidal marsh that used to creep up to the edge of these trees. Most of the alligators disappeared with the marsh. Did he know that gators could sing? Sure enough. Naw, they don’t sound nothing like that—it’s a wild turkey if anything. And you couldn’t hear the few in the cypress swamp from all the way over here. Watch out for the leaves on those palmettos, they can cut like a razor. Step smart over these cockleburs, they’ll eat through the leg of them jeans. Too late! Well, just pick ’em out, but put a little spit on your fingers. Naw, that ain’t nothing but a rotten pine log—she told him before the gators disappeared with the marsh. Long way? Maybe it just seems so. See, they nearing the clearing at Chevy’s Pass—means the ocean bluff’s not far away.
When they reach the clearing, she needs a good second wind herself since she’s kinda double-stepped him for about four miles. Chevy’s Pass is a right pretty place. Open and flat with the ocean breeze almost always whispering through the hanging moss on a big ancient oak, sitting right in its middle. With the wind in any direction, you can smell the saltwater, but when it’s coming from the east you can taste it. Not a real heavy taste, sorta like you ran your tongue over your lips and touched a few dried tears. Just near where the woods sparse out is the lime tombstone of Bascombe Wade. Facing due east and still standing erect, it’s footed with the rich green vines of wild ginger.
George kinda crumbles down under the live oak, his sweat-soaked back propped against its trunk. He says he can see why a cemetery would sit up there, but it’s a wonder there aren’t more graves. Miranda throws back her head and laughs. She’s remained standing, leaning on her walking cane. Naw, that’s the only one, she tells him, and there’s a story behind that. Bascombe Wade used to have the whole island before he deeded it over to his slaves. Said he fell under the spell of a woman he owned—only in body, not in mind, Naw, nobody knows her name. But she got away from him and headed over here toward the east bluff on her way back to Africa. And she made that trip—some say in body, others in mind. But the point is that he lost her. He kept a vigil up here at Chevy’s Pass—he’s keeping it still. And when the wind is right in the trees, you can hear him calling and calling the name that nobody knows. Yeah, she had children—Miranda motions that it’s time to go—she had seven sons.
She watches George bend down and clear away the ginger vines so he can read the inscription on the stone. The early sunlight filtering through the edge of the woods forms barlike patterns on his back. It’s a good strong back, belonging to a good strong man. She fights back the urge that comes up in her to snatch him away from there. But it’s harder to fight not seeing the way them heart-shaped ginger leaves twine around his knuckles, as if they were pulling him in closer to listen, willing to hold him there until he does. Ain’t nothing he needs to hear around here—the sharpness of her voice surprises him when she tells him to come on. She places a hand gently on his forearm, saying there’s a bit of pain in her leg. So stay by her side in case she stumbles, and she’s sure glad now he made her bring that cane.
Miranda talks without letting up—through the fishing at the sea cove and on the journey back. She talks until they clear the east woods, until her voice is almost hoarse. Now, sea life, birds, and wood creatures, they got ways just like people. ’Cepting they live in the sky, the earth, the tides. So who better to ask about their home? You just gotta watch ’em long enough to find out what’s going on. She tells him what part of that forest she uses in the fall, summer, or spring. Differences in leaves of trees, barks of trees, roots. The tonics she makes up, the poultices, the healing teas. There’s something in here for everything, she tells him, if a body knows what they’re doing. Finding a rare growth of wild foxglove, she rips ’em up. Children might wander in here and there’s a reason it’s called dead men’s bells. But in her hands she could make the same medicine he uses for his heart. She tells him about the foxglove leaves needing two years’ growth and picking before the plant flowers. About the drying, layering, measuring, and watching. She talks what she knows, not what she’s afraid to remember. So the ginger vines on that tombstone whisper in vain under all her chatter. And she don’t say nothing about them, and least of all, Candle Walk.
She figures she ain’t gotta worry about George heading back in that direction again. He’s so tired his knees are wobbling by the time they get home. And them suede sneakers are sure messed up for good. It’s only a little past ten with them hauling in enough drumfish and mullet for Cocoa and Abigail to fry until next year. They can clean ’em too, she says—we went out and got ’em. Cocoa ain’t none too happy when she sees the condition her husband’s in. Where he ain’t muddy, he’s sweaty; where he ain’t sweaty, he’s scratched. He just about makes it to the bedroom, saying wake him up for breakfast. And he’s sound asleep on top of the covers before she can pull off his shoes and socks.
“The east woods? Mama Day, you didn’t.”
“Mama Day, you didn’t what? We took us a little stroll and got in some fishing. I don’t hear him complaining like you.”
“Because he’s knocked out, poor thing.”
“Aw, hush up. He’s not a baby. He made it back in better shape than I did—I even had to take
my walking cane.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself. You know about his heart.”
“Yeah, and mine’s been beating more than half a century before he was born. A hike that don’t kill me, won’t kill him. He’s in there resting them city legs, that’s all. You wear him out more in that bed at night than I wore him out.”
“You’re one fresh old lady.”
“And you better clean my fish.”
I was showing a pair of nines with an ace kicker, and twenty cards out with no one else showing higher than kings and not a possible straight in sight. I called and raised, got a five in the last deal, which didn’t worry me too much with my ace in the hole—that’s right, the proverbial ace in the hole—and he still beat me. My pair of aces and nines went down to Dr. Buzzard’s full house. And that’s when I was sure he was cheating. Even if we forgot the odds for that hand (they had been running six to one for me; fourteen to one for him), it was pretty hard to believe that an entire game could render one player three of a kind or better through the last twelve hands. But no one else was having problems believing it; they had gotten to his campsite talking that way.
He had said around eight, but I was the first to arrive. There was an open fire going and lanterns had been hung in the trees so the top of an oak stump we’d be using for a table was well lighted. Most folks sit on the ground or pull up a rock, he said, but he had borrowed a special canvas chair for me. I appreciated that because my thighs and legs were still sore from following Miss Miranda, but the south woods were a playground, considering what I’d been through that morning. Here I only had to follow his instructions and stay on a well-worn path that led me straight to his campfire and still. And since I wasn’t a drinking man, he said, there was a six-pack he had cooling down in the stream. Budweiser. He shrugged his shoulders. Nothing but grownup Kool-Aid, but he wouldn’t feel right not having a little something for all his guests.
“You got my nachos?” Parris, the barber, was the first to arrive, his bald head gleaming under the kerosene lanterns. Keeping it shaved off was good for business, he had told me a few days before.
“Yeah, I got your damn nachos.” Dr. Buzzard grinned.
“And I got your number tonight.” Parris jingled a bulging pocket full of change. “I ain’t losing more than two dollars if I’m losing a dime.”
“Buy one of my gambling hands and you’ll cut your losses even more.”
“Nigger, I don’t need your gambling hands. You’re talking to a man who’s played with the best in the Ninety-second Division. We had colored boys there from Miss-is-sip who could make a card cry.”
Parris asked me how much I was planning to lose. And when I told him that actually I was planning to win, he and Dr. Buzzard found that very funny. Parris took his place, leaning back against the trunk of an old palmetto—facing east was good for his luck—while Dr. Buzzard brought him his bag of nacho chips and poured him a paper cupful of clear liquid from an earthen jug.
“In honor of the city boy, y’all getting my best stuff tonight—no second run of mash here.”
“I’ll remember that and take pity when you’re howling about only two dollars from me.”
Junior Lee was next to arrive, accompanied by a man who was introduced to me as Rickshaw. I had already met Junior Lee when he came to your grandmother’s with his wife. He wouldn’t be much competition—“I don’t care how much I looose, I’m rolling in moneeey toniiight”—a good poker player needed sharpness if anything. This man was so soft, he was eerie. The one with him was a bit different, dark skinned and tall but eager, much too eager for a nickel-and-dime game. Did I know Reema—she ran the ladies’ beauty parlor? No, I didn’t. Well, he was husband to Reema’s oldest gal. Dr. Buzzard asked Rickshaw how Carmen Rae was doing—heard their baby was down with the croup. Rickshaw said yeah, it was pretty terrible for a while. He was doing better now, thanks to Mama Day. It was a good thing she never took no payment, he wouldn’t have as much to spare tonight. And he hated leaving a game early.
It was totally amazing: each in his own way expected to lose. Rickshaw was the only one who wanted to buy a “gambling hand.” Dr. Buzzard said he’d sell him one for only a dollar tonight. He might need medicine for his baby. Rickshaw said he’d rather pay full price—he didn’t want no half-assed gambling hand. Dr. Buzzard said no, it would be a good one—live frog and all. I was told the chamois bag had lodestone, sugar, black pepper, and cayenne in it. It definitely had a frog, because the thing kept croaking while we played. All of it was beyond ridiculous to me. The man, Rickshaw, was actually happy with his little red bag since he’d lost only a dollar fifty by the sixth hand. He was normally a much worse player, he confided to me, but look at how he knew to fold even showing a queen high on a possible pair before the third deal. The whole night was boiling down to that: how quickly do you fold—give up the dream—a battle between yourself and the possibility of the ever elusive royal flush. A straight flush, maybe. It was never a question of you against the man with rooster feathers in his hat, jumping up to refill cups, bringing in new bags of nachos, padding Rickshaw’s seat with his sleeping blanket—and probably hiding jacks between his thighs. Parris finally took a pot with four of a kind. You should have seen the jubilation.
But I had gotten awfully angry by the twelfth hand. Stud poker was my game—with my experience, there was no way for me to come out less than even and I had lost more than anyone so far. I had learned to play at Columbia in a mathematics course dealing with game theory. I came out of that course with an A and a solid grounding in analyzing problems of conflict by abstracting common strategic features from an infinite number of conflict situations. And once you had distilled those handfuls of strategic features, you devised methods that could give you what is called “a most favorable result.” The dozens of matrix charts I had labored over in graduate school proved that, all things being equal, there is a payoff matrix within the axis of maximizing a minimum result and minimizing a maximum result. In short, if Dr. Buzzard wasn’t palming jacks between his thighs, stacking the deck, or marking the cards—whatever he was doing—I wouldn’t have lost consistently for twelve hands and been out five dollars and twenty cents. I had played and bet in absolute proportion to the odds.
But I had learned something else in that math course: the study of game theory includes learning the principle of “extensive form”—a branching diagram in which at each juncture a player has several options to continue a course of play. The bizarre type of poker we were playing fit right into that. The pure strategy I’d been using wouldn’t work to my advantage against him; I needed to introduce the formulas for behavior strategy. I had to discover exactly how he was cheating in each hand and then weigh those variables out to my advantage. In a way, the other guys were doing that, but to minimize their losses. I was going to win.
It took a little while. If my first show card wasn’t the highest, I’d call whatever the bet was and always fold after the second deal—once even with three of a kind—to sit there and watch. I soon found out the cards were definitely marked, but that could only help Dr. Buzzard when he was the dealer. It was too shadowy for him to see the nick he had made in the left corner of the aces on our hole cards when someone else dealt them out. I asked him for another beer, although I’d barely touched the first one, and while he went down to the stream, I made a pretense of idly toying with the cards and nicked all the deuces in their left-hand corners. This cut his advantage in half at least, and more than that until he figured out what had happened. With Dr. Buzzard dealing, I played the next round through and Junior Lee won with two pairs—one pair was my deuces.
The next pot went to Parris, holding only a king high, the next to me with a pair of jacks. When Rickshaw took the next with three aces, a pall began to fall over our circle. They all looked toward Dr. Buzzard, extremely puzzled.
“Well, what is happening heeere?” Junior Lee let out a low whistle.
“Beats me.” Dr. Buzzard shrugged. “
Y’all wanna change the cards?”
“We better do something,” Parris said. “This mess is becoming a mess.”
Dr. Buzzard snapped the rubber bands off a new deck. He extracted the two jokers—and a seven of hearts. I had him now. I adjusted the odds for a fifty-one-card game with no seven of hearts in any hand but his. And with stud poker always showing four cards, it wasn’t too hard to see when that seven could possibly help him and hurt me. Slowly, I broke even and then began to win. Now all eyes were on me—and were they, I thought with amazement, suspicious? Afraid? Yes, a bit of each. The joking ended completely then. No one talking to or kissing their cards. No joy when Rickshaw came up with a full house. He raked in the pot to his corner as if the coins were dirty. The crackling of the dying fire and the shuffling of the cards were the only things punctuating our silence. The calling went on by rote, everyone folding early in the next hand except for me and Dr. Buzzard.
The others became so still they could easily have not been there. Just myself and the old man with deep lines of concentration added to the others in his forehead, a slight quiver in his tightened bottom lip. But I was paying more attention to his hands, waiting for him to exchange his hole card with the hidden seven of hearts. His fingers were long and delicate, the palms callused with hardened ridges along each joint. Dancing hands. You could imagine them supporting his lean body in a handstand, moving to music. But they were sweating now, little flickers of moisture staying on the surface of the coins he fed into the pot. I called and raised him after my third card was dealt. The aces were running in my favor again. With the third deal I was showing two of them and had an eight of clubs in the hole. Dr. Buzzard was showing only a deuce, a six, and a jack high, but all were hearts. With his hidden card that meant the possibility of a definite flush; with his real hole card that could be anything from a lower pair than mine to a legitimate flush if it was a heart. The fourth cards were dealt: a deuce of clubs for me, a ten of diamonds for him. Gone. Gone. Gone. I called and raised—big. Rickshaw let out a long expulsion of air, Junior Lee started to hum, and Parris leaned forward in a fervent whisper, running his palm over his shaved head. “What ya got working there, Buzz? What ya got working?”