A Season in Hell

by Easy Jackson

  “You had no call to do that, Giddings Coltrane,” Nab said. “No call a-tall.”

  “I had to, Nab,” Gid yelled in a voice that vaguely resembled a pig’s squeal. “The judge done made me do it, Nab. The judge done told me I had to.”

  “That’s right, Nab,” the sheriff hollered. “He didn’t have no choice.”

  The quiet from the porch lasted so long, Gid gulped at least half a dozen times before Nab responded.

  “Gid!” Her deep voice boomed down the hill. “That there feller know a lot about horses?”

  “A tolerable amount, Nab,” Gid replied. “Enough to get by.”

  Lucas’s eyes got big, and he tugged on Tennie’s arm. “Mr. Hawkshaw knows a lot about horses,” he whispered.

  “Shhh,” Tennie said. “Miss Nab will find out soon enough, and maybe she won’t have a gun in her hand when she does.”

  Gid’s brothers did not want to believe the sale, and it took the sheriff some doing before they gave up and came down the hill. Stout like Gid, they lacked his boyish charm and to Tennie looked more like big louts. Gid wasn’t too charming with them, however, and disliked having to turn over almost all his money.

  The sheriff insisted, nevertheless, and told them it would be best for all concerned if they never came back. “Try to make it to St. Louis without killing anybody,” he advised.

  After they left, the sheriff approached Tennie. “Are you sure you don’t want to turn around and go back to the judge’s house?”

  Tennie looked up the hill. Once Nab was freed from her captors, she had forgotten all about Gid and his friends. The horses needed her. There might as well not have been anybody at the foot of the hill as far as she was concerned. The prospect of spending even one night in the ramshackle cabin with a single-minded old woman filled Tennie with dread. She wasn’t even sure she would be welcome. She looked at the sheriff. “I would love to go back to the judge’s house, but I cannot spurn Mr. Gid’s offer of hospitality.”

  “Suit yourself,” the sheriff said. “Come on, boys. The show’s over.”

  With the law and the lawbreakers gone from their presence, everyone visibly relaxed, except perhaps Gid, who remained on the jumpy side.

  The cabin looked just as bad up close. Tennie tried to keep the dismay from her face. Nab had disappeared to the barns, and Gid began to unload the wagon, taking things into the house and hollering over his shoulder, “Come on in!”

  Despite its disarray, the inside looked homey. Quilts covered old chairs and lamps sat on a little table and a tall buffet, both of which were covered in dust. The kitchen and dining table were on one side. Two bedrooms led off the living area. Upstairs was an open loft.

  “That there is where I usually lay up at nightfall, Miss Tennie,” Gid said, pointing to the loft. “But you can bunk there, instead.”

  “Mr. Gid,” Tennie said, “I hate to take your bed.”

  “No, that’s all right. I’ll sleep down here on a pallet with the boys. Nab don’t mind the heat, but that other bedroom over yonder is on the west side, and it’s too blame hot to sleep in during the summer.”

  Hawkshaw would be on his own, but he had already drifted to the barns. Tennie looked at the stove with things cooking on it, and the pile of dirty dishes next to an overflowing dishpan. Her stepsons were looking around the room with curiosity, eyeing the loft with envy.

  “Boys, you mind Mr. Gid and do what he says,” Tennie said then turned to Gid. “Do you think Miss Nab would mind if I started in on the dishes? I would be in the way with the horses.”

  “Why, shorely! You just go right on ahead. Come on, you little taters,” he said to the boys. “We got to help Nab with the horses.” Before he left, he climbed the ladder to the loft with Tennie’s bag.

  As soon as he and the boys left the house, Tennie climbed up the ladder.

  The loft contained a bed covered in quilts. The room was hot, but there was an opened window on one side giving it some air. A little homemade cabinet stood by the bed. Other than that, it was bare. Tennie folded the quilt down, running her hand over the sheets, bending to smell the bedding. Surprisingly enough, it smelled clean and sweet. She supposed Nab had prepared it in hopes of Gid’s return.

  Descending the ladder, she found an empty water bucket and went out the back door. She found a well in the yard and wished she hadn’t sent the boys off with Gid so hastily. It would take her many trips to get enough water to wash all the dishes piled in Nab’s haphazard kitchen.

  Carrying the full bucket into the kitchen, she found a kettle containing hot water on the stove, looked in the bubbling pots, and found stew and greens cooking. Picking up a spoon that looked clean, she stirred the pots and tasted, surprised by the flavor. Whatever she lacked in the housekeeping department, Nab more than made up for in cooking.

  On Tennie’s fifth trip to the well she saw Lucas running up from the barns.

  “Miss Tennie! Miss Tennie!” he cried. “A horse kicked Badger. Mr. Gid told him to stand back, but he didn’t.”

  Tennie dropped the bucket and ran. She caught up with Lucas, and taking her by the hand, they ran together to the barn.

  “It was just his hand,” Lucas said. “But it might be broken.”

  They could hear Badger’s bawling even before entering the cavernous barn. Everyone was crowded around Nab and Badger.

  She sat on a short stool, comforting him. “Here now,” she crooned. “Let old Nab see how hurt you be.” Her large hands touched Badger’s arm with the utmost tenderness.

  She had dark hair and dark eyes like Gid, and a long, mournful face. Her faded black skirt was dusty, and the threadbare blue shirt she wore had mismatched buttons sewn up and down the front in different-colored thread.

  Badger gave a fitful sob and tried to stop crying, letting Nab examine his hand and arm with gentle fingers.

  “Old Bailey been cooped up for so many a day, he got plum cranky,” Nab continued. “Animals got their habits, just like people, and when something throws them off, they shorely get upset. Old Bailey didn’t mean to hurt you none.”

  Badger stared at Nab and nodded. In those few minutes, Tennie decided she liked Gid’s sister very much.

  “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” Nab said, kissing Badger’s hand lightly. “There now, boy”—she rubbed Badger’s back—“nothing hurt but your pride.”

  Badger saw Tennie. He nodded to Nab and left to bury his face in Tennie’s skirt.

  “Come along, now,” Tennie said, taking hold of his unhurt hand. “We’ll go in the kitchen and get one of Miss Viola’s good biscuits.”

  In the kitchen, Badger sat on Tennie’s lap with a biscuit in his hand. He began to cry again. “I want my Rascal. I want my doggie.”

  “Hush now,” Tennie said, hugging him but being careful of his hand. “We’ll be home before you know it, and you can play and play with Rascal then. You’ll have lots of stories to tell Shorty, won’t you?”

  He nodded, and before long, he was asleep in Tennie’s lap. She kicked a small rag rug to one corner of the kitchen and placed the sleeping boy on it. Looking around the cabin, she sighed, wondering if she had lied to Badger. She felt like they would never get home again. She wasn’t even sure where home was anymore.

  CHAPTER 17

  Tennie had the table set for the adults with plates ready for the children. She worried Nab would be upset with her for making herself at home in her kitchen, but when the older woman entered the cabin with the others, she looked around and nodded. Tennie hoped that nod meant everything was okay.

  “Nab,” Gid said, finally remembering to introduce Tennie. “This here is Miss Tennie. She’s betrothed to Wash, Colonel Lafayette’s brother.”

  “Howdy-do,” Nab said. “Never met Wash, but heared respectable things about him. Heared he was good winded.”

  Tennie wasn’t too sure what good winded was, but she nodded and smiled, telling Nab she was pleased to meet her. She turned to the boys who had followed Nab in. Oddly enough, all
were silent. All had blond shaggy hair and blue eyes. They were thickset like Gid. Tennie thought them thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen, so close in age did they look. Gid rattled off names she probably wouldn’t remember—Nestor, Virgil, Lundy, and Floyd. They carried the Coltrane name, too.

  Gid explained Nab had married a distant cousin from Ireland. “Pa sent for him. Said he’d be good with the horses. Him and Nab made a good team till he got killed in the war fighting Sherman. Dang fool was too old to go to war but went anyway. Their young’uns got killed, too.”

  Tennie murmured her regrets, but Gid had already moved on to how happy he was to get some of Nab’s cooking. “Colonel Lafayette’s got him a new cook what puts peppers in everything. My guts don’t do nothing but burn and churn all day long, Nab. All day long,” he moaned.

  It was the first Tennie had heard of it. According to Lafayette, Gid ate everything in sight with relish.

  Unlike most people, who made the children wait until after the adults had eaten, Nab told the boys to help themselves and go out onto the porch to eat. She asked how Badger was, and having been awakened by the arrival of the others, he told her he felt better. When the boys cleared out, the adults sat down. Nab asked the blessing, and Hawkshaw, who did not bow his head, at least let his eyes look in his lap.

  Gid and Nab began discussing their siblings, the shyster lawyer who helped them, and above all, the state of the horses.

  When Nab accidentally spilled salt, she took some and threw it over her left shoulder, saying, “In your eye, devil. Begone.”

  Tennie hoped there wasn’t some belief in the evil eye she would accidentally summon and cause Nab to get mad at her over. Unlike the priest, Gid didn’t feel it necessary to warn her against anything, and he finally got around to explaining Tennie’s and Hawkshaw’s presence.

  Nab shook her head in disgust as he talked about the Beauregards. “Maribel be a blatherskite, and he be so contrary, if you throwed him in a river he’d float upstream. Ain’t neither one of them got the brains of a billy goat.” She turned to Tennie. “You been a-studying on how to do it?”

  Tennie flushed. “Miss Viola gave me a plan.”

  “Viola did?” Nab said. “Well, Viola got sense, so it ought to be a good ’un. Excepting around here, you might fall into trouble calling a darkie Miss. Ain’t saying it’s wrong, jest that some folks might not appreciate it.”

  Tennie swallowed, a little embarrassed. “I reckon it’s because I’ve been in Texas. If a person’s not polite, they are liable to get their head blown off.”

  “That’s right, Nab,” Gid said. “She’s right there. They be so friendly, and then the next thing you know, they be mad and holding a grudge. Remember how quick Pa was to get mad? They’s just like him, always getting riled about something.”

  “But the white folks call the darkies mister and miss?” Nab questioned.

  “No,” Gid said. “They treats them ’bout like everybody else does. Miss Tennie just got a natural politeness about her, that’s all.”

  “You seen Pa in Texas?” Nab asked.

  Gid shook his head, and the table fell silent.

  Tennie decided it was a good time to change the subject back to the Beauregards. “Miss Nab, Miss Viola told me that Mr. Beauregard is in love with a cousin. I think she said the cousin’s name is Helen.”

  Nab nodded. “That be right. They’s wanted to wed, but being first cousins, her pa wouldn’t allow it. Don’t know why they don’t now, since they be old and ain’t got nobody.”

  Gid picked at a piece of meat in his teeth with his finger. When he got it dislodged, he said, “Can’t. Maribel done told Beauregard if he married Helen, she was leaving her inheritance to the Catholic Church.”

  “Maribel always was powerful jealous of Helen ’cause the men folks liked her better,” Nab said.

  Tennie listened to their comments, grateful they weren’t questioning her about Viola’s plan. Hawkshaw, however, was staring at her.

  Tennie asked Nab to let her wash the supper dishes, explaining she would be of little help with the horses but would like to pitch in another way. Nab consented, and although she was good at keeping her face deadpan, Tennie thought she saw a look of gratitude peeking out of one eye. While Tennie cleaned, Nab made a poultice of sassafras leaves and a hot compress to put on Badger’s hand.

  To Tennie’s surprise and pleasure, after all the chores were done, one of Nab’s grandsons picked up a banjo, another got on a washtub with a string attached to a handle, and they began picking and singing. She smiled in pleasure at Gid.

  He grinned. “I can’t tote a tune in a bucket. They all got it and them cotton heads from their ma’s side of the family.”

  Nab found an old harmonica and handed it to Rusty. Lundy or Floyd, Tennie wasn’t sure which one, began teaching Rusty how to play it. Later, the boys began singing the cowboy songs they knew, making up words and verses when they couldn’t remember them.

  When bedtime came, Nab placed quilts on the floor, and everybody found a place to sleep, including Gid. Hawkshaw went outside. Nab raised an eyebrow at Gid.

  “Leave him be, Nab. He’s bad about wanting to be by hisself. Can’t hardly stand anybody sidling up to him. It’s a wonder he done stayed in the house with us this long.”

  Tennie climbed the ladder to the loft. Before getting into bed, she looked out the window and saw a shadowy figure making its way to the barn to sleep with the horses.

  * * *

  For the next three days, Hawkshaw and Nab dickered over horses. When Nab heard Hawkshaw was from Kentucky, her eyes narrowed. When she found out he wasn’t quite the novice Gid had made him out to be, instead of getting upset, she grew crafty. Hawkshaw wanted to take the best of the horses. Nab thought all her horses were good, but she wanted to keep the finest on the farm, and without telling outright lies, she tried to mislead him about a horse’s strengths and faults depending on which one she wanted him to take and which one she wanted to keep.

  “Is she a passive breeder?” Hawkshaw would ask when looking at a mare.

  “No, not her,” Nab would say. “She breeds positive every time. ’Course now, she’s high-strung, and her dock there is little limber.”

  Hawkshaw would pick up the tail, and if it was limber, it was only by the most minuscule amount.

  Trying to outwit Hawkshaw in the horse trade thrilled Nab like an inveterate gambler in a high-stakes poker marathon. A party of men had ridden a hundred miles to buy horses from her, but she turned them away, telling them to wait in town until she and Hawkshaw had finished their business. That she might lose a sale didn’t appear to bother her at all.

  Nab’s grandsons were as adept as she at the art of trade. Under the guise of teaching Rusty and Lucas about stable work, the teenagers soon had them doing most of their chores. However, neither Rusty nor Lucas—nor Tennie—objected because they were learning so much, especially, just as the judge had said, from the oldest and the middle boy, who had unusual gifts.

  In the kitchen, Tennie worked out a system with Nab that pleased them both. Nab would begin the cooking process, leaving Tennie to finish it while Nab tended her beloved horses. Impressed with Nab’s skill, Tennie watched the older woman throwing ingredients into pots and bowls, trying to remember every step. In addition to taking over most of the kitchen duties, as discreetly as she could, Tennie created an improved sense of order in the chaotic cabin. Nevertheless, she still took time to escape to the barns and paddocks to look at the horses and watch the drama of the match between Nab and Hawkshaw.

  Although Nab was good at keeping her face bland, Tennie recognized she had a favorite stallion she wanted to keep. She wouldn’t have realized it, except Gid was incapable of keeping a poker face. By watching him get fidgety every time Hawkshaw neared Nab’s favorite stallion, Tennie was able to surmise it. And if she knew it, she knew Hawkshaw did, too.

  Although his hand still hurt, Badger lost his fearful anger and began to ride with the other boys.<
br />
  Nab made them treat the stallions with kindness and consideration, but she wouldn’t allow them to get playful with them. “You get too familiar with them, and they start getting sassy and think they don’t have to mind you none.”

  Nevertheless, they were some of the gentlest horses Tennie had ever seen, appearing to catch calmness from Nab. It seemed odd to Tennie that horses with so many layers of muscles and such powerful hindquarters could be the easiest to get along with.

  When she said as much to Hawkshaw, mentioning they were almost the equine version of Gid, he responded, “Just smarter.”

  Although he kept his face as unreadable as Nab, Tennie sensed Hawkshaw was pleased and excited about the bargain he had made. She didn’t try to hurry him because she dreaded the day she would have to convince him of the plan of action Viola had advised. That he be in the best of moods was imperative to her success. She knew if his brain wasn’t so filled with thoughts of horseflesh, she would have long before fallen under his suspicions.

  When Hawkshaw did announce his final decision, he picked one of the positive breeder mares Tennie thought Nab really wanted to keep, but he bypassed her favorite high-strung stallion and choose a calmer one instead. He did not give his reasons for the ones he chose, and neither Gid nor Tennie asked, but Lucas, always braver than was for his own good, did question Hawkshaw about the stallion.

  “I have to ship these horses a long way,” Hawkshaw said, his willingness to explain surprising everyone. “I don’t want some nervy stallion destroying himself and every other horse in the stock car.”

  Shipping the horses brought up more problems. Even though Gid would be with them, Nab didn’t like her horses shipped unless her grandsons rode along to guarantee their health.

  “Floyd and Virgil will ride in the boxcar with them,” Nab said. “You’ll have to pay them and pay their way.”

  Hawkshaw didn’t see any reason why they should ride all the way to Texas. He wanted the horses to get off the train in Mobile, rest, then exercise a few days before riding the rest of the way to Texas. “If they leave now, the horses can be rested by the time we get to Mobile, and we won’t have to lay over so long. I don’t see any reason why your grandsons can’t leave them with us in Mobile and go on back home.”