Alligator Bayou - Donna Jo Napoli [32]
“It was a warning. Did it come too close? My eyes grow poor. Lucky for you I do not carry my gun today.”
“Your gun!” I slap my hand on my forehead. “Your gun, your gun.” Tears roll down my cheeks, but I’m still laughing. I fall to my knees, this time with my hands in prayer. “Thank you, San Cristofero,” I say in Sicilian.
Joseph pulls me up again. “Do you have weak knees?”
I laugh again and shake my head. “I thanked a saint for making you not carry your gun today. He protects travelers.”
“Does your saint steal bullets?”
“No.”
“Then you can thank him if you want. It is good to give thanks. But he does not deserve it. I do not carry my gun because I am out of bullets. Bullets cost money. I can make arrows for free. Come catch your horse.”
We find Granni and calm him down.
“You came at the right time,” Joseph says after I explain why I’m here. “I fire pottery when the moon is full. Last week the moon was full.”
I want to ask where my pot is, but it feels rude to rush.
Joseph offers me berries and some kind of mash. “Rest from the heat.” He sits under a tree and weaves pine needles.
“What are you making?”
“An alligator basket.”
I shiver.
Joseph blinks at me. “You do not like alligator?”
“Who does?”
“He can be ugly. He can be dangerous. But he is honest. He is who he is. You treat him with respect if you want a free life.”
What’s he talking about? I’m getting the jitters. I watch him weave. A basket could be a birthday present for Rocco. I gather an armload of needles and sit beside him. “Will you teach me?”
“Children and women weave baskets,” says Joseph. “Not you.”
“You’re a man, and you’re weaving a basket.”
“I am the Tunica tribe. The Tunica tribe weaves baskets.”
“I am Sicilian,” I say. “There are six of us in Tallulah. My uncles and a cousin. And two in Milliken’s Bend. No women or children. I am not the whole tribe. But Sicilians weave baskets.”
Joseph looks at me with new interest. “You are an orphan?”
I’m taken aback. “No.” Then I falter. “I don’t know. My mother died last summer, and my father came to America years ago. We never heard from him again.”
“You are alone in the world.”
“No. I have a brother in Sicily. As soon as he’s old enough, I’m sending the money for him to come over, too.”
Joseph scratches his chest. “You cannot weave. But since you are an orphan, you can listen. The Tunica tribe is good to orphans.”
I don’t want him calling me that. But if he’s decided I’m an orphan, it doesn’t matter what I say. I scootch across the ground and rest my back against the base of the tree. And Joseph tells me a story.
The Tunica people lived in a mountain with two alligators outside the entrance. They wanted to come out into the world because they’d been in that mountain since the beginning of time. But the alligators wouldn’t move, and they were afraid. So they fasted and said prayers to all nine gods. To the sun, the thunder, and fire—the three most powerful ones. And to the gods of the north, west, south, east, the earth below, and the heaven above. It worked; the alligators slunk aside. One was red and the other was blue. When the red one turned over, the world got hot. When the blue one turned over, the world got cold.
“That is how the Tunica people entered the world and found seasons,” Joseph says. He pauses, but only briefly. He tells of beans and corn and floods. He warns against killing frogs (because the world will dry up) and killings kingfishers (because a storm will come ruin you). His voice grows creaky as he talks of the tricks the rabbit plays on everyone, even the gods.
I’m Catholic, so I know the world is full of miracles and mysteries, but I don’t believe that at night animals turn into talking people and alligators have mystical powers.
Still, there’s something about Joseph’s storytelling that catches me. I’d like to stay and listen except it’s getting late. “I have to hurry.”
“I know. Your face tells me.” He doesn’t get up, though.
Joseph reads my face. But I can’t read his. He never even cracks a smile except at his own jokes.
“One more