Passage to Natchez

by Cameron Judd

  She would not answer.

  “I said, ain’t that right?”

  “If you say so. I reckon you’re a lot smarter than me, you being a man.”

  That answer obviously pleased him. He raised his brows and nodded. “You and me, we’ll do well. We will. Now let’s be off. I want to make Mason’s Cave soon as we can.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Beaver Creek Valley, near Knoxville, Tennessee

  Two young men walked in the waning afternoon light toward a burial ground that filled the clearing between an ancient maple copse and the dark, forested hills. The burial ground was appropriately somber, filled with crudely engraved stones and overshadowed by a unusually large, gnarled dogwood tree that grew in its center. Beautiful in the springtime when white blossoms covered it, the tree looked twisted and tormented now that its leaves were nothing but dead autumn husks that blew about among the gravestones.

  The two men were brothers, surnamed Tyler, and so close in size, form, and facial appearance that many assumed they were twins. In fact a year separated them. As they reached the edge of the burial ground, the younger of the two, Clardy, shifted his eyes without turning his head and peeked from beneath the brim of his broad flop hat.

  “He’s watching us, sure enough,” he said. “Hunkering down, but he’s easy to see. Reckon I ought to just wave at him so he knows that we know he’s there?”

  “No,” answered the older brother, Thias. “I’m inclined to see what he does. I’ll wager he thinks us mighty brash, walking right in with a shovel and not even trying to hide it.”

  “He won’t be able to see from where he is what grave it is we’re digging,” Clardy said. “He’ll have to come clear down here to make certain we ain’t disturbing dear old Grandmam Van Zandt.” He paused, a reflective and slightly hungry look overtaking him. “Thias, you reckon all that talk might be true?”

  “’Course not. Not even the Van Zandts are fools enough to bury a jewel with a corpse. Deathbed promises don’t carry more weight than common sense, you know.”

  “True enough, but the Van Zandts ain’t got no common sense. And answer me this: if there ain’t a jewel in that grave, why has Abel kept watch on the burying ground ever since the day the old woman was laid away? Why would he bother guarding a grave if there ain’t nothing in it worth stealing?”

  “Would you want anybody digging up your grandmam’s grave, jewel or not?”

  “Never having known our dear old grandmam, I don’t think I’d care much either way.”

  “That ain’t my point, Clardy. Take Grandpap. If he was dead, would you want somebody digging up his grave for any reason, even a wrongheaded one?”

  “If Grandpap was dead, there wouldn’t nobody be able to get to his grave. I’d be in their way, dancing on it and singing to glory in the joy of being free of the old jackass at last.”

  Thias fell silent, shifting the shovel to the other shoulder. He looked displeased. After a few moments he said, “Clardy, nobody should speak so about kin, It ain’t proper to talk that way about the man who raised you.”

  “Raised me—and raised welts aplenty on my rump and yours besides, most of the time for no good reason. He’s a sorry old devil and I’ll not cringe from saying so. As far as I’m concerned, what we’re doing for him right now is better than the old boar deserves.”

  “He’s been in a lot of pain. It’s our duty to stop it if we can.”

  “Fine. But it’s the last kindly thing I’ll do for that man. It won’t be long before I bid Hiram Tyler and this sorry place fare-thee-well forevermore. And if you’ve got any sense about you, you’ll do the same and come with me. There’s a bigger and better world than either of us have lived in just waiting out yonder, and two stout men like us could do mighty well by it.”

  “I don’t believe you’ll ever leave here, Clardy. You’ve talked that way more than a year now, but here you still are.”

  “You wait and see if I don’t leave.”

  They had entered the graveyard and now wound among the stones until they reached a grave so small it appeared to be that of an infant child. But no child was buried here. On the stone were the roughly carved words:

  Here LieS the Left LEg of

  HirAm TyLer, cut oFF and

  Berried the Month of MArch

  year 1798 Rest in PEace a

  good Limb muCh missED

  “Well,” Thias said, “reckon we’d best get to digging.”

  “You’d best get to digging,” Clardy corrected. “I’m going to have task enough just doing what you don’t have stomach for.”

  “I’ve never denied being weak of stomach. It’s a failing I ain’t proud of. But I’ll do my share to make up for it—just as long as I don’t have to see, smell, nor touch that leg.”

  Thias Tyler began digging with vigor, his broad shoulders growing taut each time he hefted the loaded shovel up to dump it. A heap of dirt quickly began growing beside the little grave.

  Clardy crouched on the opposite side and filled his pipe with tobacco. Tucking the reed stem into his teeth, he brought out the fire-making supplies he always carried, struck flame to a bit of tinder with flint and steel, lit a twig, then with the twig, lit his pipe. Puffing until the tobacco burned evenly, he watched his brother work and envied the obvious strength of Thias’s muscles. Thias had always been strong, worked hard, and in his rare leisure pursued activities that only strengthened him further—poling a heavy raft on the French Broad and Holston rivers, wrestling rough-and-tumble with anyone who wanted to bet they could whip him, making long hunting treks deep into the mountains. Thias was a fine physical specimen. Clardy often wondered why his brother hadn’t yet married. Thias seemed the marrying type, unlike himself. Lack of opportunity, Clardy figured. There wasn’t a wealth of young women worth taking for a wife close by in this valley, even by Clardy’s standards. And Thias was even more selective by nature.

  As Clardy smoked he began looking about for Abel Van Zandt, who had now had ample time to sneak down off his hill. He was sure to show himself before long. Abel Van Zandt was noted for his poor skills as a woodsman and hunter. No one liked to hunt with him because he usually ran off any game long before anyone could get off a shot. Hiram Tyler, the Tyler brothers’ sour old grandfather, had once declared that Abel Van Zandt was so poor at being inconspicuous that he had to “strain just to keep his own hind end hid in his britches.” It was ironic that it was so unlikely a candidate as Abel upon whom fate had forced the duty of guarding the grave of eccentric old Selma Van Zandt, rumored to have been buried with an old family heirloom jewel of European origin and high value, just because she had demanded it on her deathbed.

  A telltale sound tickled Clardy’s ear. With a subtle glance he caught sight of Abel creeping through the maple copse, watching them in the gathering dusk. He had his rifle with him.

  “There he is, Thias,” Clardy whispered around the stem of the pipe.

  “I hear him. I’ll wager he wonders what the devil we’re up to, digging up a grave that ain’t his grandmam’s.”

  “Reckon I ought to let him know we see him?”

  “Don’t see why not.”

  Clardy stood, forced a yawn, and stretched. In so doing he turned toward the maple copse. Abruptly he called, “Howdy do, Abel! How you this evening?”

  There was a brief silence, then Abel emerged from the maples, rifle dangling, a disappointed look on his face. He was fleshy, balding, maybe four years older than the eighteen-year-old Clardy. Despite the wealth, by local standards, of the Van Zandt family, Abel was dressed no finer than the roughly clad Tylers, though his clothing was a little newer and much cleaner. “Howdy, Clardy. Thias.”

  “Faring well, Abel?” Thias asked, not stopping his shoveling.

  “Well enough.” He paused. “Tell you the truth, boys, I come down here to see what you were a-doing. I thunk maybe—”

  “That we were going to dig up your grandmother’s grave and take the jewel?” Clardy finished for him.r />
  “Well … yes. Except there ain’t no jewel. That’s just a story. But I don’t like my family graves being disturbed “on any count.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Clardy said. “But you can see we ain’t digging in your grandmam’s spot, so you can rest easy about us.”

  “You care if I ask what you are doing?”

  “Digging up Grandpap’s leg.” Clardy puffed on the pipe as if that were sufficient answer, enjoying the look of puzzlement that Abel gave back to him.

  “I can see that. But why?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you, Abel, though you may have trouble believing it. Ever since Grandpap lost that leg, he’s had pains in the knee joint. Bad pains. Enough to keep him awake at night and make him harder to get along with than he is anyways.”

  Thias fired Clardy a harsh glance. There was a thin sheen of sweat on his brow from the exertion of digging, and he was thigh-deep in the hole. The pile of dirt beside the grave was piled quite high. “You watch how you talk about Grandpap, Clardy.”

  Clardy winked at Abel. “Thias, he’s Grandpap’s defender. He loves the old fool. Thias just relishes being cussed at from morning to night, worked like a plow horse, and forced to live on victuals all burned to ashes.”

  “The old man burns up your food?”

  “Yep. Grandpap declares he’s the only one of us that knows how to cook meat right, and won’t let Thias or me help with it. He burns meat up before he thinks it’s ready for the table. My mouth tastes like cinders most all the time ’cause of it.”

  “What was you saying about Hiram’s knee hurting him?”

  “Well, just that. His knee has ached on him ever since his leg was cut off.”

  “The knee he’s got left, you mean?”

  “No, no, his cut-off knee. It’s pained him fierce.”

  “But how can a man’s knee hurt when it ain’t there no more?”

  “Why, it happens all the time to all kinds of folk. Ain’t you ever heard of that? But me and Thias have found out why. A man in Knoxville told us. We buried Grandpap’s leg crooked, you see. The knee was bent. That’s why it was hurting him.”

  Abel shook his head. “I never heard of such a thing. A knee hurting when it ain’t there!”

  “It’s the gospel fact. That knee has ached him like a bad tooth. I’ve watched him grasping around in the air there beyond his leg stump many a time, moaning and cussing and declaring he could get rid of that pain if only he could rub that knee good and hard, and there being no knee there to rub. He says the torment of that is a lot worse than what he suffered when his leg got crushed up to begin with.” Clardy chuckled. “When the hurt’s at its worst, he wriggles around like a no-legged toad in a skillet. As foul an old shad as he is to Thias and me, I’d nigh enjoy watching him suffer if it didn’t just make him all that much harder to live with.”

  Thias said sharply, “Clardy, you’ve crossed the line now. Don’t talk that way about Grandpap no more, you hear?”

  Abel’s face had brightened with understanding at last. “Now I see! So you’re digging up the leg—”

  Clardy finished for him. “To lay it out straight and take the pain away. That’s right.”

  Able laughed. “I be! Reckon it’ll work?”

  “We’ll see. By the way, Abel, Grandpap don’t know we’re doing this. He don’t know about what the man in Knoxville told us, neither. If he did, he’d just cuss us for not having buried the leg straight to begin with. Thias and me came down here on the sneak, and we aim to keep watch and see if he quits hurting.”

  “I won’t say a word. You let me know how it works out, hear? You’ve roused my interest.”

  Thias paused from his digging and wiped his brow with his sleeve. “I’d forgot how deep we buried that box,” he said. “Going to spell myself a second.”

  “Don’t waste time,” Clardy said. “It’ll be full dark before long.”

  “Why don’t you dig, Clardy?” Abel asked.

  “Because I’ve got to do the ugly work. Thias’s weak of stomach and can’t bear the thought of touching that leg. So he’s doing the digging, and I’m doing the straightening.”

  “Oh.”

  “How long you going to guard this burying ground, Abel?” Thias asked. “You can’t spend the rest of your days watching a grave.”

  “I know. I’m being a fool, I reckon. But ever since that story about the jewel got spread, I’ve worried sick that somebody’s going to dig the grave up, and I can’t bear the thought of it.”

  “So it’s all just a tale? Your grandmam never asked to be buried with her jewel?”

  “Oh, she asked, and we told her she would be, just to make her happy. But we didn’t really do it. Why, that would’ve been foolish, burying a valuable piece of jewelry till Judgment Day, when it can’t do her a bit of good and can do her living kin a lot of good.”

  “Makes good sense,” Clardy said. “Ain’t you afraid she’ll come back and haint you for lying to her, though?”

  “I don’t believe in haints. And if she does come back, I’ll say, ‘Grandma, ain’t no way I’m going to as good as throw away a valuable jewel. Get on back to heaven where you belong and quit fretting over it.’ That’ll send her off, I’d say.”

  “Probably would. I’d be too scared to talk that way to a haint, though. I ain’t too proud to admit it.”

  Thias had resumed digging, and a few thrusts later the shovel struck wood. “I’ve reached it,” he said. From then on it was a matter of clearing out dirt from above and around the little coffinlike box that held Hiram Tyler’s leg.

  “Can you smell it, Thias?” Abel asked.

  “No,” Thias replied. “Maybe it’s down to the bone now. Not that I’m going to be the one to see.” He came up out of the grave so lithely that he might have been a “haint” himself. Clardy again grudgingly admired his brother’s physical strength and grace, so much superior to his own. Clardy had always been lazy, slow to work and quick to rest, or play. Play in particular—the kind of play that involved taverns and tankards and dice and companions who were good in everything but the moral sense, and whenever possible, a woman of the same ilk. Such stirred the soul, mind, and body of Clardy Tyler more than anything else, and had given him a poor reputation in his community. He pretended not to care, but secretly he did.

  Mostly because of Thias. Thias was different. “The good one,” people had called him as long as Clardy could remember. The good one. Clardy couldn’t help but resent it, and even from his youngest days the awareness that Thias’s perceived goodness set him apart from his ornery younger brother had caused Clardy to think along a line that shaped his life like a molding hand: If Thias is the good one, then I’m the bad, and if that’s so, then bad I’ll be indeed. Out of that had arisen a dark ambition as of yet unfulfilled: Clardy Tyler would pursue a life of crime and daring. His name would be spoken in the same hushed tones of awe that always accompanied the mention of famed bandits and highwaymen. If he could not gain respect from virtue, he would gain it from vice. Someday people would look at Thias, “the good one,” and say: “There goes the brother of Clardy Tyler, the famous highwayman!”

  Thias brushed the clay from his trousers. “It’s your work now, Clardy,” he said. “But don’t you open it until I’m out of range.”

  Abel Van Zandt asked, “Just how bad mashed up was that leg, anyways?”

  “Mighty bad,” Clardy replied.

  “I believe I’ll head on back to the house, then,” he said. “My stomach ain’t the strongest, either. Evening to you, boys, and I’m sorry I mistook what you was doing here. You can understand how I did, can’t you, seeing two men walking into the burying yard with a shovel? And twice already there’s been somebody tried to dig in the grave. Two men, judging from the tracks. Something scared them off both times, though. Probably somebody coming down the road.”

  Clardy said, “I didn’t have any idea somebody has actually bothered the grave. Two, you say?”

  “Yes. I’ve
got my suspicions about who they might have been, too.” He grinned. “The thought of you two even crossed my mind at the beginning. If it wasn’t for knowing what a good and upright soul Thias is … that is, what good and honest souls both of you are, I might have come asking to your place.”

  “You know it wasn’t us,” Clardy said curtly, his feelings hurt. There it was again, that eternal perception of Thias as good and trusty, himself as anything but.

  “Who do you think it was?” Thias asked.

  “I’d best not say. Good night, men. I’m going to stand guard a mite longer. I hope unbending that leg will do the job for Hiram.”

  “Good night, Abel.”

  Abel hefted up his rifle and walked away. It was very nearly dark now. “Off with you, Thias, I’m hefting her out,” Clardy said.

  Thias turned and strode away, off into the maples, and Clardy laid out flat on his belly and reached down into the hole with both hands.

  When the task was done, Clardy stood, cleaned off his hands, and hollered for Thias to return, which he promptly did.

  “How bad was it?”

  “How bad do you think? I ain’t never done a harder thing. That leg smelled and crawled with maggots. You’d have thunk it was buried last month, the way it was. Your stomach couldn’t have abided it.” It was a lie spoken with the utter ease that comes with much practice. Lies were among Clardy’s most constant companions. A man could rely upon a lie, he believed, far more than much anything else in life, whereas the truth brought trouble as often as not. “I hope Grandpap’s pain will be gone now,” he added in a righteous tone. “I’ve done the best I could for him.”