Call Each River Jordan

by Ralph Peters (as Owen Parry)

  Raines guided his horse around and stopped by the railing. Where he could just see the woman, and she him. The wooly-headed angels ceased their revels and stared up at us. With huge eyes. They seemed astounded by the sight of Barnaby.

  My escort leaned forward in his saddle, bracing himself on crossed arms. The woman spanked her hands dry then slapped them on her dress as she ambled along the side of the cabin toward us. Her physique had twice the magnificence of Hilda Schutzengel’s, and that is a serious measure. She was, in fact, a good match for Barnaby himself. Although I do not mean that in an immodest sense.

  Coming near, but not so close a horse could nip her across the fence, she set a doubtful look upon her face and canted her head. Her eyes examined Raines and his uniform with blunt suspicion.

  “Anything good in the pot, auntie?” Raines asked. “We’ve got money to pay.”

  “Jingle money?” the woman replied in a deep alto. Almost a baritone, really. “Or just that fold-up money?”

  “Jingle money. Now you tell me what’s in the pot worth trading for.”

  “Ain’t nothing in that pot, young marse. But I got fixings. Make up them cakes on the griddle, and plenty ’lasses. Buttermilk, too.”

  Raines smiled and swung out of the saddle, sliding neatly down. But the Negress did not budge.

  “First you shows me that jingle money, white folks. I been et for nothing too many times.”

  My escort reached across the fence and showered coins into her hands. Her brown eyes widened. But only for a moment. Then she thrust the money into some deep ravine of cloth and womanhood and turned for the cabin.

  “You water them high mules you got there,” she called back, “then go wash to the well, young marse, and don’t come pesting me till I’m ready to be pested. And I be the one tells when.” She shoveled pawing children from her path, a kind leviathan. “And don’t you go mussing my washing, cause you ain’t paid for that.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Raines said, with a smile and a tip of his hat to her disappearing, though hardly diminishing, back.

  Barnaby dropped from his mount with a thud. I tell you the poor horse sighed.

  “I do love a small glass of buttermilk,” he said, “but a small glass and no more.” He slapped his girth and dust rose to the heavens. “I runs on the heavy side, if I ain’t careful of my victuals.”

  I did not draw my new cane out of my blanket roll, for it would be a labor to replace it. And one result of my recent deprivations and the battle that come before had been to show me I could go a little stretch without a stick. I might never run nor walk with youthful grace. But I was growing accustomed to my leg and its bit of queerness. And my limp had not come shamefully. No, a stick was a great help, and would be all my life, most like, but twas not the necessity it had been in my first months of repair. Truth be told, the hours in the saddle had done more to hinder my stride than my bothered leg. My nether parts were in devilish torment.

  The pickaninnies, chided by the matron, fetched water for our horses, pouring bucket after bucket into a hollowed log by the roadside. They kept their distance from Barnaby, though. As if he might pop several of them into his mouth.

  I steeled myself to Rascal’s care. With Raines watching me. Judging my worth by a measure that he knew.

  A smell of frying lard rose from the cabin and we went around to the well. Removing our tunics, we splashed our faces and scrubbed our hands. Barnaby’s dress was stained where the bacon had seeped through and the flies took to him like children to Christmas. But Raines did not seem to notice and I kept my eyes to myself.

  “Lieutenant Raines,” I said, in a voice held down, “I was taken by the . . . the firmness of our hostess . . .”

  Raines laughed. Twas a soft sound once again. “The ‘insolence,’ you mean? That auntie’s nobody’s slave. She’s a free Negro. Not that uncommon, though there’s less of them up here. Go on down-river, they’re even in trade. New Orleans”—he spoke it “Nollins,” as did most of the Southrons, and it had taken me some time to make the connection—“is full of them.”

  “Beauties,” Barnaby said, “beauties exotic and winsome.”

  “And such are tolerated, then?”

  “Some more than others. I wouldn’t want to mess with that mammy in there.”

  We sat on the porch and waited for our meal. I was assured by my escort that I would not want to go inside, let alone eat there. “Just look out that way, Major. Admire the landscape. You’ll eat happier.”

  Eat happy we did. They were pancakes the woman made. Golden-brown orbs, haloed with syrup. The buttermilk was cool in the mouth.

  The grand woman watched us. Hands on her hips. She refilled Barnaby’s plate a number of times, till she finally put her foot down. Literally. She stamped the porch so hard I feared its collapse.

  “That’s the last heap you’re getting, big white folks,” she said to him. “Praise Jesus, I done seen a new thing this day. White man come to my door and eat him a whole field of buckwheat at one sitting. Just gobble down that whole field. And pay me with a penny.”

  “Do you think,” my escort asked his servant, “you might last till dinner now, Mr. B.?”

  “By all means, Master Francis, by all means. I was only pulling her leg. In a manner of speaking, sir. Ready to go when the master is, that’s old Barnaby. Might I inquire if the gentlemen are done with the buttermilk? Don’t want to insult our gracious hostess by wasting. ‘Thou shalt not waste,’ like it says right there in the Good Book.”

  A wooden bucket sat half-full of buttermilk. The smell was rich and sweet.

  “I’m about full up,” Raines said. He glanced at me. “Major?”

  “Full to bursting, Lieutenant. Delightfully full.” I reached for my purse. “May I recompense your hospitality?”

  He waved down the possibility, but said, “I’m sure Auntie wouldn’t mind another small coin. As thanks for a splendid repast. What do you say, Auntie?”

  She shook her great head and the little cloth ends of her turban fluttered. “I don’t know about no splendid pasts, young marse. But Baby Jesus done said, ‘Render unto that Caesar over there,’ and Caesar’s my menfolk’s name. And I ain’t talking no back-of-the-woods marrying, neither, but right there in the preaching ground. So I’m going to take all a Christian feel ’bliged to give. And Caesar hisself better not go holding out on this womanfolks, neither, or I’m going to go upside that nigger’s head.”

  She held out her hand and I graced it with a dime.

  “Capital!” Barnaby said. “A generous man never wears out his welcome.” At that, he lifted the bucket of buttermilk and drank it dry. Neat as a duchess drinks sherry.

  The woman wobbled inside, muttering, “I ain’t never seen no white folks do like that, nor black folks, neither. That man must be one of them plagues on Egypt, how he do. Eat the buckwheat field and drink the cow! Lord, have mercy!”

  We took our turns at the lesser cabin in back. It was unpleasant. Barnaby went last. Raines and I waited by our horses. My escort petted his black, and spoke to it, but kept his eyes on the path Barnaby must take to rejoin us. The fellow’s coming seemed long delayed.

  Finally, Raines said, “Damnation,” and leapt the fence. With that good meal in him. Marching he went, heading for the necessary house.

  When he returned, he was still alone.

  “Let’s ride ahead,” he told me. “Mr. B.’s fighting a war all of his own making. He’ll catch up, all right.”

  “IT’S A FEW MORE HOURS of riding,” Raines told me. “Up past Parker’s Woods. We’ll be there by settling time.” He thought for a moment. “If Billy decides to let us settle.”

  It was a queer day for the young fellow. Although the sky was the hard blue of enamel, his moods were a field under broken, running clouds. Shadows swept past, darkening his spirit, then the sun returned to brighten all. I was just about to try another question on him, when he forestalled me:

  “I suppose I’ll have to tell you a little
about Billy and me. So we don’t turn embarrassment into mockery. Billy Barclay’s a proud man, Major. I won’t say it’s been his downfall. But it’s done him some harm. And I’d as soon not add to that harm.”

  “No harm is meant, Lieutenant. But the visit is—”

  He waved a hand to quiet me. “Best not interrupt, sir. If you’ll do me that kindness. These things are hard enough to put into words.”

  A wise man is ever ready to be silent.

  “It goes back. My family’s been here since the turn. Grandfather came out with Claiborne. Billy’s father wandered in later, out of South Carolina. His father was a Walker man. Showed up around the time of the Chickasaw Cession. Thirty years back, almost exactly. Shady Grove’s on old Choctaw ground, by the way.” He reined back his horse. “Mr. Barclay bought about all there was to buy. Land was cheap for everybody, but a lot cheaper for Walker people. He was a younger son, I believe, making his way. But with enough money in his pocket to make a good start.”

  I caught the trace of a smile on his lips. “There was a conflict about a land parcel over in Lafayette. Folks calculated that Mr. Barclay and my daddy would get out the dueling pistols over it. Instead, they hit it off like princes. Local folks judged them all wrong, you see. Saw Billy’s daddy as this brash Johnny-come-lately fellow. When he was a cultured man, a gentleman of surpassing fineness. And, of course, my daddy was Natchez born, with his big house already standing, so it was assumed that he must be a pillar in the grand arcade of civilization.” Raines laughed to himself. “Truth is, he never valued a book in his life, and he only read the law cause my grandfather whipped him into it. You’d think Billy and I were swapped at birth, if Billy wasn’t a good year the elder.”

  We sauntered along. The voices of the birds changed as the sun began its long decline. As if they sang by regiment it was, relieving one another at their posts. I rode, and listened, and let things go their way.

  “Maybe there’s something to the idea of ‘rebellious youth,’ ” Raines said. “I was the one drawn to books. Couldn’t get my fill as a child. Might’ve been sugar candy. And Billy . . . likely he’s the smarter of the two of us. But he couldn’t care less. Spent a couple of years at the state university, but it didn’t amount to anything. Except some aggravation for the citizens of Oxford. No, he’d rather be out ranging with Buck Wylie than anything else in the world. Than almost anything else.”

  Raines gave his mount a pat. “Anyway, my father . . . my father and I differ on a number of matters, Major. Respectfully, of course. He is a great advocate of this war. Which I support, since Mr. Lincoln left us no alternative. Although I would not have wished it. But my father is a man of strong temperament. Of exceedingly strong temperament. Would not hear of me going north to college. Wanted to know why our own university wasn’t good enough.” He glanced toward me, but seemed to see only the past. “It was Billy’s daddy stepped in and talked to him. And . . . that’s a sensitive intervention down here, a family matter. It speaks well of their friendship, sir, that cards were not exchanged.”

  I whacked at a fly the size of a hummingbird.

  “All that’s by the by,” Raines went on. “But Billy . . . I loved my books, but I looked up to Billy. He was better than all the heroes in all the books in the world. Always bigger, quicker. Sharper. Years back, Shady Grove was just a hunting camp got up by Mr. Barclay. Old man Wylie used to manage it. Couple of cabins, no more. Had to check under the bunks for cottonmouths. We used to come up in season. Riverboat to Memphis, then overland. There’s a train now, bring you part of the way. And Billy wasn’t twelve before he was outshooting grown men. Oh, I was fair enough, by a boy’s measure. But Billy’d just about get out in front of the hounds. Loved to be in on the kill.” He laughed again. “I was a disappointment, I suppose. For me, the joy lay in the bite of the frost, and that light that comes up the color of ice, and the warm feel of the dogs. The way they’d gather up around you, all steaming, and want you to tell them they’d done well. I liked the men-together feel right enough. Any boy would. But killing had no special appeal to me.”

  He took a drink of water from his canteen, looked around at his earth, and said, “Ever wonder, Major, how many more days like this we’ll see? How the sky can be all that blue? As if the world had become so beautiful it couldn’t do anything but break on apart? And the war no more than a paragraph in a newspaper . . .” I did not answer, for he did not want me to. When we ask such questions, our loneliness is impenetrable.

  “Well, now, Billy,” he went on. “We were the best of friends. More like brothers. Him the elder. Billy always went first. The only thing I could do almost as well as him was ride. I took to horses before I could walk, my father tells me. Billy might beat me out. But not by much. And not easily. Used to make him red-faced mad. But we were close. Neither of us had real brothers, understand. Although I have a younger sister, our Cordelia. For a while, there was some talk of Billy marrying her, but that horse didn’t run. Before that, though. Nigh on ten years back . . . eight, anyway . . . we both lost our mothers to the yellow fever. Billy’s mama was downriver on a visit when it took her. It just swept on up the river like a flood going the wrong way. We were all en famille at Wrexham, though my father talked of going north for the summer, on account of the contagion. My mother was one of the first to succumb in Natchez. Seemed so hard a thing then. After that, my daddy and Billy’s daddy went to leaning on each other like never before. Neither remarried.” He smiled warmly. “Although Mr. Barclay does make his regular visits to New Orleans.”

  He turned in his saddle, stretching his back. Looking at me. “You see? Like brothers. We were like brothers.”

  “What happened?” I asked. In my quiet voice.

  I did not know if he would answer me. We rode a stretch with the question dragging between us. Then he said:

  “Oh, what ever happens? I went off to Harvard. To that ‘den of Yankee iniquity.’ And . . . Billy married. Some time thereafter.” I thought that might be the end of his confidences, but he added, “Marriage changes a man. Changes different men in different ways. It changed Billy in ways that . . . made our friendship cumbersome.”

  He removed his hat, a soft affair with a fluttering plume, and said, “There you have it. The story of Billy and me. Now he’s a sporting man with no legs. And not much else that matters.” He shuddered in a way that chilled the air. “How’s he going to feel looking at me? With my two good legs and no good reasons for it?”

  “War picks whom it will for its favors, Lieutenant. But perhaps the situation is otherwise, see. Perhaps your friend needs you now. Perhaps this is a time for mending matters. And it must have been a double blow he suffered, since his wife is ‘no longer with us,’ as you said.”

  “He was building Shady Grove for her,” Raines said, in a voice reduced. “Emily couldn’t tolerate the summers in Natchez. He was building the biggest, finest house he could, so she might be cooler up here in the hills. He would’ve fanned her himself, day and night. She was the great prize, you see. The ultimate victory. He would’ve done anything for her. Anything but what she needed done.”

  I longed to hear him tell me more. For I like a tale’s unfolding. And, toward the end, I sensed that he had begun to speak truly at last. But we were interrupted.

  A young Negress in a straw hat come down the road, skipping like a child on bare feet. At the sight of her, Raines cantered ahead. My own mount followed. With me holding on.

  She stopped at his approach and put her fingers to her lips. Swaying where she stood. Her dress was a rag and she seemed all awry. The brim of her hat looked chewed.

  Raines pulled up just short of her. “Paddycakes?” I heard him ask.

  The girl smiled radiantly. As I drew closer, I saw the curiosity of her. Her form was much a woman’s, if you will pardon my frankness, but her expression was that of a child.

  The lieutenant spoke gently. “Paddycakes? Do you know who lam?”

  She giggled. With wondrous merrime
nt. “You’se Marse Drake. I knows. You’se Marse Drake.” She thrust out her hand. “Chris’mas gif, Chris’mas gif . . .”

  Raines leaned toward her. With a smile of greater warmth than ever I had seen on him. “Now, you know it isn’t Christmas, Paddycakes. You know that right well. Don’t you?”

  She raised her hand still higher, the palm an empty desert. “Chris’mas gif . . .”

  He chuckled. “Is that all I am to you, Paddycakes? A ‘Chris’mas gif’? After all these years.”

  “Chris’mas gif.”

  He put a coin into her palm and closed her fingers over it. “Now you hold onto that. And you show it to Auntie Dee when you get home. She’ll tell you what to do with it.”

  “Yes, Marse Drake. Marse Drake? You don’t come no more.”

  “Man business,” he said. “Now you tell me what you’re doing way down here. You’re a long way from your supper, girl. You been sleeping in the woods again?”

  “Sometimes I does.”

  “Bear’s going to get you. You need to stick closer, now you’re growing. You know where you are right now?”

  “Course I does, Marse Drake.”

  “You want to go home?”

  She swayed, looking up with the eyes of a six-year-old coquette. “Maybe.”

  “Well, if you want to get home for your supper, you climb up here behind me. We’re going that way.” He reached down a hand to help her.

  The girl hesitated. “Sometimes I doesn’t go home no more.”

  “And why is that?” he asked, hand still on offer.

  She lowered her gaze and the brim of her hat shadowed her face. “Cause Marse Billy so funny. He ain’t got no walking legs no more. Make me laugh to see him. Uncle Samson, he say not to laugh. But Marse Billy so funny in that little cart without no walking legs.”