The Backwoods Part 13

"Yes. It's been so long since I've had a good look at the Point. It's much more beautiful than I remember."

"I gotta head down to the pier to check 'n' see if the new crab traps got delivered. Why don't'cha come with me?"

"Sure," she said, and followed him down the trail. They went in and out of several stands of pine trees. Around them the fields behind Squatterville blazed green in the sun. The scenery lulled Patricia, but not enough to take away all of that irritating s.e.xual edge left over from the daydream. As she walked behind Ernie, she had to consciously force herself not to look at him: the toned, tan arms, the tapered back, the strong legs. This d.a.m.n place is becoming an aphrodisiac, she thought, and there's no reason why. She tried to clear her head, following on.

"I love that smell off the bay," he observed. "Salty, clean."

"Mmm," she replied, taking a breath herself.

"No pollution, like everywhere else on the bay. Christ, most other places think the bay's just a place to dump their garbage."

Yeah, like D.C., Patricia had to agree in her thoughts. Now, through breaks in the trees, she could see the mirrorlike s.h.i.+ne off the water, and, high in the sky, the finches and crows were replaced by seagulls and pipers. Another few minutes of walking took them down to the town dock, where a dozen piers jutted out into the water. Some wooden buildings stood up front, where several Squatter men looked up, nodded briefly, then resumed their tasks of sorting rigging ropes and stacking bushel baskets. Ernie briefly walked to one of the dock buildings, grabbed a clipboard, and began counting what looked to be several dozen brand-new crab traps that had been stacked there: simple chicken-wire boxes dipped in black latex to prevent rust. A cylindrical compartment inside each trap held the bait, and then each trap was dropped out in the bay, marked by a floating buoy. The boats would all go out as early as four in the morning, drop their traps, then dredge oysters and clams for a few hours, after which they'd haul up their traps, empty them, and size the crabs. Almost all of the boats were gone now, but Patricia did notice a few moored to the piers-long, wide, shallow. dingies with little motors at the back.

She walked over to Ernie, who was still busy counting traps. "I'm always reading in the papers about how bad the crab harvest is in the bay. What's so special about Agan's Point?"

Ernie pointed outward, where the bay stretched several miles across. "Out there? The current's too strong, not many crabs." Then he pointed to a series of sand berms that could be seen just breaking the surface a mile or so out. "But those berms cut the current way down in the Point, which is ideal for blue crabs. Then there's the freshwater runoff, keeps the water cooler and lowers the salinity. That's why Agan's Point crabs are bigger 'n' heavier than crabs anywhere else. The perfect environment."

"So why don't the big commercial crabbers come out here?"

"It's not worth their time or money. They have to come too far, and their boats are too big. Agan's Point waters are too rocky 'n' shallow for their big rigs. So they all go south 'n' leave us alone. The Squatters use flatboats to get around these shallow waters, and they always bring in the same number of bushels a day, and not one more than that, ever. The rest of the bay's been fished out, but not Agan's Point. The Squatters stick to their daily haul limit and never break it; that way there'll always be plenty a' crabs. We only sell our meat to the better restaurants and markets in the county, and that's it, and because Agan's Point crabs taste so much better than the other stuff, our buyers pay more per pound."

"What makes them better?" Patricia asked. Now she was sitting at the edge of the pier, waggling her feet in the cool water.

"The meat's sweeter 'cos the salinity's perfect and the water's cooler 'n' cleaner. It's that simple." Ernie hung up his clipboard, apparently satisfied with the trap delivery. "And another reason the company's got a higher profit margin per pound is 'cos of the lower overhead." He pointed to another pier, where several men sat down at tables next to some large picnic-type coolers. "Most crabbers use chicken necks fer bait, but what ya need to know about the Squatters is that they don't waste anything."

Patricia didn't get his meaning; she leaned up higher from where she sat, squinting at the men. Now she heard a continuous series of thwacking sounds. . . . "What are they doing?"

"Like what I was sayin'," Ernie went on, leaning against a stack of traps. "The Squatters live off the land like n.o.body's business; they don't spend a dime on food unless they need to."

Patricia's bosom jutted as she leaned more urgently to see what the men at the tables were doing. "I still don't-"

"It ain't just crabs the Squatters trap; it's everything. Rabbit, possum, muskrat, squirrel. When they're done guttin' and trimmin' what they catch to eat, they chop up what's left. Sc.r.a.ps, guts, feet, 'n' tails. And that's what they use fer crab bait."

Patricia shuddered a moment when she finally realized what the men were doing: chopping up animal sc.r.a.ps and innards with butcher knives and then depositing the portions into plastic jars punctured by holes. Each jar was then put into a cooler.

"Them jars there?" Ernie explained. "When the boats go out tomorrow, they put one a' them jars in each trap. Best crab bait ya can get. And it's free."

It sounded very practical-but grisly. "I can understand rabbits and squirrels-I ate plenty of that when I was growing up," Patricia noted. "But you said the Squatters even eat muskrat and possum?"

"Oh, sure. I do, too. Muskrat's tough to dress, but it tastes like ham, and on a possum the only thing ya eat is the back strap. Tastes like the best pork tenderloin ya ever had if ya marinate it right, and the Squatters know how to do it." He tapped her on the shoulder, looking down. "You'll be able to try some. This weekend is the Squatters' celebration feast. You'll think you walked into the county fair, and they'll be cookin' up everything. These people know how to cook."

Her feet in the water relaxed her. She looked up at him, frowning. "Ernie, I don't mind eating a little squirrel and rabbit, and crabs are fine too, but now possum and muskrat? That's roadkill, if you ask me."

"You'll try some," he a.s.sured her. "One thing I remember about you from way back is that you were always adventurous."

"Not that adventurous," she declared. It occurred to her in the briefest moment that her position-sitting down at the pier's edge as he stood over her-afforded Ernie a considerable view of her cleavage and possibly even her nipples, given the leeway of her loose ivory blouse. Again, she hadn't put a bra on, and she'd been oblivious to that fact until just this second. But when she glanced back up at him to say something, he was looking out at the water, not at her. What the h.e.l.l is my brain up to now? she asked herself. It's almost like I want him to be looking at me . . . but if he's not, I'm disappointed. I'm so screwed-up! Then her original question resurfaced. "You said they're having a celebration feast?"

"Yeah. Every month-every half-moon, whatever that means. They got some weird ways."

The Squatters were notoriously superst.i.tious but . . . Half-moons? she wondered. "So what are they celebrating?"

"Life, I guess-in their own way. Nature, the crab harvest, the food they get from the woods. But when ya think about it, it's the same thing as our Thanksgiving."

Patricia supposed so. All societies, even today, seemed to have some ritual of giving thanks for the abundance of the land. "What religion are they, though?" she asked next. "I never quite got it."

"I asked Everd once, and he said they're wors.h.i.+pers of nature and love, or some such, and left it at that. But then ya see a lot of 'em wearin' crosses along with all those knickknacks and stones around their necks. Their own kind of Christianity, I think it is, mixed with other stuff."

How interesting. Like Cuban Santeria and the obia of the Caribbean, these religions amalgamated old African folk magic with traces of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Even Haitian voodoo borrowed patron saintdom and idolatry from Christianity. And now that Ernie had mentioned it, she looked back at the men chopping up the crab bait and noticed that one of them wore around his neck what appeared to be a cross made from small animal bones.

"See, right out there," Ernie said, and pointed out to the bay Patricia focused out on the water. At the end of the berm, near the inlet's mouth, she spotted a wide plank sticking up out of the water; on its face someone had painted a cross.

"Everd supposedly blesses the Point every morning," Ernie said.

But Patricia was still looking out. There were actually two planks, she noticed now, the second sunk directly into the sand berm. But it wasn't a cross painted on it; it was some sort of a squiggly design. "What's that second one there?"

"Some kind of clan good-luck sign," Ernie said. "Don't rightly know exactly."

More superst.i.tion, Patricia realized.

One of the Squatters approached them, a k.n.o.bby-kneed man in his fifties, with a sun-weathered face and the trademark coa.r.s.e, jet-black hair of the Squatters. He seemed to be bearing the lid of a bushel basket as a waitress would with serving tray.

"Howdy, Regert," Ernie greeted him.

Regert, Patricia thought. What a strange name.

The man kept his eyes downcast, the way servants wouldn't look directly at their masters, another thing that had always struck Patricia as strange. "Miss Patricia, Mr. Ernie." He returned the greeting with a curt nod. He set the basket lid down on a dock table. "We made ya both a clan breakfast. Hope you like it. It's a blessing from the land."

"That's mighty nice of ya, Regert," Ernie said, then to Patricia: "This is great; come 'n' have some."

Patricia got back up to look. Two tin tumblers of liquid sat on the tray, along with a plate of shucked oysters and a bowl of . . .

What are those? she wondered. Prunes? Figs?

"Try our home-brewed ald, miss," Regert said, pa.s.sing her one of the tumblers.

"Thank you, Regert," she said, mystified. Ice cubes floated in the tumbler full of a thin pink liquid.

Ernie took a gla.s.s for himself. "You could almost call it a Squatter highball."

Patricia rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to have a c.o.c.ktail at nine in the morning!"

But Regert sternly responded, "The clan do not imbibe, miss. Our bodies are gifts from on high, temples of the spirit. Everd the sawon says so, and we follow his word. The clan will not disgrace our bodies with alcohol, the elixir of the devil."

Patricia was amused. This guy sounds more like a Southern Baptist.

"There ain't no booze in it," Ernie a.s.sured her. "It's stuff they make from roots 'n' bark, stuff like that."

It didn't look terribly appetizing. "Well, you're the one who said I was adventurous," she dismissed, and took a sip.

Her lips pursed at once. It doesn't look good, and guess what? It tastes like it looks.

Ernie laughed. and downed his in one swig. Patricia elected not to offend Regert's hospitality, so she just said, "It's . . . very interesting."

"Tastes like chalk at first, but give it a minute."

Patricia would give it more than that. Then she noticed that Regert, like some of the others, also wore a cross pendant, which appeared to be made from tiny vine twistings, and a dark stone hung from a second pendant. By now she had to ask, "That's an interesting cross, Regert. So you're a Christian?"

Regert nodded, still not making eye contact. "Yes, miss, the clan believe in G.o.d's only Son, and in the earth that He has bestowed and in the deliverance that He has promised, and in the earth and in the water and in the holy universe."

Now that's a mouthful, Patricia thought, nearly bidden to laugh. The holy universe?

"And earlier you referred to Everd as-what did you say? Asawon? That means he's, like, the governor of the clan, right?"

"No, miss. Only G.o.d is our governor. Everd is our seer."

The comment piqued her. "You mean like a psychic person, a visionary? He sees the future?"

Regert seemed on guard for some reason, less enthused to answer. "No, miss. The sawon sees the paths that G.o.d wants us to travel in life, and he shows us those paths."

Patricia was about to ask him to elaborate, but he quickly nodded again with the same downcast eyes, and excused himself. "Good graces be with you both, but I must return to my work, which is a gift from on high."

And then he was walking away.

"Thanks, Regert," Ernie said after him.

Patricia watched the man amble back to one of the dock sheds.

"Yeah, they definitely got their own ways," Ernie commented.

Patricia agreed. "They're very gracious people, but . . ." She slid her tumbler away. "I can not drink any more of this."

"You'll have some oysters, though," Ernie said, eyes alighting on the plate. "Remember how you 'n' me used to see who could eat the most when we was kids?"

Patricia felt touched by the memory. "Of course."

"And you always won them contests, if I remember right.

"Yeah, I guess I did." But oysters, like crabs, she'd always loved; she'd practically been raised on them. "These are huge," she remarked, looking at the sprawl of six-inch sh.e.l.ls on the plate.

"The Squatters dredge a couple a' bushels every morning." Ernie slurped three in a row raw off the sh.e.l.l. "Then we sell 'em to a few of the local markets for two bucks a dozen; then the markets resell 'em for about four."

Patricia sucked one down, curling her toes, it was so fresh and briny. "In D.C. they'll charge close to twenty dollars for a dozen oysters in a restaurant. And these are ten times better." When she turned up the next sh.e.l.l to swallow the oyster meat, a gout of juice ran down her chin and neck. Great. Now I'll smell like oysters all day.

Ernie ate a few more. "I never did figure out if it was true what they say, though."

Patricia stalled over the comment. Earlier she'd been abstracting that Agan's Point seemed to be working some obscure aphrodisiac effect on her, and now here was Ernie-whom she'd already had a s.e.xual dream about-mentioning the same supposed effect of oysters. But did he mean anything more? He had a crush on me for years, she thought. And we never did anything. We never even kissed. "I think that's just an old wives' tale," she finally said. Her next oyster spilled more juice on her. "Jeez!"

"Gettin' more on yourself than in your mouth." Ernie laughed.

This time the juice ran down her chin and continued right down into her cleavage. She felt s.p.a.ced out for a moment, and suddenly she was fantasizing again: Ernie pulling her blouse off without a word, and licking the delectable juice out from between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Next she imagined herself fully naked, right here on the dock, more and more juice running salty rivulets down her stomach, filling her navel, trickling down. . . .

And Ernie licking it all away.

G.o.d, she thought, feeling flushed.

The oysters were gone now, and Ernie addressed the last object on the bushel lid. "Naw, I don't know about oysters, and I don't know about these, neither. But just ask any Squatter. They'll tell ya these are the best aphrodisiacs in the world."

Patricia was glad for the distraction; she looked at the bowl. "Figs?"

"Naw. They're pepper-fried cicadas, and the ones we got here are the biggest of 'em all. They dust 'em in wild pepper, then fry 'em in oil."

Patricia simply shook her head. "Ernie? There's no way on earth I would ever eat one of those things. They're bugs. And I don't eat bugs."

Ernie grabbed a handful from the bowl, munching on them. They crunched like fried wontons. "Aw, don't chicken out. Believe it or not, they taste kinda like asparagus, but crunchy."

"Bugs don't taste like asparagus; asparagus tastes like asparagus," Patricia said. "I'm not eating bugs."

Ernie ignored her. "You grab one by the wings, like this. . . ." His finger plucked one up. "Then pull it off with your teeth. But don't eat the wings. They're like wire." He demonstrated, eating another, then plucked one up for her. He held it right before her mouth.

Patricia shook her head with vigor, insisting, "No!" Then she closed her lips tight.

"Come on. Like the Squatters say, it's part a' G.o.d's bounty. Don't be a chicken. Won't kill ya to try somethin' new."

Patricia smirked. s.h.i.+t. I can't believe what I'm about to do, she thought, then ate the t.u.r.d-looking thing off his finger. It crunched between her molars, but actually tasted interesting, not repulsive. "Not bad," she admitted.

"Good. Have another."

"No! One bug's my limit. Now let's go!"

Ernie chuckled as they walked off the pier, the sun beaming on the water behind them. "What's that building there?" she asked of a long white-brick structure just up from the dock. "Another washhouse?"

"Naw, that's the line."

"The what?"

"The new pickers' building. We call it the line."

Patricia noticed small windows and a number of window-unit air conditioners. "It looks new."

"Three, four years old. In fact, I think Judy told me once that it was you who lent her the money to fix things up. So she had that built. You remember the old pickers' shack that your daddy built, don't ya?" "Yeah, and now that you mention it, it was . . . a shack," she said, thinking back on the old rickety open-aired building. Squatter women would sit together at long wooden tables inside, monotonously picking the meat out of hundreds of crabs each per day. "Can we look inside?"

"Sure. In a way, it's yours." He opened a metal door, after which cool air gusted out.

A peek inside showed Patricia why they called it "the line." Like a production line, she thought.

Over a dozen Squatter women-from eighteen to sixty-sat at long wooden tables. Cooked crabs would be dumped in the middle of the tables, and from there the women would dismantle the spiny, bright-orange creatures and begin to pick the meat out of them. Each woman wielded a small, unsharpened knife with which she'd tease chunks of the white meat from intricate inner sh.e.l.l channels. The meat would be flicked into plastic one-pound containers, which, when filled, would be scurried back to a walk-in refrigerator by a younger Squatter girl. Another girl would hurry back and forth, removing the sh.e.l.l debris.

"They do it so fast," Patricia remarked.