True Fires

by Susan Carol McCarthy

  “Not even as a ‘Courthouse source’?”

  “All right!” Ruth strikes a match, inhaling quickly. “But who’s going to take the case?”

  “I b’lieve, at this very moment, the lovely Miss Hightower is twisting the arm of the highly esteemed Mr. Thomas Paine Marsh.”

  “Paine Marsh? Really? Think he’ll take it?”

  “Paine’s a good man. Fair. And the Dares’ complaint is cut-and-dried. Either they’re one-eighth or they’re not. The bigger question is whether the Fifth Circuit will hear it.”

  “Judge Woods?” Could be trouble.

  “Winston K., the Third. High side is he and Marsh are lifelong huntin’ buddies. Low side’s that he’s got Congressional ambitions, might be disinclined to risk an unpopular ruling.”

  “Jesus. What’s the timing?”

  “Well—and, of course, I never said this—the Governor-elect wants it wrapped up before Christmas, so there’s no overflow onto his inauguration. That’s seven, eight weeks, Ruth. Requires a judge who’ll keep the defense attorney’s feet to the fire.”

  “Who’s the school board got?”

  “Nobody yet. Ticklish assignment. But lots of potential publicity.”

  “What’re the Dares’ chances?”

  “With Lila and the Governor-elect in their corner, Judge Woods on the bench? Fair to middlin’, I’d say.”

  Jesus. Ruth grounds out her smoke in the ash-filled tray. “Thanks, Hamp.”

  “Welcome, Ruth. Call anytime.”

  She hangs up the phone, stands, slips her pack of Pall Malls, pen, and a small notepad into her jacket. Inside the pocket, her fingers find her missing lighter. That’s where the damn thing is, she thinks, and steps outside, blinking in the late-morning glare. At the curb, she squints up Oak Street toward the two-story brick offices of Thomas Paine Marsh, Esq. Parked out front, the big green Hightower Groves pickup is easy to spot.

  Eyeing the sky’s thin clouds, relishing the fresh air, Ruth strolls a pleasant block up Oak and leans casually against the green truck’s curbside wheel well.

  Minutes later, Lila Hightower emerges from Marsh’s office, dressed, as usual, in dark tailored slacks and a crisp, open-necked shirt. Does the woman even own a skirt? Ruth wonders, as she waves and calls, “Mission accomplished?”

  Lila’s smile appears triumphant. “Had lunch yet?” she calls back.

  Ruth reads the promise of details in Lila’s eyes and shakes her head.

  “Hop in then.” The younger woman swings easily into the truck’s driver’s seat and leans over to wrench and push open the rider’s door.

  Ruth, regretting her own short legs and narrow skirt, grabs the door handle and jamb and launches herself—All the grace of an old cow!—into the truck. “Mind if we stop by my office?” She’s suddenly remembered: “I’ve come off without my purse.”

  “Oh, please.” Lila laughs. “I’m only talking Uncle Willie’s. My treat.”

  “Uncle Willie—the peanut man?”

  Lila glances at her sideways. “How long you lived here?”

  “Three years last month.”

  “And you’ve not eaten out back of Uncle Willie’s?”

  At the end of Oak Street, Lila wheels the truck onto the highway then whips it abruptly off the shoulder at the massive live oak where crude, hand-painted signs announce “Hot Boilt P-Nuts” and “BBQ Pork.” A temporary-looking, tin-roofed structure slumps against the tree trunk. To one side, an ancient, wiry Negro stirs a big, steaming pot suspended over a smoking wood fire. At the sound of the truck, he turns and, beneath the wide brim of his palmetto hat, welcomes them with a crooked, toothless smile.

  “Hey, li’l Mith,” he lisps warmly.

  “Hey, yourself, Uncle Willie! This here’s Ruth. Come for a couple of PBJs. Okay?”

  Ruth negotiates a clumsy, jerking slide onto the hard-packed, nutshell-crusted ground and nods her acknowledgment to Lila’s introduction.

  “Comin’ rithe up,” Uncle Willie says.

  Ruth trails Lila behind the big oak, past a second shed fragrant with roasting pork, to a shady picnic table next to the small stream—a large culvert, actually—that parallels the highway. At the half dozen tables, covered with red-and-white oilcloth, Ruth notes that she and Lila are the only white people present.

  “Locals only,” Lila tells Ruth as a few dark faces, mostly men, nod respectful recognition in their direction.

  “What’s a PBJ?” Ruth sits, facing Lila.

  “Well, it ain’t peanut butter and jelly.” Lila chuckles, then looks up and smiles at the tiny, brown gnome of a woman (Mrs. Willie? Ruth wonders) with the loaded tin tray.

  “Plate uh pork, bag uh bolt nuts, jar uh ’shine.” Mrs. Willie announces each item she places in front of them.

  “What flavor today, Annie?” Lila holds up the Mason jar half full of liquid the color of white wine.

  The old woman squints at the glass, sucks on a side tooth, with a quick little kissing sound, and replies, “Right good pear, Missy.” Her nod encourages them to give it a try.

  Ruth lifts her jar and sniffs. A sharp, familiar fume sears through her sinuses. Bracing herself, she sips. The taste is a surprise . . . clean, mildly fruity, with a quick afterburn not unlike a good brandy.

  Lila smacks her lips. “Lovely,” she tells Mrs. Willie, who sucks her tooth again in gratified approbation, picks up her tray, and sidles off.

  Lila plunges a plastic fork into her shredded pork and Ruth follows suit. The meat is juicy tender, glistening with a vinegary-pepper sauce, and delicious. There’s a small side of slaw.

  “Best barbecue I’ve had in years,” Ruth says, enjoying the moment. But, at the same time, wanting to broach the subject of Paine Marsh and the Dares’ civil suit. Eat first, she decides. Lila, swigging ’shine, levels her eyes over the rim of her jar. “He’s agreed to take it,” she says quietly.

  “Marsh? The suit?” Terrific! “How’d you get him to say yes?”

  Lila shrugs. “Asked a good man to do the right thing. Piece of cake.”

  Lila’s nonchalance, her air of utter confidence, prompts a question that Ruth is surprised she hasn’t asked before. “What do you do in the W.A.C.’s, Lila?”

  “Currently?” The younger woman squares her shoulders, snaps a wry salute. “Special Assistant to General J. P. Atkinson, Assistant Chief of Staff, ma’am.”

  Jesus. “Top Brass!”

  “Originally, G-2, Army Intelligence, for S.H.A.E.F.— Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces.”

  “No wonder you thought Paine Marsh a piece of cake,” Ruth says, impressed. “Though, of course, some people I know might say ‘Army Intelligence’ is a conflict of terms.”

  Lila chuckles. “Some people I know would prove your people right.”

  “So, after the war, you . . . ?”

  “After V-E Day, we moved to Berlin, part of EUCOM, the Airlift.” She shudders. “After that, we spent an eternity in Korea, then back to the War College.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Lila frowns, takes another swig, tightens her lips around the taste. “Officially, I’m on extended leave to inter my father, comfort and settle the affairs of my grieving mother.”

  “Unofficially?”

  “I’d say I’m conducting a little personal archaeology.”

  On whom? For what? “Digging up dirt? Can I help? I’m pretty good at it.”

  “Dirt!” Lila spits out the four-letter word as if it were the pinnacle of profanity. “There’s enough dirt in my father’s files to reroute the St. Johns River. No, Ruth, I’m not digging for dirt.”

  “What then?”

  “Oh, hell, I don’t know . . . It’s . . . well . . .” Lila drops her gaze, bows her head, thinking. After a moment, her eyes flick back to Ruth. “Do you get ever worn out? You know, with the way things are? I mean, the way the world—or the people who seem to run it just don’t give a damn about what happens beyond their own puny selves—just w
ears me right out.”

  “Some days—this past week, for example—you bet.”

  “What I don’t understand is—what are they thinking? How does my father, for example, who loved this county, nurtured it like a child, helped it grow—how does he leave it, like an orphan, in the hands of a straw dog like Kyle DeLuth? What goes on in the minds of the men who run for the school board—do the community an important service—then arbitrarily deny innocent children their education? Or the men in the Senate letting Joe McCarthy run roughshod over the Bill of Rights as if it never even existed? How can they argue about whether or not he should be censured?”

  Ruth grimaces. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “These men don’t stand for anything but themselves,” Lila says, staring down into her drink. “They stand against whatever fears will help get them reelected. And they’re the only ones who are truly free—free to trample the rights, the individual liberties, the justice due anyone who gets in their way.”

  Mrs. Willie arrives with a jug, to refill their Mason jars. Lila thanks her with an upheld hand. “I’m switching to sweet tea, please.”

  Ruth nods—“Me, too.”—and turns back to Lila. “Plato.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Or maybe it was Plato quoting Socrates: ‘A society is only as just, and as safe, as the justice and protection provided the least of its members.’ ”

  Lila pauses to consider this. “My father used to say there were two types of politicians. Those who rise on the scaffolds of the people’s hopes and dreams—Lincoln, for example, Churchill. And those who ride in on the back of the people’s fears—Hitler, Mussolini, even Truman, with his Smith Act, his Loyalty Oaths, his Internal Security Acts. Why, Truman set the stage for Joe McCarthy, just as surely as my father did for Kyle DeLuth!”

  Ruth cups her empty jar in both hands. “And where does Eisenhower fit in?”

  “Eisenhower’s pure Army, Ruth. A West Point warrior. Which means securing of positions, procurement of provisions, and preparation for the next war. Not to mention pay-back to the big contractors that put him there in the first place.”

  “Spread the money among your friends, and consolidate the enemy?”

  “Absolutely. My father called it ‘The Terrifying It.’ ‘Doesn’t matter what It is,’ he’d say, ‘so long as people are scared silly of It, and a candidate can convince them that he’s the one who’s gonna save ’em from It!’ ”

  “The Red Menace, the Yellow Horde—”

  “The Colored anything, around here.”

  Mrs. Willie returns, removes their empty Mason jars. Both women murmur “Thank you” as she replaces them with sweating tumblers of iced tea.

  Ruth eyes Lila. “So how do you go back?”

  “I’m not sure I will. It’s been ten years, Ruth. After ten years, the questions have changed from ‘Can I?’ or ‘Can’t I?’ to ‘Will I?’ or ‘Won’t I?’ From what I’d call ‘competence’ to—well— ‘conscience.’ After ten years and two wars, it seems to me that in some ways the world has changed completely. But in other ways—ways that count—nothing’s changed at all. Or, maybe— given that we have The Bomb, and men who are willing, if not itching, to use it—we’re worse off now than we were before.”

  “Then, perhaps you’ll stay?”

  “Impossible.” Lila juts her jaw. But abruptly, she adds, “Oh, hell!” and gives a deliberate shudder, a hollow laugh. “Who knows where I’ll wind up?!”

  In the lined rim of Lila’s eyes, the small break in her voice, the quiver in her right hand reaching for her glass, Ruth senses, again, the whole-lot-more behind what-meets-the-eye. “None of us knows, really, what lies ahead, but,”—Ruth shrugs—“Illegitimus non carborundum!”

  “Illie-what?”

  Ruth pulls out pen and notepad from her pocket, writes the words, rips out the sheet and hands it to Lila. “One of my husband’s favorite sayings—Illegitimus non carborundum: ‘Don’t let the bastards wear you down.’ ”

  Lila smiles. “Plato again?”

  “No,” Ruth says. “General ‘Vinegar Joe’ Stilwell. A born Floridian, by the way. In Burma, he also picked up one of my favorite quotes—‘Keep smiling,’ he’d say, ‘the higher the monkey climbs, the more you can see of his backside.’ ”

  “But, who gives the monkey the right to the better view?” Lila asks sharply.

  “Why, he does, of course. Until somebody climbs up behind him and knocks him out of the way.”

  “Another monkey just like him?”

  “Not necessarily. I’ve been known to climb a few trees. And how about you, Lila? Afraid of heights?”

  “Well, no.” Lila folds Ruth’s note into a small white square, slips it into the side pocket of her slacks. “Not exactly.”

  42

  Late afternoon Friday, Daniel peers across the field to that place in the distance where the dirt road to their property intersects the blacktop into town. Any time now, he thinks. And then, he sees it, the hump and flash of dark metal, the moving mound of dust rising off the road. “They’re home!” he hollers to Aunt Lu who, with the girls, is shooing the chickens back into the coop.

  Daniel, man of the house, rises out of his porch rocker, solemnly sets his .22 aside, safety on, muzzle up, and leaps off the porch yelling “Wahoo!”

  Coming up the drive, Pap and Uncle Will wave hello from each side of the truck. Daniel bolts across the clearing to Pap’s side and greets him with, “Kin I go, Pap? Kin I? Now?”

  “Yes, boy,” Pap tells him through the window, “ye kin go. Be home ’fore full dark.”

  “I will,” Daniel calls over his shoulder as he races across the field, past the hives, toward the sandy path through the woods. He’s been waiting all week for this moment, endured the long days of work and boredom with the girls, the nights of schooling with Miz Jenkins, the short, blocky teacher from the Christian school, and the photographs for Miz Barrows and her newspaper story on their “School at Home.” It had been a hard week to put by. The girls had pestered him something awful. But, this moment, the hours just ahead of him will make all of it worthwhile. This is the day he’s going to catch his first catfish, Seminole style.

  In the woods, Daniel races past the now familiar landmarks, the long-needle pines, the big, tripping tree root, the magnolia by the banks of the river, the hook right, away from the water, the sudden fork that takes him deeper into the woods, and, at last, the clearing surrounded by tall pines.

  Sampson stands, grinning welcome, by the fire.

  “Did I beat them bee guards?” Daniel peers up at the buzzing basket, the tangle of bones tinkling below.

  “Cain’t. Wings faster than feet, heh?”

  Watching the basket, Daniel’s mood suddenly darkens. “Need t’get me one of these,” he says.

  “Guard bees?”

  “Pap, town stuff.” Daniel wags his head to shake off his thoughts. “Ready to fish?” he asks eagerly, avoiding the ancient eyes that probe him.

  “Grab your goblin today, heh?” Sampson nods, and points the way, down a different path, out of the clearing. Behind him, Daniel marvels at, and tries to mimic, the way Ol’ Sampson’s big feet take such light, silent steps.

  They speak quietly along the way. Sampson reminds him that a catfish doesn’t see real well, but it’s got the hearing of a hunt dog, so there’ll be no talking once they reach the water. He’s scouted the spot, a murky hole between the knees of a cypress in a slowed-down crook of the river.

  In his haste to leave home, Daniel’s forgotten his kerchief. Sampson takes off his and carefully wraps the red cloth around Daniel’s right arm, from above the boy’s elbow to his wrist, leaving the tail of it extended between his finger and his thumb. “Shake it at ’im, like you stickin’ out your tongue,” he instructs. “Big fish gonna come at you, gonna swallow your arm whole. Don’t be ’fraid. Remember you bigger. Jus’ grabble onto whatever you can, inside. Then, lock your other hand on his lower lip. Don’t worry ’bout his tee
th, ain’t nothin’ but nubs, heh?”

  AT THE RIVERBANK, Sampson points and winks. He pantomimes wiggling the red tongue, shoving his right arm forward, grabbing his elbow with his left, raising both high above his head, and throwing something heavy onto the bank. Daniel nods solemnly and wades in.

  The water is about the same temperature as the air, so the boy feels at first only the sensation of wet, sweeping from his ankles up to his waist. He steps toward and around the big folded knob, like a bent knee, of cypress root. In front of the dark narrow hole, between two knees, the water is the color of brown ink with a faint rainbow of oil slick on top.

  Daniel takes a deep breath then dives under, extending both hands gently in front of him. Cain’t see a thing, but somethin’s there, slick and smooth. Moving his hands slowly upward, he feels the shape of a fin, on top, angling sharply up to the left. “Higher on the left puts his head on the right,” Sampson had said. Daniel backs off and rises for air.

  At the surface, he looks at Sampson, points to the right, and drops down again. Underwater, he wiggles the cloth tongue and thrusts his right fist in the spot where he guesses the head to be. There’s a sensation of—nothing! Where’d he go? Suddenly there’s a vicious clamping, a painful turning on his upper arm. I’m in him! Daniel realizes, and, in shock, opens his fingers onto the fish’s soft, squishy innards. His lower lip! Where is it? Daniel slides his left hand up, above his elbow, finds the hard ridge of fish lip, grabs it, and hoists his arm overhead.

  Lungs about to burst, he kicks up, yells when he hits the surface, “I got him! I got him!” And, suddenly, Sampson’s there, too, grabbing gills, yanking the monster, the ancient goblin face, off his arm and onto the sandy bank.

  “You shore did!” Sampson laughs. “Wheweee! Look at ’im! Twenty pounds, for sure.” Then scowling at the catfish, he crows, “The boy got you, Ol’ Ugly. His name’s Dan’l. And he got you, all by hisself !”

  Daniel is awash with water, pride, and the remains of his fear. His upper arm is rubbed raw and sore. But, the sight of his fish, now strung up by its huge lower lip on a nearby tree branch, thrills him.