HUGGINS.
Her voice was soft behind me. “What have you found?”
I looked once more at the stone, then up at her.
“My grandfather’s grave.”
“You knew where it was?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Then, how?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
***
“Tell her, son. I told you.”
“You’re dead. You never told me anything even while you were alive.”
“I told you everything. You weren’t listening.”
“What makes you think I’m listening now?”
His laugh was the deep, heavy chuckle I had heard all my life. “You haven’t any choice now. I’m inside your head.”
“Let go, Father. You’re dead. And I have my own life to lead.”
“You’re young yet. You have time. First you have to lead mine. Then you’ll be able to lead your own.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly.” The deep, heavy chuckle again. “But you’ll have to learn how to walk before you can run.”
“And you’re going to teach me?”
“That’s right.”
“How are you going to do that with seven feet of dirt sitting on your head up there in Scarsdale?”
“I told you. I’m in every cell of your body. I am you and you are me. And as long as you live I’ll be there.”
“But someday I’ll be dead too. Then where will you be?”
“With you. In your child.”
***
The man’s voice came from behind us. “Turn aroun’ slow and don’t make any sudden moves.”
I got to my feet. Anne put her hand in mine, and slowly we turned toward the man. He was tall and thin, faded overalls and work shirt, sun-squint lines etched around his eyes, a wide-brimmed straw hat on his head and a double-barreled shotgun pointing at us across the crook in his elbow. “Didn’t you see the No Trespass signs along the path?”
“We didn’t come along a path. We came up the side of the hill from the highway.”
“Turn aroun’ and go back the way you came. Whatever you was lookin’ fer, you won’ fin’ it here.”
“I already found what I was looking for,” I said, pointing to the headstone on the ground.
He stepped to one side and looked down at it. “Huggins,” he said softly, pronouncing it with a soft G. “What’s that got to do with you?”
“He was my grandfather.”
He was silent for a moment. His eyes searched my face. “What’s your name?”
“Jonathan Huggins.”
“Big Dan’s son?”
I nodded.
The muzzle of his gun dropped toward the ground. His voice seemed gentler. “You kids foller me down to the house. My wife has some nice cool lemonade hangin’ in the well.”
We followed him down a path through the trees on the far side of the hill. We came out on a small knoll just above a cornfield. Beyond the cornfield was the house. If that was what it could be called. More a lean-to shack—odd pieces of wood nailed together, the crevices sealed with construction paper and tar, the roof more boards nailed together over plastic. In front of the house was a battered old pickup, dusty in the afternoon sun, whatever paint was left on it a faded, indistinguishable color. He led us past the cornfield, past the pickup, to the door.
He opened it and called in. “Betty May, we got visitin’ folk.”
A moment later, a girl appeared in the doorway. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, round face, round blue eyes, long blond hair and pregnant. She looked at us carefully, a hint of fear in her eyes.
“It’s okay,” he said reassuringly. “They f’om up No’th.”
“How do?” Her voice was a child’s voice.
“Hello,” I said.
He turned to me, holding out his hand. “I’m Jeb Stuart Randall. My woman, Betty May.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jeb Stuart.” I took his hand. “This is Anne.”
He made a half old-fashioned bow. “Honored, ma’am.”
“Not ma’am, Ms.”
“I beg your pardon, miz,” he said, not picking up on the word.
She smiled at him. “Nice to meet you Mr. Randall, Mrs. Randall.”
“Git the lemonade f’om the well, Betty May. Our visitors must be parched f’om the atternoon sun.”
Betty May seemed to slip by us as we followed him into the shack. The interior was dark and cool after the bright heat outside. We sat down around a small table in the only room. On one wall were an old-fashioned coal cooking stove and a sink with cupboards over it; the other wall had one old wooden closet, a chest of drawers and a bed, over which was thrown a patchwork quilt. A small oil lamp was in the center of the table.
Jeb Stuart took a half-smoked cigarette from his pocket, placed it in his mouth without lighting it. Betty May came back into the house with a pitcher of lemonade. Silently she filled three glasses and placed them in front of us. She took none for herself, neither did she sit at the table with us. Instead she went to the stove and stood next to it, watching us.
I tasted the lemonade. It was thin and watery and very sweet. But it was cool. “Very good, ma’am.”
“Thank you,” she said in her pleased child’s voice.
“I heard on the news about your pappy passing away,” Jeb Stuart said. “My sympathy.”
I nodded.
“I seen your pappy once,” he said. “He cut a fine figger, an’ man, could he talk! I ’member listenin’ to him an’ thinkin’, That man could charm the angels f’om the trees.”
I laughed. “That’s probably what he’s doin’ right now. Either that or getting the Devil to change the working hours down there.”
He didn’t know whether to smile or not. “Your pappy was a God-fearin’ man. He’s prob’ly up there with the angels.”
I nodded. I had to remember that we didn’t speak the same language.
“Yer pappy was one of us. Born right yere. He made a name for hisself that the whole country could respec’.” He fished in his pocket and came up with the familiar blue-four-leaf-clover-on-white union button, the letters CALL, one to each leaf, shining white. “When he started up the Confederation, we was among the first unions to jine up with ’im.”
“What union was that?”
“The S.F.W.U.”
That made sense. Southern Farm Workers Union. The shit end of the union stick. Neither the CIO nor the AFL had ever bothered more than to collect dues from them. There wasn’t any real money there. But my father knew better. He knew he had to begin somewhere. What he was looking for first was members, not money, and the South was ripe for picking. That was why he insisted on the word “Confederation” rather than “International.” He was right. Within one year he had every union in the South with him, and with that as his base he moved rapidly, north, east and west. Three years later he could call on a national affiliation of seven hundred unions, with a membership of more than twenty million workers.
Jeb Stuart gestured to his wife, and without a word she refilled his empty glass. “I kin still remember his ever’ word.
“‘I’m one a you,’ yer pappy said. ‘I was born in these yere mountains. I he’ped my paw with the plowin’ an’ ’shinin’. My first job, when I was fourteen year ol’, was in a coal mine. I punched cattle in Texas, worked oil rigs in Oklahoma, loaded river barges in Natchez, drove a dump truck in Georgia, crated oranges in Florida. I been fired f’om more jobs than any o’ you fellers ever dreamed existed.’
“He looked aroun’ the meetin’ hall at us f’om under them big, bushy eyebrows. We was all laughin’. He had us. He knew it an’ we knew it. He didn’t smile, though. He was all business.
“‘I’m not askin’ you to leave the C. of I.O. to come and jine with us. The C. of I.O. is doin’ a good job fer you. Even though ol’ John L. is gittin’ on up there in years an’ sot in his ways an’ them Reuther boys up No’th in Detroit is a mite
young an’ needs some seasonin’, they still doin’ a good job. But they cain’t do it all. Not even when they git back together with the A.F. of L.—an’ min’ you, they will git back together—will they be able to do it all.
“‘I’m not askin’ you people to saddle yerselves with more dues an’ assessments. Heaven knows you fellers are payin’ enough right now. I’m askin’ you fellers to jine a confederation. Now, everyone in the South knows from their history books exactly what a confederation is. It is a group of people jinin’ together of their own free will to preserve their rights as individ’ls. Jes’ like our great-gran’parents did years ago in the War between the States.
“‘The purpose o’ the Confederated Alliance of Livin’ Labor is to he’p each individual union to maintain its independent status and to achieve the best results fer its members. We give you services. Consultation, plannin’, management. So that you can decide to do what is best for yerselves, jes’ like the big unions and big businesses call in specialists fer their problems. You pay no dues, nothin’ at all less’n you call us in to work fer you. Then you only pay us while we’re workin’; when the job is finished, you stop payin’.’”
He picked up his lemonade and took a sip. “I didn’ know what he was talkin’ ’bout, an’ I don’t think anyone else in the hall did neither, but it didn’ matter. He had us all wrapped up.”
I laughed inside. I knew the speech by heart, having heard it a million times. My father made it sound like a call to the Confederacy: the South would rise again. Once a union was signed up, that was only a beginning; then the sales program would go into action. I don’t think there was ever a union that realized they needed so much assistance. Where they thought they had only one problem, CALL would show them they had ten. Then it was all over but the shouting. And the beauty of it was, there was nothing the AFL or the CIO could do about it, because after all, CALL was there to help them too.
“What happened then?” I asked.
“Later that summer, there was a great deal o’ talk about goin’ out on strike because there was a bumper harvest comin’. CALL showed us we’d be hurtin’ ourselves more than the big farmer, because there was a good chance of ever’body workin’ for the first time in three years. An’ if we lost that big harvest, it would take us more’n six years at increased wages to make up that loss. The predictions were all for a poor harvest the following year. That was the time to nail the farmer, when he needed it more than we did because half the membership would be out o’ work anyway. An’ it worked. The strike was over in two weeks. The farmers caved in; they couldn’ afford a total loss.”
I looked at him. “And after that there was always someone from CALL down at the union office working on some important project.”
He stared at me. “How did you know?”
I smiled. “That’s where I grew up. I knew my father.”
“He was a great man,” he said reverently.
“Do you still think so now that you’re farming on your own?”
He seemed puzzled. “I don’ understan’.”
“I saw a field of corn out there,” I said.
“That’s nothin’,” he said. “On’y three acres. I kin handle that myself.”
“What if the union comes in an’ says that you have to have a couple men to help?”
“They ain’t comin’ up here. Ain’t nobody comes up here no more. Not fer a long time. Nobody even knows I’m farmin’ up here. The land all aroun’ is wasted.”
I remembered the words he quoted from my father’s speech many years ago. “I he’ped my paw with the plowin’ and ’shinin’.”
Suddenly I knew. “My grandfather’s still.”
There was a sudden pale under his tan. “What did you say?”
“My grandfather’s still,” I repeated. “Did you find it?”
He hesitated a moment, then nodded.
Now it all began to make sense. Three acres of corn in moonshine was a small fortune. “I want to see it.”
“Now?” he asked.
“Now.”
Silently he rose from the chair, picked up his shotgun and started for the door. I rose to follow him.
Betty May’s voice suddenly wasn’t a child’s voice anymore. “No, Jeb Stuart, no. Don’t do it.”
I looked at him, then back at her. “Don’t worry, ma’am. He’s not going to do anything.”
Jeb Stuart nodded and went out the door. I looked at Anne. “You wait here until I get back.”
Anne nodded.
“I’ll have supper fixed by the time you get back,” Betty May said.
“Thank you,” I said, and went out the door after Jeb Stuart.
He walked ahead of me rapidly, not once looking back. He didn’t say a word as we threaded our way through the small forest on the side of the hill on a path almost completely obliterated by weeds. Suddenly he stopped. “It’s there.”
I looked at what seemed an almost solid wall of forest brush. “Yes,” I said.
“How did you know?” he asked.
“You told me,” I said.
“I don’t understan’.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.
He walked a few steps farther on and pulled a clump of bushes aside and went through them. I followed, and the bushes sprang closed behind us. The still was in a small clearing partly cut into the side of the hill behind it, a log roof covered with forest brush over it. The black iron smoke pot seemed clean and untouched by time, and the copper tubing shone like new. Ten forty-gallon charred oak barrels were lined up next to the still, and on the other side was a long pile of neatly cut and stacked fire logs. I heard the thin trickle of a small stream and walked behind the still. It was there, sparkling in the thin light as it ran down over the stones and rocks. I put my hands in the water and held it up to my lips. It was sweet and fresh.
“That water runs into our well below,” he said.
“How did you find it?” I asked.
“Huntin’. Two years ago. My dog treed a coon. I took the coon, then tracked the stream down to where the ol’ house used to be. Right away I knew what I had to do. Three good years an’ I’d be rich. No more chicken-shit farmin’. I could live like a human bein’.”
I walked back to the still. He followed me. I looked at the shining copper tubing. “The pipes are new?”
He nodded. “I had to fix ever’thing up. Betty May an’ I worked fer a whole year. Clearin’ the land fer the corn, buildin’ the shack. Took all our savin’s to buy the supplies an’ the materials. More’n six hundred dollars. ’Twarn’t till we got the corn in las’ spring that we really believed it was all happenin’. Ever’thing was jes’ comin’ along fine. Nobody even knowed we was here. We never went down to Fitchville to buy anythin’. Once a week we drive down to Grafton, fifty-some miles down the highway, to git our stuff. It was jes’ fine. ’N’en you come along.”
I looked at him without speaking.
He put the shotgun down on the ground and looked around thoughtfully while he fished in a shirt pocket for a cigarette. It was wrinkled and crooked, as if it had been in there for a long time. Carefully he straightened it, then lit it. He let the smoke out slowly, and it swirled up around his face as he turned to me. “I guess Betty May an’ me knowed in our hearts it was too good to be true. That it would never happen.” He paused for a moment. His voice seemed strained. “We ain’t got much here. We can be off the place by tomorrow mornin’.”
“What makes you think I would want you to do that?”
“It’s your propitty, ain’t it?” He met my eyes. “I saw that in the county records when I went to check on the owners. I saw your name there big as all git-out. Yer father put it in yer name three years ago. But ever’one down there in the record office said ain’t nobody been around the place in more’n thirty years ’cept fer the lawyer who come down to register the transfer.”
I turned away from him. I didn’t want him to see the rush of tears I was suddenly fighting. Just anothe
r thing my father had never told me. Among others. “Go back down to the house and tell Betty May that I said you’re not moving. I’ll be down there in a little while.”
I heard him get to his feet behind me. “Sure you kin fin’ your way back?”
“I’m sure.”
I heard the rustle of the brush, and when I turned around he was gone. I could still hear the sound of his steps crackling down the path. Then that was gone too and there was nothing but silence and the sound of a soft wind in the trees. I sat down on the ground. It was cool and damp to my fingers. I dug my hand into it and came up with a handful of earth. I looked at it. It was black and wet. I pressed it to my face and let my tears run into it. For the first time since my father’s death, I began to cry.
***
It was still daylight when we finished eating. Smoked pork butt, black-eyed peas and greens in a thin brown gravy, with home-baked corn bread and mugs of steaming coffee. I saw Betty May watching me out of the corner of my eye. “It’s real good,” I said, wiping up the gravy in my plate with the bread.
She smiled, pleased. “’Tain’t much, but it’s real down-home cookin’.”
“That’s the best kind, Betty May,” I said.
“That’s what I allus say,” Jeb Stuart said quickly. “Betty May, she’s always readin’ them highfalutin recipes in the magazines, but they ain’t fer real eatin’—jes’ readin’ about.”
Anne laughed. “Betty May doesn’t have anything to worry about. I have the feeling she can cook just about anything she sets her mind to.”
“Thank you, Anne,” Betty May said, a faint blush rising in her cheeks.
Jeb Stuart pushed his plate away from the table. “As you kin see, we ain’t got much room in here, but you all kin have the bed. Betty May an’ I’ll sleep in the back of the pickup.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said quickly. “Anne and I have our sleeping bags. Besides, we like to sleep outside.”
“Then the best place is the cornfield. The skeeters won’t git you there. I keep it sprayed real good.” He rose from the table. “Come, I’ll fin’ you a good place where you’ll be sheltered from the night wind.”
Memories of Another Day Page 19