Sam and Margarite

The year 1962. The place, Ralph, Alabama. Meet Sam and Margarite Warner.

The moon was still visible in the pre-dawn haze. Sam dragged the weathered hoe from its keeping place beneath the house. He closed his collar against the lingering chill, adjusted his hat and started off into the corn field. Dew drenched leaves slapped against his work boots as he walked to the farthest corner of his half acre parcel. He positioned his aging body, raised the hoe and began striking the damp dirt. An arthritic warning shot through his left shoulder. “Umph!” He grunted. He repositioned himself and continued unearthing the weeds that defiantly reappeared each morning.

A blanket of sweat covered his face, seeping into the corners of his slightly open mouth and into his eyes. It pooled at his chin, falling in droplets with each movement, and ran in streams down the hairless patterns of his chest and back until his shirt was soaked through. Still he continued the methodic chore up one row and down the other stopping only after he had pruned the entire field. He dropped the hoe to the ground, arched his back and pulled his arms tight behind him until his bones creaked. He was hot and thirsty.

‘Haaachht! Pfthoo!’ Sam hocked and spat out the wad of dust and phlegm that collected at the back of his throat. Then he called to his wife.

“Margarite! Send some ice water out here!”

Using his hand to shade his eyes against the sun, Sam gazed at the back of the house. Pale gray smoke rose from the black stovepipe. Familiar aromas drifted lazily on the morning air -- burnt pine, coal and fresh pork.

He called her again. “Margarite!”

He picked up the hoe and began the walk back, keeping his eyes glued to the kitchen window for a glimpse of his wife. At the clearing between the cornfield and back yard he stopped and leaned against the big oak tree. Pfthoo! He spat on the ground again. “Ornery old woman,” Sam said out loud.

Although the house was closer now, it looked small, dwarfed by the backdrop of thick woods––his woods. It had once belonged to Buck Stevens, one of the mostly white land owners that lived in Ralph. It had been surrounded by wasteland. Rotten land, as Buck had called it, not worth the time or the money it would cost to cultivate. Still when Sam approached him about buying Buck had charged him twice what the property was worth.

It had taken two years of back breaking labor, eight full seasons of just getting by, to clear off enough of the land to bring the ground to life. And after that first harvest Buck tried to renege on the sale. He claimed he had been drunk when he signed the bill of sale, said he thought he was signing sharecropping papers. Buck vowed to right that error in County Court.

On the fateful day before Sam was to go before the judge, his wife saw Buck at Eli’s Dry Goods Store.

“How you Margarite?’ Buck greeted her.

“Fine, how you Mr. Buck?”

“Sam gon be on time t’mar ain’t he?”

“Umm hmm.”

“Well you tell him he better be on time t’mar. Tell him ain’t too many White men ‘round here would let a Colored git away wit cheatin ‘im as long as I did, but I won’t bring no charges if he just sign the papers. You tell him Judge Bo’vil gon be presiding t’mar and he would just as soon throw a Colored in jail as to look at him. You tell him that cha’hear?”

Margarite’s granddaughter was with her. She gave her granddaughter a penny and sent her off to buy candy. She was smiling when she looked up at Buck.

“You ain’t got to worry ‘bout that Mr. Buck, Sam’s gon be right where he’s supposed to be in the morning, and you gon git everything back that you supposed to git. I’ve got to see ‘bout my grandbaby now,” she continued, “but I will tell Sam what you said.”

Outside the store Buck sat down with three other men for a game of checkers. Margarite nodded as she walked past them. Abruptly, she stopped and stomped her foot in the gravel. “Ump,” she said to herself, “that’s a stinging bee.” Then she took the little girl’s hand and walked off.

Buck Stephens barely noticed her leaving. He took his turn at the checker board, picked up his Co-Cola bottle and took a long drink from it. A surprised expression flushed his face and for a moment Buck froze. Then he gagged. He coughed and gagged again and the bottle fell from his hand. His began clawing at his throat, which had turned bright crimson. The men watched, frightened and helpless, as Buck’s massive frame collapsed in front of them.

At the appointed time the following morning Sam Warner sat in the empty courtroom of the Honorable Judge Matthew Beaureville. Judge Beaureville waited in his chambers a full hour before entering. Grudgingly he dismissed the charges against Sam due to the petitioner’s failure to appear in court.

The coroner’s report said Buck Stephens died from bee venom poisoning. He found three Yellow Jackets in Buck’s throat with their stingers lodged in his windpipe. Although suspicion and rumor spread to the contrary, Margarite had nothing to do with Buck’s death. She had known, though, that day she saw him in Eli’s store would be his last. Just as she had known Sam was going to call her before the thought was fully formed in his mind.

Her tongue tingled, her temples pulsed, and her mind filled with his silent words––“Margarite! Send some ice water out here!” Moments later the sound of his voice followed the path to her ears.

“Margarite! Send some ice water out here!”

She pulled the block of ice out of the Frigidare and began chipping away at the corners. Sprays of coolness launched into the warm kitchen dotting her face with refreshing droplets. Sam’s insistence that water be brought out to him aggravated her. Making him wait gave her a sense of retribution.

“Margarite!” he called again.

“I hear you,” she said to the empty room. She pulled a large Mason jar off the shelf and filled it with ice chunks.

In an adjoining room, their granddaughter, Lexi, sat rocking a stuffed blue panda in her grandmother’s rocking chair. The girl whispered softly in its ear.


“I got to go Teddy.” she told it lovingly. “You be a good boy.”

She kissed the Panda’s fuzzy head and placed it carefully in the chair before she walked to the kitchen.

“Lexi!” Margarite called.

“Here I’m is, grandma.”

“Oh!” The girl was already standing behind her. “Child you ‘bout to scare your old grandma to death. Go get some shoes on so you can take this water out to your granddaddy.”

Sam called again. “Margarite, send dat gal out he’ah wit dat ice water! Y’he’ah me?”

“She’ll be right out, Sam!” Margarite finally shouted back to her husband through the open window.

Lexi returned, still barefoot. “Take this out to your granddaddy,” Margarite instructed Lexi, frowning at her feet.

Margarite followed her to the porch steps and watched her cross the yard. She sensed something,––hairs coiling and uncoiling on the back of her neck––some warning yet unclear. “Careful now,” she said “don’t waste that water.” Margarite’s heart was beating like a drum under her apron bib.

The ground was cool. Lexi dug her toes deep into it. She hated shoes. Up ahead she saw her grandfather waiting, watching her thoughtfully as she entered the path to the clearing.

“Wa-ter boy-yee! Come on now, hurry up with that water!” He teased her.

Brownie, the hound dog puppy, lay tied to a plumb bush eyeing the girl as she approached. Lexi moved nearer to the edge of the path out of his reach, farther and farther, until she disappeared entirely into the corn field. Brownie lunged, yelping and tugging against the rope with all his might.

Sam picked up his hoe and waved it, shouting a warning at the whelp “You betta shut up that fuss, fo I kill you!”

Fear ripped through Margarite’s chest like daggers. She leapt from the porch steps and sprinted across the yard into the corn field. “Sam, bring the hoe!” she screamed.
Sam darted across the freshly chopped rows, ripping leaves as he went. “Git back!” he ordered Lexi just before he reached her. The hoe swung into the air and slammed into the dirt. Once! Twice! Three times the blade hit the ground before Margarite scooped the startled child into her arms.

“Got’damn rattlesnake,” Sam said between staggered breaths.

“See Sam.” Margarite wheezed, shakily. “She don’t need to be bringing no water out here. She too young to look for snakes.”

“Here’s your water Papa.” Lexi offered Sam timidly. She held out a drenched arm and a nearly empty jar to her grandfather. He took it from her and she wrapped her arms tight around her grandmother’s neck and started to sob.

“Awright now molasses,” Sam comforted, patting her gently on the head. Sam raised the jar to his lips. “Arrrrgggh,” he growled, shaking his head quickly. “Good water.”

Lexi looked up at him through her tears. Sam gave an approving nod and the three of them walked back to the house. Brownie wagged his tail proudly as they passed the plum bush. Sam stopped to pat his head. “Good boy,” he told him.

“Arf!” Brownie agreed.