The Unquiet Grave

by Sharyn McCrumb

  The war was on when I was young, but instead of bringing gallant soldiers to our area to charm the hearts of the local maidens, it took all our eligible young bucks away, killed a fair few of them, and sent back a slew of others maimed in body or spirit, so that many a young girl back then ended her days as a spinster. Lucky for both of us: Jacob wasn’t but thirteen when the war commenced. He could have gone—there’s some that young that did—but my Jacob did not, and so in 1870, after it was all over, I got me a husband, when many a likely-looking girl did without. At least my Zona was born too late to suffer that, though I’ll wager she was pretty enough to have beaten out every other belle in the settlement.

  If we moved nearer to the county town, I thought, Zona might have landed herself someone besides a poor dirt farmer. A beauty when she’s young has that one chance to catch the eye of a gentleman, so I didn’t object overmuch when Zona asked to spend a few weeks visiting in Richlands. Chances don’t come too awful many times in life.

  I was thinking back on all that, wishing Zona could have had clothes as fine as the lady’s riding habit, and nodding while my cousin prattled on about what had happened that day. By and by her boy had come ambling back down the lane followed by a tall, strapping stranger.

  “I hadn’t seen him before,” Sarah said, “but he had the look of a workingman, handsome enough, with crinkly black hair and a wide smile, but big, too, and brawny from the heavy work he did at the forge. He carried his tools in an open wooden box, and he wore a leather apron over his shirt and trousers to save them from the mud and sparks when he shod the animals. I was surprised to see a new fellow. I was expecting James Crookshanks, who owns the smithy there on the creek at Livesay’s Mill, down a ways and on the other side of the Midland Trail. Crookshanks must have hired on new help quite recently, though, for I hadn’t heard tell of this fellow, and from the look of him, the word of his arrival would spread among the ladies soon enough, especially if he was in need of a wife.

  “He wasn’t all that young, though. Thirty if he was a day, I thought, so if he didn’t have a wife, he must have misplaced her. He had strong, even features and a chiseled, square-chinned face that would have looked fitten on one of those statues of Greek gods you see in the history books, but the effect was a bit tainted by his frayed and sweaty work shirt and those grimy britches, going threadbare at the knees. Either he had no one to do his washing and mending for him, or he hadn’t many changes of clothes. Probably both, I thought, but he was new to the community; it wouldn’t be hard for him to dazzle a hopeful young woman into doing his laundry, for he was uncommonly handsome.”

  I nodded, knowing exactly what Sarah meant, but even if I hadn’t been a long-married woman, I wouldn’t have been taken in by that fellow. There’s many a woman who would not see beyond a sculptured face, but I had lived through enough hard times to know that beauty and goodness are not always the same thing—especially in a man. I wouldn’t put it past such a fellow to find a plump and plain spinster, still young and foolish enough to be hopeful, and to encourage her to show her devotion by doing his mending and making him dinners. He’d get shed of her fast enough, of course, when someone better came along, but you couldn’t warn a homely woman about that. It would only hurt her twice.

  “Oh, he was all smiles,” my cousin remembered, “for handsome people expect to be liked and welcomed, as if the pleasure of seeing them is a gift they give you. I didn’t smile back, though. I don’t take naturally to strangers, and besides there’s many a poisonous plant that’s pretty to look at.

  “The burly Adonis came up to the foot of the steps, to where the horsewoman and I were standing, still grinning like a wave on a slop bucket, and right off he said how-do to the lady and me, eying the both of us, bold as brass. You could tell he didn’t have much use for me, though. My worn calico house dress, my graying hair, and the little lines around my mouth told him I was too old and commonplace to be worth bothering about, though he’d be civil enough, in case he should think up a use for me later on, something to do with a needle or a washboard like as not. His eyes slid right past me, and I could see him taking the measure of that young society woman as if she were a horse he was thinking of buying, instead of the possessor of one. I smiled a little at that, because I was thinking, She’s well beyond your price range, fellow, for all your fine looks, and I reckon the same thought must have occurred to him, because a moment later, he lowered the wick on his charm and turned away from the steps to give his attention to the stone-bruised mare. He patted her neck, spoke a few soothing words in her ear when she shied, and lifted her damaged hoof with practiced steadiness as if it were no heavier than a china teacup.

  “After a few moments’ inspection, he dug a little iron pick out of his assortment of tools, and poked at the stone until it came loose and fell into the dust at his feet. He stood up again, letting the horse’s hoof fall back gently into the dirt, and mopped his brow with a faded bandana.

  “Well, I reckon that’ll set her to rights, ma’am, he declared, but she’ll need a new shoe anyhow. And she’ll be tender-footed for the better part of a week, so you’d best not ride her.

  “The lady murmured her thanks. I’d like to get her shod before I take her back, though, as a courtesy to my hosts who lent her to me. Can you take care of that? She was accustomed to dealing with servants; you could tell.

  “He nodded. Forge is just over the way there. I’ll lead her over there and get her shod quick as I can. How far from home are you?

  “She hesitated, as if it didn’t seem right to confide any particulars to a strange young man who wasn’t even her class to begin with. I’m visiting some people in Lewisburg. Five miles, perhaps?

  “He mopped his brow again. I make it closer to six, ma’am. But it would seem like more on a hot day like this. Too far for you to ride her back safely, and I don’t reckon your shoe leather would stand the hike. I’d be happy to carry you home, though, ma’am, on one of Crookshanks’s mounts, if you don’t mind riding behind the saddle. Then, when you get to where you’re staying, you can send somebody back for the mare.

  “I put a stop to that quick enough. We’ll see that you get home, I put in before the lady could answer him. She might be dewy enough to mistake impudence for kindness, but I was not. When the smith here is done shoeing your mare, one of my sons can take you to town in our wagon, and we can tie the horse’s lead rein to the back. She should be all right on that bruised foot if you go slow enough.

  “She had the grace to blush a little, and I knew she had actually been considering taking him up on his offer, but instead she nodded at me and managed to smile. That might be best. Thank you.

  “The likely-looking blacksmith was still standing there, holding the mare’s reins and trying to think if there was anything he could say besides good-bye, when the screen door opened, and there was your Zona, a-standing there on the threshold, taking in the scene.”

  So that’s how it happened, I thought. As random as a lightning strike and just as deadly, but painful or not I needed to hear tell of it.

  “She contrived to look surprised. I thought I heard voices out here, she said, all innocence. Zona looked at the lady long enough to take in the style of her finery, for, as you well know, that girl was always a great one for fashion and getting gussied up. With barely a glance at the shining chestnut mare, she turned her attention to the likely-looking blacksmith, and he returned her gaze with the same toothy smile you’d see on a hound dog that had figured out that this particular cured ham was hanging low enough for it to reach.

  “I confess it: I didn’t like the big-eyed stare she was shooting back at him, either.”

  I could well imagine. My daughter, Zona, was a pert little thing, with wide hazel eyes and a strawberry blonde mane that she tied in braids, loose enough so that wings of shining hair hung down below her ears like a satin drapery. Zona needed watching—we knew that of old—but yet and still she was past twenty-one and there was only so much anybody could do
to keep her in the traces. Hindsight being what it is, I wished my cousin had had a broom in her hand at that minute. I would have given anything in the world for her to have swatted Zona right back into the house, to keep her away from that man, but it was too late even then, and it would never have happened anyhow. Such a display wouldn’t have been seemly in front of company, and besides the damage was already done the minute those two set eyes upon one another. Having seen her, he would find her again, same as any tomcat would. I twisted my handkerchief as I listened, wishing that fine lady had chosen someplace else to take her injured horse.

  The elder cousin took up the tale again. “Zona put her hands on her hips, and gave the stranger a wry smile, eyebrows arched and eyes a-dancing. Well, mister, I ain’t seen you around here before.

  “He grinned back, with his charm at full wick again. I ain’t been here that long, missy, so I reckon that’s why.

  “She tilted her head, like she was sizing him up. Where do you hail from then, Mister . . . ?

  “He grinned, basking in the attention from a pretty young miss. Name’s Erasmus Shue, which I kind’a changed to Edward, on account of it’s such a mouthful. But folks mostly call me Trout. How ’bout yourself?

  “That society lady and me, we might as well have been a couple of flies on the porch rail for all the notice those two took of us after that.

  “By now Zona was well nigh smirking at him—cat-in-the-cream-jug smug, she was. Well, Mr. Shue—the name fits the trade, I see—I am Miss Elva Zona Heaster, a visitor to my cousin’s house here. How do.

  “He inclined his head, like a little mock bow. A pleasure, Miss Heaster. It is ‘Miss,’ is it not? I thought so. Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ll have my hands full carrying this here toolbox, so if you don’t mind giving me a hand with that mare, we’ll walk across the pike to Crookshanks’s smithy, and you can hear the story of my life. I sure would like to hear yours.

  “When he said that, Zona was off that porch and into the yard like a calf who’s found the fence gap. Without a by-your-leave to me or the lady, she picked up the horse’s lead rein and fell into step beside the blacksmith, and neither one of them thought to ask my permission. Not for the first time, I was sorry I’d ever agreed to let Zona come over the mountain and stay a spell with us.”

  Cousin Sarah couldn’t have regretted that kindness more than I did, but what’s done is done, and there was no use lamenting the fact, so I only asked her what happened after that.

  “After that? Well, the lady handed me back the cup of milk, and she had the good manners not to make any comments about what had just gone on under our noses. She looked around her, smiling at the chickens scratching in the dirt a few yards away, and then at the rolling green hills of pasture in front of the house. How peaceful it is here! she said. Nothing ever changes at all.

  “I returned her smile to be civil, and I offered to show her my flower garden while we waited for the horse to be shod, but as we walked across the grass, I was thinking how mistaken she was. Even if you stayed in the same place and did the same thing day in and day out, everything changed, whether you noticed it or not.”

  Didn’t I know it! Things change while your attention is taken up elsewhere, and before you know it, everything is different. Things looked like they’d stay the same forever where I was born at the other end of the county, over Sewell Mountain way, a patchwork of farms and woods, set among these hills, near about twenty miles from my cousin’s farm in the Richlands. That elegant hotel was open then, over in White Sulphur Springs, same as now, but since it was clear at the other end of the county, it might as well have been the moon for all it had in common with our backwoods settlement. Back up Sewell Mountain, we raised our own food in the garden and the stock pen, and I mopped, and cooked, and scrubbed the clothes on a washboard so much that the days all ran together and I’d have to look out the window to see whether it was fall or spring. And since I sewed all the family’s clothes, fashion never altered much from one year to the next around here, but things changed all right, even so.

  For starters, I had lived in two different states without even crossing the road.

  That was on account of the war, of course. Aside from a little set-to in Lewisburg late in the war, and a bigger one in the next county at Droop Mountain back in ’63, we didn’t see overmuch in the way of fighting in these parts—nothing much here worth fighting over, I reckon—but all the same, a few months before I turned fifteen, I woke up one morning and learned that I no longer lived in Virginia. Some politicians from even farther away than the Old White Hotel had taken it upon themselves to vote to make the western part of the Old Dominion into a whole separate state. I was only a young girl, and it didn’t affect me none then—the grass still grew, and the chicken tasted the same on Sunday—but it taught me early on that even if you stood stock-still and did nothing at all, things could change for you completely in the twinkling of an eye. Besides that, every move you did make could work for good or ill to alter the course of your life.

  Jacob and I talked a time or two about moving away from Meadow Bluff toward the other end of Greenbrier County, maybe to a farm a few miles down the pike from Lewisburg, and I’d give worlds to know what would have happened had we done that. It looked like a sensible choice back then. Poor people don’t often get much in the way of choices. I don’t reckon that was Jacob’s fault, us being poor, and I married him young, knowing that he had no land of his own and no trade save for farming, so if I was discontent I’d have only myself to blame. I did hope, though, if we worked hard and the country recovered from the war, our fortunes would change. If they did, it wasn’t for the better. By the time Jacob and I reached our midthirties, with our children most nigh grown, I knew we had about all we were ever likely to get: four acres of our own, plus what he earned working for other people.

  He might have prospered if we had moved down into the valley near town, because the soil was better there, and the farms were bigger. He might have got hired on to work a goodly bit of acreage over near my cousin’s place at Livesay’s Mill. I told myself that the children might have had more chances in life if we left the hills, and perhaps I was right about that, but the thing to remember about chances is there’s bad luck as well as good. Anyhow, I let Zona go off visiting on her own that summer.

  All my cousin could tell me about the rest of that fateful day was that an hour or so after Zona left with the blacksmith, Aunt Martha Jones’s boy from over the way brought back the lady’s horse, and collected the half-dollar the smith charged for shoeing it, but it was well past suppertime before Zona ever came back.

  three

  PERHAPS THERE WAS SOME dangerous middle ground between being too pretty and not being pretty enough. I had tried to say as much to Zona once, in one of her tempers, and she didn’t thank me for it. Perhaps it was a cruel thing to say, but it was my duty to warn her before she ruined her future with her headstrong ways. Much as I wanted her to be safe and happy, I never had much luck talking sense into Zona. She was always dead set on doing whatever she pleased, and she was always sure that she knew best. That quarrel between us blew over, as they always did, but I didn’t hold out much hope that she would remember my warning, even though I had told her the plain truth.

  “You don’t know beans about courting!” she shouted at me once, in the midst of one of our set-tos. “You grew up on a mountain farm with precious few beaux to choose from on account of the war.”

  “I know well enough,” I told her, though it was true that I had never been the wild girl Zona was. I settled on Jacob before I turned fifteen, and that was that. “You’d have to grow up in a root cellar not to know what men are like.”

  Maybe you could be pretty enough for a man to want to trifle with you, but not pretty enough for him to take the trouble to keep you. Or maybe you could be pretty enough to be worth having, but not the soft, submissive, hardworking little woman that a man generally ends up choosing for a wife. Zona was pretty, and she knew it. Th
at made her think she needn’t bother to mind her ways. She saw no reason to be meek and mild, or to wait for some man to choose her. Thought she was entitled to do the choosing herself, Zona did. She was altogether too sharp and outspoken for her own good, and I told her so, but she just tossed her head, shaking that red mane of hers, and said I was being old-fashioned, and that times were changing as we headed into the new century. I don’t think I was wrong, though. Times may change, but men mostly don’t.

  Well before Edward “Call me Trout” Shue came ambling along, with his possum grin and his storybook profile, we’d had trouble with Zona. Living way out near Sewell Mountain hadn’t given her too many chances to flaunt her prettiness, but she still found ways to court trouble. She had more than her share of beaux—not enough to fill up a barn dance, as she’d have liked, but a few steady local farm boys—but they weren’t to her liking. They were the quiet, steadfast fellows inclined to sow one tiny patch of wild oats afore they settled on a sensible wife and helpmeet to tend the farm. Those young men might have admired a beauty, but there were things that mattered more: a diligent, house-proud, hardworking wife who could get up at dawn to bake biscuits, knock the dirt out of work clothes with hot water and a battlin’ stick, and tend the garden and the laying hens. A farmer’s helpmeet who toiled too long and hard in weather and sun to keep her beauty much past twenty. Zona was nobody’s idea of that kind of woman—not even her own—but sometimes a man can be dazzled by a lovely face, and get himself into scrapes he’ll regret later.