Raintree County

by Ross Lockridge Jr.

  —Somebody has to have the guts to stand out there and stop Lee’s yelling infantry, Johnny said. Don’t forget that.

  —Of course, Cash said, I don’t forget that. God knows, poor bastards, they’ve suffered. I could tell you stories that would make your flesh crawl. These poor dumb farmboys have no idea what they’re getting into when they join the Army. No wonder Indianapolis is full of bountyjumpers, deserters, and Copperheads. For Christ’s sake, John, whatever you do, stay out of the Army.

  —Sometimes I don’t see how we can pull through, Johnny said, with all this Copperhead sentiment.

  —If I had my way, Cash said, we’d hang ’em all in the nearest orchard and get on with the War. And the first fat neck I’d tighten the noose to would be that of our mutual and esteemed friend, Garwood Jones. Imagine the folks back home electing that traitor to the State Legislature! I suppose with so many loyal men in the Army, the Copperhead vote was overwhelming.

  Chatting with Cash about the War, Johnny had hoped to lull his anxiety a little, but it only increased as the train went on mile after mile toward Indianapolis. All the things he believed in were smutted with disloyalty or threatened with destruction. A few short years ago he had lain on the banks of the Shawmucky dreaming of a fair republic in which he was to be the great sayer, the maker of poems. Now, here he was, a haggard young man, assistant to the editor of a smalltown newspaper, going toward a wartorn city, full of traitors, deserters, bountyjumpers, wounded veterans, speculators, thieves, cutthroats, tramps, pimps, whores. And somewhere in this corrupt city his poor mad wife and his little son were at the mercy of depraved people. A few hundred miles away in the summer weather a horde of grayclad men, speaking a speech that was not of Raintree County, were perhaps shattering the proud Army of the Republic and realizing at last their dream of a separate nation. And so the country would become two, the Mississippi would flow through alien lands, and the institution of slavery would be perpetuated for centuries.

  At the station, he said good-by to Cash, who had an important conference, and inquired the way to the Maddon Hotel. On his way over, he told himself that his fears were baseless. Now that he was here, the Capital City of the State appeared to be after all only a greater Freehaven, a rather crudely constructed, messy collection of hotels, places of business, public buildings.

  People were all stirred up over the news of the battle in Pennsylvania. At the window of a newspaper office, Johnny saw bulletins announcing that a sharp skirmish had been fought the day before at an undisclosed place. It was clear that no one knew yet what had happened.

  Just before he reached the hotel, a Copperhead parade went by. Men and women carried transparencies with pictures of an apelike monster, supposed to be Lincoln, and Copperhead slogans.

  ABE, WE WANT JUSTICE

  . . .

  NO MORE BLOODSHED FOR NIGGERS

  . . .

  PEACE NOW

  Men boiled out into the path of the marchers, fists flew, men cursed each other, the parade poured brokenly on.

  The Maddon Hotel was a dingy framebuilding about three blocks from the Capitol. From the open door a stale breath gushed. Johnny found the lobby emptied by excitement over the parade. The air stank of beer and tobacco. The floor around the brass cuspidors was stained with spit. Flies swarmed in the diningroom. The desk was empty, the clerk having gone out to see the fun. Johnny opened the register and ran his eyes over the entries. Close to the bottom he saw

  Susanna Shawnessy and child

  The room number was 34.

  He ran up the stair. The thirdfloor hall was dark, the floor sagging with age. As he hunted for the room, something started along the wall and scrambled through a half-open door at the end of the hall. It was a fat gray rat.

  Johnny found the door and thundered on it with his fist.

  —Susanna!

  No answer.

  —Jim! It’s Papa. Jim!

  There was no sound. He tried the door. It was locked.

  He ran down the hall, down the stair, into the lobby. People were pouring back into the hotel now. Johnny shoved through them.

  —Where’s the clerk?

  A little man whose yellow teeth jutted longly from under big pale lips, said,

  —What can I do for you, friend?

  —I want to know if a Mrs. Shawnessy is here. With her son. I saw their names in the register. But they don’t seem to be in their room. Room 34, I believe it is.

  The clerk turned back to a man he had been talking with.

  —If Morton calls out troops, he said, he’ll have a rebellion on his hands right here in Indianapolis. The people’ll stand for just so much.

  —Listen, Johnny said, I want to know if——

  The clerk’s voice was querulous and ugly.

  —This draft call’s the last word. They’re makin’ slaves of us to fight for slaves. By God, I——

  —Listen, Johnny said.

  He had the ratfaced man by the arm and pulled him around.

  —Are you the clerk here or not?

  —What’s the big hurry? the ratfaced man said.

  He moved slowly around behind the counter and fumbled with the keys.

  —What’s the name?

  —Shawnessy, Johnny said, opening the register. Here it is.

  The man’s teeth slipped out of the pale flaps of his lips, smiling.

  —O, that one! he said.

  —You remember them?

  —I’d hope, the man said. Was that your wife?

  He winked at the man he had been talking with.

  —Yes, Johnny said. For God’s sake, tell me where she is if you can.

  —I don’t know where she is, the little man said.

  He smiled and spat a brown stream prolongedly on the floor. He wiped his mouth with a handkerchief.

  —But you better look after her, friend.

  —Did she leave here?

  —O, yes. Yes. O, yes, the clerk said.

  He winked and smiled at his friend again.

  —Did she have the child with her?

  —Yes, come to think about it, she did. That wasn’t all she had either.

  Johnny controlled himself.

  —Let me share that room, will you? he said. I’ll pay the charge already on it and whatever else it comes to.

  —That’ll be four dollars so far, the clerk said. Here’s the key.

  Johnny went back upstairs and opened the door. The little bare room had a stale smell of perfume and breathed air. The bed had been slept in and left unmade. The usual cheap fixtures were in the room and nothing else. Susanna’s suitcase was gone. The view from the window was a jungle of backyards and alleys. The city appeared to be decaying in a sticky heat. Johnny went downstairs and left a note at the desk for Susanna, telling her if she returned to the hotel, to wait for him there.

  At the hall where the Copperhead Rally was being held, guards stood at the door, stopping and questioning people and keeping the soldiers out.

  —Name?

  —John Shawnessy.

  —Party affiliation?

  —I just want to see if my wife’s here, Johnny said.

  Everyone within listening range laughed.

  —Better get ’er out a there, a man said. She won’t come out pure as she went in.

  The crowd laughed.

  —Go on in, the doorkeeper said, laughing.

  In the convention hall, the program was already started. Johnny scanned the crowd for Susanna’s face but without success. Speakers took turns expressing sympathy for Vallandigham, the arch-Copperhead. Once when Jeff Davis’ name was mentioned, several people cheered. On the platform among the notables was Garwood Jones, looking fatly pontifical.

  Johnny stood helpless through the speeches. He was stunned by the openly treasonable character of the meeting. Here within a few blocks of the Capitol Building, within earshot of hundreds of furloughed veterans who had risked their lives to preserve the Union, people openly expressed their contempt for the Ca
use. Here were hundreds of people, most of them respectable and well-to-do, who hated Abraham Lincoln, opposed the War, sympathized with the South, and favored a peace at any price, even if it meant the dissolution of the Union and the perpetuity of slavery.

  It was well along in the afternoon before the Convention broke up and Johnny got to talk with Garwood. As he told about Susanna’s disappearance with the boy and her overwrought condition, he watched Garwood narrowly. Garwood occupied himself with lighting a cigar. His eyes were remote, impassive.

  —Why, yes, John, he said, puffing deliberately, watching the cigar take smoke, why, yes—goddamn this cigar—yes—puff, puff—I did see her.

  A red circle blazed at the cigartip, and Garwood’s face was dimmed behind a fog of smoke. His voice was his oratorical voice, measured, deliberate, affected.

  —Why, yes, I saw her yesterday, I think it was, for a little while. To tell you the truth, she did seem a bit unstrung. Said something about coming up for the Convention, talked a bit—goddamn this cigar—puff, puff—talked a bit wild. If I were you, I wouldn’t put too much trust in—goddamn these goddam wartime smokes—put too much trust in anything she might tell you. War’s getting on her nerves—all this goddam killing and murdering for niggers, and after all she’s a sensitive—puff, puff—woman, and she’s unstrung.

  —Did she have the boy with her?

  —No, I didn’t see the boy. She didn’t say anything about him. I just saw her a little while in passing. I think it was day before yesterday, I got a note saying she was in town, and I dropped over to her lodging to pay a courtesy call and invite her to the Rally today, but I haven’t seen anything of her here. I wouldn’t worry too much, my boy. I think you’re unnecessarily alarmed. The Big City has frightened you.

  Garwood attempted a jovial laugh and put one arm affectionately around Johnny’s shoulder. There was a look of real anxiety in the usually cynical eyes.

  —Anything I can do for you, John, let me know. By the by, what do you think of our Rally?

  —I think it stinks to heaven, Johnny said. You traitors picked a fine time to have your meeting, with the Union Army fighting for its life in Pennsylvania.

  Normally Garwood, always a fast man with a comeback, would have had a retort, but now he merely shrugged his shoulders.

  —Who can say where the Right is? he said. God Himself must have a hard time choosing sides in this poor distracted nation. Both camps pray to Him. Whatever you do, for Jesus’ sake, John, don’t get into the Army. Now let me know, boy, if I can do anything for you.

  Outside the Convention Hall, in the hot late afternoon, crowds were crushing in around the windows of the newspaper offices. Reports were still coming from Pennsylvania. Newsboys sold papers as fast as they could peel their packs and make change. Johnny bought a paper, with a sick misgiving that there might be something in it about a lost child or a mad woman. But he found only the latest reports of the battle in Pennsylvania and miscellaneous news. The fighting had continued. Several places were mentioned—Emmitsburg, Chambersburg, Gettysburg. It was impossible to tell who was winning or what was happening, whether the main battle had been joined or was about to be joined. But it was clear that fighting had begun deep in Northern territory, and the tension of a great battle had somehow shot in waves outward from its fiery center across the Nation.

  Before it was dark, Johnny had reported his case to the police station, where he had trouble making the situation understood to a tired sergeant at the desk. The sergeant told him to keep in touch with the Force.

  Leaving the station, Johnny spent a long time walking with crowds. Buggies, wagons, carts ground past him on loud wheels. the nameless faces of the city passed him by, there were no faces to which he could appeal, there were no remembered faces. His panic grew stronger by the hour. He only kept it down by redoubling his efforts, halfrunning, halfwalking for hours in the streets of Indianapolis. He returned several times to the police station and to the hotel, but there was nothing to report. Belatedly, he thought of having the police post someone at the train station, and late at night he spent several hours there himself, hunting among beggars and bums, decayed monsters whom the retreating tides of the city left stranded on the shores of night.

  Johnny got no sleep that night. Several times, in the small hours of the morning, he passed the newspaper window where tomorrow’s headlines were being manufactured. The bulletins had changed a little. Now they said:

  DEFINITE REPORTS OF BIG BATTLE AT GETTYSBURG

  . . .

  LEE ATTACKING HEAVILY

  . . .

  VAST LOSS ON BOTH SIDES

  . . .

  ACTION CONTINUING

  Johnny kept going. He hardly felt his fatigue. As before in moments of crisis, he found a reservoir of strength that seemed to have no bottom and on which he drew as need required. Tirelessly all night long, he walked between the railroad station, the police station, and the hotel. But there was no further news.

  The next day, Friday, July 3, it was the same story. Susanna didn’t return to the hotel. There was no news from the police. The papers carried the little notice that Johnny had requested on a lost last column of the inside pages. Buried in the epic terror of the battle news, it was a piteous little item. It said only:

  LOST

  A young woman, black hair, blue eyes, pretty, medium size, scar above left breast, talks with Southern accent, may be demented, name, Susanna Shawnessy. May be accompanied by child, James, two years old, blue-eyed, reddish brown hair. Both well dressed when last seen. Report to police station.

  Johnny continued to hunt the City. He bought a little breakfast, his first bite in twenty-four hours. Eating it, he was reminded that only the day before he had stopped at the office of the Enquirer and had picked up the fateful letter.

  He kept up the hunt all that day and into the night. Like a somber background for his search was the growing news of battle. There was no doubt now that a great battle was in progress. Reports were that on both the first and second of July, heavy actions had been fought, but a decision had not yet been reached. The fighting was now located beyond a doubt in the little town of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.

  So then they were still fighting that great battle. It began to seem to Johnny that the battle and his own search were enduring things, lasting for centuries, ages, perhaps forever. As the second night wore on and he found himself a hundred times in the same places, asking the same questions, retracing his steps from hotel to police station to train station, getting the same responses, smelling the same foul air, looking at the same halfdead human faces, seeing the same nighttime shabby cityscapes, gasillumined walls, sooty curtains, bleared windows, he knew that he was building himself a solid hell of memory.

  Toward one o’clock in the morning, it began to rain, and he decided that he might as well go back to the hotel as the rain might drive Susanna in. He went upstairs to the room and lay in the bed and listened to the rain drumming on the flimsy roof. He wondered if it were raining so on the distant battlefield. Toward morning he dropped off to sleep and dreamed a brief, dreadful dream. He dreamed that Little Jim was in the hands of lechers and diseased people, a helpless child lost somewhere in a wasteland of dirty hotels, poolrooms, saloons, whorehouses. In the dream it was raining too, a dreary, sopping rain, and at the end of his dream he saw thousands of rainbloated corpses lying on the familiar fields of Raintree County, bodies of young men fallen in battle. He thought that he approached one of these bodies, and was about to pull away the dead hand from the rainsodden face and discover who it was, when he awoke to see the gray curtain at his window flapping in gusts of rain.

  He got up and looked out on the drenched backyards of the city swimming in filth. It was dawn. He was careful not to go to sleep again. Besides, there was a noise of firecrackers in the streets, growing louder and louder until it was almost a continuous roar as of battle. When he went out, he found that the skies had cleared.

  It was the Fourth of July, 18
63.

  He went down past the newspaper window. The reports of the battle were confused and contradictory. The latest dispatches reported that the bloodiest battle of the War or a series of battles had been fought on the first three days of July around the town of Gettysburg, reaching a climax on the third day. The Rebels had attacked violently and the outcome of the struggle was still in doubt.

  There were still no reports of Susanna. The sergeant at the police station was beginning to be openly uncivil. After all, the Force had better things to do than to be plagued every halfhour by a hayseed who had gone and lost his wife and child in the Big City. This was the Fourth of July, and there were important speeches and celebrations. Cops would be needed to control the crowds. The watcher had already been taken from the train station.

  Johnny kept looking. Dizzy with sleeplessness and lack of food, a little after noon he found himself wandering on the fringes of a crowd on the grounds of the Capitol Building, listening to scraps of oratory. The speaker was someone who had led a charge in the Mexican War. He reviewed the Growth of the Nation and the Progress of the War. He expressed it as his opinion that the present battle would be Crowned with Victory and that the War would soon be over as the God of Battles would not endure any more defeats at the hand of Bob Lee. The speaker said that he wished he were right out there in the Front Lines with the boys but the Heavy Responsibilities of Public Office prevented it. The speaker said that the Rebels had underestimated the Power of the North. He verbally brandished the Grand Old Flag and said it would never be Shot Down while he had a Breast to Expose to the ruthless rending of Bloodyfanged Rebellion. The speaker affirmed that the Union was Undying while there were men to defend it and that the Starspangled Banner was yet Waving over the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. There was a volley of applause for every other sentence.