It seemed like a long time until spring.
The New Year came and went, and then the breaking up of Christmas on January 6—Old Christmas—with more shooting off guns in the air and a big get-together at Johnson’s farm with all the fiddlers and dancers reveling all night long to send out the season in celebration. We stayed until past midnight, and H. C. and Joseph would have been glad to stay longer, but Jacob told them that until they each turned sixteen, they would have to go home when the rest of the family did. Jon is only ten, and he was falling asleep against my arm, and the night air was getting colder, so we left before the revels ended.
“I wish it weren’t the dark of the moon,” I said, shivering under my quilt in the seat of the wagon. “It’s good that we haven’t far to go. If it weren’t so cold and dark, I’d as lief have stayed longer so the boys could enjoy the music.”
“It’s foolish to stay up all night,” said Jacob as we drove away.
“Well, I reckon your brother Johnson could have put us up for the night, if we had asked him.”
“The whole point of the breaking-up party is that the holidays are over now, and come sunup work resumes in the ordinary way.” He raised his voice to be heard over the rattle of the cart, and I had to shush him lest he wake the boys. “That would call for a good night’s sleep if you ask me, and I’d rather sleep in my own bed at home.”
“But you’re a farmer. This is a slack time of year for you, regardless. And it makes no difference to me, because women’s work is the same no matter what else is going on in the seasons, except, I’ll grant you, that there’s more to do in the holidays, so I welcome the end of it all because I could use the rest.”
He laughed at that, and said, “I wonder if Zona and her husband have found a party to attend in the Richlands. Bet you if they did, they’ll see the holiday out by dancing until dawn.”
I sighed. “I hope she is well enough to manage it.”
Two weeks went by in a haze of cold that set the snow like stone into the fields and roads of Greenbrier County. We did our chores around the farm, and fed logs to the fires to warm the house. I tried to make sure that everybody got enough hot food to keep them from falling sick, and kept an eye on the boys as best I could so that they wouldn’t do some tomfool thing like falling in the creek and catching pneumonia, or breaking their necks sledding down a steep ridge. I didn’t hear from Zona, but I knew that spring was just over two months away, and there wasn’t any use worrying about her now when the weather made it a misery to travel. Let the world warm up again, and then we’d go over and see how she was faring.
January 23 was an ordinary winter Saturday, cold and clear with a sky that seemed bluer than it ever does in summer. I made a breakfast of hotcakes and syrup to fortify us all against the cold, and made sure that everybody was wrapped up to the eyes in scarfs and coats and blankets before they went out to see to the livestock and cut firewood. They came back in the midafternoon, staying past dinnertime so as not to waste the daylight. I heard them stomping snow off their boots on the porch, which told me that it was time to start cooking. While the boys brought in a load of firewood and tended the fire, I went in the kitchen to fry up a chicken for their dinner. I had just floured the last piece when Jon called out to me from the parlor, “Company coming!”
I dropped the drumstick onto the cloth and hurried out of the kitchen, wiping my hands on my apron. I was thinking that Zona and her husband must have come to pay us a surprise visit, and at the same time wondering if the chicken would stretch to feed two more people or if I needed to cut a slab of cured ham as well. I rushed to the window where the boys were already peeping out at the visitors. Jacob, in his chair by the fireplace, affected not to care if we had company or not.
“It ain’t Zona,” said Jon, edging aside a little to let me look out. “See? It’s two fellows on horses. I don’t know who they are, though.”
“I do,” said H. C. “I talked to them at Zona’s wedding. They’re friends with our cousins, live over in the Richlands.”
“What are their names, son?” asked Jacob.
H. C. shook his head. “I forget.”
“Well, I wonder what brings them all the way out here on a day like this.” I was untying my apron and patting down my hair. “Do you reckon Edward and Zona are with them? Maybe coming along directly in the buckboard?” We would have to kill another chicken for certain, I was thinking.
“Guess we’ll find out,” said Jacob, who got out of his chair and headed for the door as soon as he heard their footsteps on the porch.
I shooed the boys away from the window and went to join Jacob at the front door. When he opened it, an icy gust of wind hit us in the face, and Jacob grabbed the nearest fellow by his coat sleeve and pulled him over the threshold, nodding for his companion to follow. The two young men were red-nosed from the cold, with bits of snow clinging to their hair and eyelashes. We led them over to the fireplace and made them stand near the hearth until they felt revived enough to divest themselves of their coats and gloves.
I turned to H. C. and Joseph. “See to their horses, boys. It’s too cold for them to be standing out in the elements today. Put them in the barn and see that you give them hay and water, too.”
They looked a little disappointed at being sent off before the strangers could say what they’d come about, but they knew better than to talk back in front of company, so they retrieved their still-damp coats from a ladder-back chair near the fireplace, and made as long a business as they could of donning scarves and gloves, but they were still bundled up and ready to leave before the strangers thawed out enough to say what they had come about. In fact, they didn’t seem at all anxious to do so, but they looked relieved when H. C., Joseph, and Jon went outside.
We stood there, looking at them expectantly, trying not to let curiosity win over hospitality. The two young men looked at each other, as if each one hoped the other would take the lead, but finally the shorter, sandy-haired one said, “Mr. Heaster, Miz Heaster, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but we promised Trout we’d ride out here to let y’all know.”
“Let us know what?” Jacob looked from one to the other of them, more puzzled than alarmed, but I knew.
“Mrs. Shue is dead, sir. She was found at the foot of the stairs this afternoon. We reckon she must have fallen.”
I turned away then, because they were probably expecting tears, but they wouldn’t see any from me. All I felt was a cold rage somewhere beneath my ribs. Jacob put his hand on my shoulder, but I jerked away. “That devil has killed her!” I didn’t mean for them to hear me say that, but they did.
nine
AFTER THE TWO STRANGERS came out with their terrible news, they looked askance at me, as if they were expecting me to fall down in a faint at their feet, but all I could do was stare at them and wait for my mind to catch up to the truth of their message. I kept trying to feel the sense of those words—Zona, dead. Maybe I wouldn’t really feel the weight of them until I saw Zona for myself, for sometimes seeing is the only way to believe. But even then—even when the terrible import of their tidings reached my mind—did they suppose that I would give way before strangers? Not likely! I inherited a full dose of British reserve from my English father, and I’d already lived through a war and enough toil and hardship over the years on our mountain farm to destroy a weakling, so it’s just as well that I wasn’t one. I don’t do my grieving in front of other people, and I don’t give way to sorrow when there are more urgent matters to consider.
“How did it happen?” I asked, searching their faces for some sign of doubt or shame. “Was that husband of hers at home?”
“No, ma’am,” said the sandy-haired fellow. “He was working at the smithy, but aside from that we don’t know anything but what we were told. We didn’t find her or nothin’.”
“Are you fellows friends of Mr. Shue?”
They glanced at each other, and I thought they looked wary, though it was an innocent enough question
.
“Not to say friends,” said the tall one. “The Richlands ain’t a very big place, so we all pretty much know one another. ’Course Trout hasn’t been there that long.”
“Aunt Martha Jones asked us to come. Said you ought to be told. She is by way of being a neighbor of theirs.”
I turned to the sandy-haired fellow. “Your aunt sent you?”
He blushed. “Well, no, ma’am. She ain’t no kin to me. She’s . . .”
I understood then. “Aunt” and “Uncle” were what some folks called the elder, respected colored folks in the community. “I see. Well, it was kind of her to think of us.”
“It was her boy Anderson who found Mrs. Shue. I think Trout had told him to stop by and see if she needed anything, and when he did he found her at the foot of the stairs, so he ran to tell his mama, and she sent him off to get word to Trout. They sent for the doctor, but it wasn’t no use. Mrs. Shue was gone afore ever he found her.”
The other one chimed in. “When Aunt Martha Jones told folks what had happened, Sam and me, we volunteered to ride out here. She said somebody ought to let you all know that poor Mrs. Shue has passed.”
Jacob didn’t make a sound during all this, but then he recovered himself well enough to remember to be civil to those two well-intentioned strangers who could not be blamed for the painful news they had brought. “Thank you for your trouble, boys,” he managed to say, patting the nearest one on the arm. “We are obliged to you for making the long cold ride out here to let us know. Can we offer you some dinner?”
There wouldn’t be any problem now about having enough food to go around. They could have it all. I wouldn’t touch a morsel, and I doubted that Jacob would care to eat, either, but to be hospitable, we would sit at the table, make civil conversation, and push the food around on our plates to make the visitors feel at ease.
They must have known that the offer was a hollow gesture, though, and that, in the presence of our grief, the food would be likely to stick in their throats, because they exchanged stricken looks and, without an instant’s hesitation, they both began to stammer out excuses to leave.
“It’s awful late for a winter afternoon, sir,” the tall one said. “We’d best be on our way while it’s still light. For sure it’s a long cold ride back to the Richlands.”
“We thank you for the kind invite,” said the other man, “but we just wanted to add our condolences before we started back. And to let you know that Trout asked that the funeral be held tomorrow, after he brings her body back here, on account of its being Sunday. He says that way he won’t miss work.”
Before I could say what I thought of that, the other one spoke up. “We didn’t mean to intrude on your grief, or burden you with having to entertain strangers at a time like this. We’ll just be getting our coats and be on our way.” As the sandy-haired fellow started to pull on his still-damp coat, another thought struck him. “Have you folks any message that you’d like to send back to the widower?”
Jacob gave me a warning look, knowing full well what sort of message I’d be likely to send back to Mr. Edward Shue. Before I could open my mouth, he said, “You tell him it’s fine for him to send her on home, and we will see to the burying. I reckon she ought to be laid to rest up here with her own people.”
He glanced over at me as he said that, making sure that I agreed with him, but of course I did. Mrs. Edward Shue she might have been when she died, but for all that, Zona had known her husband for less than six months, and as far as we were concerned, he was a stranger.
As soon as the two men left, we called the boys back into the house and told them the news about Zona. They were pale and silent, but prepared for bad news, because solemn strangers riding up to the house on a late-winter afternoon usually meant that something was wrong. They sat there in a row close to the hearth, but still shivering as they took in the news. They looked up at us, waiting to hear the rest, but all Jacob said was that Zona was dead.
“Was she that sick then?” H. C., who was nearest to his sister in age, knew her best of all the boys. He looked distressed but not overcome, because they never wrote or confided in one another, for there was little enough that a twenty-two-year-old woman would have in common with a boy of sixteen.
“All we know is that she fell,” Jacob told him. “They’re bringing her body home tomorrow.”
“How did she fall? Where?”
Jacob bowed his head. “We don’t know the particulars, son.”
I added, “But we aim to find out.”
After supper, which nobody felt much like eating, we sent H. C. over to his uncle Johnson’s place to give the news to the rest of the family. I spent the evening cutting armbands out of black cloth for Jacob and each of the boys to wear for mourning. We couldn’t afford new clothes in the proper black for bereavement, so the armbands would have to do. I had a dyed-black dress already—Death is afoot often enough in every settlement for a woman to have need of a black dress many times a year. My funeral outfit was cotton, and not warm enough for winter wear, but if I put on two pairs of knit stockings and tucked a woolen shawl and scarf underneath my coat, it would serve to get me through the funeral and the burying.
I sat by the fireplace, sewing in silence. The boys had all gone upstairs to bed, but Jacob sat in his chair, just staring into the flames. He had the Bible in his lap, but after turning a few pages, he closed it and didn’t open it again. I could have asked him to read aloud to me as I worked, but I was busy with my own thoughts. I sat there stitching by firelight, dry-eyed, saying nothing.
Finally Jacob leaned back with a sigh, and said, “I don’t reckon there’s anything we could have done.”
“If it pleases you to think so.” I stabbed the needle into the seam of the armband. “You said to let her go.”
“Do you think we could have talked her out of marrying him, Mary Jane? When did she ever listen to us?”
“He killed her, Jacob. Sure as I’m sitting here, that man killed our daughter.”
He shook his head. “We don’t know that. You said she had been sick, seeing the doctor. Maybe she had female trouble. Maybe she came over faint and pitched down the stairs.”
“You’ll never make me believe that, Jacob. She was murdered, all right. I just pray to the Lord that there’s some way to see that her killer is punished.”
“Well, you mustn’t go wasting the county officials’ time making wild accusations you can’t prove. I doubt they’ll set much store by women’s intuition.”
He was probably right, but it wouldn’t stop me from trying. I’d just have to think carefully about it before I set my case before them. I meant to be heard.
The weather cleared up to blue skies the next morning, but it was still cold as blazes. I had barely closed my eyes all night, bedeviled by thoughts of Zona, wondering if she had suffered, if she had died afraid. I had no doubt that Edward Shue had killed her, but I doubted if I would ever find out why.
I put a cake in the oven well before dawn, before I even started on breakfast, for I knew there’d be visitors in the house later that day.
At sunup I woke the rest of the household so that they could finish their morning chores in time for church. The folks at Soule Chapel would have to be told, and we needed to get there early so that we could speak to the preacher and set a time that afternoon for the burying. Then we’d have to hurry home to receive those members of the congregation who’d be kind enough to come to call.
We told the news to some of Jacob’s other kinfolks first thing when we reached the church, and before long the whole congregation was abuzz with questions, and the boldest of them coming up to one or another of us asking for the particulars. We couldn’t give them any satisfaction on that point, though.
“We don’t know. They told us that she died from a fall.” I must have said those words to every single person in the congregation. “They are bringing her home this afternoon.”
Jacob touched my arm. “I’ve had a word with the revere
nd, Mary Jane. He says he can oblige us this afternoon. He will announce the funeral time to the congregation once services commence. Is that all right with you?”
I nodded, and turned away so he wouldn’t see me cry. Poor Zona’s life had been crowded into such a brief span of time: a birth, a wedding, and now a funeral, all within the space of little more than a year. And who would remember her? Not the child she gave away; not the husband, who had already had two other wives; and the community?—not for long, for she had left Little Sewell and she still would have been more or less a stranger in the Richlands. We would tend her grave and try to keep her memory green, but when we were gone, there would be no trace of her left—not even a headstone, for Jacob said that we could scarcely afford one, and besides that, a marker ought to be the responsibility of her next of kin, the man who married her, but I knew that her worthless husband wouldn’t waste a penny on a dead wife.
I took my seat on the wooden bench next to Jacob, and sat still and staring while the preacher delivered his sermon, but I didn’t hear a word he said.
The journey from the Richlands to Little Sewell with a laden wagon would take three or four hours, I judged, and I didn’t look for them to arrive until early afternoon. I was right about that, for the wagon bringing her body home rolled up into our yard shortly after we returned from church. We weren’t there alone because our neighbors and kinfolk had followed us home from church, and they would return with us for the burying later in the afternoon.
The Unquiet Grave Page 11