Week 4 Feedback Exchange

[Sherry Miller]

What I learned…Yes, every class, all of them, improved my work. I know class is ended but didn’t get to post some of my work for comment in What I Learned…segments. I chose The Ending lesson here. I believe it does show climax and growth and ends the way it should. That’s interesting but some of my earlier scenes in the book need improvement to get to that point. I will make the necessary character changes. So… here is my scene. From last chapter of my book, “Without Whimsey.” In the climax, my pampered slave girl, Mattie, had just had an altercation, not with the slave catcher she was running from, but the town cobbler (a self-serving businessman, a snitch, pretty evil) He snatches her coveted magic mojo bag. He flings it in the river. After throwing it, he gets his due Karma. He slips, slides in the mud, smacks into the turbulent water (a stormy night) and disappears. The thing is, Wild Bill, who knows how much this bag of memories means to Mattie, jumps in to save it. Mattie runs along the river bank calling to him. Fearing for his safety. She doesn’t want to lose him like she lost her brother, Whimsey. Flashbacks of her brother come to mind. Seeing Bill go under, she goes crazy, thinks he’s drowning. Then a hand shoots out of the water, dangling the mojo bag. The part I’m posting takes place just after this. When Wild Bill convinces her to move on. They are in the woods about to perform an Indian ceremony like Wild Bill does sometimes to make things right. While getting ready, he tells her how the family was sneaking slaves out by trickery. A decoy wagon full of poo. (The Hickok family was really part of the Underground) They talk about a tall tale he told. About a canoe used as a boy’s casket.

My oh my. Lordy, Mattie thought. How clever were the Hickoks. Outsmarting those slave catchers like that. No one could accuse them of hiding slaves now. They wouldn’t find them in the ‘wrong’ wagon. Or inside the house either by the time they came back.
“The ‘right’ wagon will go far as Ney’s,” Wild Bill said. He hesitated. “Without you.”
“Oh?” Mattie was surprised. “Why? Thought I was – ”
He cleared his throat. “Maybe I don’t want you to go.” He looked away.
Mattie’s eyes grew wide. She couldn’t think. She tapped his shoulder. When he turned around, she brushed his cheek with her lips.
“Dog-gone. Why’d…uh, you do that?”
“Because -” In her head, she added, “You’re so accidentally…like Whimsey.”
“You can stay. Help if you want. That’s all I’m sayin’,” he said.
Her stomach flip-flopped. What died in her several weeks ago suddenly stirred. Her mouth curved into a smile. She wrapped her arms around Bill’s waist pulling him close. He was so like her brother. “You’ll see. I’ll drive the wagon. I’ll get a wolf skin of my own.”
Wild Bill laughed, then knitted his eyebrows. Did his look become serious? In the dim light, it was hard to tell. He thrust the mojo bag in front of her. “It’s time,” he said. “Let go.”
“I know,” Mattie answered. She loosened the strings. One last time, she wiggled her finger inside. Soft. Velvety. Warm. Full of things. Magic. She pulled out her finger, drew the strings ’til it closed. Then she sauntered to the river’s edge.
“Where you going?” Wild Bill asked.
Mattie searched. Something had to hold up the bag so it wouldn’t sink. “It was an old Indian canoe, right? His father floated him down the river in it, right? A burial?”
Bill nodded. “Why? You find that canoe?”
Leaves. A few waxy ones left over. Not yet brittle. Not yet snapping apart, crumbling in her hand. Creating a nest with them, she wove the stems in and out, and layered them. At last, she was ready. She set the nest gently on the now flattened calm water. She kept her fingers under the leaves, not letting them go. Not yet. The water pulled. She waited. Closed her eyes.
“Hear the Indian drums. The ceremony? Bom-bom-bom-bom,” she said, mimicking Indian drums with her words.
“Bom-bom-bom-bom,” Wild Bill chanted. He gathered up the wolf skin, put it on, danced around.
Mattie cried for a while, quiet gentle tears…
“Goodbye Whimsey,” she whispered. She held the mojo bag for a minute more. This was so hard. She couldn’t really let go. Could she?
Dark red smudged gray sky to the East. Morning would be here soon. Resting his hand on her shoulder, Wild Bill squeezed. Gently, Mattie set the bag in the center of the leaves. She let go.