House of Purple Cedar. Tim Tingle

he entertained the young children with tales of friendly alligators and silly rabbits. He told them of tiny men called Bohpoli, who teach the herbal cures. Twice he paused and sent Samuel to the house, once for a refill on his coffee and again to borrow a bowl of pipe tobacco from your daddy, the reverend.

      When the younger children were mostly asleep, he leaned close to the fire. “You know it’s wrong, real wrong, to hit somebody,” he whispered. “You all know better than to do that. I’m gonna tell you ’bout a girl that knew better but did it anyway.”

      Jezebel Jezzy

      “Don’t ever go to striking another person, not with a stick, not with your hand, not with nothing,” he said. “There was once an old Negro man who was married to an old Indian woman,” he began. “They children was grown and done left home. Then one day the old woman told her husband she was gonna have another child. ‘I been thinking we wuz too old for that,’ her husband told her.

      “Well, the old woman was thinking the same thing, but sure ’nuff, in the usual time come a baby girl born to this sweet old man and woman. The girl was very beautiful. She had the shiny black hair of her father, but it hung in long curls, like her mother’s. Her skin was a little bit of both, dark brown and red. She grew to be long-legged and walked real graceful-like. All the boys would stop and stare at her when she walked by. Her mother didn’t seem to notice much, but her father did not like it one bit, the way those boys looked at his daughter.

      “And how you think the daughter took to all this attention? Well, she liked it just fine, though she never let on. She was shy and wouldn’t look at the boys, like a girl ’spossed to be, when she was a young’un. But ’bout the time she come to being a teenager, that all changed.

      “They called her Jezzy, from her Bible name Jezebel, and why a daddy gonna let his baby girl be named Jezebel, I’ll never understand. Soon as she turned teenager, she started living up to her no-good name.

      “The trouble really started when Jezzy took a liking to a boy named Cecil. Cecil was long and lanky too, and he kept his hands in his pockets and hardly ever talked to anybody. But ’bout the third time he followed Jezzy home, like a lonesome puppy dog, she realized she had a fish on the line.

      “Jezzy finally took to passing by his house whenever she had a chance. Now Jezzy’s momma made baskets, river cane baskets, and she was good at it. Since she was old, she’d sit in the doorway when she worked, hardly moving at all. Jezzy brought her water and some little something to eat when she asked for it. Now this old woman sold every basket she made ’fore she made it, ’cause she’d color her baskets any way anybody wanted. She never had to leave her doorstep to make all the money she needed.

      “One day the woman saw Cecil hanging around the house, just leaning up against a tree over yonder nearby. That night she told Jezzy’s father, and next time Cecil come ’round, Jezzy’s daddy had a talk with him, told him to go away and not come back.

      “Jezzy was getting old enough to talk to boys, but her parents were too old to know it. So maybe Jezzy had a right to be upset. But when it’s your parents, being upset and doing something about it, they two different things. You still got to show respect. And that’s what Jezzy didn’t have. She had the good looks, but she didn’t have no respect, not for her parents.

      “One night Cecil come ’round her window real late, and Jezzy and him took off to the lake. They stayed for way too late. Next day her daddy, who was old but he wadn’t no fool, he saw the foot tracks by Jezzy’s window. He was waiting for ’em that night, till Jezzy was crawling out the window and Cecil was helping her.

      “When they turned to go, there stood Jezzy’s daddy. ‘Son,’ he said, ‘you come anywhere near this house or Jezzy, you gonna get a whipping you’ll never forget.’ And the old man waved a cane in Cecil’s face.

      “Jezzy tried to talk, but her old momma pulled her towards the house. Jezzy jerked away. ‘Take your hands off me!’ she shouted. When her mother reached for her again, Jezzy reared back and slapped her mother right on the face.

      “But when Jezzy tried to take her hand away, she couldn’t do it. Her hand was stuck to her mother’s face and she couldn’t pull it away. Her daddy and Cecil, they all just stood there and couldn’t believe what was happening. Jezzy’s hand grew into her momma’s cheek till the two were joined.

      “Nothing they could do about it. Jezzy slept next to her momma’s bed that night. When morning came they called the medicine man.

      “Medicine man said he’d never seen nothing like this. He tried with his medicine, but he couldn’t do no good. After a day or two, Jezzy’s momma went back to making her baskets, sitting in the doorway, with Jezzy trying to hide just inside the house. But everybody heard what had happened and they come by to see. ‘Cut my hand off!’ Jezzy finally said. ‘I can’t live this way.’

      “And that’s what they did. A doctor come by one day and real careful-like cut Jezzy’s hand off, ’bout wrist high. It bled something awful. He wrapped a bandage around it, even tried burning the stump, but nothing would stop the bleeding.

      “Jezzy died that night, bled to death in her own bed. With all the attention going Jezzy’s way, nobody noticed, up to now, what was happening with her mother. Jezzy’s hand still clung to her face, like Jezzy’s fingers were part of her momma’s skin.

      “As the months passed, Jezzy’s hand shrank till it looked like a dried hand of some little animal, like a dead raccoon.

      “Her momma still made her baskets. She sat in the doorway, facing her good cheek to the outside and hiding Jezzy’s hand. Sometimes when she first woke up, she’d forget about it. But when she washed her face, she’d feel her daughter still hanging on.

      “Cecil moved to the other side of the lake, all by himself. But finally come ’round the anniversary of when all this happened.

      “The moon was full and so was Cecil’s heart, full of memories. He rowed a canoe to the center of the lake and just sat there, with the waves washing gentle. He laid back and stared at the moon, round and pretty yellow. He was almost asleep when the waves started rocking the boat. Cecil sat up.

      “Rising out of the water, not twenty feet from him, come Jezzy, the ghost of Jezzy. She floated over next to him and held out both her arms, just to let him see her wrist was whole, now that she was dead. And every year after that, long as Cecil was alive, he’d row that canoe to the center of the lake to see his Jezzy.

      “And long as they were alive, Jezzy’s momma and daddy never forgot their daughter. They remembered how nice she was as a little girl, how pretty she grew to be. But mostly, they remembered the day Jezzy did what it’s even hard to talk about—the day she struck her momma.

      “Some things you just never ’spossed to do, and striking a innocent person, somebody weaker, is one of ’em, ’specially not if they be your own momma.”

      All but the oldest children had fallen asleep sometime during the Colonel’s story. They listened like it was all a dream, drifting in and out, but when Jezzy struck her mother, everybody sat up. Colonel Mingo had their attention when he wanted it.

      “Don’t never,” he repeated, “go striking a innocent person. That’s when real trouble gonna start.”

      Mingo and Hardwicke's Men

      Samuel Willis waited till everybody else was asleep before he rose, carried a bucket to the creek and drowned the fire, sending a smokey sizzle over the clearing. Younger children snuggled close to older ones.

      Even Colonel Mingo napped and woke up off and on, till Samuel touched his shoulder, saying, “Colonel. Wake up, sir, please.”

      “What? Samuel. I am awake.”

      “Some men, four of ’em, rode up not long ago. They been watching us, just out of firelight. There.” He pointed to a clump of trees in the direction of the house. Mingo eased quietly to his feet and said, “Sam, you stay here and keep a close eye on these babies. Don’t let any of