Poison Spring

by Boggs, Johnny D. ; Abell, Chris;

  Mama wet her lips, drew in a breath. She was patient, but that had always been one of her strongest traits.

  “Your slaves left?” Mama said. “With the soldiers?”

  “Yes.” Her voice seemed so uncertain.

  “How’s your home, Mary?” Mama prodded.

  “It’s … empty.”

  “But they didn’t … they didn’t burn it … did they? The soldiers, I mean.”

  “No.” Her head shook. She wiped her eyes. “I don’t think so.”

  Edith and I exchanged another look.

  “Sallie and all my hands!” Miss Mary cried out, leaning forward, fists balled. “All of them. They just followed those Bluecoats down the road. I called out to some Yankee officer. I said to him … ‘What are you doing with my slaves?’ And he said, he says … ‘They aren’t slaves, madam. They are contrabands of war.’ Have you ever heard of such talk, Anna?”

  “You just rest, Mary.”

  Contrabands. I had another word to look up in Webster’s.

  “Even Mowbray, old Mowbray, he’s gone, too.”

  “Mowbray?” I hadn’t seen such fear in Mama’s face since Baby Hugh had had the colic real bad. Mama had sat up all night with him, and Papa had talked about God’s will, and that if it was Baby Hugh’s time to be an angel we must accept that.

  “Mowbray,” Miss Mary repeated. “I called for him and called for him … after the Yankees were gone. I went into every room in the house, even into the carriage house I was building for him. He was gone. Mowbray left me, too.”

  She didn’t remember. Her mind had gone so far, she had forgotten how she had savagely beaten that old man with a whip, how she had almost killed herself the other day racing that team of grays here.

  Uncle Willard was right. Perhaps he had always been right. Miss Mary Frederick was mad as a hatter.

  “Maybe he’ll come back,” Mama was saying to Miss Mary, though all of us knew better. Mowbray would never return to Miss Mary’s plantation, unless one of the militia patrols caught him.

  “Edith,” Mama said softly as she turned toward us. “Go inside. Fetch some blankets. Put them on our bed. Miss Mary will sleep there tonight. Travis, bring the rocking chair inside. I’ll sit up with her.”

  Like she had sat up that time when Baby Hugh had the colic.

  “They broke open the smokehouse,” Miss Mary said, her voice sounding so far away. “Those Bluebellies did. Busted down the door with the stocks of their muskets. They yelled like savages, and they speared hams and everything else they could with those long knives at the end of their muskets. It was horrible. Just horrible.” She ran the back of her right hand across her forehead. “Ran out like crazy men. And all my slaves, as well as I treated them, they just walked behind them. Just walked down the road, leaving my cotton, my carriage house, my stables, my smokehouse, leaving everything. Even leaving me. They got rice and sugar and flour and beans and carrots and potatoes. They got everything.” She drew a deep breath, and let it out quickly. Her eyes found Mama. “And the worst thing of all, Anna, the absolute horror of it all. Some of those soldiers … a lot of them, to tell you the God’s honest truth … they weren’t white men. They were colored. Colored Yankees!”

  * * * * *

  con´tra-band, n. Prohibition of trading in goods, contrary to the laws of a state or of nations.

  2. Illegal traffic.

  I closed the dictionary and climbed up into the loft. Downstairs, Mama sat in the rocking chair, as she had since she had put Miss Mary into bed. Miss Mary slept. She’d been sleeping all day, and Mama was worried sick about her. I guess she forgot to fix us supper.

  That was all right, though. After that evening, even Baby Hugh had no appetite.

  * * * * *

  The next morning we ate grits for breakfast while Miss Mary slept. She would sleep all that morning, and not stir until well into the afternoon. Before she woke, we had another visitor.

  Sweating profusely, the Reverend White made his way down the lane. Like Miss Mary, he was walking, but we knew why. I hoped he didn’t come to complain about losing Betsy. He hadn’t.

  “Yanks pay y’all a visit?” he asked Mama after I had fetched him some water from the well.

  “They were here,” Mama said. “Stole all the chickens we had.”

  “Contrabands of war,” I said, and the two of them studied me without comment.

  “And your cow?” the preacher asked.

  Mama shook her head. “They left her.”

  “God’s will.”

  “His will be done.”

  “Amen.”

  They were sitting on the porch. The preacher sipped water, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and shook his head. “Been makin’ my way ’round. Seein’ if anybody needed prayers. ’Course, ever’body needs prayers. The Yanks entered Camden yesterday evenin’. ’Round six o’clock.”

  Baby Hugh stuck his head out the front door, saying: “Mama’s birthday.”

  “You don’t say. Well, happy birthday, Mizzus Ford.”

  “Thank you.” Mama called softly to Hugh: “Is she still asleep?”

  Baby Hugh stuck his head out the door again and nodded.

  The preacher looked confused.

  “Is Edith sick?” he asked.

  “I’m fine.” My twin came around the corner.

  “Mary Frederick came here yesterday,” Mama explained. “In a desperate state. She has been sleeping since yesterday evening. The soldiers freed her slaves. I guess she had nowhere to go, except here.”

  Reverend White drank more water. “You’re a good friend, Anna Louella Ford. A fine, Christian lady. I’ll pray for poor Mary Frederick. She’s Presbyterian?”

  “Episcopalian.”

  “Ah. Yes. Well, I’ll still pray for her.” He grinned.

  I guess it was a joke. We Baptists never understood much humor.

  “They were hungry, those Yanks. Went door to door, I am told, demandin’ food. Thievin’ scum.”

  “The Confederates weren’t much better, Thaddeus,” Mama told him.

  He looked uncomfortable. “They’ll be even hungrier yet, I warrant. Ten thousand hosses and mules to feed. Maybe twelve. Maybe fifteen thousand. All those soldiers, coloreds and whites. They’ve come to the wrong place if they wants good eats. Ain’t that right?”

  Maybe it was another joke, but for a family who had been eating potatoes and carrots since forever, and who had just seen the chickens turned into Union contraband, we didn’t think much of the preacher’s humor.

  He leaned toward Mama. “I fear, Anna Louella, however, that somebody … a traitorous Judas Iscariot right in our midst in Washington County! … has told those Yankee dogs about the hidden corn.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mama just stared.

  The Reverend White sat back in the rocking chair, mopped his brow a final time before shoving the rag into his pocket.

  “What corn?” Mama asked.

  He gave her an incredulous stare. “Haven’t you heard?”

  Her head—our heads—shook.

  “Some of the farmers have corn stored in their cribs.”

  Now Mama laughed out loud, and, shaking her head, she said: “Yes, well, farmers usually store corn in cribs, shucked or unshucked, to dry. Connor built a crib as soon as he had cleared enough acreage for a cornfield.”

  The preacher was serious. “Yes, but ’em Yanks have learnt of this, and as they are desperate to feed their hosses and mules, they’s sure to be scourin’ the country, stealin’ from good, honest folks. You should be on the lookout.”

  Once again, Mama laughed. “Reverend,” she said, “we haven’t had corn since Connor enlisted. Just a few rows I try to grow to feed us, not ….” She stopped. She was about to say our mules, but they were gone, as was the preacher’s, which had been seiz
ed by Confederates while in our possession. “Reverend,” she said, “would you care for some coffee?”

  She was changing the subject, and it certainly got Mr. White’s attention.

  “Coffee?” His hands clapped like thunder. “When in God’s glorious name did you happen upon coffee?”

  “Come on,” she said. Mama wasn’t about to tell him the coffee had been given to her by a Yankee, a black Yankee at that. “It should be strong by now.”

  Into the shade of the dogtrot they went, and then into the kitchen, where that coffee would be thicker than molasses by now. All of our doors and windows had been opened, to allow a breeze, so Edith, Baby Hugh, and I decided to sit close to the door. Not that we were snooping. We were just … well … snooping.

  The liquid was poured, the coffee cups clinked in a toast, and a moment later Reverend White smacked his lips. “By grab, Anna Louella, that’s not burnt grain coffee or water poured over year-old grounds, that’s real, honest-to-goodness coffee. How did you manage it?”

  “It’s not all coffee, Reverend White,” Mama said proudly. “I toasted cornmeal to mix with the beans I ground … to make it last.”

  “Well, it’s strong. And good. Ain’t had real coffee in a year now.” His lips smacked again. “Did Miss Mary fetch it for you?”

  The pause seemed to last forever. I heard a cup settle onto a saucer. It must have been Mama’s. “I fear for Mary,” she said. “She isn’t well.”

  “God will see to her, Anna Louella. His will be done, and I will pray for her. Pray good, loud, long, strong. But this coffee. How did you manage upon it?”

  By that time, I had closed my eyes and was praying, too. Not loud, not long, but strong. Please, Mama, just tell him that Miss Mary brought you the coffee. Please, God, tell Mama that it’s all right to lie. Just this one time. Miss Mary brought the coffee. It was Miss Mary. Miss Mary. Miss Mary. Don’t let her tell the truth. Not to him. Not to him.

  My prayer wasn’t good enough for the Lord, though.

  “A Union soldier brought it, Reverend,” she said.

  Slam! That must have been the preacher’s cup hitting the table. “A Yank?” he said in his fire-and-brimstone, Old Testament tone. “A Yankee!”

  “I did not see them as Yankees, but as men.”

  “Them? More than one?”

  “They found my children at Connor’s sawmill, Reverend. They had the decency to bring them home.”

  “And steal your chickens.”

  “As the Confederates stole your mule.”

  “‘Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God!’”

  “I am no traitor.”

  “Sometimes, madam, I forget your Unionist upbringing.”

  “If I were a Unionist, I would be living in Springfield with my mother and my children. And so would my husband. You seem to forget, Reverend, that he wears the gray. I don’t see you in a Confederate uniform, sir.” Her Abolitionist was up.

  “‘And Judas, the brother of James!’” the preacher shouted, citing Scripture. “‘And Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor!’ It was you, wasn’t it, madam, who informed the Yankees about the corn?”

  I leaped up, ready to charge, to challenge the preacher to a duel, but Edith grabbed my arm, and, before I could make my way into the kitchen, Mama was laughing.

  “Really, Thaddeus? Do you really think I know anything that’s going on with my neighbors? Do you think that Willard told me what General Price was doing, where all this alleged corn was stored?”

  “That’s exactly what I think.”

  “Corn is stored in cribs, Reverend. If you seek corn, you look in the cribs of farmers.”

  The fat old man was no Porthos. No fun-loving hero. He was an evil, evil man, unable to see, blinded by hatred.

  “‘And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, it is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.’”

  Somehow, Mama remained calm. “Does this mean that all of the money I have tithed will be returned?”

  That shut him up. But not for long.

  “‘And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies … Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence; a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him.’ Perhaps you should leave for Little Rock, madam, and the Bluebellies there. Or, better yet, return to Illinois.”

  Mama fired some of the Good Book right back into his face. “‘But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you.’”

  The preacher was out the door by the time Mama had finished, slamming his straw hat on his head, almost tripping over Baby Hugh, and pounding down the steps.

  Mama followed him out the door, speaking to his back as he headed up the lane. “‘Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other ….’”

  When she had finished with her scriptures, she turned to us, smiled, and, as if nothing had even happened, she said: “I must check on Mary. You children, run along now, and play.”

  Play. Not do our chores. Not study. Play.

  We looked at one other. Baby Hugh ran down the lane with Edith right behind him. To see if anyone was on the Camden-Washington Pike. I went around the house and climbed into the corncrib. Which, of course, was empty. You needed crops to have corn to store for drying.

  Sunlight streaked through the slatted walls, casting shadows on the ground, and I breathed in deeply, but there was no longer the smell of corn. Just dust. And emptiness. I remembered back when Papa would haul the corn in from the field to the crib, parking the wagon underneath, how he would let Edith and me help him put the unshucked corn up in the crib. I remembered playing up here—Robin Hood and his Merry Men, fighting the evil sheriff of Nottingham, dueling him with sword, and falling out, landing hard, the breath whooshing from my lungs, lying there, fearing I was dying, and how nobody could hear me scream for help because I had no breath. I didn’t die, of course. Never told anyone about it.

  As I climbed back down, I looked at the crib. Papa had built it, too. I didn’t remember when. For as long as I remembered, the crib had always been part of our home, and now I wondered if maybe Jared Greene had helped him build it.

  Suddenly the mood to write hit me. No, it wasn’t a mood. It was like something I just had to do. More than an urge, a need. It felt like I had to write the same as I had to breathe. Down the lane I ran, skirting through the trees before I reached the road to avoid any nagging questions from Edith or Baby Hugh. I cut through the woods until I knew the road had curved, then bulled through brambles, leaped over rotting wood, jumped the ditch, and raced to the lane that led to Papa’s sawmill.

  As I ran, the story began developing in my head.

  * * * * *

  Musketeer Travis Ford rescues his lady fair from the Tower of Torment, dueling the evil Cardinal White himself. Thrust. Parry. En garde. Steel against steel. Lady Constance clutches her chest, brings a delicate, gloved hand to her rosy lips. She is unable to scream, watching as her hero and the evil, sweaty, fat man lunge. Steel clangs. Ford smiles. One of the cardinal’s guards leaps through the trap door. No, two. The cardinal smiles, and watches, but then a vile curse escapes his lips when the first guard is run through, doubles over, groaning as he dies. The second is forced back and falls, screaming to his death forty feet below on the cobblestone streets of Paris.

  “And now,” Travis Ford boldly proclaims, “it is time for you to join him.”

  “That is yet to be seen!”

  Thrust. Parry. Steel against steel. Blades whistle as they slice through the air. Lady Constance gasps as the cardinal’s sword slic
es through the musketeer hero’s white shirt sleeve, but Travis Ford does not even wince. He is moving forward, eyes intense, and the fat, sweaty cardinal backs up and up and up and ….

  He screams a curse as he falls out of the open window. A sickening thud sounds as the cardinal lands on the rocks, then splashes into the Paris River, and the crocodiles enjoy their supper.

  Yet there is no time to spare. Sheathing his rapier, Ford grabs Constance’s hand. They hurry down the rickety ladder, touch the streets of Paris, and are running through dark alleys, up buildings, across a moat.

  They enter the forest of gloom, and reach the ruins of the Fortress Connor.

  * * * * *

  The door to the tool shed banged open, sending a rat scurrying over my feet, but I didn’t even flinch. Stepping inside, I found the shed exactly as I had left it. Despite some trouble, I finally managed to get the empty oil cans off Papa’s cigar box, which I brought into the mill, pulled out of the sack, and opened. Miss Mary’s gift still lay inside, and I pulled the tablet from the box, closed the lid, and stared at the musician serenading the lovely lady.

  * * * * *

  Travis Ford, King’s Musketeer, exchanges his rapier for a guitar, and he begins to sing to Lady Constance. “Old Dan Tucker was a funny old man. He washed his face with a frying pan. He combed his hair with a wagon wheel. Died with a toothache in his heel.”

  * * * * *

  I laughed. Why I was in such high spirits, I couldn’t explain. Maybe it was this insanity to write. Maybe I thought I had just seen how a real hero could stand up to a tyrant. Then I opened the tablet and saw what I had written, what I had scratched out, what I had written again:

  The Spring of Hope

  Poison Spring

  Closing the tablet, I sat, legs dangling over the side, staring into the forest. A fish jumped in the millpond. A frog croaked. Above my head, the wind rustled the branches, the pine needles, the leaves of the oaks. I listened, taking in every sound. Birds, the wind, squirrels, a woodpecker somewhere deeper into the woods, another fish jumping, that frog still croaking. I breathed, smelling every scent. Pine and dust and pitch and mud. I looked, studying everything I could see. The acorns Edith and Baby Hugh had gathered. The droppings of the horse Lieutenant Bullis had ridden. One mound had been flattened by a boot or a shoe, and I grinned, thinking about how all of those soldiers must have picked on the unfortunate Yankee who had put his foot in the wrong place.