Absalom's Daughters by Suzanne Feldman Page B

of my own singin’.” Judith put a hand in her pocket and pulled out a dirty, folded bill so that the women guarding the table could see it. It was a single dollar. She must have saved her laundry nickels for a month. “Now if you had a dollar, we could go in on one o’ these reddios.”
    â€œI ain’t got a dollar,” said Cassie, which was true.
    â€œWell,” said Judith, “these look a bit junky. If I was gonna buy one, I’d get me a brand-new model.” She looked back at the ladies and put her chin up, as though the whole county was watching. “Come on an’ let’s look at the guns.”
    Cassie followed her through the thick of the crowd, which was white folks closer to the barn, where the auction would be later that afternoon, and colored farther away. Cassie knew Grandmother and Lil Ma were over by the house negotiating for the wringer and would be looking for her. She tried to see through to where the wringer might be on the porch of the crumbling old house, but there were too many people in the way. She stuck with Judith as Judith pushed past old women and little children, until she got to the table with the guns. Most of the people there were men. Judith shoved right in, turned, practically under some farmer’s armpit, and waved Cassie toward her.
    â€œLooky here.” A sledgehammer-sized revolver lay in a row of rusted pistols. “You know what that is?”
    The barrel was big enough to stick a finger in. Its trigger was thin and rusted. Cassie shook her head.
    â€œThat there’s a horse pistol from the war a-tween the states. We got one at home, exceptin’ ours in better shape. Still got some shootin’ left in it.” Judith picked up the gun with both hands and held it out straight, aiming in the general direction of the barn. “He a heavy old thing. I wonder if he got a name.”
    What always impressed Cassie about Judith’s lies was that she never seemed to spend even a second coming up with them. It was like she had a store of spontaneous stories at the tip of her tongue. “Why would it have a name?” said Cassie.
    â€œOurs do. He’s called Big Red.”
    â€œIt’s a red gun?” said Cassie.
    â€œNope,” said Judith. “He’s named for the horse he had to shoot. My great-great-great-granddaddy came home on his horse from the war a-tween the states with that pistol, and there weren’t nothin’ to eat. And my great-great-great-granny said to him, ‘Suh, we gonna have to shoot Big Red an’ butcher him, or we gonna plumb starve.’ And my great-great-great-granddaddy said, ‘Over my dead body, woman,’ so she shot him, and then she shot the horse.”
    â€œShe killed your granddaddy?”
    â€œShe shot him in the leg so he couldn’t get in her way. Then she held onto his gun so if he got vengeful about the horse, she could defend herself. She taught my great-great granny how to shoot it, and she taught my great-granny, and granny taught my momma, and my momma taught me.” She hefted the pistol with both hands. “I’ll teach my daughter one day.”
    Cassie left Judith to decide where to spend her dollar. She found Grandmother at the back of Tawney’s old store. The wringer sat at an angle on the ancient, sagging veranda. Lil Ma stood near the veranda, on the ground in the weeds, her hands pulled back into the sleeves of her coat. Grandmother stood under an oak tree a little ways off. One of Miz Tabitha’s aged female relations was on the disintegrating porch, holding herself up with a cane, counting bills. Cassie recognized old Mrs. Tawney, Mister Elmer’s great-aunt. It was rumored that she was over a hundred years old and had shot at the Union troops from the top story of the Tawney house. Cassie had always believed this because her age made all the other elderly women around her seem young in comparison.
    Old Mrs. Tawney