Red River

by Lalita Tademy

  Jackson shakes his head. “Not nervous a bit. Just want to get it done.”

  “What took so long?” Noby teases. “You already old. Twenty too long to be waiting for the good life. I got me a wife and a baby boy both, and you still in your father’s house sharing a single man’s bed with your brothers. Amy been on your mind for years.”

  Noby married when he was seventeen, satisfied Emma was the helpmate he wanted for the rest of his days.

  “That’s all right,” Jackson replies. “Some folks get married just so’s they don’t have to walk so far on Saturday night.”

  It is a rare joke from his serious friend, and Noby is pleased that Jackson is in such a good mood. “Amy right under your nose, in the same house, always was too handy for you. Make it easy to put off the wedding day.”

  “A man got to plan, make hisself ready for the future,” says Jackson. “Too many of Amy’s menfolk snatched away from her already—father, brother, uncles. My job here on out be providing and protecting, make her life with me built on rock.”

  “You and Amy a natural pair. Where you gonna live?”

  “We stay here at Papa’s, on the sleeping porch, until I rent my own farm. A few years more, I be ready to buy my hundred acres.”

  “Hansom Brisco willing to give me a loan against a plot of his land on Bayou Darrow,” Noby says. He debates with himself about how much to admit his misgivings, but he has known Jackson for a long time. “Said David come to him asking after it, but me and Emma already in cash debt to him for getting us through the drought. Can’t see going deeper in that hole yet.”

  “Soon as a man able, he need to get his own land,” Jackson says. “Green already working his own place, and he and Papa still talking on starting up the colored school.”

  “What you think I should do, Jackson? Take on more debt or wait?”

  “Ask Green. Or my papa. They the ones know best about land.”

  “I asked you,” says Noby. If there is a fault to Jackson Tademy, it is in refusing to step out of the shadow of his father and brother, underplaying his own value.

  “Well, seem to me the real question don’t have so much to do with the borrowing. Hansom willing to carry you. Seem like you got your back up more about going in with David.”

  Noby acknowledges the truth in it. The Tademy brothers are close in ways that Noby feels he will never manage with David.

  “How about you? Would you go in with Green on a piece of land?” Noby asks.

  “Green don’t need me, but I trust him bottom to top. We could work anything out if it come down to it. Papa and Green got the big ideas, bigger than mine. I just want to own a farm, do for my own family.”

  Noby remembers the day of innocence so many years ago when he and his father left David behind at home to walk to the Colfax courthouse together, just the two of them, and how Noby unlocked the courthouse doors to let the waiting men in. He tries to shake off the image of Israel in his sickbed in the dark front room of their cabin a few weeks later. “You and Green always together, shoulder to shoulder, like brothers supposed to be. I’m not sure David and me got it in us to do that.”

  “The two of you always been oil and water, but at the end of the day, you family, and family does for family.”

  The wedding is a small affair, held in the front room of Sam Tademy’s four-room cabin in The Bottom. There are twenty guests squeezed into the cramped, sweltering space. Each has some sort of fan, paper or cardboard, decorated or plain, formal or impromptu, some the size of an open hand and inconspicuous, others bigger than a man’s head. There isn’t even a slight breeze passing through the house, the air so clammy and still that the simple act of inhalation feels like drawing down a lungful of heated water.

  The minister is a big man, with jiggling rolls of fat at the jowls and around his midsection, and swollen hands the size of small hams. He fidgets more than any of the guests in the front room, wheezing and sweating profusely. He refuses to take off his dark jacket, as some of the other men have done in the overwhelming heat, sacrificing some small measure of relief and comfort in favor of honoring his official position, signifying the formality of the occasion. During the ceremony over which he presides, he juggles his small black Bible, his white handkerchief, and his stiff cardboard fan, passing them from hand to hand as he uses each in turn.

  All the guests suffer through the ceremony, praying not only for a happy life for Jackson and Amy but for the minister to hurry and get to the I dos so they can find a less oppressive spot to stand or at least get to a drink to cool them down. Amy makes a radiant young bride, the excitement of the ceremony and adoration of her new husband evident in her broad face. She wears a simple brown cotton dress, neither too tight nor too loose, and has pinned a long, trailing piece of white gauze in her hair that falls along either side of her plump cheeks, follows the shape of her shoulders, and ends down below her waist. Green Tademy serves as best man, and his wife stands up for Amy.

  Afterward, Noby and Green Tademy witness the proceedings and sign the papers for the minister to record at the courthouse. The guests linger, though not for too long. There is food, simple yet plentiful, enough to last for several days, but there are chores at home to tend, and the blistering day has taken its toll. After conveying good wishes to the bride and groom, and congratulating the parents, most of the attendees drift away, walking or riding back to their own daily obligations, their own farms, leaving Jackson Tademy and Amy McCullen admitted into the inner sanctum of the married world.

  Noby is pleased his friend has found his way there at last.

  Figure 14. Jackson Tademy

  Figure 15. Amy McCullen Tademy

  Chapter

  22

  1886

  In the winter of 1886, on the Saturday night after Thanksgiving, Jackson and Amy startle awake. A shrill cow horn blows in front of their cabin. It is close to eleven, and the blast screeches again through the quiet of nighttime. Jackson gets up to look out the front window, protected only by the warmth from his thick union suit, but he knows who it is. Sure enough, Green stands outside, waiting in the front yard.

  Jackson’s initial groggy irritation evaporates. His older brother’s enthusiasm always infects him. Jackson Tademy has grown into manhood the way a child grows into hand-me-down clothes, at first straining to fill out the cloth, but by and by outstripping the limitations of the garment. His growth spurts were late, and when they came, each gave him hope that he had the potential to catch up to the height, if not the stature, of his older brother. He never has. Green holds the edge.

  “Come out. We going hunting,” Green calls. Both Green and Jackson’s smooth skin is the same reddish-brown shade, their cheekbones as high and sharp as if chiseled by a sculptor’s knife, wide foreheads that make them appear engrossed in deep, meaningful thought. The particular arrangement of their features conveys an almost regal persona, but Green has an extra sparkle to his eyes that Jackson does not, reflects an amused contemplation of life’s absurdities and a warning of impending, good-hearted mischief in the planning.

  Green’s bloodhound, Jack, sits obediently at his feet, a short, heavy cord of twisted hemp looped around his neck.

  “You lost your mind, making a racket, coming this late?” Jackson asks. By then he stands at the front door, and Amy, in her long nightgown, is out of bed too, peeking out from behind his shoulder into the darkness outside. “Decent people already asleep.”

  “Then let’s not be decent,” Green says. “Right, Noby?”

  Noby Smith steps forward a half-step into the small circle of lamplight and mumbles something incoherent, trailing off. Obviously, he too was asleep before Green’s hunting decision.

  “No need being in the woods with a gun this time of night,” says Jackson.

  “How long you gonna act like a woman around a gun, Little Brother? Amy can spare you for a few hours. Right, Amy? ’Specially if there’s possum for tomorrow’s dinner in the bargain, yes?”

  “We s
till got chicken left over,” Jackson objects.

  “Then we go for the sport and sell the pelts,” says Green. “Better I ask Amy or you, Little Brother?”

  Amy speaks up: “There’s no gain stepping between brothers.” She is extraordinarily fond of Green and always allows herself to be charmed by his sassy talk. “Jackson his own man. He make up his own mind how to spend his time, long as he sitting next to me in church tomorrow morning.”

  “We not leaving without you, Little Brother. We got a head start on the season. It’s possum-hunting time.”

  “Come on, Jackson,” pleads Noby. “Sooner we get out there, sooner I get back to my warm bed.”

  “Guess I got no choice,” says Jackson.

  “Bring another lamp and a gunnysack, Little Brother,” Green says. “And a couple sweet potatoes.”

  “Dig ’em up your own self while I put something on,” says Jackson. “Second row in the garden.”

  Jackson dresses for the cold night ahead, grumbling and complaining to Amy as he pulls on his boots, but they both know he looks forward to being with Green and Noby. Regrets won’t come until after the rising sun brings light to the obligations of morning.

  Green decides to head north. If it were daytime, they would climb trees they know have rotted cavities in the trunks where possums hide to sleep, sometimes fifteen or more feet off the ground. On a lucky day, they might find a possum in a hollow stump almost at ground level, no climbing required. Night hunting is different. Jack is crucial, an impressive possum-hunting dog, steady and reliable, sniffing and scouting until he catches the scent. He doesn’t get overly excited, either in the tracking or in the treeing. The hound stalks his quarry until the panicky possum scrambles up the nearest tree to escape, and then Jack positions himself at the base of the trunk, trapping his prey in the branches, barking until the hunters catch up.

  Jackson, Green, and Noby walk an even tempo for about an hour, giving the dog his head and following his lead, until they are three or four miles from home. Jackson senses a long night ahead. He is familiar enough with his older brother’s moods to sense Green won’t be satisfied with one or even two possums. The three friends have hunted together for years, both in daylight and in the darkness of night, and know both the terrain and one another intimately.

  “You see now why I call my dog Jack,” says Green.

  “Why’s that?” asks Noby.

  “Only one thing on his mind at a time,” says Green. “When Jack thinks possum, long as we follow, he lead us to possum. Now, if he was back home, he’d be thinking on the she-dog next door, and if a possum come up and spit in his eye, he wouldn’t pay it no mind.” Green claps Jackson on the back, rubs his head with his knuckles, grins. “Concentration, one thing at a time, smart and dependable, just like Jackson here.”

  It is almost as if they are carefree boys, without responsibilities or regrets, not men of twenty-seven and twenty-four. Green got the height while Jackson got the speed. Green is bold and Jackson single-minded. Green developed flair and Jackson doggedness. An instinctive ability to conceptualize the big picture comes as naturally to Green as breathing, while Jackson’s gift is his attention to detail. Green is charming and Jackson logical. Green makes things happen, can bend people to his way of seeing even if they are at first baffled by the novelty of his proposed ideas. Green is responsible, as is Jackson, but effortlessly and charismatically, without ever having to resort to heavy-handedness or preachiness.

  Jack takes off after something deeper in the woods, and they lose sight of him, but they aren’t worried. Jack will let them know where he is when the time comes. Before long, they hear his trademark yapping.

  “He got one,” Noby yells, and the three of them push through the trees toward the sound, careful not to spill kerosene from the lamps. Jack howls steadily, snout pointed upward at the base of a small sweet-gum tree dwarfed by the pines and oaks on either side. Green lifts the lamp to throw light onto the limbs, and they see the two glistening red pinpoints of the animal’s eyes directed at them from a lower branch. The twist of the possum’s long ratlike tail arches backward over its own rear end, like a sideways horseshoe.

  “It’s a clean shot,” says Green. “Use my gun and take him, Jackson.”

  “No,” says Jackson.

  “You can get him between the eyes.”

  “The tree’s small enough to jiggle him down,” says Jackson. He begins to push and pull at the base of the sweet gum, shaking the upper branches. Green shrugs, resigned, puts down his gun, and joins him. Soon all three of them are at the trunk, while the dog circles, yipping all the while. After ten minutes of jerking the tree, the possum loses its hold and comes skittering to the ground.

  The possum curls into itself and doesn’t move. It is a fleshy, full-grown animal, almost two feet long before adding in the solid whip of tail, and it looks as if it knocked itself out in the fall. Its eyes are closed, and there is no evidence of breathing or motion. Jack snarls and barks but keeps his distance. The possum appears dead, but they have all been fooled too many times to trust their eyes.

  “Bring the sack,” calls Jackson.

  He advances toward the possum with caution, prepared to jump back if the animal is alive. Green and Noby spread the lip of the gunnysack wide, and Jackson grabs the heavy creature by its long tail and lets it dangle. The possum hangs free, without fight, and in one swinging motion, Jackson drops it into the gunnysack. They tie the rope tight around the top to seal it in.

  “Our first one,” says Green, stretching his arms in front and back to get the blood circulating. “Woulda been easier to shoot it out the tree. For all that shaking you made us do, you get to carry the sack,” he says to Jackson.

  Green calls Jack to his side with one low whistle, gives him a pat on the head, and sends him off on a new hunt. Again Jack puts snout to ground and sniffs, widening his circle farther and farther out until he has left the men behind. “Next possum be even bigger,” says Green.

  “This the last one,” Jackson says as they keep in the direction of Jack’s trail. “Can’t be staying out here all night.”

  “We done it before,” says Noby. “’Course, that was before I had a wife and three children at home.”

  Jack hits the second trail almost right away, no more than fifteen minutes from the first. Once more they hear his baying as he chases his quarry, then the change in his bark when he has it cornered up a tree.

  Green, Jackson, and Noby aren’t far behind. This time the possum stares down from an old oak, far enough up the tree to make the idea of shaking it out impossible. Jack keeps up a series of throaty howls.

  “This one gotta be shot down,” says Green. “Who it gonna be, me or you, Noby?”

  “Your gun,” says Noby.

  “Watch how it’s done, gentlemens,” Green says. Noby and Jackson hold the lamps up to give him as much visibility as possible. Green takes his time, steadying the .22-caliber rifle, aiming and adjusting in tiny increments. The blast when he pulls back on the trigger is deafening to Jackson. He hates guns.

  The possum falls from the tree, crashing through the lowest branches of the oak as it picks up speed, bouncing off the trunk. When the heavy body hits the ground, it lands on one side. The bullet has taken part of the head and cheek, exposing the animal’s grayish-pink tongue and several dirty, sharp yellow teeth covered with bits of debris and blood. There is no question this possum is dead.

  “This spot good as any for the fire,” says Green.

  Green pulls his knife and skins the second possum, while Jackson and Noby gather up kindling and wood. In no time they have two fires going, one large and blazing, for warmth, and the other lower and slower, for roasting. Green carefully unties the top of the gunnysack and throws the bloody pelt inside, quickly tying it shut again. No use taking a chance with the captured possum. Tomorrow he will turn the pelt inside out, pull it over a long tapered board, and let it dry on the stretcher in the smokehouse. He finds a long, forked branch and
skewers the gutted possum, taking the first turn holding it over the slow fire.

  When the fire dies down enough, they bury the sweet potatoes deep in the hot ashes to cook, and settle in to wait. The three men sit between their two fires, sprawled on the hard ground.

  “Spell me,” calls Green, and Noby rouses himself. Green passes the chore of holding the possum above the flame to Noby, brings out his corncob pipe and tobacco pouch, leans his back against a log, and relaxes. They wait in quiet for the possum to cook through and the potatoes to go soft in their skins. Jack lies at Green’s feet.

  “What you got to say now about how late it be?” asks Green.

  Jackson and Noby both laugh. “Nothing beats a warm fire and a rumbling belly about to be filled,” says Jackson.

  “Nothing better than a night hunt,” Green says. “We been doing this together a long time.”

  “Thirteen years,” says Jackson.

  “Since we was boys,” replies Noby. “Your papa first took us out together.”

  A sudden silence, heavy and dark, presses down on the group in the woods, as if an uninvited guest has appeared from nowhere and joined them around the fire.

  “Nothing like that night,” Green finally says. He gets up to throw another log on the fire, poking at it far longer than necessary. The mood has turned sour. Green sits down again. “Shoulda brought the women,” he says lightly. “They’d tend the possums while we set Jack loose for another one.”