Raintree County

by Ross Lockridge

  GARWOOD JONES

  prosecuting attorney,

  —The State of Virginity versus John Brown Shawnessy. The prosecution charges that this man did wilfully and willingly beget the said child upon the said woman in the said state at the stated time in the state of the Union, a Union of States, wherefore we do hereby denounce them a man and his life forever redescended into slavery.

  JOHNNY

  —May it please the court, I have a few words to say. My only purpose was to free——

  T. D. SHAWNESSY

  reading from family Bible,

  —Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God and in the face of this company to join together . . .

  A girl was sitting on his shoulders, her nude legs wrapped around his neck. He had a tenfoot pole in his hand and was teetering on a wire cable stretched from the Indiana to the Kentucky shore of the river. His performance had something to do with reconciling the split between North and South. That was why thousands on both banks were cheering him as he swung perilously above the yellow flood.

  GIRL

  tightening her legs,

  —You’ll love it, honey. You’ll just 1-o-o-o-o-ve . . .

  He was strangling. The cable thrashed back and forth. He was falling, falling, falling. . . .

  The steamboat going to New Orleans was a fat, wallowing hotel, honeycombed with rooms. He wandered through endless interiors blazing with gaseous light, opulent with scarlet curtains and ornamental mirrors. All the men and women were fashionably dressed. Their faces were unnaturally white, and they all smiled with radiant, fixed grins.

  Suddenly from this gay throng there burst a man with a black, blistered face. He seized Johnny and attempted to strangle him. He threw Johnny down, and his knees ground on Johnny’s chest. All the men and women gathered around.

  JOHNNY

  —Help! Pull him off!

  No one seemed to understand that this dreadful person was a murderer and fugitive. No one seemed to understand that this broad palace concealed a crime so dark and a secret so dreadful that it had never been put into print. The men and women began to run here and there, waving their arms, swinging their canes, but all still smiling happily. They didn’t seem to know that the boat was sinking from a gash beneath the water line. No one tried to help Johnny, grappling with the stuffed body of his assailant, who uttered fiendish grunts and shrieks.

  He saw then that all the men and women were dolls, jiggling and bouncing on hooks and ledges. They began to tumble down on him, shrunken, disintegrating, in a dreadful rain. He was floating down the river in a canopied bed, which was gradually sinking in the yellow water, dolls and all. He held the doll Jeemie, in fact a dead child with faintly negroid features. The bed was sinking; he was going down fully clothed in cold water.

  A woman swam nearby, her dress soaked to her body. The flood flung them together. She rose and threw her arms around his neck. He struggled to keep his head above. His hand gripping her dress tore it away exposing . . .

  The marriage license which he held in his hand was wet as he floated downstream, turning over and over like a carte de visite photograph. The script was still legible on the fleshlike parchment.

  This is to certify that I have this day joined in the bonds of holy matrimony John Wickliff Shawnessy and . . .

  The print ran and blurred. The parchment was a map of Raintree County. A red gash had been torn in it, the wound was bleeding, the whole map was covered with dark blood, staining his hands and covering him with shame and a hideous fear from which he kept trying to awaken with small choked cries. . . .

  He awoke. He had no idea where he was. A face was leaning over his face, almost as though it had been drinking his breath.

  —Johnny, what in the world’s the matter? It’s me, honey! Wake up!

  In gaslight enfeebled by the gray dawn coming through the window, he recognized the face of his wife Susanna, lips, eyelids, and cheeks faintly swollen by love and sleep.

  And that was how Johnny Shawnessy, in a single day and night, left Raintree County for the first time in his life, crossed the river that divided North from South, and came to his marriage bed at last a long way from home and in an alien earth. And that was how he discovered a dark land and a dark sweet love together in the night, and, in the days that followed, great rivers going to the gulf, majestic steamboats stacking to the piers, music on bright waters, rank odors rising from off swamps, and a city at the river’s mouth, the Mistress of the Delta, languorous and enchanting, steeping in beauty and incantation the oldest, darkest crime in all the world; that was how he found white columns beside the river, and eternal summer like a memory of his prehistoric childhood—a dark land and a dark sweet love together. But he found also that he couldn’t wholly forget a leafless tree that waited for his return in the cold December of Raintree County beside the little river, nor a face with wide green eyes that made hot tears of love in the night, nor a stone at the limit of the land—no, he couldn’t have forgotten them though he had steeped himself

  IN THIS DARKBLOODED AND DELICIOUS LAND

  NOT ONCE,

  BUT

  —SEVEN TIMES, the Senator said. Laugh if you will, gentlemen, but back in those days I was a brute of a boy.

  Somewhere down the street a boy touched off a cannoncracker. Mr. Shawnessy jumped, felt unhappy. The Senator was approached by delegates of the Sitting and Sewing Society, whose hands he pumped for a while.

  —I used to pull a pretty mean oar myself, the Perfessor said. By the way, John, what is that godawful yelling over there?

  For some time, a great voice had been booming over the trees, getting louder and angrier. Now and then a stentorian shout soared above the rest, grating hoarsely like a horn blown too high and too hard.

  —That’s God, Mr. Shawnessy said.

  —What? said the Perfessor, crossing himself. Is he here today too?

  —It’s the Revival preacher, fellow named Jarvey. One of these Kentucky evangelists. He confuses himself with the Deity—and understandably, too, if you saw him. From June to August, he’s the most powerful man in Raintree County. The ladies come back every year to get converted all over again. He’s been pitching his tabernacle on the National Road here for the last three summers. No one knows just why. When I first came to Waycross in the summer of 1890, he was already here. Your little friend, Mrs. Evelina Brown, has been very friendly with him. She considers him a magnificent primitive personality, which in a way he is.

  —That’s just like Evelina, the Perfessor said. Like all thoroughly erotic women, she begins by falsifying an aesthetic type. I hope it didn’t go any farther than that. Where does he go for the winter?

  —Nobody knows. Back to the Kentucky mountains, I suppose, after restoring heaven to the local souls.

  —I suppose like all these Southern ranters he’s a goat in shepherd’s clothing.

  —So far he’s escaped criticism of that kind, even though he’s a bachelor. But he’s a brutal converter. Built like a blacksmith, he brandishes his great arms and beats the ladies prone. He has a great shout that scares everybody into the arms of Jesus. You ought to hear him.

  —I do hear him, goddamn him, the Perfessor said.

  —Still he’s a man of God, Mr. Shawnessy said resignedly. My own wife regularly attends his revival meetings. She’s over there now.

  —I’d like to meet the little woman, the Perfessor said. Are you happy with her?

  —Entirely, Mr. Shawnessy said. My wife Esther is that rare thing—a good woman. Speaking of faces, hers will interest you. Though the family denies it, it’s strongly suspected that great-great-grandma something or other was a fullblooded Miami.

  —How did you finally manage to get a good woman, John?

  —Fashioned her myself, Mr. Shawnessy said, and Pygmalionwise fell in love with my own fashioning. She went to school to me when she was a little girl. I’m eighteen years older. Like Eve, she sprang from a bone of my breast.

  �
�Raintree County girl?

  —Yes.

  —The homegrown tomatoes are always best, said the Perfessor. I’m eager to meet her. Let’s see, your marriage——

  —Was on a Fourth of July fourteen years ago. This is our anniversary, as well as the Nation’s.

  —Of course I remember about your courtship, the Perfessor said. That must have laid the old county by the ears. You certainly worked to get this philosophical existence at the Crossroads of the Republic, John. You deserve it. Funny, isn’t it, how you had to go through hell to get here. Now you have a wife whom you love and who loves you, a brood of happy cherubim, good health, and a steady source of income. You have achieved the good life. How does it feel to be perfectly secure and serene?

  The big voice a quarter of a mile away shot up in a high wail and came down with a snarling crash. Mr. Shawnessy felt vaguely insecure and unserene.

  He saw the fabric of his life a moment spread out like a map of interwoven lines. Across this map trailed a single curving line, passing through its many intersections. Source and sink, spring and lake existed all at once. One had to pass by the three mounds and the Indian Battleground to arrive at the great south bend. One had to pass by the graveyard and the vanished town of Danwebster to reach the lake. And one had been hunting the source all one’s life. The forgotten and perhaps mythical tree still shed its golden petals by the lake.

  Beyond this map, the earth dissolved into a whole republic of such linear nets, all beaded with human lives. Then all these lines dissolved, and there—without north, south, east or west—was the casual republic of the Great Swamp, a nation of flowers black and white, brown and red and yellow.

  We were great men in our youth. It was one life and the only. We strove like gods. We loved—and were fated to sorrow. But from our striving and from our sorrow we fashioned

  The Oldest Story in the World

  FOURTH OF JULY SERVICES

  REV. LLOYD G. JARVEY, Officiating

  ESTHER ROOT SHAWNESSY, returning from the Station, walked to a place midway in the tent and sat down. She looked around, but Pa wasn’t there. His shiny buggy and fast black trotter weren’t among the many vehicles parked along the road. Pa had been coming regularly to the revival meetings, since the Reverend Jarvey had converted him a few weeks ago. He would sit in a back seat, and after nearly every meeting, he had come up and said,

  —How are you, Esther?

  —Just fine, Pa.

  —The old home is waitin’, Esther. You can come and visit any time.

  —As soon as I can bring Mr. Shawnessy and the children, I’ll be glad to come back, Pa.

  Pa would bow his head slightly and kiss her cheek and drive away.

  Years ago, not long after Esther had left the Farm, Pa had taken a second wife and had begot nine children upon her before she died. Nevertheless Esther thought of Pa as being alone in that now never-visited part of the County. As for her, whenever she saw him, she had the feeling that Pa still had the power to take her back, though she was thirty-five years old and had three children.

  The tent now filled rapidly as the excitement over the Senator’s arrival subsided. A great many people who wished to remain in Waycross for the Patriotic Program in the afternoon dropped in for the revival service, not a few attracted by the fame of the Reverend Lloyd G. Jarvey.

  Sitting under the vast foursided tent, the crowd watched the little tent adjoining in which the preacher customarily remained in prayer and meditation until the hour for the service. The flap of this tent was closed. A murmur of expectation ran through the revival crowd. Two ladies were talking in the row behind Esther.

  —Do you think he’ll turn loose and convert today?

  —I don’t reckon he will. He’ll just preach. I hear he converted a hundred people last Thursday. They say he converted one a minute after he got started.

  —He converted me two Sundays ago. I didn’t think he could do it, but he done it.

  —Where’d he convert you, Fanny? Big tent or little tent?

  —He converted me in the little tent. All the women said it was better that way. They said in the little tent it was harder to resist the Lord. They said to go around after service, and if he wasn’t too tired he’d convert you.

  —I like it better that way. More private-like.

  —When I said I didn’t like to do it in front of everyone, they kept tellin’ me to go and do it in the little tent. I kept sayin’ no, I didn’t feel like it. I didn’t know if I was ready to let Jesus come into my heart. Finely one night I waited around after service, and nearly everybody was gone, and he was still in the little tent and the flap down. I was terrible skeered. Finely I felt the spirit in me just a little bit, and I went up and raised the flap a little. He was in there all right, convertin’ Lorena Passifee.

  —Lorena Passifee! I thought he converted her last summer. In the big tent.

  —He did, but I guess she slipped.

  —She slipped all right. How’d he convert her?

  —It was real good. When I raised the flap, Lorena was on her knees, moanin’. I’m a sinner! she yells. Hosanna! he yells, and he laid her flat on her back and converted her right before my eyes. He did the layin’ on of hands, and he shook her to let the spirit of the Lord come in. She was like a ragdoll in his arms.

  —Lorena’s a big woman too.

  —I know that, but she was like a ragdoll when he shook her. Then he saw me, and he broke right off as courteous as you please. I’ll come to you directly, Sister, he says. Just wait outside. I waited, and pretty soon Lorena come out of there lookin’ all shook to pieces. I was that skeered I could hardly move. Come on in, Sister, he yells in that big voice of hisn. God’s waitin’ for you. Don’t keep God waitin’! I went in, and from then on I hardly knowed what happened to me. I kept throwin’ my arms around and pretty soon, he picked me up and shoved me right up in the air as if I was goin’ straight to Jesus. I never felt such strength in anybody’s arms. Take her, Jesus! he yells. Jesus, she wants to come to you. Zion! I yelled. Then all of a sudden down he brung me and flat on my back, and the first thing I know I’m proclaimin’ my sins and acceptin’ the Lord, and he converted me.

  —He sure works you up. He converted me two summers ago and agin last summer. Mine was both little tent ones. Ain’t he the most powerful man!

  —But it’s too bad about his weak eyes.

  —Has he got weak eyes?

  —They say he’s blind with his glasses off.

  —I just love to watch him convert. June, they say he converted the whole Sitting and Sewing Society three weeks ago in one afternoon.

  —I believe I’ll have to let him convert me again, June said thoughtfully.

  Esther was remembering Preacher Jarvey’s attempt to convert her. Two summers ago, she had gone one day after a Sunday morning service to see him about a program of the Ladies’ Christian Reformers. He was alone in the little tent.

  —Come on in, Sister Shawnessy.

  While she was explaining her mission, he had peered down at her queerly—he didn’t have his glasses on. Suddenly he had caught her hands.

  —Sister, I feel the presence of the Lord in this tent.

  —Well, I hope so, Brother Jarvey.

  She allowed him to hold her hands. Men of God had always seemed to Esther an elect breed, with peculiar privileges.

  —Sister Shawnessy, have you been converted?

  —O, yes, Brother Jarvey.

  In fact, her conversion at age sixteen had been a dreadful and exhausting experience. She had been broken up for days before and after. She never expected to be converted again, and didn’t understand people who got converted over and over.

  —Sister Shawnessy, I think you ought to get converted again. I think you ought to let the sweet light of Christ to shine on your soul again. Sister, I feel that we are both bathed and beautified by the radiant presence of Jesus at this very moment.

  —I will never be converted again, Brother Jarvey.

 
; —Let us pray! Preacher Jarvey had shouted. Down on your knees, Sister. The Lord is comin’.

  Obediently, she had gone to her knees and had placed her hands in the attitude of prayer. Brother Jarvey had then prayed with wonderful fervor for half an hour, exhorting the kneeling sister to search her heart out for all impurities, to consider well whether or not she was entirely pure and perfect for God’s kingdom.

  She had repeated with infinite patience that she didn’t consider herself perfect—no one in this mortal sphere, Brother Jarvey, was perfect except her husband, Mr. Shawnessy—but she had never once swayed from the teachings of Christ, at least since her conversion. It had seemed to her that it would be a blasphemy to the memory of it, the second greatest experience she had known, if she let herself be converted again.

  But Brother Jarvey was not easily put off. He had persisted with a force that she would have deemed brutal except for the holy purpose behind it. He exhorted and sweated. When everything else had failed, he finally resorted to his godshout.

  —Go-o-o-o-o-o-d, he yelled suddenly, his voice attaining a trumpet pitch of exultation, grating hoarse like a horn blown too hard.

  His powerful body shot straight up with the cry, towering above her. He prolonged the shout on a high pitch and then came screaming down:

  —is here!

  This treatment could be repeated as many times as necessary. But usually one godshout was enough. Most of the ladies caved in and allowed themselves to be thrown bodily to Jesus. But Esther had continued quietly in her attitude of prayer through six successive godshouts, each more triumphant than the last.

  After his failure to convert her in the little tent, Esther had observed a coolness toward her in Preacher Jarvey, even though she had been most helpful to him in his work and had attended the services regularly.

  Her experience was not typical. As far as she knew, only one other woman in the County had been able to resist that thundering call to Christ. Mrs. Evelina Brown had held out too, though for different reasons. She was a freethinker, and though she was very much interested in Preacher Jarvey as a personality, she didn’t believe in the Christian religion. Nevertheless, she had often gone for talks with the Preacher in the little tent, and he had made mighty efforts to convert her. He had spent hours discussing theology with her, a field of knowledge in which he had a surprisingly deep learning. Preacher Jarvey had publicly remarked that the abiding heresy of Mrs. Brown was the greatest sorrow of his life. Mrs. Brown had privately remarked that she had once lived through twelve godshouts without capitulating.