The Rosewood Casket

by Sharyn McCrumb

  He was grateful that Rudy wasn’t a fanatical angel: they didn’t have to go to church three times a week, or give their belongings to the poor. An occasional check to help starving elk in Wyoming or earthquake victims in Japan was the extent of his charitable meddling—cheaper than poodle grooming, Robert figured. He did wonder, though, why Lilah’s guardian angel was black and male with a pencil-thin mustache, eagle’s wings, and an Alabama accent. Lilah was born and raised in pre-integration-era Cincinnati. She was the least Southern woman Robert could think of. Why, she put carrots in her potato salad! As for her Alabama angel: the Lord works in mysterious ways, had been Lilah’s—and presumably Rudy’s—reply.

  “Why were you fretting about death?” asked Robert.

  “It’s your father,” said Lilah, her eyes welling again. “The poor, old man is on his deathbed.”

  The churning in Robert Stargill’s stomach ceased. Sad news, but not, in terms of his day-to-day survival, a catastrophe. Not like being fired. “He’s had a good life, Lilah.” Another thought struck him. “Was it—ah—Rudy who told you this?”

  “Of course not, Robert. You know he never interferes. Your father’s neighbor, Mr. Stallard, called. He advised us to come right away.”

  “What about Clayt? He lives right there.”

  “They can’t find him. They’re still trying, though.”

  Robert’s lip curled in irritation. “Clayt never did have a lick of sense. Dad’s in the hospital, then?”

  “Well, no. But he’s terribly ill. It seems he left a note saying that he wanted to die at home. They think Clayt will want all of you to come back and decide what to do.”

  Robert Lee glanced at the calendar. It was only the middle of the month, and he was a little behind in his sales quota. “Maybe we ought to wait,” he said. “We don’t know how this will turn out. He could linger. You know how they are about time off down at the lot.”

  “But if you explained—”

  He ignored her. In a sales job, you didn’t explain. “And if there is a funeral, we’ll have to budget time for that, and then there’ll be things to see to afterward. That will take even more time.” He wouldn’t have said such things out loud to anyone but his wife. With outsiders, even with his brothers, he would express a willingness to go home at once, and to stay for as long as necessary, because that’s what you were supposed to say and feel, but the fact was that he had a real job, and, like it or not, the amount of time that he could be away from that job was limited. Life wasn’t like a soap opera, where feelings were everything, and everyone could afford to have them.

  It was all right for his younger brothers to drop everything and run back home. Charlie was a country singer, and Garrett was career army, on the government payroll with all kinds of benefits and time off and free health care, paid for with taxpayers’ money. Clayt, the back-to-nature dilettante, had no career to jeopardize, but he lived back there anyhow, so no sacrifice would be called for on his part. It was easy for Clayt to insist that they all come home. Only Robert Lee would be caught in the pinch of family demands—as usual.

  “Rudy says we ought to go, Robert. You should make peace with the dying.”

  “I’m more at peace with Daddy than the rest of the family, I reckon,” snapped Robert. “Is Rudy going to sell cars for me while we go gallivanting off to Tennessee?”

  Lilah sighed. “You have to trust Providence, Robert.”

  “I have to use my vacation time,” he replied bitterly. “I wish the Lord would schedule disasters for weekends.”

  Lilah listened to empty air again and smiled, but Robert turned away. He had no interest in the clever reply of an angel.

  * * *

  It was nearly midnight when Chief Warrant Officer Garrett Stargill got home, but he wasn’t surprised to see the lights on in the kitchen. He knew Debba would be waiting up for him, because she always worried when he was scheduled for a night jump. He had long ago ceased to be flattered by her anxiety. He had given up explaining to her that he was too experienced to be in much danger, that he enjoyed the thrill of parachuting into a sky full of stars, and that he was probably safer in free fall than he was driving the two-lane road home from the base. Pointless to say any of this to Debba, because terror was Debba’s vocation, her constant companion in life. Take her out of one obsession and she would latch on to another. Now that he had survived the parachute jump, she would go back to worrying about terrorists, or germs in the tap water. He scarcely listened anymore.

  He let himself in through the kitchen door, calling out loudly, “It’s me, Deb!” He had steadfastly refused to let her buy another gun, but he was always careful to make noise when he came in, telling her it was him, in case she had acquired one on her own, at some military family’s yard sale, perhaps. Pistols were easy enough to come by in a neighborhood of army personnel, or in Tennessee, in general, for that matter.

  She appeared in the kitchen doorway, tiny and wraithlike, wrapped in a chenille bathrobe and looking twelve years old, with her face scrubbed pink and her hair in pigtails over each ear. “Hi, Garrett,” she said with the tremulous smile that made him want to shake her. He knew that he had once found her vulnerability appealing, and her curveless body sexy, but he could not remember why.

  “Everything went off without a hitch,” he said. “Is there coffee?” She nodded toward the Mr. Coffee machine. He poured himself a cup, and kept talking. “The kids were nervous, but they were game. We didn’t have to push anybody out of the plane. And the wind didn’t pick up, so we all made it into the drop zone.” He yawned. “It makes for a long day, though.”

  She nodded. “I watched the eleven o’clock news. I figured that if anything had gone wrong, they would have said so. I’m glad you’re back.” She put her arms around him, and he patted her head, as if she were an anxious child. The robe opened a little, and he saw that she was wearing his black T-shirt for a nightgown—the one his unit had made up, that said “We Rule the Night.”

  Then he noticed the blinking light on the answering machine.

  “Were there any phone calls, Debba?”

  She nodded, a flash of guilt crossed her face, and she buried her face in his shoulder. “I thought it might be the base. A wreck, maybe, or your unit being put on alert. You just got back.”

  “That doesn’t mean I won’t have to go again,” he said. He pushed the button and waited for the machine to rewind. “Did you hear the message?”

  “No. I turned the TV up when the phone rang.”

  The machine clicked on, and he heard his brother Clayton’s voice. “We have to go home,” he told her. She looked up, her eyes wide with panic. It would have made no difference if Debba had married an accountant instead of a chopper pilot. Her terror was a constant. He knew that Debba would find east Tennessee no less terrifying than the prospect of Haiti or Somalia.

  * * *

  In the darkness Clayt Stargill was pacing the flagstone walk in the backyard of his father’s house, his vigil punctuated by frequent glances at the luminous dial of his watch.

  “They won’t be here for hours,” said Dovey, who was sitting on the porch steps. “Nashville is a good five hours away, and Cincinnati is even farther. They may not be here until morning. It’s not like there’s anything they can do once they get here.”

  “I know,” said Clayt. “There’s nothing I can do, either. Except pace.”

  At sunset, when he had returned to Jonesborough from his visit to Beverly Tipton’s farm, a black car was blocking his driveway, and Dovey Stallard was sitting behind the wheel, reading a paperback in the fading light. Without preamble she told him about his father’s illness, and she went in with him while he telephoned Dr. Banner, who had all but retired from half a century of general practice, but he agreed to meet Clayton at the Stargill farm.

  Dovey followed his truck back to Wake County and up the ridge to the old homeplace, nestled between two old maples that brushed the tin roof with their branches. They found Alton Banner alr
eady in the house, tending to his patient.

  “Will he get better?” asked Clayt as he entered his father’s bedroom.

  “I doubt it,” said Dr. Banner. “He’s had a serious stroke, and his heart wasn’t any great shakes to begin with. You can’t leave him like this, though. If you don’t get some fluids in him, he’ll die of neglect.”

  “He doesn’t want to go to a hospital.” Dovey Stallard appeared in the doorway, and handed the physician a yellow legal pad. “Mr. Stargill wrote down everything he wants.”

  “Never mind what he wants,” said Clayt. “If he has a chance, then do whatever you have to.”

  Alton Banner skimmed the first page of Randall Stargill’s instructions. “It says he doesn’t want life support. Hooked up to machines, he calls it. Well, we can give him his way on that, but just in case this is not his final hour, he is going to the hospital, so that he can at least have clean sheets, intravenous fluids, and a fighting chance to beat this thing. I’ll call the rescue squad. Have you notified your brothers?”

  “We got in touch with Robert in Cincinnati this afternoon,” said Dovey. “Garrett and Charles Martin have unlisted numbers, so we decided to let Clayt call them.”

  He nodded. “Phone for the ambulance, doctor. Then I’ll call them.”

  They said almost nothing while they waited for the ambulance. Clayt was grateful that Dovey did not feel the need to cover every silence with small talk. She had insisted on staying with him, offering to fix him coffee and sandwiches and tidying up the house while he paced the braided rug in the living room.

  When the ambulance arrived, Clayt said, “I’m going with them. I have to sign him in, and see what they say. Thank you for coming for me, and for staying.”

  “I’ll wait here, Clayt,” said Dovey. “One of your brothers might have decided to hop on a plane. On your way back, you need to stop at Krogers. I checked the pantry, and you have nothing to feed a houseful of people. Here’s a list.”

  It was past ten o’clock when Clayt returned to find Dovey curled up on the sofa asleep, with the television blaring. He set the groceries on the kitchen table, wondering if he should wake her. It was late. She needed to get home.

  “How is he?” she said, yawning. “I heard you come in.”

  “He’s stable for now. Still in a coma, though, so I didn’t see any point in sitting there all night. I’ll go back tomorrow when the rest of them get here. Guess you should be going.”

  “I’ll just make that tuna salad first, in case they get here late and hungry. You’d just dump mayonnaise into the tuna and call it done.”

  He wondered if, despite the broken engagement all those years ago, Dovey still felt like a part of the family, but he didn’t ask. Perhaps she was just being neighborly. He hadn’t seen her since his mother’s funeral. He got out the onions and the pickles, and watched while she chopped them, and mixed them with the tuna. “We don’t need to do too much preparation,” he reminded her. “Garrett and Robert Lee are bringing their wives.”

  Dovey gave him a look, and went back to spooning mayonnaise into the glass salad bowl.

  When she finished, she put aluminum foil over the top of the bowl and set it in the refrigerator. “Now don’t forget and leave it out,” she told him, “Or else you’ll all be in the hospital.”

  Finally they ran out of things to do in the house, so Dovey put on her coat and went outside. Clayt went with her. “I’ll walk you to your car,” he said. “I’m too restless to stay in that house. Maybe I’ll just sit outside for a while.”

  “Well,” said Dovey, “if anything can calm you down, it’s being outside. That hasn’t changed.”

  Clayt took a deep breath. “It isn’t cold. You want to sit awhile?”

  “A few minutes, I guess.” The night sounds from the woods, and the sight of the stars glittering above the mountains, made her feel more peaceful than she had for a long time. She wasn’t sure why she had been so determined to stay and help, but now wasn’t the time to talk about it. The darkness was cold and clear, and Dovey let the silence grow between them until she became aware that the night was not still or silent at all.

  A bat swooped into the spotlight at one end of the barn gulping down moths as it flew past. Far off, on the ridge, she heard the cry of a bird.

  “Barn owl?” she said softly.

  Clayt stood still, listening with his whole body until the cry came again. “Great horned owl,” he said. “Barn owls scream or make a hissing noise. There! Hear it? A low whoo-oo—that’s a great horned. He’ll be after the rabbits tonight, when they go out courting.”

  “They say it’s a sign of death—hearing an owl.”

  “It is if you’re a field mouse,” said Clayt, and for the first time that day, they smiled at each other. He stopped pacing and sat beside her on the concrete step. “It’s been a long time since we talked, Dovey.”

  She shivered a little. “Remember when we were kids, and we used to play until way after dark on summer nights? Catching lightning bugs in a jam jar, and playing hide-and-seek when it was too dark to even see.”

  “I remember playing pioneer. I was always Daniel Boone—”

  “You still are, Clayt!”

  “Yeah—in my living history lectures, but it was more fun as a kid, when I could make it up as I went along. I remember how Dwayne and Garrett and I used to try to make you be an Indian princess in our game.”

  “I finally went along with it, didn’t I?”

  He laughed at the memory. “Sure, you did. How old were you then? Ten? You must have spent hours in the Hamelin library getting ready for that one.” He mimicked her little girl’s voice. “All right, boys, I’m a Cherokee princess. I’m Nancy Ward!

  “And then you proceeded to kill all of us, and when we cried foul, you went home and got the book, and shoved it under our noses.” He shook his head. “Sure enough, it told how she chewed bullets for her husband during the Cherokee’s war with the Creeks, and how she took up his gun after he was killed and turned the tide of battle herself. I should have kept on reading, though. You tricked us. She never did harm any whites. Protected them, even from the wrath of the Cherokees. You didn’t tell us that.”

  “Of course I didn’t!” said Dovey. “I wanted to be a warrior, not a peacemaker. That’s why I picked her. You all wanted me to be Rebecca Boone, sweeping the smokehouse while you boys went off to have adventures. ‘Be careful, Dan’l,’” she said in mocking falsetto.

  In the darkness, Clayt Stargill smiled. “Nancy Ward. It was the first time I’d ever heard of her. I talk about her sometimes now in my school presentations.”

  “Good. Little girls ought to have somebody to relate to besides pioneer housewives and goody two-shoes Pocahontas. What do you say about Nancy Ward?”

  “Well, I’m in costume as Daniel Boone, who must have met her—they were both important people in the same place and time—so I tell them that she was my friend, and a friend to all the settlers in the western mountains. She tried to keep the peace between the Cherokees and the whites. I talk about the time she warned Fort Watauga about the coming attack planned by Dragging Canoe and how she saved Mrs. Bean from being burned at the stake, stamping out the flames herself and promising the village that if they spared this captive, Mrs. Bean would teach them how to make butter and cheese. I tell them that Nancy Ward was named the Ghighau when she was still a teenager, even though that honor is usually reserved for one very old and revered. The female students are always especially pleased about that part.”

  “I hope you make it clear that women played an important role in Cherokee society and that she had real power and influence.”

  “You ought to come with me, Dovey,” said Clayt. “With that dark hair of yours and a little pancake makeup to cover your Irish freckles, you’d make a great Nancy Ward. You might even be part Cherokee, who knows? I could rig you up a pioneer costume and some turkey feathers for a swan’s wing—you remember, the symbol of her authority.”

 
“No thanks, Clayt,” she sighed. “Maybe men don’t outgrow playacting, but women do.”

  * * *

  “Grandma Flossie, where are they taking the hounds?”

  Nora Bonesteel was five years old, a big-eyed, solemn child, who watched more than she spoke. She was sitting on the back porch on a May morning, watching her grandmother peel potatoes to boil for dinner. In the soft wind Nora could smell the blossoms on the apple trees, as white as her pinafore against the green mountains beyond. She had been watching a mourning cloak butterfly drift among the clumps of purple irises in her mother’s garden beside the smokehouse, as she listened to her grandmother sing an old hymn, joining her on the chorus: Safely walking close to thee; Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.

  The dogs’ barking drowned out the harmony of old woman and child. Nora looked up to see her father and their cousin Roy heading for the dog pen beside the barn. They pulled open the wooden door in the chicken wire fence, released the yelping hounds from the enclosure, and loaded them into the back of Sam Teague’s flatbed Ford. Watching them, Nora felt afraid, and it took her a moment to sort out why. It was the silence. The men performed the tasks without speaking, expressionless. They did not laugh and talk as they usually did when they went for the hounds, nor did they wave to the womenfolk on the porch. Even though they wore boots and brush clothes, Nora decided that they weren’t fixing to go hunting. It was too late in the day. She didn’t see any rifles. She looked up at her grandmother, who was also watching the men in a grim silence far removed from the usual good humor she showed to the departing hunters. Something was wrong about this day. Nora knew not to ask if she might go along. “Where are they going?”

  Grandma Flossie sighed. “They’re hunting a child, Nora,” she said. “A little girl is lost out on the mountain. They say she wandered off into the woods, and can’t find her way home again, so all the menfolk are going out with the dogs to look for her.”

  “What little girl?”

  “She was staying over at the Stargill farm. She was a little towheaded girl about as old as you, Nora. You haven’t seen her, have you?” Grandma Flossie spoke slowly to the child, and Nora understood that the question was meant two ways. Had Nora seen the little girl playing in the woods, and a second meaning, the secret between them—had little Nora seen anything that other folks weren’t likely to see? A black ribbon on a beehive, perhaps, or a mound of flowers at the church altar that didn’t turn out to be there after all when she tried to touch it. Such things had happened to Nora before, as they happened to Grandma Flossie, but nobody ever talked about these occurrences, not in the family, and never, ever to strangers. Sometimes grandmother and child would talk about things they saw, but Nora understood that this gift of Sight was a thing best kept to herself. It made folks uneasy to have a little girl seeing things that weren’t there—bad things, most of the time. The worst of it was that they would come to see these things, too, a few days or weeks later: a burned-out barn, a new grave, an empty cradle …