The Widow of the South

by Robert Hicks

  The mistake I made was thinking I could sort things out all rational-like. I should have broken that chain right then. I was a fool.

  Forrest arrived that next morning and created a stir. Some of the men shouted cheers and stamped their feet and called for a speech. I’d seen the man a couple of times and knew that he was no spontaneous speechifier. After a few moments, as Forrest dismounted and tied his black horse to the rail in front of the camp office, the shouts and talking died down. The men were seeing him truly for the first time, and I knew he weren’t what they expected. He got down slowly, and the only thing that came out of his mouth was a few loud, painful, wet coughs. He was skinny and completely gray. He was a tall man, but he looked short because he was so bent and twisted up. His eyes were red and watery, but there was still a little fierce in them, and so I knew better than to help him put up his horse. I was waiting for him at the doorway and stepped aside when he shuffled in.

  That day we spent going over the books, papers everywhere. I had good handwriting, which was about the only useful thing I’d ever picked up as far as education, and I’d got taught pretty good by the previous clerk how to fill in the numbers and line ’em up. I didn’t know much, but I knowed about money. There weren’t much, and I could have told him that at the beginning and saved him the trouble, but he wanted to see everything for hisself. Wanted to see what every man was paid, wanted to see every dime we’d spent on timber and rails and spikes and tools. We toured the camp so he could see these things for himself, to make sure no one was stealing nothing. All day I waited for a moment to ask him my question, the one I’d begun to think up that morning out back of Twist’s place. When we returned to the office, he sat down and pulled out a flask and rummaged around for a tin cup. He did not invite me to join him, and he didn’t invite me to talk to him, either.

  There was a ruckus outside. I went to the window and looked out toward the tavern and saw a crowd of the men standing around the nigger while the Gyp ran around him, poking him with a stick always just out of reach of the prisoner’s grasp. Forrest was watching me.

  “What’s that sound? Ain’t they working?”

  “They got a nigger chained up behind the tavern, General.”

  “They do? Hmm.”

  He went back to his flask and picked up the books again.

  “General Forrest?”

  He didn’t say anything. I think he knew what I was going to say and didn’t want to hear it, but I said it anyway.

  “It ain’t right, General.”

  “You damned right about that. This railroad should be making me money.”

  “I mean that nigger.”

  Silence.

  “General, it ain’t right to have him chained up like that. It’s illegal. That boy ain’t done nothing.”

  “He ain’t done nothing? Nothing?”

  “They say he tried to steal a chicken.”

  “Well, then.”

  “But there ain’t no chickens.”

  He put the book down and took a swig. He stared up at the ceiling for a while, cocked back in the chair, and let his legs stretch out in front of him. Then he fixed those red eyes on me.

  “I don’t got the time to be worrying what every damned fool does with a Negro. If they happy, and they do my work for me, then I’m happy. I ain’t fooling with that.”

  I was losing my chance. I knew he didn’t want no problems with Negroes on his railroad. Everyone knew he’d got hisself mixed up with the Ku Klux. I’d read the newspapers, and I knew he was doing everything he could to try to get people to forget that he was the wizard, or some such shit. I knew he didn’t care whether that nigger lived or died, but I also knew that his reputation had been bad for business. Folks didn’t really mind niggers getting their due for getting above themselves, as they said, but the rich ones and the politicians who gave out the money for railroads didn’t want to be the one to dirty their hands at it, or to be doing business with those who did. People were almost as afraid of the Ku Kluxers as they were of free Negroes roaming the country. That’s what the paper said. So I took a chance.

  “What’s gone to happen when folks find out we got a nigger chained up like a dog at one of the Memphis & Selma camps?”

  Now he stood up, and this time he weren’t bent over like an old man, and I could see why men had followed him. I’d have been too scared not to.

  “All right, then.”

  I didn’t know what he meant, but I followed him outside, down the steps, and over to the tavern where the Gyp was still running around like a fool with that stick. Forrest walked right through the middle of the crowd, which parted like a stream around a rock. He stood in the middle of the circle, and the Gyp stopped running and stood stock-still. Even the Negro paused and waited to hear what the man would say.

  “Mr. Cashwell has told me that he wants this here nigger freed. I myself don’t care much about it one way or the other, but I do know that if the fool who chained this sumbitch up gets me in trouble for it, I gone to come back and put a bullet in that fool’s goddamn head. Seeing as how that would make a mess out of my railroad camp, and seeing how Mr. Cashwell has volunteered to solve my problem by freeing this nigger to go run off to wherever his people run off to, I’m gone to deputize Mr. Cashwell to free this nigger if he sees fit. And that’s the end of my problem.”

  Well, the crowd didn’t like that much, I could tell, but only one of ’em would say anything about it. Twist stepped out of the crowd.

  “That there nigger stole one of my chickens. I want my compensation.”

  Forrest got a coughing fit right then, and he bent over and hacked out a gob between his feet. When he stood back up, he took a second to get his bearings again.

  “You shut the hell up, little man. Don’t ever talk back to me.”

  Then he walked right back through that crowd, got onto his horse, and rode away toward Memphis.

  Well, that wasn’t the end of my problem. I knew I had only a few seconds to do what needed doing, before the men could fix themselves on me, so I walked forward as quickly as I could on my aching stump and unhooked that collar.

  “Run like hell,” I whispered.

  The other men didn’t know what to do first, there was too much going on. Some were watching Forrest ride off, others were watching the nigger run into the woods, and I hoped that I could get back to the office without getting stopped. But Twist jumped in my path, just as I got clear of the crowd.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going, nigger lover? You done fucked up bad.”

  The other men started to close around me, and I could smell their sweat and feel the heat of a hard day on the tracks drifting off ’em. I saw the Gyp go for his rifle, which was leaning against the chicken coop.

  “Put that rifle down, boy, and the rest of you step back. You heard the general. The man had permission.”

  Jerrod had his pistols out, one pointed at the Gyp and the other in the general direction of the crowd. He stood between me and the office. Thank God I’d made one friend at least.

  “You all get back in that saloon and drink and forget all this shit. I been known to use these pistols. And I don’t even like any of you-all.”

  Twist wasn’t giving up that easily.

  “To hell with you, Jerrod. Cashwell is a nigger lover, and he owes me. He has disgraced me.”

  Jerrod strode up to the little saloonkeeper and put one of his pistols to the man’s head.

  “And I’ll disgrace your brains all over this ground if you don’t get back in that swill shop of yours.”

  I didn’t stick around to hear the rest of it. I went as fast as I could toward the office, went inside, and barred the door behind me. What the hell am I going to do now? I looked around for my things, and I realized I didn’t have much except for a blanket and a Bible. I was wrapping them up together when I heard a knock on the door. I didn’t have a weapon except for an old axe in the corner, and I grabbed it.

  “It’s me—Jerrod.”


  I let him in. He took his broad-brimmed hat off his head, pushed his greasy black strands from in front of his face, and put it back on. He fixed on me with a queer look.

  “You’re going to need more than that axe. Goddamn you’re a fool. Why the hell did you do that? Weren’t none of your business. What you care for a nigger anyway? You made a mess, boy. They in the tavern getting liquored up now, but that won’t hold ’em long. They gone to come for you. You got to run.”

  “I know.”

  “Then, git. I’ll stay behind for an hour or so, guard the road and make sure no one come after you. Then I’ll catch up. I’m sick of this railroad shit anyway. Which way you gone to head?”

  “I don’t know. East, reckon. Toward Franklin.”

  “Franklin?”

  It just came up in my head like that, without thinking. But as soon as I said it, I knew that was the only place I would go.

  “You deaf?” I said.

  “Least I ain’t a gimp like you. Franklin it is.”

  “Where’ll I meet you?”

  “I’ll find you.”

  Jerrod rode out of camp with me for about a mile or so, glowering at anyone who dared look at us. Then he pulled up, went into the woods to set up an ambush, and waved me on.

  The next day Jerrod caught up to me while I was breaking camp and dousing my fire. He looked tired and happy.

  “Shot me one of them bastards, but only winged him. They turned back after that. They had a noose, looked about your size.”

  I thanked him and stoked the fire again. I’d caught a couple brim in a creek nearby and was going to save the other for the road, but I roasted it up by wrapping it in wet grass and burying it in the coals. Jerrod’s face went dark after he was done eating.

  “You made an awful mess, Zachariah. I didn’t like what they were doing no more than you did, not that I’m a nigger lover, but I also knew better than to do that. What the hell did you think was going to happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He spit on the coals.

  “They killed the nigger, you know. I heard one of ’em talking about it while I tracked them up the road. Put a railroad clamp around his neck and threw him in the river. They were looking for you and found him hiding in the woods not half a mile from camp. Didn’t know where to go or how to get there, I reckon.”

  That’s when I knew I’d never go back to living like that. I had tried to make order of it all, and out of my order had come the killing of a man I had meant to save. There isn’t no pain like knowing that, picturing a man at the bottom of a river paying for my mistake. Jerrod was right. I had been stupid to think I could interfere in the doings of men like that.

  I wasn’t like any of them men, and I don’t know how I got that way. But it was true. I didn’t know what kind of man I could be if I was not one of them, but I knew that there had been one time—one time—when I’d been showed a different man in myself, and that was when I was with Carrie McGavock. She would know what I should do. What I wanted to do was to take her away and love her like I knew I could. That’s what I’d always wanted. That’s what I’d never stopped thinking about, sitting in all those saloons and work camps in all those little forgotten places. She was always there. I stayed away because I knew I didn’t deserve her. But now I needed her, and that was something real powerful.

  Didn’t know where to go or how to get there. At least I knew that much now.

  Much later I read that Forrest bragged about setting free a Negro who had been unlawfully imprisoned at one of his railroad camps. By then his company had failed and he hisself was almost dead, so I didn’t grudge him trying to make something more of hisself with that story. He didn’t mean nothing to me. Let him believe what he wanted. I knew he was what he was, and men like that don’t change.

  37

  CARRIE MCGAVOCK

  I was wrong about the breeze in Tennessee, that it couldn’t compare to the cooling wind off the water surrounding my papa’s plantation. I learned how to find a spot on the back gallery that perfectly intercepted whatever wind or puff had decided to kick up during those heavy, sun-flooded days of summer, and in my rocker I could achieve a modicum of cool and comfort. Inside, it was impossible to find a cool spot except in the evenings, but on the back gallery it was possible to look out over our yard and watch the children and think that there wasn’t a place anywhere more suited to me. This was necessary on those days I spent out there, writing letters to the families of the dead. It was good to know I was planted somewhere pleasant.

  June 12, 1866

  Dear Mr. Robertson,

  Please forgive my tardiness with this letter. I have been inexcusably remiss in my correspondence, which is a doubly contemptible state of affairs considering your loss and the kindness of your letter, dated May the 22nd. I will endeavor to tell you all I know about your son, Randolph, in the hopes that it might ease your burden for even a moment. I cannot imagine the despair of a father such as yourself.

  But, of course, I could.

  Your son was a strong young man who spent his days praying to his Lord Jesus Christ that he would be delivered unto Him, and that He would guard and protect those he loved, who I took to be you and your family.

  I had no earthly idea if Ran Robertson, who died on my best parlor floor from an infection and loss of blood from his stomach, had any warm feelings about his family or that he cared that they would be protected. I did not know whether he was a believer or that his father was a believer or that his father would take word of his son’s prayer as comfort. I only knew that writing such a thing to this man, even if he was no believer, was the best way I knew to convey my own sorrow for him and his son. In my experience I’d learned that even those undisposed to pray would take solace from the knowledge that others had prayed for them. And if such a prayer had not been offered to the Lord from Ran Robertson’s lips, I thought, so what? I was writing a letter to the living, not the dead; what did the dead care? The white lie soothed the pain of a man who had written to me, I dohn know what becaim of me son, and I wished I did. I sorely do. My lies were justified.

  He was with us for a few days, but I always think he knew that he would pass on. He was strong-minded and not afraid. He was a comfort to the other men around him, who were facing the same prospect of quitting this life earlier than they had ever expected, and for that I am grateful that your son, whom we called Ran, was with us even for those few short days.

  The men did indeed take solace from men like Ran and the others who were slipping away. They were not alone in the room. It didn’t matter whether Ran had stoically borne his pain and his destiny or had screamed and cried the whole way to his final rest—it was his presence alone that would have been a comfort. So I had no qualm presenting Ran as a strong and resigned man, even if he hadn’t been. He might as well have been. I was writing to the living.

  His death was peaceful, quiet, and quick.

  It had not been peaceful—few if any of their deaths had been peaceful. To what I know war rarely makes peaceful deaths, but that was something that I thought a man like Ran had a right to carry to his grave. Everything was over now.

  I received many letters, and in the years after that battle I spent much of my time on the back gallery, rocking slowly and trying to keep my stationery steady in my lap. I did not like to compose those letters while sitting inside, even when it was cold, because there was too much about the house to remind me of what it had actually been like to have those boys there. I didn’t want the truth slipping unbidden into the letters.

  They wrote to me because they heard from survivors of the battle who returned home, wherever home was, that our house was the last place many of the missing had been seen. Some of the men told stories about us, tales that made us into angels who had gone to extraordinary lengths to save not just a few men, but all that was left of the entire Confederacy, and that we—well, they meant me, of course; Mariah and the others were never mentioned—were bright polestars o
f Southern womanhood. These families—fathers, mothers, brothers, aunts—wrote to me to find out what had become of their men. And so I told them.

  After I finished my letter to Mr. Robertson and set it aside for Mariah to deliver to the postal clerk in town, I looked out over the yard and watched Winder and Eli returning from the creek. It surprised me to see how tall Winder had become, but it always surprised me. He was just this side of becoming that little man he had always longed to be. Eli, who had become a man, was barely taller than my little boy, whose bones seemed to rattle around in his skin, so gangly. They sauntered up to the porch like they were old gunslingers.

  “No fish, Winder?”

  “No fish, Mama. I think we got ’em all a few weeks ago. Ain’t none left.”

  “There are none left.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Eli stood beside him, smiling his toothy grin, knowing it was his fault my son sometimes talked like he didn’t have any education. Eli was my new son. He was Winder’s hero, leader, instigator, comrade in arms in battle against the fish of our creek. He was an orphan, and even when he smiled, I could see that he still didn’t think he had a right to be happy for a second. I could understand why he felt that way, and it pained me to see a boy, even one about to be seventeen, torn against himself like that. In all of the history books and newspaper articles that would be written about the war, who would write or even remember the people like Eli?

  Becky had died, more than a year ago, in the summer after the battle while giving birth to a baby boy. This had changed Eli, and Lord knows he had good reason.

  There was a hardness in his way of speaking, an edge, that made him seem angry. At what, I didn’t know for quite some time. He always volunteered to run into town to get provisions at Baylor’s store, and I had been told by some of the ladies in town that he could be seen wandering the streets of Franklin regularly, a package of groceries under his arm, looking into windows and peeking around the corners of houses, watching men work. One day Josh Harper, the blacksmith, caught Eli spying through the window of the Baylor house, trussed him up like a Christmas turkey, and deposited him on our front porch with a note explaining Eli’s perversity. I knew there was something more wrong with the boy than the loss of his family. But when John and I looked at him sitting on the edge of the old Jackson rocker in the office, rubbing the rope burns on his wrists and awaiting his punishment, we knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t a perversity. He was persevering in something, some idea of his, regardless of the consequences. John made him dig potatoes for two days straight as punishment, but neither of us had any hope that he would stop searching for that thing that was missing, whatever it was.