by Ann Rinaldi
Their talk drifted on the morning air. Then Tolbert waved me forward. I trembled with excitement. I was finally going to see Roseanna! But I was scared, too. I didn't trust Cap. And I didn't think Tolbert should accept an invite unless it came from old Devil Anse himself.
Then Devil Anse came out of the house, hitching up his trousers, his long black beard reaching below his neck. His head was half bald, his nose like an eagle's, and his eyes all narrow and too close together. I slid off my horse and stood behind Tolbert.
The men walked off a piece. I heard Devil Anse ask my brother what we'd come for, heard Tolbert's reply. Then they conferred in low tones. I stood like a jackass in the rain, staring over at the porch. It was Roseanna. But it seemed like she didn't see me.
"You can go on over and say howdy, Fanny," Tolbert said.
The place seemed spooked, empty. Chickens were scratching in the dirt, and except for them and the dogs settled now under the big locust tree, nothing bestirred. The weathered boards of the house made it seem stark. What windows there were gazed at us like blank eyes. Yet at the same time I felt hidden eyes on me. I opened the creaking gate and went toward the porch. "Ro?" My voice faltered.
"Fanny?"
It was Ro! I went up the rickety steps. There she was, behind the wild vines, quilting.
"Oh, my God, baby, come here." She held out her arms.
I went to her, sobbing. "Oh, Ro, I've missed you so. It's just awful at home without you."
"Why have you and Tolbert come? Is it Ma? Is she all right?"
I wiped my tears. "Yes. We've come to fetch you home. Pa sent for you."
"Pa? Pa sent for me?" She pulled back, holding me by my shoulders. "Pa? You telling me he wants me home? I thought he'd be madder than a stuck pig because of what I did."
I couldn't lie. "He is, Ro. But now he's found out you aren't wed, so he wants you home."
"Oh, Lordy, Lordy." She released me and started walking on the rickety porch, chewing on a fingernail. "How'd he find out?"
"Word's got 'round. You know how it does."
She knew. Now she folded her arms across her middle and groaned. "We wanted to marry. We still both want it. But Johnse's pa won't allow it."
I stared at her, blinking. "How can he stop you?"
"Johnse isn't twenty-one yet. But oh, honey, we love each other. And we're wed in our hearts, where it matters. No preacher could make it more legal!"
At that moment I understood more the habits of our sheep than I understood my sister Ro. I only knew she was in trouble if she didn't come home with us today. And that was enough. "Since you're not married, you'll come home with us, won't you?" I asked.
She stopped pacing. "Oh no, Fanny, I can't come home. I can't leave Johnse. I love him."
"But you could come back when he comes of age and wed. Can't you?"
She shook her head of curly hair. "It's not only Johnse. I know Pa, Fanny. He wants me home same's he wanted that sow and pigs years ago. Because I'm his'n. But how will he treat me if I come home? You can't tell me he isn't frothing at the mouth 'cause of what I did. Can you?"
No, I couldn't.
"If I leave Johnse and go home and Pa is mean to me, I won't be able to stay. Then I'll have lost Johnse, too. He'll think I don't love him if I leave now. No, baby, I can't chance it."
Tolbert came on the porch and hugged her. "Why aren't you wed, Ro?" he asked.
"Johnse's pa won't let us."
Gently, he led her to the far end of the porch and spoke softly to her for a while, his head bent low above hers. Then I heard him finish. "You oughtn't to stay someplace with somebody if they won't let you wed, Ro," he said.
"I know." She put her hand on his arm and smiled up at him. "But Tolbert, we're working on old Devil Anse. I'm sure he'll give in soon. Did you ever know anybody who couldn't give in to me, Tolbert?"
He shrugged.
"Go on now," she said. "It isn't that I'm not glad to see you, but don't stay around too long. There could be trouble. Give my love to Ma and everybody. I'll be fine."
Tolbert didn't know what to do. He looked in the direction of old Devil Anse Hatfield and Cap, who were standing away a little piece, all the time watching us. He looked at Ro. I could tell he was split down the middle just like that old locust tree in our yard that was struck by lightning last summer. "Hate to leave you here like this," he said.
"Go. Please." She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. "I'm just fine."
Tolbert moved away, off the porch toward the gate. "Make it quick, Fanny," he said.
Was he still counting on me to convince her to come? I searched around in my mind for something to say. Then I saw the quilt she'd been working on. It was the strangest quilt I'd ever seen. All dark colors, not bright and purty like ours. "You're working on this?" I asked.
"Yes. Johnse's ma had started it and never finished. It's a Coffin quilt."
I looked closely. All around the edges were coffins, spaced well apart. The middle had a large empty space. "A Coffin quilt?"
She gave a little laugh. "I don't cotton to it much myself, but it's over half done and it's all I've got right now for our bed. Each coffin has a name of the member of the family. And when they die you move the coffin from the edge and put it in the middle. See?"
I looked up at my sister. "How can you live with people who make quilts with coffins on them? What kind of people are they?"
"It's only a quilt, honey. Don't take on so."
"Coffins on a quilt! How can you cover yourself with it? These people are all crazy, Ro."
"It'll keep us warm this winter. When it's done I'll start on my own. Maybe one with birds, animals, and flowers."
"Ro, come home. Bad things will happen to you here, I know it."
She kissed my forehead. "Go," she said. "If you can get away, bring me a bundle of my things. Pa hasn't thrown them away, has he?"
"No." I wished I'd thought to bring her something. I thought, guiltily, of the comb. It wasn't right for a woman not to be dowered, was it? But then, Ro wasn't wed. Oh, I was so confused.
"Then maybe sometime you can ride over with them. Leave them by the gate. If I see you, I'll come out. You can do that for me, can't you? I'll warn them you may be coming, so you don't have to be afraid."
I couldn't believe she wouldn't come home with us. I bit my bottom lip to keep from crying.
Coffins on a quilt! I looked at it, lying there, ugly as sin. Then at her, so beautiful. Would she become like them if she stayed here? They were sharp-faced, ugly people, with no color in their faces. I turned and ran through the yard and the gate to where Tolbert was waiting.
Chapter Ten
1880
THE ONLIEST TIME I ever saw my pa cry was when a letter came to him, all stained and wrinkled, telling him a man he'd fought the war with had died. They'd eaten rats together in a Yankee prison. And when Pa got the letter that the man was run down by a carriage on the streets of Richmond, he cried like a baby.
That was the onliest time I saw him cry until Tolbert told him Ro wouldn't come home. Pa didn't really cry, but his face got all screwed up like he was fixing to. "Go on into the house," he said to me gruffly. "Your ma's got supper awaitin'. Tell her I'll be in directly."
By the time Tolbert brought him into the house, his face was smooth again. We all stood around the table until Pa sat. That was the custom. Then Ma would say a prayer. But soon as it was over Pa stood again, and we stopped reaching and grabbing for the food. We knew he was going to hold forth.
"Your sister has refused to come home," he said. "I say she's made her own bed, now let her lie in it. But I want to hear what you all say. First you, Sarah."
"I say we should give her another chance. Let her mull things," Ma said.
Tolbert, who'd stayed for supper, spoke next. "Her head is muddled. I think she may come if we give her time."
"I say let her sleep in the bed she made," from Alifair.
"You would say that," Pharmer flung at her. "You were alw
ays jealous of Ro. I'm for giving her another chance, Pa. Then go fetch her. We fetch our hogs when they don't come home, don't we? Can we do any less for Ro?"
"Storm the place and get her back," from Bud, "whether she wants to come or not."
"I'm with Bud," Bill said.
"Ro hasn't done anything lots of other girls haven't done," Calvin offered. "She went there thinking she was to wed. It isn't her fault the old man won't let them."
Pa took it all in, nodded after each offering. He didn't ask me or Adelaide or Trinvilla. They didn't care, but I did. And I had to say my piece. "Pa?" I asked.
"You're too young," Alifair interrupted.
"Let her speak," from Pa. "She was there. What do you have to say, Fanny?"
Everybody was looking at me, especially Alifair. She was giving me the hatefulest look I'd ever seen. "Ro's afeared you'll be mean to her if she comes home. She said she won't be able to bear it. And then she'd lose Johnse, too."
Pa nodded.
"Is she happy there?" Ma asked.
"She seems so," I said. "But we can't leave her there anyways. We have to go and ask her again to come home. I think she would if we asked her again, Pa."
"What are you telling us, Fanny child?" Ma asked.
I looked straight into my mother's careworn face. "Ma," I whispered, "she's been working on a quilt. Not like the kind we make. It has little coffins all 'round the edges, with one for everybody in the family. And when a person dies they move the coffin to the middle."
Ma closed her eyes, and I saw her lips move in prayer. Then she said the prayer aloud. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," she said. "Ranel? You hear that? You hear what kind of people they are? They've got our daughter working on a Coffin quilt."
Pa sighed heavily and gave the hand signal that we should all start to eat. "That's decided me," he said. "Tolbert, can I prevail upon you to go and see your sister again tomorrow and try to bring her home?"
"You can, Pa. But what'll convince her to come?"
"When you tell her," Pa said, "that I aim to kill every Hatfield in Kentucky and West Virginia if she doesn't come. Can I prevail on you to give her that message, Tolbert?"
"Yes, Pa," Tolbert said.
"Fanny, you're to go along with him," Pa ordered.
I felt a thrill of importance. Alifair's look grew more hateful. "Not fair!" she whined. "Not fair she goes again. I'm the oldest. It's my place!"
"When the time comes for the fighting, Alifair, you'll be right in on it, I promise," Pa said.
So I got to go home with Tolbert again that night. And the next day we set off again for West Virginia. I asked if I could bring some of Ro's things in a bundle, but Pa said no. "She won't be needing her things if she comes home, and if she doesn't she won't be getting them. It's up to you, Fanny, to tell your sister that."
***
SO I TOLD her. Right after Tolbert told her what Pa aimed to do if she didn't come.
"You want to start a war, Roseanna?" he asked her. I stood right next to him when he said it. "You think the last one was bad? If Pa gets all the McCoys together and storms over here, it'll be worse than the firing on Sumter."
As Ambrose Cuzlin would say when he picked up his switch, "The preliminaries are over." No more sweet words from Tolbert, no more cajoling. Ro had already told my brother again all about how much she loved Johnse, but Tolbert was not interested in hearing of it.
"Either he marries you today or Pa comes riding in here tomorrow, Ro," he said.
I held her hand. She needed me to do that. Johnse was nowhere in sight. His father, old Devil Anse, stood a distance away with two of his sons, Robert E. Lee and Elliot Rutherford. They were waiting. They knew trouble was in the air.
"I don't want anybody to get shot on my account," she said.
"Then you know what to do," Tolbert said.
She looked down at me. She patted my head. "Did you bring my things, baby?"
"Pa wouldn't let me, Ro. He said if you come home you won't be needing them, and if you don't you won't be getting them. Please come, Ro."
She nodded. Her face was white and drawn. She looked older of a sudden. "I have to talk to Johnse first," she said. And she disappeared around the corner of the house.
Tolbert and I waited on the porch. I saw Cap wandering around by the barn. He had a seven-shot repeating carbine in his hands. I nudged Tolbert.
"I know, Fanny. I saw him. Don't look at him is all."
"Will he stop us from taking Ro?"
"I'd like to see him try."
In about ten minutes my sister came back, wiping her eyes with her hand. In the other hand she had a bundle of things. The bundle was wrapped with the Coffin quilt, "I'm ready," she sniffed.
"You can ride double with Fanny," Tolbert told her.
"But one of these days me and Johnse will be wed properlike. Then nobody can keep us apart."
"When that day comes I won't stop you," Tolbert told her. "It's just that you gotta abide by notions of respectability and not sully our name."
"You're not bringing that quilt, Ro," I said.
"I aim to finish it before we wed."
"Can't you start another one?"
Tolbert scowled at her, then said to me, "Leave her be. And let's get out of here."
He helped Ro up behind me on the horse. He tied her things in the ugly Coffin quilt to the side of the saddle. As we started out of the Hatfield place, I felt dozens of eyes on our backs. I held my breath, waiting for the crack of Cap Hatfield's rifle. I thought, No good will come of this. Some things just bode evil I wished she hadn't brought that Coffin quilt. No good will come of it, I thought, no good at all.
Chapter Eleven
1880
"YOU'RE NOT A-BRINGIN' that quilt into this house." Those were the first words Pa said to Ro when we got back.
"It's all I got from Johnse," she told him. "I come home like you wanted. I was doing middling well there. But I'm here now, and I aim to finish my quilt."
I held my breath while she faced Pa down. We all did, because everybody had gathered round to see her. The facing down went on for a full minute before Pa spoke again.
"You look like the hind wheels of bad luck," he said. "Bring your quilt in if you set such store by it. But don't let me see one name of this family on those coffins, you hear? Nary a McCoy name goes on it, not even yourn."
"I hear," Ro said. So the Coffin quilt came into our house.
Those were the last words Pa said to her for the next month.
***
RO SETTLED IN, but it wasn't the same. Sometimes in the night I heard her tossing and turning on her bed and whispering Johnse's name. One moon-flooded night when I knew she was awake, I went over to kneel by her bed. "Ro," I said, "what is it like to love a body like you love Johnse?"
She thought for a spell. Then she answered. "It's like being at the door of hell sometimes," she said. "And other times it's like being at the door of heaven itself."
I vowed then that I would never love anybody like that. Look what it had done to Ro. She didn't eat right anymore. Her face was thin, her eyes had dark circles under them. And sometimes in the middle of the day I'd catch her on the edge of the woods, retching. She worked on the Coffin quilt, though. Said the quicker she finished it, the quicker she'd hear from Johnse. It came to be like an amulet to her, I think.
"Don't tell Mama," she'd say, when I caught her retching in the woods.
"Why? She'll make you some black snakeroot tea."
"It won't fix what I've got," she said.
She was sick. Likely she had stomach worms from living at the Hatfields'. How long could she keep that from Mama?
Somehow she did. While I was in school that October she helped Ma dry the fruits and berries. She picked the little wild crab apples and pawpaws. She helped Ma cure meat and store the sweet potatoes. And she took Alifair's snide looks and hurtful remarks without sassing her back.
"I hope you're happy," Alifair said to her one day
in the kitchen. "The bad feeling in this house is as thick as molasses."
"It's nothing like the feeling in my heart," Ro answered.
"I've never seen Pa so cast down," Alifair went on. "Can't you see how cast down he is?"
"I see nothing else, sister," Ro said. "He hasn't spoken a word to me since I came home."
"Well then?" Alifair asked. "Why don't you do something about it?"
"Onliest thing I can do is leave," Ro said.
To that Alifair said nothing, but that nothing was as powerful as the preacher on Sunday when he described hellfire to us. It was only the two of them in the kitchen. They didn't know I was listening right outside the door.
On the fifteenth, and I remember it was the fifteenth because lots of kids weren't in school but home for foddering time, Mr. Cuzlin let us out early.
That's when I saw Yeller Thing again.
I was walking home a little ways back from Adelaide and Trinvilla. The morning had been all blue and gold and the leaves on the trees were the colors of honey and blood. But by afternoon a wind had picked up, dark clouds scudded across the sky, and the sun disappeared. Right after we passed the holler where Belle Beaver lived, I felt a sense of doom. And of a sudden the chattering birds and critters got all quiet.
It was by the wood bridge that crossed Cattail Creek that I saw it.
Something went flashing by in the corner of my eye I stopped and looked, but there was nothing there. Nothing to see, that is, but I knew something was about and lurking. I shivered. The day had turned cold. I felt disquieted, like the wind boded bad things.
Again I heard the whoosh of something streaking by. And then I smelled it, worse than a skunk by daylight. Worse than six outhouses in July.
Next I heard the growl, low and menacing one minute, high and screeching the next. It echoed in the woods. It bounced off the water in the creek. It was Yeller Thing all right. I stopped dead in my tracks. Maybe if I didn't move, he would leave me be. Oh why hadn't I made a cross in the dirt with my toe, spit in it, and made a wish when I left the house this day? I'd become careless is why. Ro was home. I thought there would be no more danger.