My Old True Love

by Sheila Kay Adams

  THEY HAS NEVER BEEN no love lost in me for them high-browed folks up in Asheville. They have always thought themselves above us and I have no use for such. That feeling was only shored up in October when that man that I named Little Shitting Colonel come riding up to Mary’s when her and Larkin was getting in the last of the squash. Larkin said they’d already been seen so they was no need to even try to hide the squash, so he picked up the full basket and went to meet them. They was five of them and all of them dressed up in their little Confederate uniforms like that made them God’s gift. Now, people, I want to tell you that some men is not kind nor decent and they was looking one right in the face. He was the sort of man what is perfect cut out for this business of war and as far as I’m concerned, every last one of them needs to be consigned to the deepest, hottest hole in hell. And I hope they all wind up in that hole with their backs broke. I will not even say I am sorry for the wishing of such an awful thing.

  When Larkin told them they was looking at what food that was left, Little Shitting Colonel blared his eyes and said that was not why they was there. He jerked some papers out of his pocket and sort of waved them at Mary and asked if she was the wife of Hack-ley Norton.

  Well, Lord have mercy, of course poor little Mary’s mind went to the worst place and her knees buckled under her. She sort of leaned over against Larkin and he had to hold her up for a minute to keep her from falling. But then that chin come up and she stepped out to meet it head on, bless her little heart. “I am his wife,” she said. “Where was he killed?” Little Shitting Colonel said, “Oh, no, madam. Nothing quite so noble as that. He is a traitor, Mrs. Norton. I cannot tell you whether your cowardly husband lives or has been murdered by one of his fiendish friends. All I carry are the papers that identify him as a deserter from the army of the Confederate States of America as of September 23, 1862.” Can you believe that somebody would use that word fiendish? Well, that is them people from Asheville for you.

  “Why, that’s been over a month,” Larkin said. “How come now is the first we heard of it?”

  Little Shitting Colonel made this big show of looking off in the distance and sighing big and loud. I guess he was trying to be a big shot and make sure everybody knowed what a high opinion he had of hisself. “I’m certain the government has much better ways to waste the time of its men without rushing about madly to notify the likes of you folks of the goings and comings of men like this here Hackley Norton.” As far as he was concerned, he said, it was good riddance to bad rubbish.

  Then he must’ve took a good look at Larkin, because he asked why it was he had not been conscripted. Larkin answered him with the truth, which was that he’d just turned seventeen back in the summer. You can rest assured that this was not the first time that boy had answered that question. But this was the first time he’d been asked to prove it. Larkin allowed as to how he had no way of doing that except the saying of it and that he did not lie.

  Little Shitting Colonel had rared back in the saddle and said he wished he had a ten-cent piece for every time he’d heard that little tale. Then with eyes as flat as a snake’s he’d asked for Larkin’s name and he got a ugly look on his face and his thin little lips got even thinner. I have always said you should not trust a man that has no lips. And then he said to the rest of them men, “What do you think, gentlemen? Is this hulking giant the child he claims to be? Or is he lying to us so he can remain about to diddle this pretty little trick here?” Larkin said if he’d had a gun that would have been one dead son of a bitch. But he did not, and then Little Shitting Colonel said, “I repeat, can you prove your age?”

  Larkin said Julie hollering from the porch was all that kept him from getting into it with them men. All I can say is thank the Lord somebody was thinking on that day.

  “I can prove it,” she said as she come off the porch and marched her little self right up to them. She was carrying a Bible in her arms and talking a mile a minute. Mary might have been the pretty one, but they was no flies on Julie Chandler. “This here is his granny’s Bible,” she said in a big loud voice. “The date’s wrote down when she married and when all of her young’uns was borned. Larkin’s in here too,” and she went to giggling like a foolish girl, and it was so unlike her that Larkin said all him and Mary could do was stand there and stare. “Though Lord knows,” Julie went on, “Larkin couldn’t of been her young’un. Why, she’d a been way too old to of birthed a young’un by the time Larkin come along. See, his mommie died giving birth and his granny wrote his name right next to her daughter’s name. It was the durndest thing. When he was born they surely didn’t ’spect him to live, though you’d never know it now, would ye? He sure is a big ole thing, ain’t he?” She made a beeline for Larkin then and locked her fingers around his upper arm and went to batting her eyes at him and looking up at him like she was going to take a bite out of him. “And, why, you know what they done? His Aunt Nancy, I mean. I don’t think his granny was for it, or least ways I don’t think she was, course I couldn’t swear to it since I weren’t there. Anyhow, they let Hackley name him.” She giggled some more. “Bless his heart! Hack-ley’s, I mean. He weren’t but a young’un hisself and, why, he named Larkin after one of his mommie’s brother’s coonhounds.”

  I still get tickled thinking about it. She might still be standing there talking that bunch of foolishness if Little Shitting Colonel hadn’t hollered out, “Silence!”

  Them other men took to laughing and one of them muttered, “They God.”

  Julie drawed a great wind as though she was going to start in again.

  But the little man had heard enough. “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, child, be quiet! I am not interested in all this prattle!” He looked at the Bible she was holding up to him and give a snort and allowed he’d take her word for it. He lost all interest in Larkin and turned back to Mary. “Mrs. Norton, I am here to officially inform you that your husband is considered by the Confederate States of America to be a criminal and as such may be shot on sight, arrested, and hanged, or placed in prison for the rest of his natural life. Many of these men try to return home. Should he do this, it is your duty to your country to persuade him to turn himself in, or you must take it upon yourself to notify the authorities. We will be patrolling this area and will continue searching for your husband. Do you understand what I’m saying, madam?”

  Larkin said Mary’s back got stiffer and stiffer the longer he talked to where she was ramrod straight by the time he finished and her eyes was blazing mad. “I am not deaf, mister, and I understand ever word. Give me them papers.”

  Little Shitting Colonel was right taken aback with our Mary. But he still managed to say he’d told her because he’d assumed she wouldn’t be able to read.

  “Give me your damned papers. I can probably read better than you can.” And she grabbed them papers right out of his hand and then she said, “Now git your Rebel asses off my land!”

  They left then but not before Little Shitting Colonel had ordered one of his men to take the squash. That aside, I got the biggest laugh when they all three come by the house that evening and told me that tale.

  I had only one question for Julie. “Where in the world did you get Granny’s Bible?” And with a grin she said, “It weren’t your granny’s, it were Mary’s.”

  It done my heart good to know that a proper-mouthed Little Shitting Colonel from the big fine town of Asheville could be outfoxed by a skinny little mountain girl.

  12

  Some things is just too rich for words.

  AS THE DAYS OF that year came to an end, Sodom got buried under a big heavy quilt of the first snow. The Home Guard come through just every little whipstitch taking what it wanted, and looking for what was now a crowd of men what had deserted from the army. They was all kinds of God-awful stories being tossed about. This one I know was the truth because Clarissa told me herself.

  She was at home with her little baby that was just setting up good when the Home Guard come riding up wanting to know whe
re her husband Craven was. She knew he was hiding out somewheres but did not know the exact spot. They would not believe her and drug her out fighting like a wildcat the whole way and tied her to a tree. Then they set her baby boy in the doorway where she knowed if he fell over he would fall onto the big flat rock they used as a step and bust his brains out. When she still couldn’t tell them where Craven was, they rode off and left her tied to that tree. Who knows what would’ve happened if Little Bob hadn’t come along. He’d been blinded by the fever when just a boy, but he was able to follow the sound of that baby crying and then helped her get untied. Poor old Little Bob. He got bit by a mad dog two years later and went mad hisself and died.

  They was all manner of stories every bit as bad as Clarissa’s, but the worst one I ever heard was the one Pete McCoy told us one evening when Larkin, Mary, and Julie had come by the house and we’d fixed supper. It was way up in the evening and all my little ones was asleep except for Abigail and Carolina.

  When Zeke’s old dog went to barking something fierce, Larkin got up and went to the door. Old Shag would defend his people like ringing a bell, and I was sort of surprised when he quit barking right off and went to whining like he did when he knowed you. You could have knocked me over with a feather when Larkin come leading Pete McCoy to the table.

  “You’re a long way from home,” I said. “Surely to goodness you ain’t out hunting on such a night.” He was an old hunting buddy of Larkin and Hackley’s.

  “Lord, Arty, I wished I was hunting. I hate to bother younse, but I need help.” The top of his head barely reached Larkin’s shoulder. “They’s been some trouble over on Shelton Laurel,” he said in a low-pitched voice.

  “We’ve heard some of it.” I said. “Come in and eat.”

  “I’m obliged. My belly’s been trying to eat my backbone all day.”

  I ain’t never seen nobody eat like poor old Pete did that night.

  After his second glass of buttermilk he closed his eyes and sort of slumped back in his chair. “Nothing never tasted better,” he said.

  “What all has happened?” Mary said.

  He opened his eyes and studied her. “They’s been a slaughter over home.”

  “What do you mean a slaughter?” I said with a look at Abigail and Carolina. I made up my mind right then that they was old enough to hear it. They might have to face a like thing one of these days, and this might help them ready for it.

  Pete rubbed his eyes and then rested his forehead on one hand.

  “We been having a hell of a time. Like everbody else I reckon. They’s a constant flow outen Tennessee. They’re having a worse time of it than us, if you can believe it.” He looked at me. “How did you manage when it come hog-killing time?”

  “We never had no hog to kill, damn them stealing Yankees to hell.” I said.

  “Oh.” Pete said. “Reckon that took care of that. Well, my crowd was in a bad way ’cause we never had no salt. Not even a good handful. Know now what scraping the bottom of the barrel means. Mommie had not only scraped the bottom of her salting barrel, she’d scraped the sides. But word come to us that they was hoards of salt being kept in Marshall. For the soldiers, see. Plenty of it just setting down there in a warehouse. So John Kirk talked up a salt raid. Big gang of us got together and headed toward Marshall. Wednesday—no, Thursday, two weeks ago, the eighth of January. Reason I remember the day was ’cause I remembered that was the name of a fiddle tune Hack used to play for frolics.” His face fell in grim lines. “But this weren’t no frolic, not a’tall. We crossed through the Tater Gap about midday. Stayed around down in Walnut Creek till dark laid down, then headed out. We made good time. We aimed to get a raft at Macintosh’s Ford and make our way down the river, get the salt, and head back.” He barked out a laugh. “Hell, weren’t no need of a raft. River was froze solid as a rock. We walked down the river on the ice to the warehouse. Why, hit were easy as pie. One old man guarding all that salt. He laid o’er quick, even told us they was a wagon hitched up and ready to go right outside. We took as much as we could pile on that wagon. Some of us was even carrying a sack or two. They was some other stuff we took, too, blankets, bales of cloth, and so on. Then as we’s going out of Marshall some of the townpeople come out of their houses and started hollering at us. This feller what was named Peek, Captain Peek, dressed up in his uniform come out and hollered fer us to halt. Then all hell broke loose. Peek drawed his gun and fired, and John Kirk shot back and hit him in the right arm. They was a lot of hollering and screaming. Then this one man slapped Johnny Norton. You know Little Johnny. He rared back and hit that fellow right there in the road. Them folks scattered like a bunch of yeller dogs then.

  “I don’t know who started the plundering. Mayhap it was on all our minds. Anyways, we started going in the houses and taking stuff. Me and Little Johnny went in this big white house and this little woman commenced to screaming like a hellcat. We paid her no attention ’cept to tell her to shut up. Then Ned Woods come in with five or six of them boys off of No-Fat and he hollered that this was Lawrence Allen’s house. I told him I didn’t give a good goddamn whose house it was. We went upstairs and they was a little nigger girl setting on the floor right at the top of the steps. Little Johnny had never seen one, I reckon. He knelt down in front of her and she sort of shied back from him. He licked his finger then reached out and rubbed her face and she squealed like a stuck hog. We could hear young’uns crying at the back of the house. We started down the hall and here come that woman and them boys from No-Fat right behind her sort of herding her up the steps.” He glanced at us. “Her dress was tore at the front. I reached out and took her by the arm and she commenced to fighting me. I shoved her in behind me and told them boys to leave her alone.” He shrugged. “We searched about upstairs and took some stuff, clothes, some more blankets. Then we left.”

  He looked at me. “Reckon I could have another glass of buttermilk?”

  Carolina was already up and crossing the floor before I could even move. She fetched the crock and set it on the table. None of us said a word as he tipped it to his mouth and drained the whole thing.

  “They’s a little something stronger if you want it,” Larkin offered.

  “Maybe after a while.” He dropped his face into his hands and scrubbed as though trying to get the blood flowing. “We hightailed it out of there, heading hell-bent for the Walnut Gap. We crossed through picking our way by starlight since they weren’t no moon to speak of. But, hell, we’ve hunted all through there so I knowed the placement of every rock and chug-hole. We got back to Shelton Laurel afore daylight, and you could hear hunting horns blowing all up and down the creek.

  Pete signed. “I wished you could’ve seen the look on Mommie’s face when I give her that salt and blankets and stuff,” he said.

  Here Pete was telling us this big tale and I was setting there having to swallow one big mouthful of hot water after another. Just at the mention of a damn sack of salt and I was almost drooling. That’s what we had come to, friends. I had to make myself go back to listening.

  “It snowed for three days and everybody stayed in. You folks got more than we did, I believe. Anyway day ’fore yesterday it turned off cold as hell, and the snow was really coming down good and hard so it was starting to pile up purty good. I was out hauling Mommie in some wood when I heard the horns blowing. I knowed they was bound to be trouble, and I reckon I ought to have left home right after we got back. But I was trying to help Mommie a little, you know what I mean? Since Daddy died she hadn’t had really anybody but me and Edison.

  “Word got passed along that it was Lawrence Allen’s bunch. His blackguard cousin, that James Keith, had crossed over Sugar Loaf and was coming down the other side. All up and down the creek we hid out in the laurel hells. They was out in the open and started shooting blind. I thought fer a while that we was gonna run them out. Then they hit us with the cavalry, and it was just a matter of time afore we had to break and run. They weren’t shooting blind no
more, ’cause they shot and killed six of us. He rode out with a few of his men. The rest of them stayed on. At the time, we thought they was fixing to quit and go somewheres else. But that weren’t what happened.” He give a great heaving sigh. “I’ll take some of that whiskey now, if you don’t care, Lark.”

  He took a long long pull from the crock before he set it back down real careful-like. “You might want to take a drink. It ain’t been pretty up to now and it’s fixing to get worse.” He looked at me, and what I saw on his face I hoped to never see again. “You might want these young’uns to go to bed, Arty.”

  And Carolina spoke up and said, “We ain’t young’uns no more, Mommie.”

  I did not argue with her and let them stay.

  Mary went to the sideboard to get cups and he waited till she was back in her place.

  “Allen got back the next day. We knowed by then about his sick young’uns, and that his little girl had died. Some of our number had been took already. Morris Franklin, his brother Paul, and Mermon Shelton went to Marshall and give themselves up. They sent all of them on to Asheville. It were like Allen and Keith went crazy after that. They’s going up and down the creek ordering people to tell them where we was. Why, they weren’t about to tell Allen ner his men where we’s hiding out. So Allen started whupping people, hanging ’em up by the neck till they turned blue and was almost dead, then they’d let them down and ask them again where we was. They whupped Mary Shelton acrost the back till it busted open.”

  “Lord have mercy.” Mary whispered as she lifted the cup to her mouth.