Southern Son

by Victoria Wilcox

  Folks said it was a haunted road, that track that wound north from Jonesboro toward Atlanta. And riding alone through those dark woods with only the horse’s heavy breathing to keep him company, John Henry shivered and tried not to remember those superstitious stories.

  But there were ghosts. He could see them rising right up out of the icy fog, the phantom figures of Confederate soldiers marching endlessly toward Jonesboro, pale eyes staring toward cold heroes’ graves, and mute voices crying out, “Too late! Too late to save Jonesboro! Too late!” And behind their ragged, straggling columns, the caissons creaked noiselessly along, canon gleaming in the cold, cold moonlight. Shades and shadows, apparitions on a lonely, haunted road.

  By the time he got to the tavern at Rough and Ready, halfway to Atlanta, he was numb from cold and tiredness, his arms aching from holding onto the reins and his chest heavy from breathing in the icy air. He looked longingly at the glowing windows of the tavern, the spirals of smoke that rose up from the twin chimneys of the old log building and spoke of warmth and comfort inside, but he couldn’t stop. The horse was warm, breathing hard and taking the ride well, and he couldn’t risk having her cool down now. So he turned north again, to where the track joined the McDonough Road and headed toward East Point.

  He kept riding, pushing himself to go on when he thought he could go no farther, remembering Mattie’s desperate pleas, the agony in her voice: “If he dies unshriven, too . . .” And that gave him strength to stay in the saddle, keep racing the horse over that long difficult road, past the quiet farms sleeping in the moonlight, past the old crossroads church at Mount Zion.

  It was nearly dawn when he finally rode into Atlanta, the clatter of the horse’s hooves on cobblestones shaking him to wakefulness as he came onto Peachtree Street. Across the tracks that divided Atlanta in two he could see the unfinished towers of the Church of the Immaculate Conception rising up against the dark, cloudy sky. But not until he had tied his horse at the gate and stumbled up the steps of the church did he really believe that his nightmare ride was over.

  He slammed his hand against the heavy wooden door that led to the sanctuary, his whole body shaking from cold and exhaustion. There was a long, empty silence, then finally the door opened and a small woman glared up at him suspiciously.

  “What is it you’re needing, then, so early as it is?” she asked in a thick Irish brogue.

  “I need . . .to see the priest,” he answered, struggling to stay standing, leaning against the heavy wood doorframe.

  “Father Duggan is sleeping now, if it’s penance you’re asking. Come back in the daylight when the drink is worn off a bit, and make your peace with God then.”

  “I am not drunk!” he said, swaying toward her, his eyes wild, and then he started to cough, his chest giving way all at once. But there was no liquor on his breath, and the woman waited until he could speak again.

  “Are you sick, then? Are you needing a place to stay?”

  “Please! The priest, I need the priest!” And as the last bit of energy left him and his legs started to slide out from under him, he coughed again and whispered between gasps, “Tell him . . . tell him . . .Captain Holliday is dyin’.” Then the world went black and he collapsed on the hard stone pavers of the sanctuary steps.

  The next hours slid by him in a fevered blur, the frantic message to Father Duggan and another to his Uncle John, then the hurried train ride south again, hoping that they were not too late, after all. And when they arrived, Mattie’s face was full of joy and relief, until she threw her arms around his neck and felt the stinging touch of his skin.

  “You’re burnin’ up with fever!” she cried, pulling away from him and peering up into his face.

  “I’m fine, honey,” he said weakly, trying to smile, but his voice was just a whisper and he had to cover his mouth to hold back a rasping cough.

  “Oh, how could I have let you go off like that?” she said, laying her hand, cool and comforting against his cheek.

  “You didn’t let me go, Mattie,” he protested, “you tried to stop me, remember?” Then he started to cough, and had to hang onto her until his breath came back again.

  “I knew this would happen! Oh, I knew that ride would come to no good!”

  “But I did bring the priest, as I promised. And I did come back, didn’t I?” But when he tried to smile again, the room swayed crazily around him, and Mattie’s face blurred before his eyes. “Now, I think, I need to get some rest. Will you help me . . . get upstairs?”

  But she had already run ahead of him, throwing open the bedroom door, tearing quilts off the other beds to lay on top of him. He stumbled up the stairs after her, feeling more tired than sick, and falling gratefully into Jim Bob’s bed while Mattie fussed over him, pulling off his boots and loosening his shirt. And the last thing he remembered before he sank down into a deep, exhausted sleep was Mattie’s face against his, kissing his cheek, and crying as she pulled the blankets close around him.

  Mattie’s father died just before midnight on Christmas Eve, after receiving all the last rites of Holy Church. He was buried two days later in the Catholic family plot in the Fayetteville Cemetery, on a bleak winter afternoon.

  It was a long, slow funeral procession that followed the coffin-laden wagon the ten miles from Jonesboro to Fayetteville, over roads that were still slick with ice and a dusting of new-fallen snow. The horses and wagons jostled along, crossing the wooden bridges at Flint River and Camp and Morning Creeks, then heading up the long grade toward the higher ground where the cemetery stretched across its windswept ridge. Yet in spite of the difficulty of the journey, the cemetery was crowded with mourners come to say good-bye to husband, father, brother, and friend.

  Father Duggan had stayed on for the funeral, and his lilting Irish accent added warmth to the stately Latin words of dedication on the grave:

  “In manus tuas, domine, commendo spiritum meum,” he said, then crossed himself and touched holy water to the coffin before it was covered over with clods of cold Georgia clay. Then came the recitations: the Benedictus, the Kyrie Eleison, the Pater Noster, and prayers for the family left behind.

  And, finally, Captain Robert Kennedy Holliday was at rest, lying near his wife’s father and mother, with an empty space left beside him for his beloved Mary Anne to follow one day. And standing around his grave, his family embraced and wept and could not be consoled.

  John Henry stood alone outside the circle of mourners, his shoulders hunched and his collar turned up against the cold. His fever was down, but his chest was still aching, and he felt as fragile as the sparrows that scattered into the winter wind. Mattie had tried to persuade him to stay home in bed until he was stronger, but he had stubbornly refused. He needed to be here sharing in the grief of her loss, and his own.

  In this cemetery, surrounded by the graves of his relatives, he felt his own mortality weighing heavy on him. In front of him, the Fitzgeralds lay in neat rows—Mattie’s grandfather and grandmother, aunts and uncles, cousins who had died young. Behind him, past the curve in the road that separated holy Catholic ground from plain Protestant graves, lay his own grandfather and grandmother, Robert Alexander Holliday and Rebecca Burroughs. And with them the row of little Holliday sons, his uncles who had died in childhood.

  He didn’t notice soft footsteps on the path behind him and was startled to hear a voice speaking his own thoughts.

  “It’s like Tara, isn’t it? The seat of the high kings in Ireland, and the place where they were buried as well. I reckon this is like Tara, too, holy Irish ground, consecrated with the bones of our Irish ancestors. Like our own little bit of Ireland.”

  He turned toward the voice and looked into the bright blue eyes of Sarah Fitzgerald.

  “Hello, John Henry,” she said, a wistful smile on her face. “It’s been a long time since you came for a visit.”

  “I’ve been away-off at dental school, in Philadelphia,” he said quickly, feeling an uncomfortable need to explain himself. The la
st time he’d seen Sarah, she was waving him a sweet good-bye from the front porch of her father’s plantation house as he was riding away vowing never to return.

  “Yes, I know about your becomin’ a dentist. We’re all so proud of you. Your letters from Philadelphia were wonderful.”

  “You read my letters?”

  “Well, not exactly. Mattie read them to us, when she and her mother and the girls came calling at Rural Home. She was always so excited to tell us how you were doin’.”

  He knew it was common practice for families to share their correspondence, sometimes even giving letters up for publication in the local paper, as public interest. But his letters to Mattie had been meant for her alone, to be read in private.

  “Did she . . . did she read everything?”

  “Well, she may have skipped over some things, I suppose. She never actually let me read them myself.” Then she paused and lowered her eyes, “I kept hopin’ maybe you’d write a letter to me, too. I waited for you to come back, you know, like you promised you would. But when you didn’t come, and didn’t write . . .” Then she looked back up at him, and John Henry was struck by how very blue her eyes were, like sapphires when she smiled. “Well, I realized that it was probably Cousin Mattie you’d been sweet on all along.”

  “I am sorry for the way I behaved that night, Sarah. It was ungentlemanly of me.”

  “Oh, please don’t apologize!” she said swiftly, laying a gloved hand on his arm. “You didn’t do anything wrong! I—I was hopin’ that you would kiss me that night. I guess I thought that if you did, maybe I could steal you away from all the other girls.”

  “What other girls?” he asked, bewildered.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t know! Why, you were the talk of Jonesboro that summer, John Henry Holliday! It about broke all our hearts when you went on home to Valdosta. Of course, all the girls were jealous of Cousin Mattie, mostly. It was so obvious that she had your heart.” She paused a moment, studying his face. “And does Cousin Mattie still have your heart, John Henry?”

  He glanced up toward the circle of mourners at the graveside and Mattie’s sweet tear-stained face trying to smile at well-wishers. Had there ever been a time when she didn’t have his heart?

  “You know she’ll be in mourning cloth for a year,” she said, in answer to his silence.

  “What do you mean?”

  “For her father, of course. She’ll be wearin’ black for the first six months of deep mournin’ with a long crape veil on her bonnet, blockin’ out the world. Then it’ll be half-mournin’ for another six months when she can start wearin’ gray and go without the veil. It’s the proper attire for mournin’ a father. Of course, she won’t be able to accept any social engagements for a whole year. Anything less would be unseemly.”

  “No social engagements at all?” he asked, suddenly seeing past the present grief to what lay ahead. No courting, no marriage proposal. Another long year of waiting.

  “Of course, you and I will only be in mournin’ for three months. Mattie’s father was only your uncle, after all, and not even that close to me, only my first cousin’s husband. So we’ll both be out of black and ready for social engagements soon. And you know you are always welcome at Rural Home, John Henry, anytime you want to stop by.”

  There was such a sound of hope in her voice that he almost felt obliged to promise another visit, until she added wistfully:

  “I’d hoped to make a visit to my sister Annie in Atlanta and maybe see you while I was there, as well. She talked about invitin’ me up, last summer. But she hasn’t mentioned it in a while . . .”

  And without her saying anymore, John Henry thought he knew why Annie’s invitation hadn’t been forthcoming. She’d changed her mind about arranging for a meeting between him and her sister Sarah after what she’d seen that night at the Opera House, deciding he was unworthy of her sister’s attentions. It was sad for Sarah, who still seemed to be seeing moonlight when she looked at him like she had that night on the porch at Rural Home, but just as well. For it was Mattie he had loved then and Mattie that he still loved. And as long she needed him, he knew where he would be.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ATLANTA, 1873

  THE TWELFTH NIGHT CARNIVAL CAME TO ATLANTA IN A BLAZE OF bonfires and fireworks that first week of the New Year, with a fancy masque ball at the Kimball House Hotel and a gaslight parade through the streets of the city. But for good Catholics like Mattie’s family, Twelfth Night was also a holy day of obligation, honoring the arrival of the wise men in Bethlehem twelve days after Christmas. “Epiphany” they called it, and spent the day in prayer and oblation, and though Mattie could have been excused for missing Mass so soon after the bereavement of her family, she wanted to offer her prayers in church. With all the rush to find the priest before her father’s death and the hurried burial after, there had been no time for a proper requiem mass to be spoken. So with John Henry as her traveling companion, she hurried back to Atlanta to take her place among the communicants at the Church of the Immaculate Conception that Epiphany morning, attending mass in honor of her beloved father.

  It was an odd atmosphere for a church service, John Henry thought, with the noise and the revelry in the streets outside and the hushed reverence of the sacraments inside. As the main sanctuary of the church was still being completed, mass was held in the chilly basement chapel and the parishioners stayed bundled in coats and scarves and tried not to notice the stone paver floor, hard and cold against reverent bended knees. Along the brick foundation walls, heavy candles in brass sconces gave off a shadowy, flickering light and filled the room with smoke that mingled with the incense on the cloth-covered altar to make a pungent perfume. There were no stained-glass windows in that dark basement chapel, no soaring vaulted ceilings as there would be when the rest of the church was completed, yet there was something supernal about that little gathering of worshippers sharing the Eucharist in dark simplicity. They seemed to John Henry like a congregation of early Christians, hiding in the cata-combs while all of Rome made merry outside.

  But there was nothing merry in Mattie’s prayerful worship that morning. She was still crying over the loss of her father, her voice breaking as she repeated the words of the prayers:

  “Pater Noster qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regum tuum, fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra . . .”

  John Henry repeated the words along with her in a voice still hoarse from his recent illness. He was proud that he’d learned enough Latin in school to understand the Lord’s Prayer, at least, though there would be much more to learn when he converted to Catholicism, as he would most certainly need to do to marry Mattie. He’d convert right away if that would make her happy. He would do anything to make her happy again, but he felt helpless against the tide of her grief. Her mourning was as dark as the black crepe that veiled her face, like a shadow that separated her from him. Deep mourning, Sarah Fitzgerald had called it, and there would be six more months of it before he saw the light of her smile again.

  With the chill and smoke of the basement chapel and the cold of the January morning outside, his cough started back up again, and by the time he and Mattie returned to Forrest Avenue following Mass, he was ready for a rest. But rest would not be allowed him, for before he could even take off his heavy wool coat and hat, Sophie handed him a telegram.

  “Just arrived,” she said. “Hope it ain’t bad news. Seems like this family’s had nothin’ but bad news, lately.”

  The telegram was from Martha Hidalgo, and the words were tragically simple:

  Francisco dying. Come soon.

  There was no milagro for Francisco. The cold winter had brought the pneumonia with it, like it had to Uncle Rob, and Francisco’s consumption-ravaged lungs couldn’t overcome the effects of two diseases, though in the end it was the consumption that killed him. John Henry had never seen the final hours of a consumptive, having been too young at his mother’s death to be allowed into the sick room
. But he saw more than he wanted to now. Francisco’s lungs, scarred by the disease, slowly filled with water from his own breathing, and the lack of oxygen left him delirious as he slipped in and out of a pain-ridden consciousness. He called for Martha, then didn’t know her. He asked for water, then couldn’t drink. He struggled against the end, tossing and moaning and gasping for breath. And at the last, his breath gurgled out as he lay drowning in his own bed. John Henry had seen wounded animals struggle to live, downed by his own gunshot, though after the struggle there seemed to be an accepting peace in the death. But there was no peace here. Francisco died with his eyes wide open, sheer terror in them, more awful than the death of any hunted animal.

  John Henry would have been happy to leave right then, going back to Atlanta and forgetting the whole awful ordeal. But Francisco had asked him to watch over the family, and he had an obligation to fulfill. So while Martha Hidalgo prepared for the laying out of her husband’s body and the funeral and burial that would follow, John Henry rode back into Griffin to deliver the news of his death. If Francisco had been a man of substance instead of a struggling farmer, there would have been etiquette to follow: funeral announcements printed on vellum paper edged with black ink, notices written to the local papers, telegrams sent to distant family and friends. As it was, the best John Henry could do was make calls on the businesses along Hill Street and Solomon Street, inviting all who had known him to pay their respects to Francisco Hidalgo at his funeral at County Line Baptist Church in Jenkinsburg. It was amazing how many said they would attend; Francisco’s years working as a barber in Griffin had earned him many friends. And though John Henry knew that his father wouldn’t come, he sent a wire to Henry as well—Francisco would have wanted it that way.