by Cameron Judd
“Oh Lordy. No telling what might have come out of Uncle Bufe’s mouth. What’d he say?”
“You or your wife aren’t related to the Brechts, are you, Jake?”
“Not at all.”
“Okay, then. What Bufe said was that he wasn’t sure it was good for me to go to work for the Brechts because he believes they’re ‘crooked.’ That was his word. He didn’t give any details.”
“Sounds like Bufe! In his book, anybody with a dollar in their pocket has got to be a crook. Bufe figures that anybody who managed to climb the ladder higher than he did probably stepped on all the other fingers clinging to the rungs while he was climbing.”
“But is he right? Are the Brechts honest?”
“W1hen Bufe speaks, don’t take it with just a grain of salt, Eli. You’re going to need the whole shaker. Yeah, far as I know, the Brechts are honest. Tight-fisted, yes, but fair and square. Mr. Carl has money, but it came through inheritance from his parents, marrying into more money on Miz Deb’s side, and hard work all his days. Such is my observation, anyway. And Ruby at the front desk sees it the same way, and she’s got more sense than most.”
“I hope you are right. I like to think I’ve hired on with good people. Bufe seemed pretty set on seeing them as crooked.”
“Bufe has his own reason for casting barbs at Mr. Carl.”
“Politics?”
“Oh no. Something more important to him than that.”
“Religion, then.”
“Nope. Wait until tomorrow and you’ll see for yourself.”
“What happens tomorrow?”
“Same thing that happens every Tuesday at ten in the morning. Mr. Carl never misses it – in fact it happens up behind his place. Uncle Bufe don’t miss it, either, though he enjoys it a lot less because he just don’t show up as good by comparison.”
“Golf.”
“Just wait and see.”
“It’s golf. Gotta be golf.”
“Wait and see. In the meantime, tell me a little about yourself. Strawberry Plains, right?”
“That’s right.”
“You know small towns, then.”
“They don’t get much smaller. It’s not even an actual town, just a community. Unincorporated village that just kind of hooks up with Knoxville. Like a wart growing on Knoxville’s hind end, I once heard somebody say.”
Lundy shook his head. “No, no. It’s a fine little place that don’t merit being insulted. Always give honor to your hometown, son, no matter where or what it is. I like Strawberry Plains. Especially down near the river at the old railroad bridge there … pleasant spot,” Lundy said. “You know the place … with the old bridge the Union folks tried to burn during the Civil War.”
“A lot of cowboy-and-Indian shootouts down near that bridge, too.”
“Huh?”
“The little boy and toy gun variety, I’m talking about. Me and friends from down my street, about the age of eight or nine, riding the Wild West on make-believe horses. But forget Strawberry Plains for now, Jake, and tell me if David will ever get around to helping us finalize assignments, or just leave me to throw that magazine together at the last moment with whatever scraps I can find. He seems like a man who procrastinates.”
“He’ll procrastinate every time. But only if he gets around to it.”
“I figured. So, to tell you what I haven’t told him, I’ve already started making up a list of stories that are going to have to be in that thing in some form or another. I’m going to start writing some of them myself, because I don’t know which staffer David is going to want to give which subjects, y’know. But I figure if I get the things rolling the final writers will know what direction that I, at least, want to see the stories go, and part of the work will already be in progress for them.”
Lundy was nodding firmly. “You’ve got a head on your shoulders, young man. You’re doing exactly what I was going to suggest to you. All this waiting around for David to shake a leg will have you Curtis-crazy before you know it, if you let him.”
“Hey, you told me you’d explain that ‘Curtis-crazy’ thing. Now seems like a good time.”
“Better to show than tell. And we ought to have the chance at that real soon. You won’t be in Tylerville long before you run into Curtis.”
“All right, then, I’ll wait,” Eli said, and turned his attention out the window, taking in the rural countryside. They were driving through the rolling farm country on a two-lane, unmarked paved county road. On either side were fields growing corn, tobacco, tomatoes, beans, or grazing dairy and beef cattle. The land was well-watered, lined with creeks and springs, bordered by woods and the occasional thickety field that in the heat of July would be rich with blackberries.
And beyond one of those fields: a sight that caused Eli to stare out the window to make sure he’d seen what he thought he had.
“What’s got you sitting up straight all at once like mama’s good little boy in Sunday School, Eli?” Lundy asked.
“I just saw something familiar out there, through the treetops that way.” He pointed. “Something Grandpa Will used to show me when I visited Kincheloe County. A church with two steeples on it.”
“Yep … that’d be Reunion United Methodist. A church that split in the Civil War, with one faction keeping the old building and the other moving off and putting up a new one. When the war ended they forgave and forgot and reunited in the newer building. They put the steeples from both churches up on top to show they were one church again. Named themselves Reunion. That’s a story that hasn’t been told a lot around here in recent years … you ought to put it on your magazine list and put me down to write it. I could just about dictate it start to finish right now. Hey, who was your grandfather? Was he from Kincheloe?”
“He was. Grandpa Will was Will Keller. He and Grandma Sally had a farmhouse somewhere not far from that two-steeple church.”
“Yeah! Old Will Keller. Knew him when I was a boy. Durn near everybody knew Old Will! He lived over on Harmony Road as I recall.”
“Harmony Road, yeah.” Eli repeated. “A thing I remember is that when Grandpa Will would take me to Essie’s old store for an ice cream bar, I could always spot the church with two steeples through the trees.”
“Yeah, Harmony Road is just over that way a bit.” Lundy pointed northeast. “Lord! Can’t believe you’re Will Keller’s grandson! I haven’t even thought of that old saint in years. My father always had good words to say about him. You remember Essie’s huh?”
“Very clearly. I know it’s not there anymore, though. But I happened to meet up with Essie’s grandson. Micah Ledford. You know him?”
“Heard the name, don’t know him. But I remember sweet old Essie very well. She’s got a baby sister still living, you know. No baby now, of course. Ninety now.”
“I didn’t even know Essie had a sister. Of course, all I knew of her was seeing her in her store a few times in my childhood.”
“There was five of them girls. No brothers. All of them gone but Erlene. That’s the ninety-year-old baby sister.”
“Is she good to talk to? Think I could interview her, maybe, and get a magazine story out of it? I could talk to Micah Ledford, too, and maybe come up with a good piece about Essie’s old store. If Micah has photographs, maybe, that would make it even – “
“Uh uh, no way,” Lundy cut in, shaking his head. He was turning the truck off onto a narrow paved road marked Reunion Road, an apparent route to the two-steepled church. “Wouldn’t recommend it. You don’t want to go talking to Erlene. That old gal is slap-crazy, fifty-seven kinds of nuts, no kidding. She’s made herself a kind of, I don’t know … a display, I guess you’d call it, in an old gas station building her husband owned. It was all he had to pass on to her when he kicked off this mortal coil.”
“Display? Of what?”
“Kincheloe County history, Erlene version. She’s got figurines and models set up to show it all. Ever seen ‘Small World’ at Disney World? Same idea
, backwoods homemade version. For example, she’s got a miniature set-up of Kincheloe Station, the old frontier fort that sat near where the county courthouse is now. She whittled the ‘logs’ for the cabins and palisades herself out of sticks. She’s made a tabletop version of the campus of Bowington College the way it was at its start, including the ‘House of Four Shadows’ that Reverend Bowington built for himself and his old father back in the 1800s. Officially it’s the Bowington House, the ‘shadows’ part being a nickname.”
“What’s it referring to?”
“Some old ghost story associated with the place.”
“To tell you the truth, Jake, that interests me, too.”
“Which? Erlene’s ‘history’ display, or the ‘House of Four Shadows’ story?”
“Both.”
“Well, I figure that’s because you’re a book writer. You know, a storyteller. You got imagination and you see the romance of things. I got some of that in me myself. Always had the idea of writing some fiction and seeing what I might be able to do with it.”
“You’d do well at it, Jake. I like your writing style. You’ve got what the literary types call a ‘distinctive voice.’”
“Thank you, Eli. I’m used to hearing something a lot different from that. At least at work.”
“No kidding? Who?”
“Davy Carl. He thinks I’m way too informal in how I write.”
“Well, I’ll say this, Jake: From what I’ve seen so far, I like your style a lot better than his. David’s writing is too dead and stiff. Not enough … “
“…Imagination,” Lundy finished for Eli. “Just what I was talking about.”
“Exactly. Even though, when somebody’s writing news, he’s dealing with facts, it always seems like those facts are presented best when the writer has some imagination about him. I noticed that first when I was at UT working with history professors, doing research for articles and books they were writing. The writing some of them did was as dull and flat as instructions on installing a dishwasher. Others found a way to present the same kind of material, same kind of facts, in a way that read like a storybook. The difference was what you just said: imagination. It was from reading the work of the imaginative ones that I got the notion of writing a novel based in history, seeing what I could do to turn flat ‘facts’ into something alive.”
“And you did that, it appears,” Lundy said. “Well enough to get yourself published, anyway. I’ve seen your book on Davy Carl’s shelf, and during the time between when he hired you and you actually came on board, he talked you and your book up mighty big to the staff, telling us how fortunate we were to be getting an ‘authentic writer’ with us.”
“Did he? Nice of him to say that.”
“He was sold on you pretty solid, Eli. Oh, he talked to three or four others before you, but you were the only one he got excited about hiring.”
“Wonder why he passed on the others?”
Lundy chuckled. “I don’t know for sure except as regards one of them. Davy Carl told me about that one himself.”
“What’d he say?”
“One key thing you got to know about Davy Carl: he’s the king of the straight arrows. The man plays by the rules, all the way. Dead serious about this business we’re in, and he expects the same from the rest of us. Well, this one boy that came in for an interview, he figured himself for a rising comedy writer, it seems. Through college he’d done a lot of writing and publications and such, but it was all satire stuff, comedy bits, you know. That alone was enough to make Davy Carl nervous. He’s got a real bug up his butt about humor in newspapers. But then the boy asked Davy Carl a question that guaranteed that job wasn’t going to be his. That boy asked what the ‘sacred cows’ were in Kincheloe. You know what that phrase means, I reckon.”
“Of course.”
“That was the end of it for that boy, right on the spot. Davy Carl could see that this little ray of sunshine was going to be looking to make all the trouble he could, for his own notion of fun. Davy Carl bid that fellow goodbye then and there.” Lundy paused. “Davy Carl expects devotion, y’see. Not to himself, but to the newspaper and the community and the business of journalism. Everything we do, he wants it to be for the good. Serious business, this newspaper thing. Downright somber, sometimes, where Davy Carl is concerned. No room for joking around.”
“Well, I guess that’s not a bad thing.”
“Within limits, son. Within limits.”
The conversation lulled a few moments. They reached the two-steepled church and hopped out, Lundy taking with him the camera he habitually kept at hand. Guided by a natural instinct for artful framing of images in a viewfinder and an ability to make most effective use of lighting and shadow, Lundy began snapping pictures of the historic old church building. Eli watched a few moments, then diverted himself by reading the names and epitaphs on tombstones. Some were modern, commercially made polished monuments, others crumbling slabs of ancient rock with old and crudely chiseled words eroding into near-illegibility.
Eli moved about in a section of older gravestones while Lundy continued his photo-taking around the church exterior. Prominent among the names on the older stones was the name “Sadler.” That brought no surprise to Eli. Kincheloe County’s greatest claim to fame derived from its status as the place of origin for the noted Sadler family, a Tennessee clan from whose ranks had emerged, in the 1930s, two state representatives, a governor, and a United States congressman whose long career, and ability to bring home the bacon for his constituents, had become legend statewide.
Congressman Dewey Sadler’s grave, however, was not one of those in the cemetery of Reunion Church. Sadler had been buried in 1971, with much aplomb and honors, in the Old Tylerville Cemetery located between the Kincheloe County Courthouse and the Tylerville Town Hall. As the oldest cemetery within the town limits of Tylerville, the “Old Graveyard,” as locals tended to call it, held the mortal remains of most of the communities historic noted citizens: mayors, sheriffs, police chiefs, county judges, college presidents, military leaders and heroes, and political powerhouses from the local through national levels. The Sadler name was represented no less than six times in the Old Graveyard, most visibly on the tall spire marking the grave of Congressman Dewey Sadler.
Lundy drifted over and joined Eli at length, having filled two full rolls of film with images of Reunion Church.
“I take it that you’re figuring we’ll have a story about this church in the magazine,” Eli said.
“If not that, there’ll at least be something about the history of local churches in general. I know Davy Carl well enough to guarantee that,” Lundy replied. “And since this is one of the oldest and most unusual churches in the region, and a well-known rural landmark in Kincheloe County, I figure we’ll be able to make some good use of these pictures.”
Eli was thinking. He looked at Lundy and said, “Jake, when that fellow asked David what the local sacred cows were, what did David tell him?”
Lundy shook his head. “I think he declined to answer.”
“Well … if he had answered, what do you think he’d have said?”
“If he was honest about it, he’d have had to say that right there.” Lundy pointed to a nearby crumbling grave marker dating back to the late 1880s. It bore the name of one Absalom Sadler, who according to his flowery epitaph was now “Asleep in Jesus in Expectation of the Day of Resurrection.”
“Absalom Sadler?” Eli queried. “Why him in particular?”
“Not him in particular. It’s the last name I’m talking about. There’s your sacred cow. Anything and anyone bearing the name of Sadler.”
Eli remembered something Ruby Wheeler had said to him. “Mr. Carl’s wife was a Sadler, Ruby told me.”
“She was, and its something best never forgotten. Miz Deb considers herself, and the newspaper, as the chief local ambassadors for and defenders of the Sadler name. She turns an eagle eye on anything that might cast a bad light on the Sadler ‘name, heritag
e, and reputation’, as she always puts it. That’s something you’d best keep firm in mind while you work on this magazine, my friend.”
“When I was interviewing, David seemed to be on the lookout for me showing any signs of wanting to look for touchy subjects as regards the magazine. Said he would be the one to give the final word on anything that might be controversial. Mentioned slavery as an example.”
“Well,” Lundy said, “would you expect anything different? It’s the Brechts’ paper. Their product, their cost, their risk. He’s got the right to run his own operation.”
“Will he be reasonable, though? I mean, what’s the point of ignoring the fact that people used to own slaves in this country? Including Kincheloe County? For the black people of this county, that’s their heritage. Their history. It would be wrong to ignore it.”
“Did Davy Carl say he planned to ignore it?”
Eli had to admit that Brecht had not.
“Just take a deep breath, son. You’re going to have to keep a cool head while you move forward with this thing, Eli. Davy Carl is one of those who can aggravate the devil out of you … Lord knows he does that to me three-quarters of the time. But like I told you, he’s a straight arrow, and he tries to do the right thing. So give him a chance, and try as much as you can to respect his way of doing things. You’ll get on better that way, and you’ll learn that he’s got his own kind of sense.”
“I’m sorry, Jake. I guess I’ve let the foot-dragging about the assignments get to me little.”
“Just relax. You and me will come up with a good list by the end of this week. And likely Davy Carl won’t mess with it too much. And if it all drives you too crazy, just forget the magazine for awhile and think about what your next book will be. You’ll likely find a lot of ideas poking around in local history for the magazine.”
“That may be the best advice I’m going to get, Jake.”
“Hang in there, buddy. We’re making progress here, and it ain’t going to stop until it’s all done.”
“Just keep telling me that, Jake. Now I have a favor to ask. Since we’re in the vicinity, will you help me find my grandparents’ old place? I’ve been here long enough that I feel like I should have found it by now on my own. Sort of like a family duty, or pilgrimage.”