Southern Cross the Dog by Bill Cheng Read Free Book Online

sorry sag-ass mamas, and Teague would snap the whip in the air, rubbing his wrists and elbows. Real tight now.
    The men would close their eyes and feel the breeze move over their naked parts. The lash came down hot and sudden. They’d jerk against the pain, digging their bodies into the bark. Those who cried out, Teague would whup harder, lashing his shoulder down, and when the D.C. boys checked in on the camp’s progress, they’d nod to each other. They’d picked the right man for the job.

    THERE’D BEEN RAIN THAT SATURDAY night and the men came in, shaking off their clothes and hair, cramming into the makeshift barrelhouse. The whiskey stores were running low and their mood with it. Eli took the bench and began to play. He hadn’t had anything in mind particularly, just noodling to pass the time. He played something slow and blue and wearied and the men slouched down in their seats. They looked up at the ceiling, at one another, at the long lashes of smoke that ghosted the air. No one stood. No one danced. Eli shut his eyes, listened to the rain. The world was filling up.
    When he opened his eyes again, he was surprised to see Emaline there in their barrelhouse, the one white face in a sea of black ones. The others watched her in shock as she moved through the drifting smoke and took a seat near the piano.
    What was that you were just playing?
    Oh—nothing, Eli managed to say. Just a blues.
    A blues?
    He could feel the others watching them. Hear their low voices.
    Your brother know you out here with us?
    Don’t talk to me about Homer. Not now.
    Well, all right, he said.
    It’s pretty, she said. Whatever it is.
    Thank you, Miss Teague.
    She touched his hand and he took it away.
    I need to see you, she said.
    She rose and he followed her out, well aware of how it would look. They passed out into the rain and ran across to shelter underneath the equipment shed.
    They tell me that you can do things, she said. With powders and such.
    Eli was silent for a moment. Something was happening. What it was exactly, he could not say. There was something. A change in the air. A hardening in his gut. Yes, he said after a while.
    I need help. Her voice was weak and small.
    It was dark around them and he could not see her face.
    I don’t lay tricks for your kind. White folks, I mean. It’s not something that’s done, Miss Teague.
    They were silent for what felt like a long time. Eli could feel the liquor working through him, the warm ache inside his skull. She was crying, he realized. He let himself put his hand across her back.
    What’s wrong?, he asked.
    Oh, Eli, she cried. I don’t know how to begin to tell you. The pain is unbearable, you must understand. I’ve not been able to eat or sleep in weeks.
    She seized his hand and laid it across her stomach. There’s this pain in me, spreading like a fire.
    Eli looked at her and swallowed hard.
    You been to see the doctor?
    He can’t help me, she said.
    Eli nodded. Okay, he said. Come back here tomorrow night. I’ll have something for you.
    That night he hunted through his pouches for birthwort and pennyroyal. By candlelight, he ground them down with the edge of a lucky nickel and knit up the powder in a worsted sachet. He cut a slice of cohosh root and blessed it twice with St. Jude oil. He tucked it under his tongue, let the bitterness seep into his jaw.
    There was a devil in everything. In the good and the bad, in the water rising into his mouth. In every outstretched finger of his hands. In the secret inside her belly. Eli turned to his shaving mirror. The hardening in his gut had not gone away and he felt anxious. For what, he could not say. He looked at his reflection, as if for the last time. He asked for protection. For Emaline. For himself. Would it work? Had it ever? He blew out the candle. He was not sure.
    The next night, she was where he’d told her to be. The moon hung above the river, blighted and bad