by John Jakes
Behind him, the door rolled open. “I thought I heard you in here.” When Constance kissed his cheek, he smelled the pleasant sweetness of chocolates. Her red hair was pinned up, her plump face shiny from a scrubbing.
She studied him. “What’s wrong, dearest?”
“I don’t know. I feel so damn miserable. I can’t explain why.”
“I can guess some of the reasons. Your brother’s on his way to the other side of the continent, and you’re probably feeling like those two men you told me about. The men at Willard’s who admitted they missed the excitement of the war.”
“I’d be ashamed to admit I missed killing human beings.”
“Not killing. A heightened sense of life, like walking on the edge of a precipice. There’s no shame in admitting that if it’s the truth. The feelings will pass.”
He nodded, though he didn’t believe it. The near-despair seemed overwhelmingly potent.
“It will be even emptier here in a few weeks,” he said. “William off to start at Yale, Patricia back in Bethlehem at the Moravian Seminary.”
She stroked his bearded face with the cool back of her hand. “Parents always feel sad when the fledglings leave for the first time.” She took his arm. “Come, let’s walk a while. It will do you good.”
In the hot night wind, they climbed the hill behind Belvedere. Away to the left below them spread the furnaces and sheds and warehouses of Hazard’s, casting a red glare on the sky.
Unexpectedly, their path brought them to a place Constance would have preferred to avoid, because it symbolized despair. They were at the large crater produced by a meteorite that fell in the spring of ’61, right at the time the war started.
George leaned over the edge and peered down. “Not a blade of grass. Not even a weed yet. Did it poison the earth?” He glanced at the path running on up the hill. “I suppose Virgilia passed this way the night she stole all that silver from the house.”
“George, it doesn’t help to recall only bad things.”
“What else is there, goddamn it? Orry’s dead. Tom Hassler wanders the streets with a mind that will never be right. We didn’t strive hard enough to prevent war, and now we’ve inherited the whole rotten mess. They talk about the South’s cause being lost. Well, so is America’s. So is our family’s. So is mine.”
The chimneys of Hazard’s shot spark showers into the night sky. Constance held him tightly. “Oh, I wish I could banish those feelings. I wish you didn’t hurt so terribly.”
“I’m sorry. I’m ashamed of how I feel. It isn’t manly.” He muffled an oath by burying his face in the warm curve of her throat. She heard him say, “Somehow I can’t help it.”
Silently, she prayed to the God in whom she devoutly believed. She asked Him to uncloud her husband’s mind and lift his burdens. She begged Him not to add so much as one new burden, however small. She feared for George if that happened.
Silent in each other’s arms, they stood a long time on the empty hill beside the dead crater.
MADELINE’S JOURNAL
August, 1865. She is here!—Miss Prudence Chaffee of Ohio.
She is twenty-three, very robust—she is the child of a farm family—and calls herself, without self-pity, a plain person. It is true. Her face is round and she is stout. But every word, every expression shines with a miraculous glow. Not of impossible perfection, but of dedication—the glow of those rare and decent people who will leave this earth better than they found it
Her father must have been a special man, for he did not subscribe to the popular notion that education for young girls is a waste—even dangerous, because higher mathematics is too taxing for the female brain, science too indelicate, studies such as geography too threatening to the teachings of Genesis. She has faith and good training as well, the latter received at the Western College for Women.
She arrived with a valise of clothing, her Bible, a Pilgrim’s Progress and a half-dozen of McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers. The first evening, over a poor meal of rice, I tried to be honest about the obstacles we face, especially ill will from neighbors.
To that she said, “Mrs. Main, I prayed for this kind of situation. No reverses will defeat me. I am one of those lucky few St. Paul described in his Epistle to the Romans—‘Who against all hope believed in hope.’ I am here to teach, and teach I shall.”
Orry, I think I have found a confidante—and a friend.
… Prudence continues to astonish me. Took her this morning to the schoolhouse, already under construction halfway down the road to the abandoned slave quarters. Lincoln, our newest freedman, is roofing it with cypress shakes split by hand. Prudence said it was her school, so she should share the toil. Whereupon she hoisted her skirts between her legs and knotted them and scampered up the ladder. Lincoln looked stunned and embarrassed, though he quickly got over it when she began to drive nails as if born to it. I asked later about her skill.
“Papa taught me. He felt I must be prepared to provide for myself in every circumstance. I believe he felt—never saying it, mind—that no man would wed an ugly duckling with abolitionist views. I may marry someday. I told you I have hope. But whether that’s true or not, carpentry is good to know. Learning anything useful is good. That’s why I teach.”
… To the Dixie Store this morning which I had not seen since it reopened. The plump and white Mr. Randall Gettys, himself, greeted me from behind the counter.
Evidence of his literary pretension was prominently in view in an old woodbox on the floor. Secondhand copies of Poe, Coleridge, the novels of Gilmore Simms, doubtless bargained away by some impoverished landowner. Who will buy them, even at five cents each, I cannot imagine.
Evidence of Mr. Gettys’s political views reposed even more prominently upon the counter—a neat stack of issues of The Land We Love, one of several publications pandering to the sad belief that the South’s cause is not lost…
Gettys affected an exaggerated politeness, hovering uncomfortably close to Madeline. His small round wire-rimmed spectacles shone. A huge white handkerchief billowed from the breast pocket of his greasy coat. Even closely shaved, his dark beard lent him a vaguely soiled look.
Madeline noted the profusion of goods on the shelves. “I didn’t know you were so well stocked. Nor that you had the capital for it.”
“A relative in Greenville furnished the money,” Gettys said at once. She saw him glance at her breasts while he wiped his chin with his handkerchief. “It’s a decided pleasure to see you, Mrs. Main. What may I sell you this morning?”
“Nothing just yet. I’d like to know your prices.” She pointed to a barrel. “That seed corn, for instance.”
“One dollar per bushel. And one-quarter of the crop produced, or the cash equivalent. For the colored, the price is double.”
“Randall, I’m happy to have the store open, but I don’t believe we can stand that kind of price-gouging in the district.”
She said it without rancor. Even so, it enraged him. He shed his smarmy politeness. “What we can’t stand is that infernal school you’re putting up. A school for niggers!”
“And any white person who cares to better himself.”
Gettys ignored the remark. “It’s an outrage. Furthermore, it’s a waste. A darky can’t learn. His brain’s too small. He’s only fit to be our hewer of wood, our drawer of water, exactly as Scripture says. If a nigger does have a scintilla of intelligence, education just inflames his base passions and foments hatred of his betters.”
“Dear God, Randall, spare me that old cant.”
“No, ma’am,” he exclaimed, “I will not. We lost the war but we haven’t lost our senses. The white citizens of this district will not permit it to be Africanized.”
Wearily, she turned and walked to the door.
“You’d better listen,” he shouted. “You’ve been given fair warning.”
Her back was toward him; he couldn’t see her face, and the startled emotion evident there. She thought unhappily of Cooper’s letter a
bout Desmond LaMotte. How many would turn against her?
Saturday. Sawmill shed finished, on the bank of the river, so that lumber may be shipped by steam packet if service ever resumes. With considerable pride, I watched our two mules drag the first cypress log to the site. With Lincoln at ground level and Fred below in the pit, the log was split with the long two-handed saw. The method is antiquated, back-breaking, but until we have steam power there is no other way. It is a beginning.
Prudence wants to attend church tomorrow. Will take her. …
To the Church of St Joseph of Arimathea this morning. I wish we had not. …
Parking the wagon and tethering the horses, Madeline saw two men from the congregation throw away their cigars and dart inside the small tabby church where Episcopalian families from the district had worshiped for generations.
Both Madeline and Prudence wore their best bonnets. They approached the double doors. Music from the church’s tiny pump organ squealed to silence as the avuncular priest, Father Lovewell, stepped into the entrance. Beyond him, in sunlit pews, members of the congregation turned to stare at the women. Madeline saw many people she knew. They didn’t look friendly.
“Mrs. Main—” The priest’s pink cheeks shone with sweat that steamed his spectacles. He pitched his voice low. “This is most regrettable. I am asked to remind you that, ah, colored are not permitted to worship here.”
“Colored?” she repeated, as if he’d hit her.
“That’s right. We have no separate balcony to accommodate you, and I can no longer allow you into the family pew.” She saw it, second from the front on the left, empty. Her self-control disintegrated.
“Are you in earnest, Father?”
“Yes, I am. I wish it could be otherwise, but—”
“Then you’re a vicious man, with no right to claim that you practice Christianity.”
He put his face close to hers, wheezing. “I have Christian compassion for my own race. I have none for a mongrelized race that promotes unrest, plots arson, advocates hatred, and worships the devilish doctrines of black Republicanism.”
Prudence looked baffled and angry. Madeline managed a radiant smile. “God smite you where you stand, Father. Before I creep off to hide like some—some leper, I’ll see you in hell.”
“Hell?” The smug, sweating face drew back. Soft white hands gripped the doors. “I doubt that.”
“Oh, yes. You just reserved your place.”
The congregation broke into angry conversation. The doors slammed.
“Come along,” Madeline said, kicking her skirt out of the way as she whirled and marched to the wagon. Prudence hurried after her, confused.
“What did all that mean? Why did he call you a colored woman?”
Madeline sighed. “I should have told you when you arrived. I’ll tell you as we drive home. If you wish, you can leave. As to what else Father Lovewell meant, I’m afraid it was a declaration of war. On Mont Royal, on the school, and on me.”
… Prudence knows all. She will stay. I pray God she will not regret the choice, or come to any harm because of it.
8
CHARLES OPENED HIS EYES, braced his hands, pushed upward. An invisible sledge slammed his forehead and dropped him. “Godamighty.”
He tried again. This time, despite the pain, he succeeded.
He stared across a small fire built in a shallow hole in the ground. Beyond the fire, a bearded man weather-burned to a dark brown bent a flexible stick back and forth, trying to break it. The man wore a coat so heavily beaded he might have come from a traveling medicine show. Near him a brindle dog lay gnawing a bone. Behind the man, cross-legged, sat a youth with slanted eyes and a malformed head.
Charles smelted something vile. “What in hell’s that stink?”
“Bunch of herbs mashed in a paste of buffla brains,” the man said. “I rubbed it on where they banged you the worst.”
Charles began to perceive his surroundings. He was inside a tipi of hides stretched over a dozen eighteen-foot poles to form a cone, with a smoke hole at the top. He heard rain falling.
“That’s right, this yere’s our tipi,” the bearded man said. “In the tongue of the Dakota Sioux, tipi means place-where-a-man-lives.” He broke the stick and handed half across the fire. “Jerky. Do you good.”
Charles bit off a chew of the smoked buffalo meat. “Thanks. I’ve had it before.”
“Oh,” said the man, pleased. “This ain’t your first time in the West, then.”
“Before the war, I served with Bob Lee’s Second Cavalry in Texas.”
The stranger’s grin revealed stained teeth. “Better ’n’ better.” Charles changed position; the sledge struck again. “Listen, I wouldn’t move too quick. You got more purple on you than a side of bad beef. While you was knocked out, I scouted around some. That little rooster who beat you up, he charged you with takin’ the Grand Bounce.”
“Deserting?”
“Yep. You better not go back on the post.”
Charles sat up, fighting dizziness. “I have things there.” The stranger pointed. Behind him, Charles discovered his carpetbag.
“I went in and picked it up. Nobody said boo ’cept for the boy on sentry duty. For a dollar, he looked the other way. What’s your name?”
“Charles Main.”
The man shot a hand over the fire. “Pleased to know you. I’m Adolphus O. Jackson. Wooden Foot to friends.”
He lifted the leg of his hide pants and whacked his right boot, producing a hard sound. “Solid oak. Necessitated by a meet-up with some Utes when I was fourteen. My pa was alive then. We trapped beaver in the east foothills of the Rocky Mountains. One day, I was out alone and I got my foot in another man’s trap by accident. Then the three Utes chanced by, in a bad mood. It was either get kilt or get outa that trap. I took my knife and got out. Well, part way. Then I fainted. Lucky for me, Pa come along. He drove off the Utes and got me out and took my foot off. He saved me from bleedin’ to death.” It was all said as if he were discussing the jerky he was chewing.
Charles waited till the dizziness passed. “I’m grateful to you, Mr. Jackson. I was in the cavalry till that little son of a bitch spotted me.”
“Yes, sir, he’s still fightin’ you Southron boys, that’s plain.”
“I appreciate your taking me in and patching me up. I’ll move along and find some other—”
“Stay right there,” Jackson interrupted. “You ain’t in no shape.” He picked his teeth. “’Sides, I didn’t pull you out of the mud just because the fight was one-sided, with you on the wrong side. I got a proposition.”
“What kind?”
“Business.” Jackson discovered a speck of jerky in the tangle of white and brown hairs in his big fan beard. He flicked it away and said, “This yere group’s the Jackson Trading Company. You met me already. This fine lad behind me is my nephew, Herschel. I call him Boy. It’s easier. When his pa died of the influenzy back in Louisville, he didn’t have no one else to look after him. He tries hard, but he needs carin’ for.”
Wooden Foot regarded the youngster with affection and sadness. That one glance made Charles like the man. Jackson made him think of Orry; he, too, had taken in a relative, and given him love and purpose to replace bitterness and hell-raising.
“And this here—” Jackson indicated the dog chewing the bone—“his name’s Fenimore Cooper. Fen for short. Don’t look like much. Border collies never do. But you’d be surprised how much weight on a travois he can pull.”
Jackson finished the jerky. “Y’see, we go on reg’lar trips out among the Tsis-tsis-tas.” He stressed the second syllable.
“What the devil’s that?”
“All depends on who you ask. Some say it means our people, or the people, or the folks that belong here, to give it a loose translation. The Sioux translation’s Sha-hi-e-la, which means red talk. Foreign talk. Other words, people the Sioux can’t understand.” Jackson watched his guest with a cheerfully superior smile. When he�
��d had enough fun, he said, “We trade with the Southern Cheyennes. You say their name this way, everybody understands.” He executed a series of fast, smooth gestures, fist rotating, fingers jutting out or bending.
“I know that’s sign language,” Charles said. “Comanches in Texas used it.”
“Yes, sir, the universal tongue of the tribes. What I just said was: We trade with Cheyennes in the Indian Territory. We take trade goods; we bring back Indian horses. It’s a good livin’, though not as rich as it could be. I won’t deal in guns, or fermented spirits.”
By then, Charles had a general fix on the nature of the proposition. “A good living, maybe, but pretty dangerous.”
“Only now and then. They’s two, three hundred thousand red men out this way, but way less than a third of ’em’s ornery, and those not always. You can get along all right if they know you ain’t scairt.”
He plucked the turkey feather from his hair and ran his index finger into the broad V cut in the vane. “They can read a coup feather notched this partic’lar way. It says I met a bad Indian once and took his scalp, so he wouldn’t have no afterlife, and then I cut his throat.”
“The feather says that?”
Jackson nodded.
“Did you do it?”
Jackson’s mild eyes stayed on his. “Twice.”
Charles shivered. Boy laid a soft hand on his uncle’s shoulder, his face showing pride. Fen lazily licked his forepaws. The rain pattered on the tipi. “You mentioned a proposition.”
“I need a partner to watch my back. I can teach him the country, and all that goes with it, but I got to trust him, and he’s got to shoot straight. The first time.”
“I’m a fair shot. I practiced a few years with General Wade Hampton’s scouts.”
Wooden Foot responded with an enthusiastic nod. “Southron cavalry. That’s a tip-top recommendation.”