“Is it always this hot in Georgia?”
“It is in August. We’ll be to Stockton in half an hour. Mr. Vince Evetee runs a nice little inn. We can get cold watermelon and chilled beer.”
“In August! I can’t imagine.”
“They have a limestone cellar, deep and cool, where he packs away ice blocks in sawdust. It’s the biggest local attraction.”
As the wheels turned away the miles, Griff thought back over the past two months.
When they first reached Atlanta by train, Griff had gone to the offices of the Reconstruction government and carefully checked the records of those known to be dead. His hope flared when he found no entry relating to Bobbie Jean or Jeremy. Another short train trip to Valdosta had brought them close to his old home. The city was in a turmoil. No one knew anything about anyone, often even members of their own families. With a sinking feeling, Griff had insisted they go on to Riversend.
Something died inside him when he first looked at the burned-out buildings and neglected, weed-grown fields. Even the slave quarters had been gutted. Tall sycamore and beech trees that shaded the plantation house showed large withered areas, fire-killed and untended. Not a person lived on the place. As they turned to leave, Griff saw five new mounds, though not in the family plot. Slaves, he told himself with relief, hurriedly buried because of the Yankee advance. He would have to look elsewhere.
After two weeks of fruitless search, in which he received only denials or evasive answers, Griff still had learned nothing about his wife and child. Frantic to know, yet resigned to the fact he could not get concrete help until some familiar faces returned to the area, Griff had gone on to Augusta, where he learned nothing regarding his family or the confiscation of Riversend. That necessitated a trip to Savannah. The Union officers in charge of the records refused to let him see them. He needed a court order. Griff went to court, his right leg strong enough now that he could stand unassisted, though walking still required the crutch and cane. When he entered the august hall of justice, he felt sure his trip had been in vain.
Seated on the bench was the largest, blackest, most bullet-headed man he had ever seen. Small angry eyes peered out at the roomful of petitioners and, Griff saw instantly, they held not the slightest glint of intelligence. A prop. A ventriloquist’s dummy for the fat-cat Yankee power brokers who sat behind the scenes and enriched themselves off the misery of the defeated South.
“De po’tishun is denied,” the judge declared in the middle of an attorney’s argument.
“But your … honor. I haven’t completed my presentation.”
“You has as far as I’s concerned, white boy. Nex’ case.”
It went like that all through the long, dreary afternoon. Griff approached the clerk and got his name on the docket. Before his case number was called, a suave, oily attorney representing one Rufus Jackson Lee and Associates, took his place at the plaintiff’s table. The “associates” Griff noticed were white carpetbaggers. Across from them sat a faded, weary farmer, his wife, and three straw-haired youngsters ranging from seven to fifteen.
“You ain’t got no lawyer?” the judge inquired of them.
“No, your, ah, honor,” the drawn-out farmer replied in a soft voice.
The huge judge shrugged. “Won’t make much difference nohow. Are you ready to get this on?” he directed to the attorney for the plaintiff.
“Yes, your honor. Rufus Jackson Lee and his associates petition the court for the recovery of land farmed by the defendant, Ezekial Colton. The land is described in my brief, of which you have a copy, your honor. It has been farmed by the Colton family for three generations. It is a large parcel in Waycross county. The contention of the plaintiff is that this land should rightfully be his and that title to said property should devolve on him by order of this Court. His allegation is supported by evidence that the land was once occupied by members of plaintiff’s family when they were in the act of evading capture and return to a slaver who purported to own them, that by ‘Squatters Rights,’ they have prior claim to the aforementioned land and now seek full and legal title by the relief of this Court. Thank you, your honor.”
“You got somethin’ to say?” Judge Sellers demanded of the defendant.
“I surely do, your, ah, honor. The people we’re hearin’ about were runaway slaves. They had no legal status under law. They were fugitives and could not, nor can their descendants profit from something done while breaking the law. That’s our land and we’re asking this court to uphold our title, granted according to the laws of Georgia. That’s all, your, er, honor.”
“I’s considered this, and this here fellah’s got right on his side. Them laws you’se talkin’ ’bout, Mr. Colton, ain’t no more. They was abolished with slavery. That make me see clearly that by squattin’ on that groun’, title done go to the Lee family. That am my decision. You get off’n this boy’s land in one week’s time, y’heah?”
Colton leaped to his feet, astonished at the patent unfairness of it. ‘‘Why, that’s … that’s not proper. You can’t make a current situation retroactive. Not in law, you can’t.”
“You can in my court.” The judge rapped his gavel. “Nex’ case.”
“Griffin Stark. Case number Two-six-three-seven, General Sessions Court of the State of Georgia. Petition for a writ of mandamus and a subpoena duces tecum,” the clerk droned out. The Union overloads had at least left old Mr. Sweeny in his position, Griff observed. A fine old lawyer who had retired into the honorable service of the court as its clerk.
“A writ o’ what?” Judge Sellers came back, puzzled by the Latin words.
“It’s a court order to hand over certain documents and another describing the documents to be examined.”
“Meanin’ wha?”
Patiently the clerk explained. “This man, Mr. Griffin Stark, wants you to sign these two court orders allowing him to look at some records in the land office.”
“Oh, I sees now.” The eminent jurist studied the well-dressed white man standing before him. He had about him an air of authority, like the Reconstruction administrators. He frequently had occasion to sign papers for the wily Northern speculators who were taking all the land from the former, slave-owning residents. They had always been generous with their wallets, too, for this small service. He smiled now and nodded toward Griff.
“Petition approved. Han’ me them papers. And, ah, see the clerk about the usual consideration.” The judge winked broadly. “Nex’ case after I signs these here papers.”
Weak with relief and filled with disgust at this travesty of justice, Griff returned to the land office with his precious court orders. They had cost him fifty of his rapidly dwindling dollars. A shameful price, paid to a shameless man. The sneers and lack of cooperation did not cease with the appearance of the official permission. Instead, Griff was left alone to struggle with huge tomes, dusty with disuse in some instances and all heavy and unwieldly for a man on a crutch to manipulate.
His search took him three days. The results seemed hardly worth the long, thankless labor. Worse, it sent him off to the state capital, Atlanta.
There, his reception was, if possible, less cordial than in Savannah. Weeks went by before he could talk to the first man on his list. The exploratory conversation proved fruitless. Another week went by and they met again. This time, for a hundred dollars, Griff got a name. On the surface it didn’t look like a lot.
Preston Sanders turned out to be more help than expected. He greeted Griff warmly and sat him down. Then he broke out the bourbon bottle. “Surprised to find a Southern aristocrat still involved in state government?” he inquired of the young former Major.
“As a matter of fact, I am. I thought our new, ah, masters were saving all the good jobs for themselves.”
“I will grant you the bitterness, suh. You have a right to it. In my own case, it appears to me to be a matter of my department being in such turmoil that the Yankees could not make sense of it. Therefore they left it in the hands
of one who could—even if most of the time I use my talents to help rob my fellow Georgians and enrich the enemy. Now, what is it you need?”
Briefly Griff told him. Sanders listened in contemplative silence, then poured more bourbon. “I have consulted my mental file and I suggest you look up the following.” Quickly he cited several volumes of state documents and the names of three more men.
“That’s the secret of my success,” Sanders revealed. “I keep most of my filing system in my head. The damn Yankees could not make head nor tail of my cabinets of records. I assure you, Major Stark, one of these men can give you what you seek. Good luck to you.”
By the last week of July, Griff had read all of the reports and balance sheets, visited the designated officials, and prepared a paper, complete with a true evaluation of what his taxes should have been. He prepared himself to go back to court. This time the judge was a Northerner. Reluctant to grant anything to a hated Confederate, nevertheless, his trained jurist’s mind became intrigued at the manner in which Griff had ferreted out the facts and presented his case. In the end, the court ordered the transfer of title made null and void and restored Riversend to Griff. Now, they were on their way back to his home, riding the north-south road from Atlanta to Stockton.
“Oh, Griff. It’s terrible, just … like Riversend,” Jennifer choked out, one hand on his arm. She pointed with the other to the gutted, charred ruins of a plantation house. “If the marauders have been here, what about Stockton?”
“That’s a town, Jenny. It isn’t likely that the men who destroyed this place and those who burned Riversend would take on anything that large.”
Griff’s words became bile in his mouth when they rounded a bend and the remains of the small rural village came into view.
Only two houses remained standing, both fire damaged. In what had been the business district, the brick shell of the bank still stood, fire blackened and gutted. Also, the sturdy limestone block structure that housed the Evetee’s Stockton Inn. The wreckers could do little to this fortress-like building and it bravely maintained a semblance of normalcy amid the destruction. When Griff halted the small rig at the front entrance, Mrs. Evetee herself came out to greet them.
“Land sakes, Griffin Stark. We heard y’all had been killed by the Yankees. Come in, come in this minute. You two must be dying of thirst.” She led the way into a spacious taproom.
Heavy, smoke-blackened oaken beams supported the second floor and provided a baronial atmosphere to the barroom. Large round tables filled most of the floor space and the sturdy chairs invited occupants. The bar, along one side of the room, had been made of native pine, carefully dressed, sealed, and varnished so that it glowed like old gold. Maggie Evetee went behind it and pulled on the draft handle. She produced two foaming mugs of dark, malty brew and carried them to where Griff and Jenny sat.
“Here you are. These are on me, sort of to celebrate you coming home.,,
“Thank you. Have you … has anyone heard anything about my wife or son?”
Maggie Evetee glanced at Jenny’s full young form and then at Griff. She tried to mask her bemused expression. “N-no. I’ve not heard a word. I naturally thought this …” she blurted out, then lost herself in embarrassment.
“This is Jennifer Carmichael, the sister of my friend, Damien. You remember, he was best man at my wedding.”
“Oh, yes. The time does seem to fly. I suppose the damned Yankees comin’ through Georgia and the end of the war, you sort of lost track with the Missus?”
“Yes. I was wounded right near the end, spent months in a fever and delirious. I heard nothing from them. All that time I have not heard from Bobbie Jean. Recently I received information that Riversend had been burned by Sherman’s Bummers and then sold for back taxes. I had to come see for myself. I tried to find my family, but so far I’ve come up empty.”
“It’s a right sorrowful thing. So many with nothing now, families scattered, menfolk dead or maimed, their slaves gone, their homes and land. Even the poor folk are suffering. It don’t seem there’s anything the Yankees don’t covet. They’d steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes. Sorry to hear you lost your place.”
“I got it back. It took two months, but it’s mine again. Now I’ve come back again to keep looking for Bobbie Jean and Jeremy.”
“Why, he’d be about six years old now, wouldn’t he?”
“In October. I haven’t seen him in two and a half years.”
“I noticed you walking with them canes. From your war wounds?”
“Yes,” Griff answered with immense satisfaction. Another benefit of his two arduous months of searching records had been the steady improvement of his legs. The right, although somewhat stiff in the knee joint, worked normally now. His greatest achievement, however, had been with the left.
He had been struggling with one of the gigantic tax-roll books at the state capitol building annex one hot July afternoon. By that time he had resigned himself to never recovering use of his left leg. He would have to be encumbered with a pair of canes for the rest of his life. As in Savannah, no one offered him assistance. The book was heavy, some two feet square and refused to go back on the shelf. Griff strained with it, while trying to balance himself with only one cane hand free. Stubbornly it resisted all his efforts. He tried again, sweating, cursing the awful itch in his left leg that would have to start at a time like that.
An itch!
With a whoop of joy and amazement he forgot about the book. Abandoned, it slammed onto the polished wooden floor with a crack like a rifle shot. Griff slapped at the outside of his left thigh. Marvelously he felt the sting. He actually felt it. Exuberant, he tried to apply weight to that leg. It instantly gave way. Disappointment flooded him. Not so much, though, that he lost sight of the importance of his discovery. He hurried to the reading room to tell Jenny.
Quickly, after that, life and feeling poured back into the savagely treated limb. In a week, after daily hot-pack baths and stringent exercises, he could put his full weight on it. It always resulted in shooting pains that rocketed through his body and culminated in agonizing headaches. Steeling himself to this, he went on with the regimen. At last the day came when he cast away his crutch, firmly grasped a brace of canes and rose from his chair.
The first step seemed made entirely of balls of fire that shot up the nerve trunks along the left side of his body. In an instant he knew he could never stand it, never take the second shaky step.
“Come on, Griff. Come to me,” Jennifer pleaded. Her heart burst at the ghastly paleness of his face. Correctly she read it as an indication of terrible pain. Again she pleaded.
Griff slid his left foot forward, caught his balance on the canes and quickly swung the right in front of the other. He nearly fell. Wobbly, he grimly determined to try one more. Five steps in all and he sank gratefully into the chair that Jennifer shoved under him. By the time they started for Riversend, he could walk fifty feet, assisted only by the two stout walking sticks. A question from Maggie Evetee took him away from his reverie.
“Oh, yes. It’s been since last October. I was hit in the fighting around Leesburg in Virginia.” He noticed, of a sudden, that Vince Evetee had not joined them. “Your husband, Mrs. Evetee? I’d like to say hello to him.”
Maggie Evetee looked as though she might cry, then she took hold of herself and sighed deeply. “So would I, Griffin. He was gunned down by the marauders along with some other men from town when they tried to defend this place.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
For half an hour they exchanged small talk about the area under Yankee control. Then Griff rose and slowly made his way toward the door. “We have to get on, Mrs. Evetee. I want to reach Riversend well before nightfall. We’ll go on to Valdosta and stay the night, then start asking around about Bobbie Jean and my boy. When we were there before, nobody knew anything. Now I hope to find someone from close to home.”
“If I hear anything, I’ll surely let you know,” the
valiant woman promised.
“Well, lookie what’s comin’,” a bristle-faced man, lean as cowhide, stringy and dirt encrusted, said to his companions.
They sat their mounts off to the side of the road between Stockton and Valdosta. Toward them rolled the small carriage bearing Griff Stark and Jennifer Carmichael. A disreputable crew, the six men wore remnants of a variety of uniforms. Here the red-striped blue trousers of a Union artilleryman, there the yellow cuffs of a Confederate cavalryman. Another wore filthy civilian trousers of linsey-woolsey and a faded pair of long johns. Hard times and easy pickings had brought this unlikely band of brigands together. Their own mutual distrust kept them allied.
“Looks like a cripple an’ a little wisp of a girl, Teddy,” another of the marauders commented to the first.
“Ain’t had me a nice piece of fluff like that in a long spell,” Teddy observed to his companions. “They look easy enough. What say we find out what buried Confederate gold they might have and git our ashes hauled at the same time? Sound good to you, Billy Joe?” he directed to the farsighted one.
Billy Joe groped at his crotch. “I’m buildin’ a stiff one now, thinkin’ of it. Let’s go put the fear o’ the Lord in those immigrants.”
The six men put spurs to their horses and rode out onto the trail, blocking it. They eased themselves in the saddle and crossed grime-stained hands over the pommels while they waited for the trap to draw nearer and stop. Billy Joe snickered.
“Teddy, that cripple looks like he’d fill his pants if he saw the business end of a gun. He don’t seem to have had a full meal in a passel o’ days.”
“You want to buy him a catfish dinner?”
“Naw. I want to dip my wick in that gal o’ his.”
Closer now, Griffin Stark hauled on the reins and stopped the small carriage. He let the leather leads go slack and placed one of his walking sticks in his lap. One hand clasped the shaft, while the other gripped the knob.
The Confederate Page 14