by Lydia Peelle
Hatcher’s secretary sent him up the stairs to the second floor. His heart was hammering and he was shaky from the sleepless night but now his head was clear. Whatever you do when you ask him, Catherine had said in the alley, her voice hardly a whisper, don’t let on about my condition. Promise you’ll keep that a secret. I don’t know what it would do to him, in the state he’s in.
He paused on the landing to catch his breath. He felt like he had nothing to lose. Hatcher could run straight into him same as he had run into that window. He would fight him with his bare hands. He could take anything.
But there was no fight, after all. Leland Hatcher, in his big office above the whirring machines, listened to Charles, then nodded once and said fine.
Charles went on in a rush, explaining the position in Columbia, the house, twenty men under him, that they were in a hurry only because of this opportunity, and because of the war. But Hatcher was nodding as if none of this mattered to him.
I’ve been hoping someone would talk her out of this nonsense about going to France, he said shortly. A woman has one place. And that’s the home.
There was a framed photograph on his desk: Morning Hatcher. Charles would have known her anywhere. Her face was Catherine’s face, the fierce dark eyes, the determined mouth. Hatcher turned the frame a quarter inch with his finger and studied it.
These are uncertain days, Mister McLaughlin, he said after a while. The only thing a man can count on is uncertainty.
Yessir.
Hatcher’s hand was trembling. His eyes were gone with a terrible sadness. In them Charles caught a glimpse of the cage Catherine had spoken of when she had tapped her temple and said, It’s a dark place. Way back in the gone days of March Billy had said, A man’s got a secret like that, after a while he’s got no friend in the world. Only the secret. But Charles realized that he was the one with the secret now. Not Hatcher. Billy was right. And Catherine was right too. It was a dark lonesome feeling.
Hatcher rubbed his eyes and swung his head to the big clock on the wall. He clapped his hands and reached for the phone. When he spoke again his voice boomed, brisk and efficient. All the sadness swallowed, hidden, gone without a trace.
If I call now we might have time to get the announcement in tomorrow’s paper.
A Fine Day
Bristol
June 1908
More than ten years pass before Billy returns to Bristol. All these years, he has told himself a story. It is a good story. She made it to California, got rid of the baby, and her name is on a marquee. Maura McLaughlin, up in lights. Or her new invented name, whichever one she ended up choosing. In this story she has so much gold and silver her stockings jangle when she walks.
Over time, her face has faded. There are other girls in other towns. Some for a day. Some for a week. And as the years have gone by, even the story has faded too. He will be reminded of her sometimes, at the sight of persimmons growing in the woods, or when he hears a laugh like hers. In 1906, when he hears about the earthquake and fire in San Francisco, his first thought is to wonder if she is alright. He decides quickly that she is. Little Maura McLaughlin could always outfox anything.
In 1908, he is in Johnson City, Tennessee, and hears that over in Bristol, Harkleroad’s Livery Stable is closing for good, selling off all its horses. He’s got no other leads at the moment and figures he’ll go have a look at what old Harkleroad has to sell.
He takes the train, disoriented when it slows through Bristol’s new neighborhoods. Beaver Creek is all built up, just as the Cincinnati man predicted in the Nichols House parlor. He arrives in at a new depot, with bright limestone-and-brick walls, where he eats a sandwich and drinks coffee at the lunch counter. A story comes back to him, about the wild strawberry field that was here long ago, before the first depot was built, so bursting with berries that when horses were ridden through they would come out on the other side with their legs stained red as blood.
Things change, he thinks. They’re always changing. Only if you keep moving, you don’t have to notice it so much.
He walks down Main Street, and even this has changed: State Street, they call it now. The Nichols House is gone, razed. Across the street sits a new hotel, the Tip Top. Up on the knob where he and Maura ate persimmons there is now a dance pavilion, with a streetcar running all the way up to it.
He looks up at the sunlight and shadows on the mountain. The world is in a constant state of becoming. It all flows on and on. They both escaped this place, and it was better so.
He thinks of the last day they spent together, before he went off to join the crew. Those kisses he had tried to store up under the blanket in his narrow bed.
He can see now that he should have known it would only last so long. In the midst of it he was so happy it seemed as if he had arrived at something, that his life was now fixed. But he should have known better. Nothing lasts.
He crosses the street and hops the curb to the sidewalk. Something in a puddle catches his eye. A little India rubber cat, fallen from a baby’s pram. He picks it up and puts it in his pocket and goes out to the stable.
Harkleroad is indeed alive, though almost unrecognizable. Stooped and shriveled, brittle as a December leaf.
The stable, dark and unswept, at first feels empty. The few horses left hang back in the corners of their stalls. The sign Billy helped Harkleroad paint all those years ago is covered with cobwebs and velvety dust in the corner of the harness room.
come on fellas—take her for a sunday carriage ride—her skirts won’t get muddy—her legs won’t get tired—you’ll be cozy side by side
They stand together a moment, laughing over it.
Well as it turned out, Billy says, the bicycles didn’t get you.
No, but if I stick around much longer, Harkleroad says, wheezing, something tells me these damn automobiles surely will.
Billy buys a half dozen horses, although someone has beaten him to the good ones. He arranges to come back for them in the morning.
Before he goes he asks Harkleroad what he is going to do. The stable is being torn down for a new hospital.
Oh, Harkleroad says, I don’t know. Sit up at the depot, I reckon, and tell stories.
On Billy’s way out, a boy who is washing the wheels of a carriage out in the yard lifts his head. He thinks at first it’s one of the pack which used to play in the rain barrel, but all those boys are grown now, of course. Perhaps with boys of their own.
How quickly time passes. It just flows on and on and on. Whether a man sticks around to watch it go or not.
Billy smiles at the boy, then turns his eyes to the swift-moving clouds.
Well, he says. It sure is a fine day for the race.
The kid looks at him. Squints his foxy eyes.
What race? he says.
Billy winks. Why, the human race!
The Last Mule in Sumner County
It was all lined up.
Charles had spoken with Bonnyman. Virgil Huntington was due in Nashville a week from Monday, and they arranged that Charles would come down with his next boxcar load to meet him. Bonnyman assured him that the meeting was only a formality. The job is yours, he said. I’ve told Virgil Huntington all about you. He paused. I just hope you’re bringing your best load of mules. Never mind the inspectors. Huntington, he’s going to want to go over each and every one of them with a fine-toothed comb.
Charles swallowed around a lump in his throat.
Is it a big house, down there in Columbia? I’m getting married.
Congratulations, came Bonnyman’s sober voice, and then the connection broke.
Billy was helping him find the last load. Charles hadn’t thought he would. He did not tell him about Catherine until after he spoke to Hatcher. He had expected that Billy might try to talk him out of it. But Billy had not tried to talk him out of it. That was the thing about Billy. Nearly ten years together and he could still surprise him.
You’re a good man, Charles, was all he said.
> It was the worst time of year for buying mules, with the harvest approaching, and they mined the deepest veins, going out to places in the dark hollers that didn’t even have roads leading to them.
Charles even went up to Kentucky to see Pen Pendergrass. home of ponderosa, read the sign at the road, grand champion donkey jack, with 1916 added to the line of dates and a new dash in anticipation of this year’s fair painted in after it. Just seeing it gave Charles a bolt of Pendergrass’s optimism, the feeling that everything was going to work out alright. But when he got up to the place he found Pen Pendergrass a different man, broody and defeated. Only the day before, his neighbor had finally managed to trap and kill the wolf in the woods. Standing at the pasture fence, shoulders slumped, he let his good arm hang as limply as the empty sleeve over his stump.
Without that wolf, he kept saying, what am I?
Pendergrass sold him six mules, but when Charles tried to give him the speech about how they were going to win the war, he cut him off with a chop of his one hand.
Getting into this war, he said, is the most dire mistake ever made in the history of this country. Let the yearbooks attest.
It left Charles a little spooked, seeing Pendergrass so low. And as soon as he returned from the trip a cloud of bad luck moved in over the pasture. One mule was swarmed by bees and swelled up like a balloon. One caught her leg on the fence and got a bad puncture wound. As soon as Charles saw it he knew he could not send her to Bonnyman.
He pulled out his rabbit’s foot. Tossed it in the air, caught it. Made like he was going to chuck it into the weeds.
Some good this thing’s doing, he said to Billy.
Now hold on a minute, Billy said, catching his wrist. Because you don’t know how bad things would be if you didn’t have it.
The next day they hunted long and hard and only came back with one mule, ponying her home behind the Ford. The tobacco farmer they bought her from said that whenever his boy had her out plowing and it started to rain, she would let the kid wait it out under her belly. She’s like one of the family, he said sadly.
When they got her home, Billy found an abscess on her hoof that Charles had missed. While Charles was standing there swearing he went inside. He came back out with the kit.
What are you doing? Charles said.
Well this one’s easy. I can doctor that up quick enough and your Bonnyman down there will never know it.
Charles took the kit out of Billy’s hands.
These mules are going to war, Billy. To the United States Army.
Uncle Sam ain’t too picky, these days. You said so yourself. This mule will be fine enough healed in a couple of weeks.
Charles considered this. Billy was right. But he could hear Lloyd Bonnyman’s voice in his head, the day he hired him. No funny business. No shoe polish. He had honored that all along.
Well I’m not even thinking about Uncle Sam, he finally said. Not Bonnyman neither. I’m thinking about Virgil Huntington. Virgil Huntington, of the Roan and Huntington Mule Company. He gonna give me a job if I show up with a doctored-up mule? He handed the kit back to Billy. No. I’ll find another mule.
Billy took the kit and turned for the shack. You’re the boss. But I don’t know where you’re gonna find him. Because I think this fellow here was the last mule left in Sumner County.
Two Fifty
Billy harnessed Gin and went up Freedman’s Hill. Up to Miss Ernestine’s.
You here for more bluing water?
No.
She was looking across the yard at Rattler. He was wearing the burlap fly coat and resting one hind foot, dozing in the way only a mule could doze, lower lip like a saucer, trembling.
Billy hesitated. He wondered if he should even bother trying. She didn’t want to sell Rattler, and he didn’t want to take him from her. But Charles needed him.
Did you hear, he said, stalling. Leland Hatcher went into the furniture store the other day. Only he forgot to get out of his car.
She clucked her tongue. Her dark skin shone with sweat. She had been shelling beans and a pod stuck to her apron, hanging like an empty cicada shell.
These are strange days, she said. She looked at him. He knew she knew what he was there for. He felt too low, joking around.
He pulled out the gilt-edged checkbook.
I’ll write you a bigger check than you know what to do with. I’ll give you double what we’re giving these days.
She walked over to Rattler. It’s different now, you know, she said. That war. With my boy going over.
This old mule will be a hero, Billy said. We’ll set him on the path to glory.
Ernestine pulled the bean pod from her apron and studied it and then fed it to the mule, who chewed it carefully.
I seen war, Mister Monday, she said. In 1862 the Union men came up here like a swarm of locusts. I was a little girl. Lived on the old Morgan plantation. I hid in the chimney. Those boots on the floorboards. Can still hear them. Thump thump. They found me. I held on to the bricks inside that chimney till my fingernails tore off. Still they pulled me out. I seen war. And there ain’t no glory in it.
She raised a hand towards Gin, waiting on the other side of the fence.
This little horse of yours. You ever wonder if she got a soul?
If she does she’s getting to heaven quicker than me.
Ernestine touched Rattler’s shoulder.
I never did believe an animal might have a soul until that bad old mule Robespierre. He convinced me. He had free will, that mule. And if you got free will, you got a soul, don’t you? My father, when they sold him away from my mother and us, they put him on the auction block, smeared bacon grease around his mouth so he’d look well fed. That don’t mean he didn’t have free will, do it? He did, the same as you and me, same as my boy, signing up to go fight that war.
A fly landed on her shoulder. She brushed it away. It landed on Rattler’s suit. She brushed it away again.
The Lord gave man dominion over the other animals. From that little fly to the whales in the sea. The Bible tells it so. But that ain’t ownership. Same as no man could own another man in anything more than body. No man’s ever owned another man’s heart or mind or spirit. Ever. Dominion ain’t ownership. I take full responsibility for this mule, Mister Monday, same as any of my children. And now the only one I got left is gone off to fight that war.
As she spoke Rattler’s ears has been swinging all around, following the rise and fall of her voice. Another fly landed on one and he got it off with a shake of his big head and then went right back to swiveling and listening.
I’ll give you two fifty. Billy felt awfully low. If you sell him to me I’ll look after him good. At least as long as I can.
Ernestine put out the flat of her hand. The mule dropped his nose into it.
I ain’t gonna sell him to you because I don’t believe I own him. But I’m gonna give him to you.
You’ll See the World
Bristol
When Billy goes back to Harkleroad’s the next morning, the boy is there again, sweeping the yard. Wearing a cast-off coat that doesn’t hide how skinny he is.
Looks like that boy out there hasn’t had a meal for days, Billy says to Harkleroad.
Sometimes I am surprised when he shows up in the morning. He’s the kind who turns up dead.
How long he been working here?
Not long. Since his mother—I bet you used to know his mother. She was famous around here for a time. Should have been right around when you came through. The girl who used to do the dirty trick with the monkey down at the Nichols House.
Billy reaches into his pocket. The India rubber cat he picked up out of the gutter is still there, the sort of thing he would send the boys up to the drugstore to buy for Maura. His secret Valentine.
She’s—she’s here?
She’s dead, Harkleroad says simply. Died a year or so ago. Terrible story. But there’s a thousand like it in the world.
Harkleroad keeps talking
, but now there is an ocean of blood in Billy’s ears, and he does not hear. All these years, all the stories he has told himself about her, he has never doubted that she was somewhere. Anywhere. But somewhere.
The old gray war horse finally went to his rest, Billy hears Harkleroad say. You remember him.
Billy takes off his hat and holds it to his chest. The blood in his ears churns. It might pour out and swallow him completely. Drown him.
Well I’m sorry to hear that, he manages to say.
Buried him with full military honors, Harkleroad says wistfully. Last horse left in the county who had served, far as we could tell. That horse had a heart big as this stable.
That boy out there, Billy says, still clutching his hat. What’s his—what’s his name?
Charles.
Charles, Billy repeats.
Buried him the day McKinley was shot, Harkleroad says. He shakes his head, his sad thin thatch of hair lifting. The world ain’t the same.
Nossir, it ain’t. That’s the truth. It never will be the same again.
When Billy goes out to the front of the stable he asks Charles to help him with the horses. His legs stick out from ragged pants cuffs. He is so thin he looks like he is made of bone. Wordlessly he goes in and fetches them, two at a time, and ties them to the rail. Billy goes to the horses, puts his hands on one of them, but he is watching Charles, the way he moves, hoping to see some small gesture of hers, or the carriage of her shoulders, even a look, a glance. He doesn’t see her, not the faintest ghost of her. He sees himself, briefly, in the way Charles knocks the hair out of his eyes with his forearm, as he will see himself many times in the days and months to come. But what good is that? He wants her.
Boy, he says, when the horses are all ready, I know you ain’t got prospects here. And I know you don’t know me and I can’t promise nothing, but come with me, kid, and you’ll see the world.