Confusion, noise, and excitement increased as the time neared for the goingaway.
Susanna ran up a stair and turning threw her bridal bouquet to a crowd of girls, who fell upon it shrieking and clawing. The bouquet burst and flowers scattered everywhere. Girls ran screaming after the fragments, like hens pecking at corn.
Johnny waited downstairs with Zeke, who was in charge of getting the married couple safely onto the train.
—Now don’t worry, John, Zeke said. I got an extra buggy hid out in the barn and all ready to drive off. They think we’re goin’ in the family buggy, but we’re goin’ to fool ’em.
Zeke looked worried when he said it. Garwood Jones, Cash Carney, and some of the other boys were reported to be drinking heavily and hadn’t been seen for an hour. After a while, Zeke said he would slip out to the barn and guard the buggy himself. He left and didn’t come back.
Johnny couldn’t imagine how he and Susanna were going to get away from the house. Rooms and doors were packed with people. Dozens of buggies stood in the lane and along the road. The yard was jammed.
After a while, he was called upstairs, where he found Susanna and his mother and sisters. Susanna was in a dark goingaway dress, trimmed with red velvet. She gave Johnny’s hand a quick squeeze, but otherwise they had been like strangers to each other ever since the ceremony had begun.
When the time came to run downstairs and out of the house together, Zeke was nowhere to be found. Johnny and Susanna ran down the stair anyway. People flung rice at them as they went through the door. Faces rushed at them shouting. Someone tripped Johnny so that he fell headlong, scuffing his knee. A lot of half-grown boys stung him with handfuls of rice and wheat while he was down. He got up laughing, and he and Susanna ran back toward the barn pursued by a screaming pack. In the barn they found the buggy, but no sign of Zeke. Garwood Jones and some of the boys stood there grinning.
—We’ve been guarding it for you, John, Garwood said.
The buggy was covered with signs, most of which betrayed Garwood’s pungent muse. Cleverest was one that read:
O, my banjo! do not cry for me.
I’se gwine to Louisiana with Susanna on my knee.
Johnny and Susanna started to climb into the buggy, but there was a great dungy pig sitting in it. Johnny gave the pig a kick, and half a dozen chickens flew out of a box on the buggyfloor, squawking and flinging feathers. A big frenzied hen flew into Johnny’s face. Waves of bellylaughter came from Garwood and the others, who stood around the buggy in a cordon preventing anyone from helping the groom.
—Where’s Zeke? Johnny said.
—He went fer a walk, someone said.
There were stifled sounds from a back stall, where three young toughs were sitting on Zeke and trying to hold him down.
—Let him up, Johnny pleaded. He’s got to drive us to the station.
Someone shoved Johnny from behind and threw him to the floor.
—Come on, boys, pile on sacks! yelled a big lout whom Johnny had never seen before.
Johnny struggled to his feet and knocked his assailant down. Another strange person jumped off a stall onto his shoulders and rode him down again. Two others jumped on, and the boy he knocked down got up rubbing his jaw and snarling,
—Let’s throw him in the horse trough, boys.
—Who are these guys? Johnny yelled to Garwood, who was leaning on the stall looking in, cigar in mouth, grinning broadly.
—Just some boys—puff, puff—from the Clay Crick neighborhood, Garwood said, shaking out the match.
Johnny struggled wildly on the ground while drunken bodies wallowed on him, kicking, squeezing, gouging, butting. He felt as if his very life was in danger. Everyone, even his friends, wanted to inflict injury on him. Apparently the marriage ceremony wasn’t over until the blood sacrifice and the dionysiac frenzy.
Into this wallowing sty of male bodies flew a wildcat fury, snarling and clawing. It was Susanna. She tore one boy’s cheek open and bit another in the thumb till he screamed. Ellen Shawnessy appeared and shamed the roisterers. Johnny’s other brothers pitched in, and Zeke got loose and knocked out one of the boys who had been holding him. The boys from the Clay Crick neighborhood were routed.
Johnny stood on the side of the buggy and kicked the pig out. He was almost crying with anger and indignation. Susanna was sobbing as he pulled her up beside him.
—Gangway, he yelled, whipping the horse.
The buggy lunged forward, and a wheel rolled off. The horse began to buck and plunge, and for a moment it looked as though he might run away with the crippled buggy. While Johnny was fighting with the reins and the rearing beast in the middle of a big crowd, Garwood and others who had assisted in unbolting the wheel stood around hitting their knees and holding their bellies. After quieting the horse, Johnny got into the Shawnessy buggy, but wasn’t permitted to start until strings of old shoes and assorted junk had been tied on behind. Zeke took the reins for the drive into Freehaven to catch the train. Johnny had a last glimpse of his mother waving with one hand and holding a handkerchief to her face with the other, and then the buggy rolled out and down the road.
A dozen other buggies full of shrieking young people set out in hot pursuit. Garwood Jones overtook the bridal buggy and driving alongside tried to force it off the road. Everyone shrieked and laughed as if unaware that lives were in danger. Johnny could see Garwood’s flushed, healthy face, eyes gleaming savagely, as his buggy kept drawing abreast, its wheels locking and catching on the bridal buggy’s. Finally Zeke reached out and lashed Garwood’s horses, and Garwood’s buggy nearly upset. Someone fell out of the buggy and lay in a ditch screaming, but Garwood didn’t bother to stop. The whole procession roared into Freehaven and went once around the Court House Square, while a crowd of glum citizens looked on in disgust.
Reaching the station, Johnny began to feel as though he and his bride were not meant to go away together. There seemed no limit to the cruelty of this frenzied mob. But the train was waiting, and he and Susanna grabbed their suitcases and ran toward a coach, with the crowd following. As Johnny handed his wife up, something hit him a blow on the side of the head and nearly knocked him down, bringing tears to his eyes. It was a big old dirty boot. He smiled, pretending not to be hurt, threw a kiss in the general direction of the crowd, and was knocked through the coach door by a shower of shoes. A glass shattered, and an angry conductor had him by the collar, saying,
—Someone will have to pay for this.
—It’s all right, Johnny said, I’ll pay.
He gave someone a dollar, and someone told him that it was too much.
—Have fun with those hundred and fifteen dolls, John! Garwood yelled as the train got up steam.
—Hundred and sixteen now, Uncle, Johnny said, grimly.
—Counting you, sprout? Garwood yelled.
The train began to pull out, and even now as it ran slowly parallel to the road trying to get up steam, the buggies followed, while two rough characters amused themselves by aiming rifles at the train windows and raising the guns slightly just as they fired. Several of the passengers lay on the floor of the cars, and the conductor pulled out a pistol and threatened to fire back.
After a while, the train veered away from the road, and the buggies all stopped, and the occupants sat waving and laughing in wonderful spirits, while the two roughs fired several parting salutes.
Even when the buggies were lost to view, Johnny couldn’t recover from the feeling that he and Susanna hadn’t yet got off safe. He kept expecting some last, most fiendish trick of all to catch them, perhaps just at the border of the County. But they made the change at Beardstown without molestation. A few minutes later they were crossing the western border of the County, and turning then to Susanna, he said,
—Well, honey, I guess we’re safe.
As he put his arm around her, he felt more alone than he had ever felt in his life before.
It was a significant moment for Johnny Shawnessy when late
that night he and his bride crossed the Ohio River at Louisville. The broad water shimmered from lights on either bank as the wallowing ferryboat brought them slowly to the southern shore, which was lined dense with shacks in which the black people lived. He turned to the girl beside him. She was looking out of the window at a steamboat swimming on a wash of yellow light. He studied the proud silhouette of her face and shoulders against the window. She was like these rivers and this earth—proud and scarred and beautiful and strange.
—You’re South, she said, turning toward him, impulsively. You’ll love it, honey.
They were very tired when they reached the hotel in downtown Louisville where they had reservations. Johnny felt pensive and uprooted. Alone in a room on the second floor, they opened their hand luggage and were surprised to find a variety of things that they hadn’t packed themselves. There were two dolls, a boy doll and a girl doll, with their arms tied around each other and a paper pinned on inscribed with a poem in Garwood’s hand. Johnny started to read it aloud:
—Then, where is Seth, ye rocks and streamlets, say,
For whose sweet note Aurora erst did long?
He doth disport him with a lovelier lay,
And ringeth in the day with merry—
—Aren’t they cute! Susanna said, holding up the dolls. Isn’t that just like Uncle Garwood!
A bottle of applejack brandy had a note appended,
Remember the hard cider. Ha, Ha.
CASH CARNEY
—Ha, Ha, Johnny said.
Susanna was pleased.
—Let’s have some of it, she said. To celebrate.
The brandy was excellent. After a while Johnny and Susanna began to review the events of the marriage, which at a distance became very comical. They both talked and laughed volubly. Johnny imitated Susanna’s Southern accent, and they began to have a very good time. It seemed to him that perhaps this was a good chance to get something off his conscience.
—I ought to tell you something, Susanna, and I should have done it before. My family has a skeleton in the closet.
—What is it?
—My father’s an illegitimate child, Johnny said. I learned about it myself just recently.
—O, is that all? Susanna said. There’s lots worse things than that, Johnny.
—O?
—Like having Nigro blood in you, Susanna said.
—Well, Johnny said, laughing, we’re all white in my family except for one of my grandpas, who was as black as the ace. They captured him on the Congo after a terrific fight, and——
—Mustn’t joke about it, Susanna said gravely. Just one little teeny drop, and you’re all Nigro. Think of it. One little teeny-weeny drop makes you black. And you can’t always tell whether you are or not. Some of the octoroons in New Orleans are as white as I am.
—I hear they’re very pretty, Johnny said irrelevantly.
—It makes a person very passionate, Susanna said, to have just a little of it in them. Think of it. One teeny-weeny drop. You heard about the woman, she was all white, and one of the best families of Louisiana, and she married a fine man, a sailing captain or something. He was from one of the wealthiest and most respected families in New Orleans. When they had their baby, it was a Nigro.
—O, Johnny said.
—Men are so careless, Susanna said. Would you want a Nigro woman?
—I? Did I ever tell you about the time I——
But Susanna was not amused.
—O, Johnny, she said, suddenly taking his head in both hands and putting her deep lips to his, I do love you so much. I have a feeling that nothing can happen to me as long as I have you, honey. You won’t let anything happen to me, will you?
She snuggled up and put her head on his shoulder. It was all very sweet and romantic. But abruptly she sat up.
—Now let’s undress you and put you to bed, she said.
It seemed to be a whim of hers to reverse the situation in which they had been once before, and it wasn’t long until Johnny was entirely without clothes and shone upon by gaslight, while Susanna sat fully clothed on his lap, laughing with little excited shrieks and tickling his ribs.
—Enough of this nonsense, Johnny said.
He picked her up and tossed her, still laughing, on the bed.
—No! she shrieked. You can’t see my scar! Protect me, Jeemie!
Earlier she must have hidden the charred doll under her pillow. Now she pulled the hideous little thing out and hugged it to her breast, shaking her head, and laughing helplessly. In a way it was charming.
—Does this little personage go everywhere with us? Johnny asked, tugging at one of Susanna’s shoes.
—Naughty boy! she shrieked, kicking and twisting. Trying to ravish us! I’m going to keep everything on!
However, in a short time, Susanna had nothing on but her wedding ring and her scar. Johnny threw the last stocking on a chair. Feeling victorious, he grabbed, none too gently, the doll in Susanna’s hand.
There was a terrible shriek. It seemed to come from the doll. Johnny sprang up, his flesh crawling. People were shouting and yelling, and over all rose the unearthly screeching of the doll.
Only it wasn’t the doll after all—it was a siren right under the hotel window. Someone began to pound a gong. A woman screamed. People were running on the street. Doors slammed. Fear, guilt, shame rushed over him. He and Susanna both ran and peeped out of the window. Around a lighted building across the way, a growing crowd churned excitedly. Several small boys ran out of the building waving papers and yelling in hoarse voices.
—What is it? Johnny yelled down.
No one paid any attention. A little while later, someone pounded on the door of the room. Johnny opened it a little way, and it was a newsboy with an armload of papers. Johnny gave him a dime and took one of the papers.
—What is it, honey? Susanna asked.
—They hanged John Brown.
—Serves him right, Susanna said.
Johnny read the headlines.
THE EXECUTION OF JOHN BROWN
HE MAKES NO SPEECH
HE DIES EASY
THE BODY HANGS HALF AN HOUR
BROWN FIRM AND DIGNIFIED TO THE LAST
THE BODY GIVEN TO HIS WIFE.
—O, I don’t know, Johnny said wanly. He believed he was doing right.
—He was a damned old murderer! Susanna said, her face broad, flushed, wild-looking in a shower of loose black hair. I only wish the whole race of nigger-lovers and abolitionists had got hung along with him.
They listened a moment. People were trampling around in the rooms of the hotel. A sound of boots approached their door, and someone knocked.
—Who’s there? Johnny said.
—They hanged the son of a bitch, a drunken voice said. Come on out’n have lil drink.
—Go away, Johnny said.
The man went away. Johnny looked at the paper again and saw the words:
The old man was swung off at 11:15 precisely, he having remained firm and dignified to the last.
—Come on to bed, honey, Susanna purred.
He looked about him in the wavering gaslight, and he wondered how he had come to be so far from home in this hollow, rambling, echoing old hotel somewhere in the Southern city of Louisville on the Ohio River, while a naked girl lay on the bed, her body glowing olivebrown in the rich light, her proud eyes closed as if in sleep already, her wide nostrils flaring and falling with her breath, her deep lips parted.
—Come on, Johnny, she said in her small child’s voice. I’m so tired.
It turned out that she wasn’t tired at all. Far from it. And as for young John Wickliff Shawnessy, the life was strong in him that night, so strong that even when at last he slept (while the gasjet burned on weakly through the dawn), he continued his marriage day in fevered and strange dreams that were like a climax and farewell to a life that he had left forever.
In his dream, he was late to his wedding, and besides he hadn’t yet obtained a marriage licens
e. Riding into the Court House Square, he drove up the south side. The Square was jammed with people so that he could hardly get through.
NEWSBOY
shoving newspaper into Johnny’s hand,
—Read all about it. Git yuh papuh, heah! Biggest dern newstory of the yeah!
JOHNNY
stepping into doorway of Post Office, reading from headlines printed in jasmine-scented ink,
—LAST OF THE PURITANS SUNK IN SHAME. SCARLET LETTER REVEALS HIS NAME. POET INVOLVED IN WHISKEY RING. ONE-SHOT JOHNNY IS GOING TO SWING.
The Square had darkened. Some great catastrophe had overtaken the County. Portions of it had been ravaged by fire and flood, and in the darkness crazed multitudes streamed past. Broad waters were flowing through the County, washing away beloved hills. Perhaps it was the last deluge, the flood intended by God to purify a guilty earth, stained with the lust and folly of mankind. Familiar roofs, fences, buildings were slowly sinking in the flood.
NELL GAITHER
turning over and over in December waters, her voice trailing back to him, with a dim, rehearsed sound,
—One for whom you once professed affection, Johnny . . .
He ran along the bank of the river, touched with a great sorrow. What was it that had happened to his beloved earth? It was all dissolving in the flood. The Shawmucky had overflowed its banks and become a torrent of disaster. Who was it that had struck this mortal blow at the old County and its way of life? And how could the bloody wound be healed?
A great assemblage had gathered around him. He was standing on a kind of scaffold overlooking the Ohio River. Softspoken but brutal Southerners were fitting a noose to his neck. In the crowd, he saw his own friends and relatives, waving handkerchiefs. His mother was crying. He remembered then that he had been guilty of a great betrayal. It was he who had uprooted a sacred rock and had caused the dark flood which had come upon the land.
Raintree County Page 39