This Old World

by Steve Wiegenstein

  With the mention of her son, Mrs. Smith gave another feeble wave of her hand. “You have no idea,” she said. “No idea what a burden I carry.” She groped on the table beside her. “Jenny!”

  Jenny dashed through the door with a drinking glass half filled with water. She took a bottle labeled “Parker’s Tonic” from the table and stirred some into the water.

  “No idea,” Mrs. Smith repeated, drinking a gulp of the tonic. “No one has any idea.” She drank another swallow. “But I must be strong. I have come here for a purpose, not merely to sit at the graveside and mourn.” She gestured at Wilkinson. “Mr. Wilkinson here is the foremost practitioner of the embalming arts in Philadelphia and even the entire country, I daresay. Wouldn’t you say so, Mr. Wilkinson?”

  Wilkinson bowed. “You are too kind, madam.”

  “Wilkinson has had entirely too much chance to perfect his trade lately, with this horrid war,” she went on. “But I am going to use his knowledge for my own purposes. I am going to have Mr. Wilkinson exhume the body of my son and embalm it for travel, and return him to Philadelphia for a proper burial in our family cemetery.”

  Marie sneaked a glance at Charlotte, whose expression was utterly composed. “I see,” Charlotte said. “You are aware, of course, that your son met his death almost eight years ago.”

  “I am,” Mrs. Smith said, a bulldog look crossing her face.

  Charlotte turned her gaze to Wilkinson. “And you have been aware of this fact as well.”

  Wilkinson lifted his chin. “The advances in our understanding brought about by this war have been remarkable, ma’am. I make no guarantees, but I am hopeful that some amount of restoration may be possible to allow the dignified return of Mr. Smith’s remains to his home cemetery.”

  “Then we would not stand in your way,” Charlotte said. “Mrs. Smith is willing to spend her money, and you’re willing to take it. You’ll get no interference from the people of Daybreak.”

  Wilkinson gave an offended puff through pursed lips, and Charlotte stood up to leave, but Mrs. Smith waved her back to her chair. “We have some woman talk to do,” she said. “Mr. Wilkinson, please give us the room.” Wilkinson backed to the door, giving Charlotte an ugly glance as he did. “Jenny,” Mrs. Smith called. “See Mr. Wilkinson to his house.”

  Mrs. Smith paused until she heard the closing of the outside door. “They listen at the keyhole,” she said. “All of them do. They think I don’t know.” She raised herself to a sitting position on the edge of her bed, swinging her slippered feet to the floor. With a grunt she pushed herself to her feet and tottered to the door. She swung it open abruptly, as if to catch an eavesdropper behind it, but no one was there. With an “mmph” of satisfaction, she returned to the bed and climbed back in.

  “Now,” she said, stirring more tonic into her water glass. “I must speak to you, mother to mother.” She scanned their faces.

  Marie had sat quietly through everything, watching and listening. She had wondered why she had been invited in the first place, having no part in the governing of the colony.

  Mrs. Smith cleared her throat in a monstrous rolling growl. “Lysander was my only child,” she said. “Perhaps you were not aware of that fact.”

  “No, ma’am,” Marie said, surprised to hear the sound of her own voice. “I did not know that.”

  Mrs. Smith looked directly at her for the first time. “I am not surprised,” she said. “Lysander kept his own counsel on many things, despite his reputation as a talker.” She smoothed the blankets over her legs. “In fact, I know very little of his time here in your community. His letters were rare and uninformative.”

  Neither Marie nor Charlotte spoke. Mrs. Smith cleared her throat again.

  “This is not an easy thing to come to,” she said. “But I must. The thing is, Lysander was my only child, yes, as I have said, and thus my husband and I are the last of our line.”

  “Yes,” Charlotte said.

  “Unless, that is, unless something happened here. Lysander was a man of considerable appetites, I am told. And thus we come to the matter.” She swung her feet out and sat perched on the edge of the bed. With a shaking hand, she poured more tea into their cups. “Mrs. Turner, I am told you come from a good family, and I mean no disrespect. But if your younger son—what is his name?—your younger son were to turn out to be a Smith, then a bright future would await him. Schooling, a place in the world, everything that goes with life at my level. A house in town, a country house out on the Main Line, a future as a gentleman and a hand in the making of the new America that we—the victors—will create.”

  “His name is Adam,” Charlotte said quietly. “Adam Turner. And his father would not appreciate renaming him Smith, I should imagine.”

  “Come now, Mrs. Turner. Odd things happen in the course of our lives. It could be understood if a man of Lysander’s finish might have drawn your eye, being an Eastern girl yourself. Your husband’s pride is involved, but we women spend all our lives navigating around the pride of men. Think of the boy. What would be better for him—to grow up with a smooth path to prominence and achievement, or to spend his days out here scratching up the dirt?”

  Charlotte stood up. “Thank you for the tea, Mrs. Smith,” she said. “I believe I’ve had enough conversation.”

  “What about you, then?” Mrs. Smith said, turning to Marie. “Mrs. Turner here is concerned about her reputation, I’d say. She imagines that acknowledging Lysander as the boy’s father would put her to scorn. What do you think, Miss Mercadier?” Marie thought she heard extra emphasis on the miss. “Mrs. Turner may have all the power around here because of her fine reputation. But you and I, we know that reputation will only take a person so far. Once discarded, reputation shrinks to a speck very quickly. It loses all importance compared to the things that truly matter—like the welfare of one’s child.” Mrs. Smith gripped the mattress and leaned forward. “What’s your opinion, Miss Mercadier? Perhaps you are the one I should have been speaking to all along. You’re a comely young woman. Did you and my son find your way out to the barn now and then? I had fancied that I would find a grandson out here, but perhaps I was wrong. Your daughter would do worse than to be brought up in Philadelphia society.”

  “Miss Mercadier’s story is well enough—” Charlotte began, but Mrs. Smith cut her off.

  “Let her speak.” Her voice was a hissing growl. “You are fond of speaking for everyone. But I want to hear Miss Mercadier speak for herself. Think about it, young lady. Think about the society she would enter, the match she would make, if I were to bring her back from the West. My lost granddaughter, the story of her parentage obscure and slowly forgotten. You have nothing comparable to offer her.”

  Marie felt herself rise to her feet. “You are right,” she said. Her breath seemed to have failed her, and the words came out in a soft croak. “My reputation is nothing to prize. But you see, I am a selfish woman. I love my daughter and will keep her with me regardless. And I would sooner die than give her to an old witch like you!”

  And with that she was out the door, pushing her way past Jenny seated on the doorstep and Wilkinson standing in the shade nearby. He tipped his hat. “Go dig your bones, you old monster,” she said.

  Charlotte caught up with her as she reached her front door. “Well done,” Charlotte said. “For a moment I thought—”

  “I don’t care what you think,” Marie snapped. She shut the door behind herself.

  The next morning found her in the same place, home, her father off to the barn, waiting till sunrise to rouse Josephine for her chores. She had spent the evening inside, unwilling to risk an encounter with all the people who had made the day so unpleasant, but this morning she stepped out into the cool air with a fresh mind. This was her community, not Mrs. Smith’s, or Cowling’s, or Wilkinson’s, or even Dathan’s. She would live in it as she pleased and not waste her time avoiding these accidental newcomers.

  The sun had barely broken the horizon, but the air was alr
eady moist. Another cool morning, but it was going to be a warm day. The children in school would be hard to manage.

  Marie heard the sound of something splashing across the river behind her and went around her house to look. She saw Michael Flynn climbing the bank, his son on his shoulders. She had always wondered how Angus managed to get to school with dry clothes.

  Flynn carried the boy through the field stubble and put him down in the road, sending him in the direction of the Temple with something between a pat and a shove. His curly black hair was sloppily cut short, something he’d done himself with a razor and comb, obviously. He had tied his brogans together by the laces and draped them around his neck to keep them dry while he forded the river. Now he sat on a stump to put them back on. Something caught his eye; she must have moved a little. For he stood up abruptly, a shoe on one foot and the other in his hand, and took off his hat. “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning.”

  “Thought I’d ride the boy across the river today.”

  She nodded. “I didn’t mean to spy,” she said. “Please—”

  Flynn sat back down and put his other shoe on, then stood up again, his hat still in hand.

  “I’ve been meaning—” he began, but stopped. “I never thanked you properly for your care of Angus while I was away. I embarrass myself, should have thanked you right months ago.”

  “It’s all right,” Marie said. “You were just back from the war. Everything was strange.”

  “Still. And I hear the school is going well, too. All the boy wants to talk about is school, school.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  There was a pause. Flynn stayed in the road. He sucked in his breath and looked her in the eye.

  “I’m no beauty, but I’m a full grown man,” he blurted. “And a Catholic, if that matters. I have a temper, it is true, but I try not to let it out. And you’ll never find a harder working man on the face of the earth. I have a house nearly built, and fence in fine progress, and next will come a barn. I don’t sit on my trousers and wait for luck. I’d ask permission of you to come sit of an evening from time to time.”

  They stood facing each other for a while.

  “All right,” she said at last. “Come over whenever you like.”

  Chapter 8

  Charley Pettibone stepped out of Durand’s tavern into the brisk air of an October Saturday night. He liked Durand’s. The old man was friendly, and it was an easy walk from Daybreak to French Mills, just a couple of hours—which meant he didn’t always have to wait till Saturday night to pay a visit. He avoided making a habit out of weekday trips. They were a bad practice and made his work the next day slow and miserable. But occasionally he would step over; as long as he made it back by midnight or so, he could get enough sleep to make the next day bearable.

  He lit a cigar, another practice he had picked up. Charley supposed it was the war that had introduced him to drink and cigars, although he couldn’t exactly recall when these habits had begun. Old McKinney from the regiment had taken him out drinking a few times, and whoring, too, although they had rarely had enough money for that pleasure. The whores wouldn’t take scrip, that was for certain.

  Charley knew it was insane, but in a strange way he missed the war. The days of rapid movement and sense of urgency, the comradeship, the laughter and joking in idle times. He had drifted south from Daybreak when the fighting broke out, compelled for reasons he couldn’t quite explain to join an Arkansas regiment. He was not especially loyal to Arkansas, but it was his state, and a man had to be loyal to something. He had joined Hindman’s Legion in Helena, lying about his age although the recruiters hadn’t been too particular anyway. After that came years of marching and fighting that stretched across the middle South, Shiloh to Richmond to Chattanooga to Atlanta, ending up in the Carolinas at the Surrender.

  He should not have come back to Daybreak, he knew that now. Back when old man Webb was alive, the place felt like home. Even after Webb died, there was a common feeling about the place, a hopefulness. But now it was full of Yankee strangers, and even the old-timers lacked much sense of purpose. They held the Thursday night meetings as before, but there was little enthusiasm in them.

  He wondered whether those boys he had ridden in with had really gone to find Jo Shelby in Mexico and continue the struggle, or whether they had done like him and washed up onto the first sandbar that had a feeling of home. Continue the struggle? What struggle? The notion seemed even more foolish than staying in Daybreak. If he was going to be a defeated outsider, he might as well be it in a country where he knew the language. Now Oklahoma or the Western territories, that might be a possibility. But where? He didn’t know anybody out there. At least the Daybreak people had names, even if the war clouded the air between them like smoke from a funeral pyre. The worst were the widows, like Mrs. Prentice, and the near-widows, like the widow Shepherson, who had agreed to wait for Jesse Wilson, only to have Wilson vanish into oblivion, leaving her without so much as a pension. The women tried to be gracious to him, but in their eyes he could always see the obvious point: he was alive and their men weren't.

  As Charley stood on Durand’s porch, a man rode up from the south. His gear and tack were remarkably quiet; if it hadn’t been for the hoofbeats of the horse, he wouldn’t have been heard at all. He swung off—a slim man who moved with deliberation, his hat pulled low—and knocked on Durand’s front window with little more than a glance in Charley’s direction. When Durand came to the window, he passed a jug through. “Fill me up, would you, friend?” he said in a soft voice.

  Charley recognized him in the window light. “You gonna drink that whole jug, Mr. Hildebrand?” he said.

  The man turned to face him. It was Sam Hildebrand, all right. “Do I know you, friend?” he said.

  “Probably not. You held a gun on me when I was twelve years old, but that’s been a long time.”

  “Can’t say that I remember,” Hildebrand said. “I would hope you’re not the type to hold a grudge.”

  “I guess I am, but not for that,” Charley said. “I was a mouthy little brat and no doubt deserved it.”

  “Well, you’re still alive.”

  “That I am. At least you didn’t pull the trigger.”

  “I suppose we’ve all had our share of guns pointed at us since then.”

  “Oh, yeah. My people up in Daybreak have all kinds of stories about you.”

  “You’re one of that bunch, are you?”

  Charley extended his hand. “Charley Pettibone.” They shook.

  “Union man, then,” Hildebrand said.

  “No. Second Arkansas. Joined up in sixty-one, stuck it out to the end.”

  A hint of a smile crossed Hildebrand’s face. “That must make things in Daybreak a little odd for you.”

  “A little odd? I should say so. Irish and niggers, and now a whole deputation from Philadelphia. I hardly know the place.”

  “It’s a strange world.”

  “That’s God’s truth.”

  Durand came back to the window with the jug. Hildebrand handed him some coins, checked the cork, and unhitched his horse. “No, I ain’t going to drink this alone,” he said. “There’s a few like-minded boys down the road a little, and they’re going to drink it with me, talk over old times. You walk on down a mile or two, you’ll find us.”

  “I just might do that.”

  Hildebrand mounted his horse and disappeared into the night. Charley listened as the sound of the horse vanished. He’d heard all about Hildebrand, the bushwhacker. Who hadn’t? Strange, he didn’t seem like such a fearsome man at all. Just a skinny fellow. Of course, put a gun in a man’s hand and it didn’t matter how tall he was. The story was that Hildebrand might have gone into banditry, but who could know if there was truth to that, either? It wasn’t the sort of thing you’d advertise.

  Charley knew he was going to walk down the road and drink with the men, but he stood on the porch a while longer, waiting. Didn’t wa
nt to seem too eager. Let them have their jug for a while.

  The air was getting colder and the sky was clear; there would be hard frost tonight. Charley felt the need to get into motion. He felt exhilarated, the way he used to when he knew there was a big scrape coming up. The approach of a battle affected men differently; some grew melancholic, some prayed. And some were like him—they became excited, almost giddy. There was fear, of course. He had wet himself at Rowlett’s Station, their first real fight. But after that he learned to overcome his fear and let it add to his excitement. There was no more beautiful sound in the world than that of a rifle ball flying past, missing him. It was the sound of life itself.

  He strolled south down the dirt road, alert to the sounds and smells of the night air. He stuck to the middle of the road. Best not to surprise a man like Hildebrand in the darkness.

  After a mile he could see a fire ahead, off in a hollow to the side, flickering through the trees. He stopped in the road when he reached it.

  “Hey,” he called out, just loud enough to be heard.

  “That you, Pettibone?” came a voice.

  “It is.”

  “Come on in.”

  Hildebrand and three other men were seated on saddles and rocks in a close circle. Charley could hear the snuffing of horses a few feet farther into the woods.

  “This is the fellow I was telling you about,” Hildebrand said. “Charley Pettibone. This here’s Green Pratt, Lewis Dowd, and Horace Landsome. They rode with me from time to time.” The men nodded to each other. Pratt was a big, puffy man with a black beard that covered his entire mouth, and a slouch hat with the brim tilted straight up in front, as if he were facing a strong wind. Dowd and Landsome were smaller, each wearing a buff leather overcoat.

  “They’s rocks over there,” Pratt said, pointing to a vine-covered pile a few feet away. “Grab one, we’ll scoot.” Charley brushed the dirt off one and placed it in the circle.

  “Now who do you suppose piled up all them rocks?” he said. “That’s the work of many a day right there.” The men shrugged.