My Old True Love

by Sheila Kay Adams

  • • •

  “MY FRIENDS.” HE TURNED to the local big shots. “Honored servants of these good folks.” He nodded at Woodfin. “My esteemed colleague. I’ve not come to inform you that these are serious times. You already know that. Our sister state has left the Union, practicing a right given her by the great men that founded this beloved country in which we live. This country that many of our ancestors went to Kings Mountain and fought for during the Revolutionary War. Some of them didn’t come back. They died for a purpose. Has it been so long ago that we’ve forgotten?” He looked out at us with his dark brows all bunched up above his eyes and give a little shake of his head. “I say no, we have not forgotten. Think of them, my friends. Those mountain men that stood and fought with such tenacity against the English. They could look off in the distance and see the mountains.” He give a big sweep of his arm that could have took in the whole world.

  “Now we are faced with a grim and somber decision. Will we tear asunder that which we have struggled to form? We might. But must we rush forward with ruinous and indecent haste? Mr. Woodfin will no doubt tell you that we must act now. To hesitate would cause the states that have cast their lot in with that of South Carolina to think badly of us, to think us a rider of the fence. I have heard this argument time and time again.” Vance looked at Woodfin for a long time, and I can tell you that I would not have wanted him to fix me with that kind of gaze. When he looked back at us his eyes was shiny bright. “I am convinced that this is a decision that must be made by the people. Good, God-fearing, everyday people like you. This decision cannot, should not be made for you by politicians! The leaders in the disunion move are scorning every suggestion of compromise and rushing forward with such speed that it appears that they are absolute fools. Yet don’t you be deceived. They are rushing the people into a revolution without giving them time to think. They fear lest the people shall think!”

  “Damn them what wants to bust up this country, Zeb!” one man hollered.

  And they was a bunch of men that hollered amen to that. But they was just as many that stood there with their arms crossed and did not say one single solitary word. It was hearing that big silence that caused the first little ripple of fear to run through me. Zeke had come to stand next to me and I reached out and linked my arm through his. He was as stiff as a board and I knew that he was afraid, too. That was the first of many times that I would know he was afraid, but it did not make me love him any less. It made me love him more.

  Vance raised his hands patting the air.

  “I understand your anger. But, again, I remind you of the need to proceed through these perilous times with caution. We can’t afford to rush in the other direction either. The people must think, and when they are given the time they will begin to think and hear the matter properly discussed.” He pointed a long finger at us. “Then and only then will we be able to consider long and soberly before we tear down this noble fabric and invite carnage, civil war, financial ruin, and anarchy. I beg you to think, think, my friends. I implore you to think! Neighbors, we have everything to gain and nothing on earth to lose by delay, but by too hasty action we may take a fatal step that we never can retrace. We may lose a heritage that we can never recover, though we seek it earnestly and with tears.” He brought up his hand and pointed a finger straight up at the sky.

  I was so caught up in listening to him talk that I did not even see that white-suited Woodfin had climbed on the stage with him until he was close enough to lay his hand on Vance’s arm. I even know what he said to him though his voice was low and gruff. He said, “I am so sorry, Zeb.” I believe he meant it, too, because you could see it in his eyes. But when he faced us the sorry was gone and his eyes was hot as fire.

  “My fine friends and neighbors, I have just received word that South Carolina has fired on Fort Sumter. Lincoln has called for seventy-five thousand volunteers.”

  And that big crowd that had been so quiet just went to blowing up all around me. Everybody was hollering and cussing, but I was standing there numb as a stump. Vance stood right where he’d been and looked right foolish because he still had his finger pointing and I watched him bring it down to shake the hand Woodfin was offering him. I heard years later that Vance said he raised his hand that day a unionist and brought it down a secessionist. He really did just that. Hell, if you had said them words to me on that day I would have looked at you as dumb as a cow. I would not have knowed what either one of them meant. But, oh, you can believe I know what they both mean now.

  Woodfin stepped down off the stage and men literally swarmed around and about him and he was quick swallowed up and gone. I done something then that I look back on today and shake my head about. Of a sudden I had to talk to that Zeb Vance and I had to do it eyeball to eyeball. I pulled my arm loose from Zeke, jerked my skirt up, and rushed that stage, catching him just before he stepped down.

  I climbed right up there with him too. “Wait, wait,” I said. “What does this mean for me?”

  Now, I have knowed some what I would call men in my time, but when this one looked down at me, I knowed I was looking at a great man. He had looked tired before, but Lord, now he looked absolutely killed. His voice sounded as sad as any sad I have ever heard.

  “This means there will be war.”

  “But not for us,” I said. “The war won’t come here.”

  Oh, how cold his next words left me, even though he was trying to be so kind. “It is here already, madam.” And then he said, “I must apologize and excuse myself. There’s much I need to do.” He was telling the truth about that and he had no way of knowing when he said it how true it would turn out to be. His own troubles was just around the corner—in nineteen days he would be made Confederate captain and would form up his own company and would go marching off to fight. They called themselves the Rough and Ready Guards. He did not know as he stood right there talking to me, Arty Wallin, in Shelton Laurel on that pretty day in April, that he would finish out them long and bloody years far off from his home.

  I did not know that I was looking in the face of the man that would be elected governor in a little more than a year. But I would remember him the rest of my life, because in that little minute he opened up a world of worry for me. He handed it to me in a box without a lid and it come swirling up right in my face. Of a sudden I knew in my heart that the war was here as sure as I was a foot high because all around me hollering and cussing was men what was foolish enough to fight in it. Oh, God, and what would Zeke do? He was a good man, a decent man, but a man nonetheless. And good and decent men had a bigger dose of honor than them what was not so good or decent. I thought I would fall up when I knew that yes, he would go. And Larkin? Oh, what would happen to the first child I had not carried in my body but snugged up tight against my heart? I looked at him standing right there, and though he was big as a skinned mule and living on his own and already bedded a woman, he was still a boy. A million memories crowded into my mind and went to racing back and forth. The time he’d had the whooping cough and couldn’t breathe and I’d sucked the thick snot out of him with my own mouth. The squeals he’d make when he was learning to crawl. How his little face would get all dreamy when he was listening to them old love songs. And in with all them feelings come the words to an old song I hadn’t thought of in years.

  “The warfare is a-ragin’ and Johnny you must fight.

  I want to be with you from morning to night.

  I want to be with you, that grieves my heart so.

  Won’t you let me go with you?” Oh, no, my love, no.”

  “Oh, Johnny, Oh, Johnny, I think it’s you’re unkind

  When I love you much better than all other mankind.

  I’ll roach back my hair and men’s clothing I’ll put on

  And I’ll act as your servant as you go marching along.

  “I’ll go to your general and get down upon my knees,

  Five hundred bright guineas I’ll give for your release.

  ” �
��When you’re standing on the picket some cold winter day

  Them red rosy cheeks, love, will all fade away.”

  As for what happened next, I can only say God bless my brother Hackley, because right then he give an ear-splitting whoop and a holler and said, “Well, would you looky here if it ain’t Willis and Columbus.” I knowed right then that we was in for some fine music, seeing as how them brothers could play banjo and fiddle like nobody’s business.

  You might wonder why I did not think of Hackley having to go off to the war, but you should not. If you had known him then, you would have knowed too that the very thought of him in a war with people bossing him around would have made you laugh your head off. My brother was not the sort to give much thought to something that was not right in front of him unless it was in a jug or wearing a dress. Oh, do not get me wrong; Hackley had to come of it. Just not on this night. For him this was just one more excuse for a big frolic.

  I went to dancing like a fool the minute they swung up in a tune, and if I had not been in the family way, I would have got as drunk as one too. I could not drink one drop when I was that way because it made me have the heartburn so bad. But they was lots of drinking being done. Hackley was as happy with it as I would ever see him. He always loved that mix of Sol’s liquor and playing the fiddle. And when you throwed him in with other musicianers like Lum—which is what they all called Columbus—and Willis, you could figure that one tune would follow another, and you could dance all night if your feet and legs could stand it. Between them boys they probably knowed every fiddle tune they was to know.

  There are many other things I recall about that one night. It is funny how our mind works that-a-way. For that night I can remember the exact words people said or the clothes they had on and now I can’t remember something that somebody said to me just last week. Hackley’s face was red and his eyes was so bright they looked like they could burn you. And I remember him laughing and saying, “Why, iffen I’d have knowed how the whiskey flowed at these speech makins and such I reckon I’d have took to politicking a long time ago. I might just run for sheriff.” Bless his heart. He didn’t have much time left to him and would never live to vote for a sheriff, let alone run for one.

  I had to quit dancing for a bit while I made the young’uns lay down. They all went to sleep pretty quick except for Carolina. I knowed she was up and gone before my back was good and turned. That girl has always told me what she figured I wanted to hear and then done what she wanted to start with. I reckon there has to be one that we pay for our raising with, and that would be Carolina for me. I guess I was Mommie’s, although I cannot for the like of me figure out what it was my poor little Mommie was having to pay for. She was always such a good thing.

  I can still see how it looked as I was coming back. Things has changed so much from what they used to be. Everybody’s wagon was now their bedroom and you could hear all sorts of things. Some things I might not ought to have heard right out in the open that way, but I must say I took my time and meandered along trying to determine who was in what wagon. By the time I got back to that little stage a right smart of time had gone by. They was a great big fire that had been built up against the cool of the spring evening, and you could see folks standing black against the orange light. The musicianers was up on the little stage that Vance had talked from and Hackley looked like some kind of haint. I just had to stand there and look at him for a minute. His hair had flopped down over his forehead and he was bowing that fiddle like he meant to saw it in two. He was lost in that music making.

  Larkin was not hard to find. He was so much taller than everybody else that he stood right out. And I could tell he was talking to Mary because her hair was all aglow from the fire. Before I got to them she’d turned away. I went to stand beside him. He slid his arm around me and give me a side-armed hug. His breath smelled pretty strong with liquor. I asked him if he was drunk and he said, “Not near enough.” And about that time here come Maggie. Me and her talked for a minute, but I could tell she was after Larkin so I just kept talking and talking and she kept raising her eyebrows and giving me these little nods in Larkin’s direction. I kept letting on like I didn’t know what she was wanting, and she got to the point where her eyes were just about rolling around in her head. So I took pity on her and said, “Oh, there’s Zeke. I need to talk to him,” and left her and Larkin standing there together. But I didn’t go far enough that I didn’t hear every word and see everything that happened.

  Larkin had his eyes closed and was patting his leg in time to the music.

  “Howdy, Larkin,” she said, and I wished you could have heard how her voice sounded. Our Maggie could really be something when she set her head to it.

  But Larkin had learned a thing or three and said right back to her in a voice I had certainly never heard him use on me, “Howdy, Miss Maggie.”

  “What are you grinning about?” she said as she walked right up in his face as bold as you please.

  “Me to know and you to find out.”

  I couldn’t help it. I eased over a little closer where I could see, and I want you to know I blushed plumb to the roots of my hair when I saw the way she was looking him up and down, letting her eyes stare at certain parts which were much easier to see now than they was when he was talking to his Amma just a minute ago. “I love how I keep getting reminded what a pretty boy you are, Larkin Stanton.”

  “You don’t have to forget it, honey. My door is always open to you and you know that.” They was not a thing in his voice that would make you think he was anything other than a man grown, and I finally got it through my thick head that they was things about Larkin that I did not know. And that they was things I did not need to know. I made to leave just as she leaned up close against him and whispered something in his ear. I was still close enough to hear what he said back to her.

  “Right here in front of God and everybody?” I knew as sure as the world what they was talking about and, with a face as red as that fire, I swear to you I was trying to get my big nosy self out of their way, when all of a sudden there was Hackley standing right next to them. I wished I had just gone on about my rat killing and not heard or saw nothing because this is one time that I would have been better off not knowing. I was friends with both of them women, and I put myself right smack between the devil and the deep blue sea. I had not noticed nor had Maggie and Larkin that the music had stopped. But it had and when they turned toward the woods, there stood my brother with a great big sloppy grin on his face.

  “Why, looky here. Two of my favorite folks passing the time of day,” he said. And though his words was light and teasing like, his tone was not. They was an edge to his voice that made me think, Oh, no, Hackley is drunk and wanting to fight. I stepped right up close then because I meant to put myself between them if I had to. One look at Maggie’s face told me she was not missing a thing and was pleased as could be about what was happening and I silently cursed her for this.

  “Why, Hackley Norton, if I did not know you was a happy married man, I might think you was flirting with me.”

  My brother got right up in her face like me and Larkin was not even there and said, “Being married does not mean I died, nor has it caused me to go blind neither. And you do look mighty good, Maggie.”

  I could not help it. I said his name and I know my voice had to have sounded my dismay to both of them. “Damn it, Hackley Norton, do not even think of doing such a thing.”

  Him and Maggie barely glanced at me and both of them might as well have said out loud, “You shut your mouth, Arty.” Neither one of them give me or Larkin another thought, and they was no way to tell who was leading who toward the woods. It looked to me like they was racing.

  Though you might think I am lying, I am not when I tell you that my very first thought was of Mary. I looked around trying to see where she was. I guess I would have wanted somebody to do the same for me, unless they was planning on telling me about it, which I already knew I would not do. For ju
st a minute I forgot it was not just my secret to keep. But one look at Larkin’s face cured me of that. He was mad as fire, they was no doubt about that, but there was another look about him too, and as you have probably figured I am not one for the big words, but the only one that works here is triumphant. His eyes was plumb hot looking, and they was such an awful thing to look at that I had to turn my face from his. And he said, “Damn his soul,” and he slammed his fist into the palm of his other hand. And quick-like I said, “Don’t damn nobody’s soul, Larkin.” And he said, “I’ll tell her now, Amma. You just wait and see if I don’t.” And I said, “Oh, honey, you cannot be the one that tells her this thing. She would hate you for the bearing of this.” So once again I was right in the middle of them all.

  When people gets old we have at least one or two moments in our lives that we can look back on and say to ourselves, If I had done thus and such right here, my whole life would have been different. It might not even look like it would be no big life-changing thing, but it is. Or if we ain’t big thinkers, of which I am sometimes sorry to say I am, then we will say I wish’t I had or I wish’t I’d never have, and at the end of that you can put just about anything. I wish’t I had looked the other way or I wish’t I’d never have seen his face or I wish’t I had been somewhere else that day. Or I wish’t somebody would’ve just picked up a rock and knocked my brains out right then. Or I wish’t I had turned right around and told Mary right then and let them all go to hell in a handbag. Well, I wished all them things on that night. But it was a long time later when I wished it the hardest. And that is the worst kind of wishing.

  Who should come up to us right then but Mary. I swear, it was like she was put on this earth to try them two boys. The bad thing was that I could not hate her for it, for she did not know. I tell you it even tugged at my heart—and it could be hard as a rock sometimes—to see her standing there holding that pie tin. She held it up to Larkin, and her eyes were great big and held the light from the fire like a looking glass.