The Orphan Mother

by Robert Hicks

  Chapter 15

  Tole

  July 12, 1867

  A few sparse blades of grass had begun to sprout on the grave of Theopolis Reddick the day George Tole hopped onto the back of a southbound wagon and rode it all the way out of town, past the cornfields and the sunflowers, into the forests, and all along the trail he had walked with Mariah. He rode on the back of that wagon all the way to Carnton, each bump like lightning up through his tailbone. He recalled his pleasant memories of the path and the walk with her. When he saw the painted sign and, rising beyond the trees, Carnton’s roof, he yelled to the driver, “This here’ll do,” and he stepped off and into the summer-hardened dirt.

  Through the gate, onto the dirt road, up to the front of the antebellum house. Now he stood before it: two stories of brick and white pillars, war-battered and crawling with spirits, the sides now covered in vines, the front porch left in crumbled bits, an attic window boarded up; a broken shell of a home. All around him, bleak and naked tree branches. He walked around back to the picket fence and, inside, the patches of verdant green in the cemetery, the rows of whitewashed cedar slabs, already showing their age, that seemed to go on for miles, out of sight and beyond the slight dip of the land.

  He wandered through the grave markers, some covered with withered flowers, most just letters and numbers. No use trying to picture their faces. Nothing but bone and hair and fingernails left now.

  Down the rows he went, between the dead soldiers, sons and fathers, brothers and friends, most every one of them good soldiers, and in being good soldiers they had become killers, just like him. And there, lost among the forgotten, there might be a cedar plank with a number just like the others, a young boy who had played at soldier. Tole had known a boy like that once, on a distant battlefield, and had shot him down. He tried not to visualize that boy’s death. Maybe that’s how God wanted it. Tole didn’t have much of anything to say to God. Not lately. Lately he’d been thinking the sky was as empty as it looked. Was the boy’s daddy still alive? Did he make the trek to his boy’s grave, kneel there in the dying light in the dying of the year, whisper prayers or words of comfort to a wooden plank? Maybe Daddy had never been by to visit. That would be a damned shame, but Tole would understand.

  A white woman, dressed real proper, all in black, stepped out onto the back veranda and began to make her way toward him. Tole removed his hat and approached her.

  “Sorry to be moseyin’ about, ma’am.”

  “And who might you be?” the woman asked.

  “Name’s George Tole. I’m a friend of Missus Reddick.”

  “I see. A friend from Franklin, I suppose?”

  “Indeed, ma’am. I was the neighbor of her boy.”

  “He was a good man.”

  Tole nodded and shifted his eyes toward the dirt.

  “I’m Mrs. McGavock, of course.”

  Of course.

  Mrs. McGavock went on. “You think you might know one of these men buried here?”

  “Oh, no ma’am. I’m from back east. New York. I was just struck by the sight of it.”

  “You here to see Mrs. Reddick, then?”

  “Yes ma’am. I was just roaming around the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by.”

  “Roaming, you say?”

  “Yes ma’am. I like to pace and clear my head. Found myself over by your cemetery, and realized that this was where Missus Reddick was living now.”

  Mrs. McGavock gave him a sad smile and nodded. “Come this way, I’ll let Mariah know you’re here.”

  Tole followed Mrs. McGavock up the wide back steps to the porch, where he waited, looking back out onto the cemetery. Imagine, he thought, having a cemetery in your backyard. Planting it and taking care of it the way others would tend their gardens.

  “Mr. Tole.” Mariah’s voice. He turned. She was there, gray eyes glinting.

  “Hello, again,” Tole said.

  “What in the world you doin’ back this way?”

  Mrs. McGavock, behind her, answered for him: “He was just roaming around the neighborhood.”

  “Roaming?”

  “Yes ma’am. My apologies for stopping by unannounced.”

  “No need for an apology,” Mrs. McGavock said. “We don’t get many visitors.”

  “Why don’t you come inside, Mr. Tole?” Mariah said.

  * * *

  Inside, the house was muted with shadows, with small pools of morning light only serving to accentuate the darkness. Tole immediately had the sense of neglect and grandeur, bound together with sorrow—as if the old house had lost something indefinable, some color of light that Tole could not quite see, but could taste like blood on his tongue. Mrs. McGavock disappeared up the stairs, leaving them alone. He’d heard stories of this house, the blood that threatened to overwhelm the place. The wallpaper had once been bold with stripes and panels and foreign scenes of places that Tole couldn’t even dream at, but now only seemed faded, battered. The carpets on the floor were grimy and worn. But what a house it had been, Tole thought. He imagined light and laughter from a farther room.

  Someone had told him that the house had been a Confederate hospital during the war; that the blood from the sawn-off arms and legs had dripped between the floorboards upstairs, staining the walls below. Not true, perhaps, but what ghosts lurked here? What songs of sacrifice and despair?

  “Coffee?”

  “Not if it’s any trouble now. No need to go makin’ any.”

  “No trouble at all.” She disappeared for a moment, then returned with a pitcher and two cups. She poured, and Tole sipped with the timidity of a small child. He seemed uncomfortable.

  “Can’t say I was ever any good at makin’ friends. Not even in grade school.”

  “You went to school? You may be the only colored man I ever knew who went to a school.”

  “Lots of Negro folk go to school in the North.”

  “Learning how to be judges and businessmen, eh?”

  “Book learning. Latin and mathematics.”

  “You like it?”

  “Wasn’t much for it. Was always wanting to take my rifle out and shoot at things. Thought I’d be a crack shot. Maybe join one of those traveling shows, see the country.”

  “Still can do that.”

  “Still could,” he agreed easily.

  “So why you come here?”

  “Saw it during the war. Seemed like a man could like it here.”

  She eyed him skeptically.

  He looked at her. “I like this town. Like the people in it. They’re friendly and they seem to mean it. Your boy, for instance. He made me feel like I could belong, always waving hello, tipping his hat at me. I liked seeing him.”

  Her eyes glazed over with memory as the sides of her mouth turned up. “He had a way about him. Made folks feel at ease. He were real gentle.”

  Tole looked down as if he had intruded on a private moment, a foreign presence in the space meant for just a woman and her thoughts. “My apologies for raising the subject. You probably tired of thinkin’ about all that.”

  This broke her reverie, and she looked up at him. “I guess talkin’ about him makes me feel a lot of ways. Almost a week gone by. I find myself awake in the middle of the night, and I think to myself, ‘Almost a week already?’ And then I think, ‘Has it only been a week?’ How can it feel so long ago when it feels like I was just talkin’ to him, fixin’ the collar on his shirt the way I would, and he’d give me that look—that look that could singe your eyebrows right off your face. Same one he’d give me when I’d walk into town with him and kiss him on the head in front of his friends.”

  This made Tole laugh.

  “You had one of those, too, I reckon?” Mariah asked.

  “Oh, my boy never quite made it to that age. He passed on just shy of his eighth birthday.”

  Mariah shook her head and said, “I don’t know why God do what he do sometimes. How he die?”

  Tole struggled to say, “Dysentery.”


  Mariah spoke softly. “Terrible thing.”

  “I remember Miles’s first birthday after he died. Don’t think I made it outta bed that day. No reason to see the daylight, the way I was feelin’. Can’t say that feelin’ you got in your chest ever goes away, but it gets a little lighter.”

  “Can I tell you something, Mr. Tole?”

  “Yes.”

  “A few nights ago, I found myself thinkin’ about Theopolis, and I didn’t cry. It was the first time I didn’t. And that done broke my heart most of all. How could I?”

  Tole set his cup on the table. “I think I understand. I ain’t much for advice. Never been any good with words the way some men are. But I know, sometimes the tears just don’t come. When the time comes to start healin’, you oughta let yourself.”

  Mrs. McGavock’s light footfalls came back down the steps. Tole stood as she entered the room. “Mrs. Reddick, I’ll be on my way.”

  Mariah nodded. Like a queen, Tole thought.

  “Ma’am, pleasure to have met you.” He reached out his hand and Mrs. McGavock placed the tips of her satin gloves in the palm of his calloused hands. A breach of all the rules of etiquette, he knew, but did it anyway.

  Mrs. McGavock did not seem to notice. “A pleasure.”

  Tole turned to go, and Mrs. McGavock said, “I noticed some of the grave markers are wearing poorly. Down in the Mississippi section.”

  Mariah spoke, eagerly: “Remember how deep the snow was?”

  “The snow fell so heavy we couldn’t barely see the boards after long. Like a blanket of white laid over everything.” Mrs. McGavock was looking straight at Tole. He looked over, and Mariah was doing the same thing.

  “This whole plantation done suffered some terrible blows,” Mariah said.

  “I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to fix all the damage,” Mrs. McGavock said. “That’s the thing about war and winter. But we keep on, fix what we can. But we do so little.” Both women looked at him curiously, and he finally understood the question. He formed an answer as best he could.

  “If it’s any help, my daddy was a carver,” he said. “His daddy, too. I wasn’t never one by trade, but I picked up a trick or two watchin’ him all those years.”

  “Oh, that would be too much trouble, Mr. Tole, I couldn’t begin to ask you to do such a thing.”

  Mariah just nodded her head, like he was saying the right things.

  “No ma’am, it’s not. I sure don’t mind feelin’ useful now and again.”

  “All right then,” Carrie said, as she did whenever she embarked on a new project. “We would welcome the assistance. And the boulders out by the west boundary, you think you could move them to the south pasture?” She seemed to have a list of things to do, Tole noticed.

  “That’d be no problem. Happy to.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer you, Mr. Tole. But we pay a fair wage.”

  “Ain’t no need for that. I’m happy just to do it.”

  “That’s mighty decent of you, but you will be paid and that’s that. Mariah, why don’t you show Mr. Tole here the grounds. Get him acquainted. See to it he has the proper gloves.”

  Mariah rolled her eyes so Carrie could see her, and led Tole out the back through the kitchen.

  Chapter 16

  Mariah

  July 13, 1867

  Della Swanson came to visit Mariah on a Saturday. It was just after dusk when she arrived at Carnton on foot, walked around back and down the hill to Mariah’s cottage, and knocked so timidly on the door, so gently, that Mariah thought at first it was the scuttle of a mouse at the door, and then a wren, perhaps, pecking. She opened the door to find her standing with her hands folded in front of her tattered work smock, those almond-shaped eyes with the reddish-brown hue of polished oak, and her skin brown as fallen leaves. Della was a pretty girl. Mariah figured she must be coming up on twenty-five by now, or somewhere close to it, but Della herself probably didn’t know her own age. Mariah no longer bothered to keep count, or track, of the ages of all the children she had brought into the world.

  Mariah smiled, facial muscles tight, unaccustomed to the movement. “Welcome, baby, come on in, you must be tired.” She closed the door behind her.

  Della was shy, the type to nod and say, “Yes,” in a soft voice that was more a chirp than any kind of whisper, lips pursed thin and tight, eyes lowered. She was easily awed and intimidated by white men and their wives, the powerful folk from the courthouse square, the dinner guests and visiting politicians who made their way in and out of Mr. Burch’s home.

  Mariah asked her to take a seat and sat right beside her, turned her chair so she could see her eyes, and waited.

  “Henrietta come see me,” Della said. “She say, ‘You gotta go see Mariah,’ so I come first thing.”

  “Appreciate that.”

  “You wanna ask me about your boy? Don’t know nothin’ about what happened, Mariah. I sure am sorry to hear he dead. They shot my brother Simon, too, out in West Virginia.”

  “Who done? A Union boy?”

  “I think maybe it was. Nobody know for sure. They was battlin’ outside of Wheeling and they shot him twice in the chest. He had a friend, some boy from Georgia, rode into town and let Mama know. Said they shot him up close. Said the hole so big you could reach your arm through him and touch th’other side.”

  “Good God, child. I didn’t know. I’ll pray for his soul. And your mama’s.”

  “She don’t do much but sit on the porch and watch the people go by. Don’t talk much.”

  “She alone?”

  “Yes ma’am. My daddy die the year before. She all alone out there.”

  Mariah set her hand over Della’s. This girl understands, she thought.

  “I know you scared, sweet thing. But you ain’t in no kind of trouble. If you didn’t see nothing, don’t know nothing, then please head on back into town without one worry. But you do know something, heard something, and you think telling me is gonna get you whipped, then you stop thinking that right now. I ain’t gonna let no man hurt you, child. Not going to tell no man nothing. I cry for my boy the way your mama cry for hers, and I got it in my head that finding out who killed him will take the pain away.”

  “You think it will? Really?”

  “Pastor Willis said that getting some kind of vengeance won’t heal a grieving heart. He say I have to forgive the man who did this. And I told him, before God, that I would. I told him it might take until I’m wrinkled and dying, but I promised him I would. But I can’t forgive the man who killed my boy until I know who that man is, you hear? Too many women be sitting on their porches watching the people go by the way your mama does. You listen here: I’m not sitting on no porch. I’m going to find out who shot my boy and I’m going to get justice for him. And then I’ll see about forgiveness.

  “Now, I know you clean those windows in Mr. Burch’s office, and I know those windows look out onto the courthouse square. I know you get there bright and early. And I know you like to watch the people down below walking on by. So if you’re going to tell me you didn’t hear no gunshot, you didn’t hear no ruckus, you didn’t hear my boy scream, then you go ahead. Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t know nothing, and I’ll believe you. Hand on the Bible, I will. But you gonna have to look up from your feet, look me in the eye, and tell me it.”

  Della looked up, her eyes pooling with tears, and she struggled to swallow, to look at the woman before her.

  “Mariah, I don’t clean no windows on the top floor. I just say that so people think I’m one of the special ones, you know? But that ain’t the way it is. It was just somethin’ that sounded nice, so I pretend it’s the truth. But Mr. Burch, he don’t let me in his office. He like to keep me at his home a couple miles from town. He say, ‘A pretty little nigger like you shouldn’t have to work so hard.’ So I mostly stay out back, make sure the house in good order.”

  The two women stared at one another, Della’s words hanging between them. M
ariah could feel herself becoming angry, and swallowed it down.

  “But just because I ain’t there to see it don’t mean I ain’t heard nothing, Mariah.”

  Mariah regained her composure. “Mr. Burch ain’t hardly been eating lately, you see, and I know because I serves him and his missus,” Della said. “He just pick and pick. And one night I cleared the table and he and the missus sat at the table a long time, so long their coffee got cold. But they waved me away when I come to fill it.”

  “Yes, and so?”

  “And so when I come in with the fresh pot and they waved me off, I did hear one thing Mr. Burch said. He said, ‘Ain’t to be them two, not a grocer and a nigger. Who give a goddamn about them?’ That’s what he said and that’s all I know and all I want to know.”

  Della sat trembling but resolved. She had set her face, and Mariah could tell she had come to say what she was going to say and no more. Mariah admired the girl’s courage.

  A long silence, and then Mariah said, “All right then, child. I’ll leave you be. You go get back to Franklin before it gets much later. Don’t want you gettin’ yourself in no trouble now.”

  Della nodded gratefully and turned to leave. But she stopped at the door. She was quiet awhile, like she was arguing with herself. Then she turned.

  “There’s that saloon on Main Street, where Mr. Burch likes to go some nights. He says they got the best whiskey in town. Says there’s always a fat man there at the bar, man named Smithson.”

  “Smithson? Ain’t that the boy who works at the newspaper?”

  “Ain’t much of a boy nowadays. He all grown. But yes ma’am, he work at the newspaper. Mr. Burch says he knows all the secrets this town done locked away.”

  “I knows him.”

  “Mr. Burch says he usually has his Negro with him. Some country girl he bought awhile back. Nessie’s her name. Can’t say it’ll help you none, but she might’ve definitely heard a thing or two about your boy.” Mariah noticed how she raised her voice on definitely.