A clot of men had ganged up on the porch of Jim Leake’s store. Others stood about in the yard. I could not believe how quiet they was, so I just had to wander over there to see what and all was going on. They weren’t even milling about much, and I could still see where the dirt showed marks from Cassie’s broom.
I went over to where Larkin was leaning against one of the posts and leaned against him. He was as still as that post listening to Wade Hensley reading the results of the election for governor from the Asheville News. Nobody spoke until he finished reading every thing they was to read.
“Damned if Marshall didn’t go big for Ellis. Says here a hundred and fifty-six for him and eighty-two for Pool.”
“What about that!” Ruben Gosnell was whittling away and the head and neck of a little bird that looked like a living thing was coming right up out of that stick. “What do you reckon they was thinking?”
“Not much, you want my opinion,” Shadrack said. I did not care for Shadrack even if he was Zeke’s brother. He put on airs and I told him that one time. I also told him that he put his britches on just like everybody else, so they was no love at all lost between us. “How anybody could vote for that lying suck-ass is beyond me. ’Specially after he shit us with all them promises to git that road in down through Paint Rock.”
“Bet Shelton Laurel laid it to Ellis’s hide, didn’t they?” Hugh said. I did like Hugh, and especially his wife Rosa. Me and her had been friends for all our lives and I knowed how good he was to her and their boys. They is something to be said about a man that is good to his wife and does not use his fists on her like some others I know—which would include Shadrack, I just might tell you.
Daddy was setting next to Wade and he leaned over and squinted at the little print in the paper. Poor old Daddy, I thought, His eyes are getting bad. “Ellis didn’t git a single vote in Shelton Laurel. Pool got fifty-one.” He looked up. “’Course, Ellis got four out of thirty votes in our district.”
Andrew Chandler give a wave of his hand that said oh-forget-about-that. “Bet that was them Eckerds off on Spillcorn. They been fools since God’s dog was a pup. Can’t even hold it against them. They can’t help it.”
As Wade folded up the paper, Daddy said, “Well, every other district in the county except Little Pine went big for Ellis, as did Buncombe County. It’ll be four more years of the same old shit.”
“What hurt Pool was that business about putting a tax on everything,” Zeke said. Me and him had talked a long time about that over the last month and I had told him that them folks down east ought not to have to pay for our roads and such up here but they ought not to make us pay taxes on stuff we had to have to barely survive, neither.
Andrew snorted. “How exactly you reckon they was going to figure out what we had that they could put a tax on? Ain’t nobody coming into my house and nosing about, making lists.”
“Felt the same way, Andrew.” Daddy said. “But they was no way I was gonna vote for them yeller dogs that’s in, either. We was between a rock and a hard place.”
“Can’t trust none of them politicians far as you can rare back and throw ’em out in the yard, anyways.” Ervin Ramsey leaned forward and spit off the end of the porch. “Old Pearlie, God rest him, used to say the only folks fit to be in charge of things is them what don’t want to be.”
“I really miss old Pearlie,” Andrew said. “He had a way of putting things that went right to the quick.”
Wiley Franklin wiped his face. He was bad to sweat and his handkerchief was already sopping wet. “Well, now,” he said, “Pool said something a week or so ago that was right on the money. He said they’s a time coming and coming soon when we’re going to wind up gitting into it with each other over this slave thing. Said them what owns niggers here in North Carolina can’t raise twenty thousand men.” He waved his arm at all of us standing there, “Be up to us to come up with the rest of ’em.”
Greenberry Chandler said, “Far as I’m concerned, they ought to take all the niggers, load ’em on one of them big boats, take ’em about ten mile out into that big blue ocean and dump the lot of ’em.”
“Eh law, Greenberry,” Sol Bullman said. “That’s the most words you strung together at one time since you married that big-mouthed sister of mine!” We all busted out laughing, for he was married to Hattie. She come from a long line of midwives and she had a way about her that said do not mess with me in any shape, form, or fashion. Most of us had been brought into this world by the rough, work-hard hands of her grandmother, mother, or in mine and Larkin’s case, Hattie herself. It was a good thing Greenberry was a quiet man.
“But what about Tillman?” Andrew said.
I had not thought of Tillman Chandler in years. He used to claim me for his sweetheart but I did not claim him. He was tall and skinny, and if you was looking at Zeke you would know that I like men of a different sort. I did recall that Tillman had married a woman from Asheville whose daddy died not long after they’d set up housekeeping and that he had come into over two hundred acres and most of it good flat bottom land. It had never even flittered through my head that he would have to have slaves. But then why would it? They was no slaves in Sodom unless you counted the ones what was white and female.
“Damned if I know what to do about it,” Ruben said to them. His eyes never moved from the graceful curve of that bird’s wing. “But I do know it’s a mess, a pure-D mess. Don’t believe I understand all I know about this nigger thing anyhow.” He raised the bird, give it a good long eyeball, blew on it, and went back to carving. “Never seen a man of color myself.”
“Saw two of ’em last week when I was down in Warm Springs.” Zeke said. “Black as the ace of spades.”
“Well,” Ruben said, “I can just about guarantee it’ll come to war. They’s too much fussing back and forth amongst ’em in Raleigh and up in Washington.”
“Goodness, fellers, I reckon not.” This was from old man Swan Ray. He started just about everything he said with goodness or here there. “Here there, it wouldn’t be nothing to us one way or t’other. War amongst rich folks, ye ask me.”
“Mayhap,” Daddy said. “But somehow it always manages to work itself back around to being a poor man’s fight.”
“If you’uns could hear half of what I hear on my drumming route,” Wade said, “you would know it will come to war. That’s all I hear, ’specially down south of here.”
Wade was from off down toward Hendersonville and had married Vergie Ray, who was Swan’s daughter.
I was so caught up in what was being said that I jumped like somebody had poked me in the ribs when Big John Stanton’s deep voice come rumbling out right there beside me. The Big part of his name was put there for a reason but I swear he could slip up on you and you would never know it till he wanted you to. We was not related to the Stantons but Larkin’s daddy was one. Their grandma was full Cherokee and you could surely see it in both of them. She was never heard from again when they was all rounded up and took off.
Big John crossed arms big as fence posts over his chest and said, “Let it come, boys. I for one wouldn’t mind a good fight.”
“Maybe so, son.” Wiley took his hat off and went to smearing that wet handkerchief around on his shiny bald head. “You’re young and most of us ain’t. But you’d still have to fight one side or the other.”
“Hell, Wiley, I’m for joining the side that looked like it were going to win.”
Lord have mercy, did that not set everybody to talking at once.
And would you not know that it was just then that Hackley come up to me and Larkin. He was wearing the white shirt Mommie had made him. Last week I’d gone to see if her beans had come in and they had and I was stringing and breaking them up while she sewed the buttons on it. My John Wesley loves green beans and Mommie’s big greasys are the best. I must say Hackley looked like icing on a cake. Right then it come to me that my brother was one of the prettiest men I’d ever laid eyes on, even if he was grinning in a
not so pretty way.
He said, “Lark, look out yonder and tell me what you see.”
“Don’t see much, Hack,” Larkin said, though he did not do much more than let his eyes skim over the crowd. I could tell that he was way more interested in them men what was still arguing there in front of the store because of what he said next. “Have you heard any of this talk about a war?”
“War?” Hackley said, and I could have told Larkin that my brother had not lost a bit of sleep nor one waking minute with thoughts about no war. And then he said, “I want you to look at the damn prettiest girl in Madison County.”
And I piped right in. “You better be thinking about something other than your jewel among women, Mary Chandler.” I was trying to be funny, and Larkin picked right up on this, but it was all lost on Hackley because he got real serious. That in itself was a wondrous thing to behold, because there was not much in life that roused Hack-ley to seriousness.
“She is just that, sister.” He had not called me sister in a long time. Then I did know that Hackley Norton was as serious as the night was long about Mary Chandler. And what he said to us next sealed the deal. The crowd sort of parted, and though I could not see from where I was, Hackley could.
“Why, that son of a bitch! Look-a there!”
Like a shot I was up on my tippy-toes trying to see. “What, what?” I said.
Larkin, being a full head and shoulders over me, said, “Willard’s trying to talk to Mary.”
And Hackley went rushing off, saying real loud-like, “I’ll whup his ass!”
Then the crowd parted like Moses had raised his stick and I could see Willard Bullman leaning toward Mary. She had on a cream-colored dress and her waist looked slim as a boy’s. I knowed for a fact that I would never see my own that slender again but I would not have traded places with her if it had meant I had to give up my young’uns and Zeke.
Hackley went out through there like a little banty rooster and when Willard saw him coming he looked around right wild. I knowed what he was looking for was standing right beside me. Everybody with any kind of sense knowed that if you messed with Hackley you had Larkin to fight and that was no fun. This is not to say my brother was not a handful all by hisself. He was. But I had my suspicions that it was Larkin they really dreaded and then I knew it for a fact, because when Willard looked and seen Lark standing there on the porch he sort of slouched off into the crowd without so much as a backward look at Mary.
But Larkin was looking at her, they was no doubt, and if you could have seen the look, it would have tipped his hand to you as it most certain did to me. It was such a look that I swear I had to look myself. And I will tell you what I saw. She was not short but not real tall, she was slender and not busty neither. Her dark red hair kept catching the light that was sifting down through the leaves. She had freckles, but they was not so many and she had that real white redhead skin. Her hands were as slender as Mommie’s and I could not help it, I looked at mine. I would never have hands like them, as my fingers were too short, and I would never have the slender waist neither. But I would not complain, since Zeke seemed to like the way I was put together just fine. But Mary Chandler was as close to being beautiful as any girl I’d ever seen and I had not even noticed it until that very moment in time. I must have had my head under a bushel or maybe I’d just been raising young’uns and living my own life, thank you very much.
I could not stand to see Larkin all but slobbering on himself. “If you are going to stare so hard, you ought to at least shut your mouth,” I said to him. And then I could have just bit my tongue right off at the look of longing and misery that moved through his eyes. Oh, how I wanted to take him in my arms and say, “Do not let this slip of a girl cause this thing,” but felt that I ought not because I’d been so hateful and because I did not want to shame him any more than I already had. Red as a beet, he turned back to the men that was now a big crowd and loud to boot. I was never so glad to see anybody in my life as I was to see that Fee had come up and was standing on the other side of Larkin.
“Howdy, Fee,” I said. His big round eyes settled on my face then moved on. Poor Fee. Talk about that hard row to hoe, well, he’d had one too. He had been named Pharaoh of Egypt Gosnell. Now why you would name a child that you loved that I do not know, and you cannot call somebody Pharaoh of Egypt anyhow, so we all called him Fee. Everybody thought he was simpleminded, but he were not and I know it. He did not think like the rest of us is all. And even though he was younger than me, Granny said he knew more about which plants could cure you and kill you than anybody in this part of the world. And, Lord, but he had a way with animals that I have never seen the likes of. The big white dog at his side was a testament to that. She were not a hound dog but looked for all the world like a wolf and might well have been just that, for all I know. But she were a pretty thing with eyes that looked smarter than some folks I know.
Larkin and Fee was in a big way of talking, which meant they were standing around shuffling their feet since neither of them was big on talking and I sneaked a look at Fee. He was not the prettiest thing in the world. When he was just little, he was skinny and his head had looked too big for his body. But when he got to be a big boy, it seemed like overnight he started sprouting coarse hair and his arms and legs literally growed ropey strings of muscle. Now as a man grown his body had surely caught up with his head, and I will have to say that standing next to Larkin Stanton did not help his looks none. Lord, but Larkin was a pretty thing. Fee’s big lips skinned back over big wide-spaced teeth that was already stained from chewing ’baccer, and I allowed once more to myself that I would never dip snuff or chew until I no longer had teeth in my head. After that I don’t reckon it would matter none.
They was talking about the dog and I looked down at her. She was looking up at Fee like he was the best thing in the world and I squatted down next to her. “Hey there, you, pretty girl,” I said and she set them eyes on me and her ears stood straight up on her head. Her big red tongue come out quick as a snake and licked me right in the mouth. I couldn’t do nothing but laugh and that got her even more excited but all it took was one word from Fee to put her right back to setting. “Down,” he said. And I allowed that maybe he ought to come to my house and learn my young’uns how to behave as good and we all three laughed at that thought.
YOU KNOW HOW THEY is things in our life that we always remember right up to remembering right where we was, who was with us, how the sun laid on everything, what people said? Well, this proved one of them days. I’d seen Granny reach and take hold of her back down low and rub since I could remember. She was always lifting something too heavy and straining around. But it was the way she done it this day that I knew something was bad wrong. And I knew it with my very heart. When she’d come from the barn two year ago with a funny look on her face and told me she’d seen blood when she’d wiped herself I begged her to go see Hattie. Hattie told us that she had corruption, that it would get worse, but would take its own sweet time. And it had took so much time that I’d forget about it for days at a stretch. And then I’d get reminded like when we’d dug up some lilac bushes from next to her porch and planted them next to mine. “There,” she had said to me, “now every time you get a whiff of them lilacs you will think of this day and us planting them together.” And I said, “Lord God, Granny, don’t talk like that.” And she said, “Why, honey, look at how long I’ve had. Eighty year in case you can’t count that high. I am older’n anybody I know, ’cepting for Lige Blackett and I reckon they’ll have to knock Lige in the head with a frying pan on Judgment Day.” When I laughed she did, too, but then she said, “Don’t you tell I said that. Them Blacketts is mean as snakes and dumber than four buckets of hair.” We both snickered about that because it was the truth, and then she reached out and pushed my hair back off my face like she used to do when I was a girl. “Just remember, Arty.” And I said, “What?” And she got the funniest look on her face and said just this one word: “Everything.”
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• • •
NOW HERE WE ALL was, and I knew with every bone in me that this would be the last time we was all together. And with the knowing of that, it seemed like everywhere I looked I saw something to store up to take out and study later on.
That was the first time I noticed that Mary’s little sister Julie kept sneaking looks at Larkin. She was a real sweet girl and awfully clever, but Julie did not look like Mary is the kindest way I can think to say it. I recall thinking, You poor thing, because Larkin did not look at her even once during that long preaching. His eyes went nowhere but to where Mary and Hackley set. So mine did too and I had to hide my smile behind my hand when Hackley tried to put his arm up around her waist and her back went straight as a poker and he finally took it away and his neck got all red. And I thought, Good for you, Mary. You keep that up and you might get him yet.
Mommie was bustling about, making sure all the young’uns had plates and spoons. She’d turned fifty a few months back and was more grayheaded now than blond. She was right in amongst my young’uns slinging food like a crazy woman. I had told her to wait till I finished nursing Zeke Jr. but she went right on with her rat killing like I had never said a word so I let her do it. I leaned back against the tree and looked at my brood. Abigail was like looking Mommie right in the face. John Wesley had my brown hair and green eyes and so did Sylvaney. Ingabo had curly red hair and Zeke Jr. was going to be redheaded too. I had got real tired of folks asking where these two got their red hair. Lige Blackett come right out and spoke what I knew everybody was thinking: “Are you sure these two are Zeke’s?” And I fired right back at him, “Don’t you think I won’t smack you just because you are an old man.” But they is no doubt about who daddied Carolina. She looked like she was picked right out of Zeke’s hind end, right down to her shiny black hair and purplish blue eyes. She was a Wallin to the bone.
My Old True Love Page 5