The Year of Jubilo

by Bahr, Howard;

  Gawain said nothing. He was thinking It won’t fire, I know it won’t—

  “You sure got the bulge on me,” Stutts went on. “Warn’t for that goddamn crowbait yonder, I’d of never heard you atall. That was a good trick, sendin them fellers out in front. Well, I’m glad you’re here—my, ain’t the muskeeters bad?”

  “What you want with me, Wall?” said Gawain. He took a step, then another, closing the distance.

  The man grinned again and spat into the leaves. He nodded at the pistol in Gawain’s hand. “You don’t need that.”

  Gawain took a step. “What business you got with me?”

  Stutts glanced over his shoulder. The two men in the field had stopped and were looking toward the woods. “Well, shit,” said Stutts, turning to Gawain again. “Everything got to be complicated.”

  He snapped the rifle up and fired so quick that the ball was humming away in the trees before Gawain realized what had happened. Through the smoke, he could see the look on Stutts’ face, a mild irritation as if the man had just been told a bad joke. It is a Henry, he will have to jack another round in, Gawain thought. He raised the pistol, cocked it, thinking It won’t work, it won’t— and pulled the trigger just as Stutts closed the breech on the rifle.

  MORGAN RHEA LISTENED to them talk, and she watched her father where he sat on the edge of the settee, his elbows resting on his knees. He had said nothing, only grew paler and seemed to shrink before her eyes. Now and then he ran a hand through his thinning hair and shook his head. For her part, Morgan felt like an eavesdropper, as though she had intruded on some mystic cabal of lunatics.

  “Gault,” Stribling was saying. “He had the boy killed, and then—”

  “Stop it!” Morgan said, her own voice shocking her. She raised her fists. “Will you please stop it? How many times do you have to say it?”

  “Now, Morgan,” said the Judge, rising unsteadily to his feet, his hand out. “Come sit by me.”

  “No!” she said. She stepped out into the hall. The men who were seated rose, even Peck, who had to struggle with his crutch. Professor Brown remembered the afternoon years before when he had made Morgan Rhea’s image, one of his first ambrotypes. He wondered where it was now.

  For a moment, Morgan seemed to stand in a vacuum in which the only sound was the blood in her ears. When she spoke, it was to Stribling. “Why have you brought this on us—brought these vile names into our house. And you have put Alex in harm’s way. How dare you, sir.”

  Stribling narrowed his eyes. “We had to go somewhere, Miss Rhea,” he said. “I considered the fact that you all might have a personal interest in this.”

  “Oh, did you?” said Morgan. “Well, I am grateful for your concern. I am sure the yankees will keep that in mind when they tear the house apart.”

  “Morgan—,” began the Judge, but she raised her hand and silenced him.

  “Forgive me, Papa,” she said. Then she turned, just as Thomas had, only she looked into the eyes of each of them where they stood in the hall, and was neither surprised nor gratified when they looked away. “Listen to yourselves,” she said. “All this madness, this insane talk of insurrection, Gault this and Stutts that, as if they were some irresistible flame and you so many stupid, bumbling moths. Talk, talk, talk—I am sick of hearing about Solomon Gault.”

  “Now, Miss Morgan,” protested Nobles. “I have already admitted—”

  “Murder, tavern brawls, intrigue—you sound like boys playing Ben Jonson!” she went on. “‘A stand-up fight’ indeed, as if that were something to be longed for. Oh, gentlemen, what a sorry thing you have made of your deliverance. No, sir—” She stabbed her finger at Nobles. “Just naming yourself a fool ain’t enough by half, for you are guilty of a greater crime than that, sir—you and all these gallants.”

  “Morgan!” snapped the Judge. “That is sufficient.”

  “No, Papa,” she said. “No, it is not. All my life I have watched you butt your head against towers and walls you built yourself. You helped to build this one too, course by course—don’t shake your head at me—and when the wall didn’t stand, what was the only thing you could think of? To run, leave it all behind and let somebody else clean it up, sweep up the ashes, bury the dead, even your own. Captain Stribling here told me once that he don’t blame anybody. How generous, how Christian of him. But maybe it’s time he did. Listen to yourselves, to your stupid talk—that’s a good place to start—”

  She stopped then. Horsemen were passing on the road in the direction of the cemetery; they could hear the hooves and the jingle of accoutrements. After a moment, Nobles ventured out on the gallery. He returned, shaking his head.

  “Bravo, Miss Rhea,” said Thomas. “Go on—you were doin good.”

  “Excuse me?” said Morgan, turning to the man. “Excuse me, sir—are you the one who has the gin mill, the what-you-call-it?”

  “I am he,” said Thomas.

  “Do not condescend to me, sir.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  But she was bracing Stribling now. “You told me something else the other day,” she said. “All that vainglory about a strange country where you all had been, how you could never leave it, any of you. Oh, I agree, sir—you not only never left that place, you brought it with you into this one, because you like it!” She laughed then, and turned on them all. “Vanity!” she said. “All your talk of nightmares, all your striking of poses, the defeat you wrap around you like some sacred garment—you like it! You must, else you would have been home today instead of sitting around feeling sorry for yourselves in a two-bit barrelhouse. What were you looking for that you thought you could find in Gault’s company—” She leveled her finger at Thomas. “Or with him!”

  “Whoa,” said Thomas, and shook his head, and stalked out onto the gallery.

  “I’m done,” said Morgan then. “I will go and see about supper.” She started for the stairs, but Stribling touched her arm.

  “Miss Rhea—,” he began.

  “No,” she said. “I am sorry, and not sorry, all at once. You have been kind to me, and I wish I could repay you with the same, but I can’t. Not today. Look to yourself, sir.” She started down the stairs; on the landing, she stopped and raised her face to Stribling again. “Where is Alex?” she said. “And where is Gawain Harper? Why do I always have to ask you that?”

  THE PISTOL WORKED, all right. It worked once, again, again, Gawain firing into his own smoke, and the men in the field running, and Wall Stutts roaring like a bull and swatting at the air as if he were swarmed with bees. Four, five, six shots, and among them Stutts got off one of his own, the ball once more rattling away through the treetops. When the pistol snapped empty, Gawain lowered it, stepped aside and waved the smoke away to find Wall Stutts still standing, still holding the rifle, the front of his shirt wet with blood. He laughed, and a red bubble popped on his lips. “You little son bitch,” he said, laughing.

  Gawain backed away, and the other came toward him, placing each step carefully in the leaves. His breath gargled deep in his throat; he spat tobacco and blood, shook his head.

  “Wall!” said Gawain. “Stop it, Wall! Leave me alone!”

  “Aye God,” said Stutts, “I’m a dead man. You hear them dogs?”

  “No,” said Gawain. “Get away from me.”

  “I hear em,” said Stutts. “They been after me a long time, and now they comin. They’ll get us both, boy. I ain’t goin by myself.” He wavered, caught himself, moved another careful step, and another, then stopped again and tried to raise the rifle, but his strength was gone. Uncle Priam came up behind him and lifted the weapon from his hands. But Stutts was not finished. The demon that had driven him all his days, and sent him down corridors illuminated by smoldering fires, was busy yet. “Git away from me, nigger,” he said.

  “Let him be,” said Old Hundred-and-Eleven. “Let him travel.”

  Stutts looked at Gawain and grinned, and in his eyes Gawain saw the dark spirit and knew that it would
live forever beyond the flesh it was about to leave. Stutts fumbled in the pocket of his sack coat and produced a stained muslin bag tied with string such as the soldiers kept coffee in. He dangled the bag from his fingers, then flung it at Gawain’s feet. “Give ’at to the Judge from his darlin Lily,” he said, and laughed. “Been good luck up to now. He’ll recognize it—it’s still got her ring on it.”

  Gawain backed away from the thing. “Aye God,” said Stutts, and laughed again. Then a tremor seized him, and he stumbled sideways against the rump of his horse. The animal stamped in the leaves, and Stutts turned toward the sound. “Hey, hey, hey, easy,” Stutts said, and put out his hand. “Watch it!” cried Uncle Priam, and dropped the rifle and grabbed at the man, but too late. The horse lashed out with both hind legs and caught Wall Stutts full in the chest and stopped at last the futile beating of his heart.

  MORGAN RHEA FOUND her mother sitting in the parlor with all the shutters drawn, the evening sun slanting through the jalousies. At first she thought the old woman was asleep, then she saw the eyelids flutter, and the eyes, unfocused but waking, rove about the room as if searching for a forgotten thought. At last they settled on Morgan. “Oh, I was dreamin of Lily,” the old woman said. “Is your father here still?”

  Morgan crossed the room and knelt by her mother’s chair. “He is upstairs with some gentlemen,” she said.

  “Ah, yes,” the other said, and raised her hand, the fingers twisted with arthritis. “I remember they came. I don’t want to know what’s happened.”

  “Nothin’s happened, Mama. Just some men talkin, is all. Do you want some supper?”

  The old woman made no reply, only closed her eyes again and turned her face away. Morgan took her hand and held it for a moment, then rose and left the room, closing the door behind her.

  The house was quiet. She could hear the hall clock and the voices of the men upstairs, but the clock and the voices seemed only a part of the silence, as a dog’s barking is part of the stillness of night. In the hall was a lofty mirror in a frame like a cathedral window. She could see her whole image in the glass; it gazed back at her, faintly illuminated, and Morgan had the feeling that someone else was watching there, trapped in a moment of her own. Morgan raised her hand, touched the fingers of the other in the glass. For a moment they stood there, looking into each other’s eyes. Then she heard the stair creak. She turned away from the mirror and found her father coming down, holding to the banister with both hands. She watched him descend into the silence one step at a time; at the foot of the stairs, he steadied himself on the newel post and raised his eyes to her. “Papa,” she said, and went to him, pressed her face against his damp shirtfront, her fingers grasping the lapels of his coat. She could feel him stiffen, hear the rasp of his slow breathing, and thought I will not ask any more of you than this and said again, “Papa.” Then she felt the tentative stroke of his fingers on the back of her head, then the press of his palm. At last, he circled her with his other arm and tightened his fingers in the fabric of her dress.

  “I want you to know,” he said, “that I have tried to do the best I could.”

  She made no reply. From the corner of her eye, she could see the mirror; the silent figures beyond the glass seemed to be clasped in a moment of intimacy unlike any she had ever known. She envied them, wondering if they, too, wherever they were, had to make do with empty words.

  “The … agreement with Gawain Harper was my doing, not his,” said the Judge. “While you are seeking whom to blame, you should not touch on him.”

  She winced at that, and felt a flash of anger. “I won’t, Papa,” she said, and tried to push away, but he held her fast, and she was surprised at the strength in him.

  “Don’t mistake me,” he said, his voice hovering somewhere above her. “I did not come to scold you, any more than to beg forgiveness. Only to tell you that you and the Harper boy are free to do as you will; he is released from all obligations; I will try to amend—”

  “Papa, you cannot face down Solomon Gault,” Morgan said, pulling back gently now. “What I said up there—I was wrong, it wasn’t fair, I can’t know what it’s like to be under the hand of what you all name honor. Let us go to the yankees, tell them about Gault, let them fix it.”

  “Tell the yankees?” said the Judge, smiling. “Now, there’s a novel idea.”

  Morgan went on. “Then after, if you still want to go to Brazil, I’ll … I’ll go with you, at least for a little while—”

  “No,” said the Judge. He sat down on the bottom step, and Morgan knelt beside him, taking his hand, rubbing it. The Judge touched her forehead, brushing aside the wayward strand of hair that always hung there. “When I first came to this country,” he said, “there was still an Indian village where the courthouse is—was, I mean—and old man Frye’s tavern, and that was all except for some tents and shanties where the white people lived. Wasn’t any nigrahs, wasn’t even a road then, just a track in the woods, and you dare not go past Leaf River unless you traveled in a bunch, armed to the teeth—and even then there wasn’t anyplace to go unless it was Natchez. The first client I had was a man who butchered a whole family for whatever he thought they had in their wagon, which was nothing but some furniture, as it turned out. I lost the case, of course, and the boys got the fellow drunk and had him tell the story one more time—he made a lively account of it, throwing in some details he’d left out before—then we hanged him from a red oak tree in the yard. Wasn’t anything else to do—no jail nor penitentiary in the whole territory—and the fellow understood that and said he had no hard feelings. That’s how it was then, in the new country, and I was a young man and gloried in it.”

  The Judge was silent for a moment. Up above, the men’s voices went on, arguing now, and the clock chimed seven times. The light was fading now, this Sunday falling away to join all the others that had passed since a nameless and forgotten family was slaughtered in the night, and a man swung from a red oak limb in the tavern yard, and before that to a time when there were no Sundays at all, only the green canopy of the wilderness stretching away. “It was fun then,” said the Judge at last, “and the closest I ever came to freedom. We made up the rules as we went along, and everybody thrived on possibility—what we could make of this place, what it might become—and God’s will seemed to match our own so perfectly that we applauded Him for His good judgment. Well”—he waved his hand toward the door where the light was graying—“there it is, risen and prospered and fallen again, and I have seen it all, and take pride in most of it. But it grew up mighty fast, and maybe I got spoiled and forgot what it was like to believe in possibilities, or listen to any will but my own.” He shook his head. “I am too old to go looking for God’s country again, and your mother is too sick—did I ever tell you how she first came here? Riding behind the wagon on a black mare like a man, with a flintlock musket over the saddle bow?”

  “No, Papa, you never did,” said Morgan, and thought of the woman sleeping in the parlor, dreaming of her daughter dead and gone.

  The Judge stood up then, too quickly, and it was a moment before he could clear his head. Morgan rose, too, and steadied him. “Where is she?” said the Judge finally. “Where is Mrs. Rhea?”

  “She is in the parlor,” said Morgan, “waitin for you.”

  “Ah,” said the Judge. “In the parlor, of course.” He looked at Morgan then, and touched her cheek. “You nearly died of the smallpox,” he said. “You and Lily both. Your mother had it too, but wouldn’t rest, wouldn’t leave you, even in the fever.”

  “I know, Papa.”

  “You must not let Mister Harper get away,” said the Judge. “He is not much account, but you can work on him. You must believe in possibility. Now, I must go and see your mother. Sometime I’ll tell you about that first day I saw her.” He laughed. “My God, that was a day all right.”

  She let him go then. He walked slowly up the hall, tapped gently on the parlor door, then opened it. He looked back at her once, then went
in, closing the door behind him.

  Morgan had believed in possibility once, on another planet that had long since spun away in time. Then, betrayed, she had abjured it and withdrawn into the shuttered room of her widowhood, surrendering to a long twilight that could only end in night. Then Gawain had noticed her, or she him, and she had breathed the free air again, and brought out her white dresses and straw hats, and went to bed at night with the assurance that morning would come at its appointed time. One morning, there was the War, and she saw in it the possibility of great deeds, the elevation of the spirit, an axis around which all their lives would turn, haloed in honor and accomplishment. In short, she had learned nothing. So this time she betrayed herself, sent Gawain away as her emissary to purchase for them both the right to say This is what we made out of sacrifice and courage—yours and mine both. When she thought she had lost him, when her folly came at last to walk with her every day through the ruins, she retreated again (Oh, Papa, she thought, what I have accused you of, you might well have learned from me—) into a room more tightly shuttered than any, where she believed nothing could ever touch her again. Only, Captain Stribling had found her there, bearing the news that her betrayal had been forgiven, or overlooked, or ignored, and in the space of two short days, she had been brought to the edge of possibility again. Morgan shook her head. She understood how a soldier must feel when he discovers that, in spite of everything, he is doomed to live after all.

  She was about to turn away and hunt up some supper when she heard Carl Nobles’ voice from the gallery: “Harry, yonder comes the boy, and he’s got Gawain Harper with him.” Morgan watched the door, willing it to open. Nobles spoke again, something about a rifle; she couldn’t catch it. Then she heard Stribling’s boots on the stairs.