Through Trees

Abstract

Through Trees Shelonda Montgomery (bio) "My name is my Daddy's name, Earl Lee Johnson," Old Man Johnson say sitting on the front porch of his old log cabin, carving a stick into a knife and talking to his dog Bullet. Said he gone kill something with the knife when he done carving it. Not sure what yet, but he gone kill something. Momma say he lived in this neighborhood for years; say he built his house deep in the woods with his bare hands and don't like nobody coming around it. Tuck and me hide behind a tree with a slingshot. My lucky rock in the barrel ready to go. Tuck my best friend from school. We in the same class and live on the same street. Momma told me to come straight home from school because she said too much be happening out here. A few weeks ago, Margate Thomas's daughter Elsa May went missing. Elsa was lean like a stick and use to walk hunched over with her arms wrapped around her books. Her hair was always tucked behind her big ears and brushed her shoulders when she walked through town. Her mother know everybody and everybody know her because she part of the church, the school board, and is always in everything and in everybody's business. Elsa use to pass our house when she use to take the back road home from school. She use to walk by all fast and try not speak. Momma use to say, "How you doing, Elsa May!" and try to make her speak, but Elsa use to wave her hand all dry and keep walking. She didn't even look our way. When she went missing, Ms. Thomas, hysterical with her red hair matted, nightclothes on, and red eyes soaked with tears, went looking for Elsa May all over town. Then everybody went looking for Elsa May. The police brought in search dogs and helicopters, and the search was so big that people from all over walked with their arms linked and checked fields, bushes, behind barns and around train tracks. People looked and looked but didn't find no trace of Elsa May. My momma don't want the same thing to happen to me. Tuck momma and daddy don't either. Today we was on our way home, but stopped to mess with Old Man Johnson because he told our parents we be ditching school to go fishing. My momma was mad, and Tuck daddy got him. Now Tuck step on a stick, breaking it and making it crack. "Shhhhhh, he gon' hear you," I whisper to him. "Sorry," Tuck say. "Be careful." "Said sorry." I peek out again and see Johnson still carving that stick and talking to Bullet. Bullet look at him like he don't care much about what Johnson saying. They say Johnson named him Bullet because a long time ago when he first got him, he use to run as fast as could be and be on your back before you knew it like a bullet. Bullet old now. White fur seeping in like grass around his black mouth and his red, watery, tired eyes so droopy they look like they gon' slide off his face. He ain't much of a bullet no more. Now he lay half falling to sleep at Johnson's feet with his chin flat on the porch like he waitin' for death to come take him. "What he doing now?" Tuck try to whisper but it's more like talkin'. "Shhhhhh. You gon' get us caught." I whisper. "Sorry," he say. I step up a little and look at Johnson. Then I slither behind the tree. "Same thing," I say. [End Page 335] I peek again, aim my slingshot at Old Man Johnson's eye and snap it back like a marksman. The rock fly in the air, ricochet off the windowsill and knock Johnson's hat off his head. Johnson look at his hat, which landed beside Bullet. Then he look at us. He squeeze the real knife in one hand, the carved one in the other, jump up, and starts runnin' toward...