Losing Battles (34 page)

“Come on back, Judge Moody,” cried Brother Bethune in a voice of sweet invitation. “Don’t you want to come back and hear yourself be forgiven?”

“No sir. I do not,” said Judge Moody.

“Look! Jack’s dog is
bringing
him back!” came laughing cries.

“I don’t know why, but I never could teach that dog good sense!” cried Jack, as Sid ran with authority at Judge Moody’s heels, driving him back, and as the Judge sank down again into the school chair, some hand rewarded the dog’s jaws with birthday cake.

“What does this mean?” Judge Moody asked Jack.

“My family can’t bring ’emselves to say it, Judge,” Jack told him. “And not much wonder. They’re trying to forgive you for sending me to the pen.” He stared around him. “Judge Moody, I just don’t hardly know what my poor family’s thinking about.”

“I’ll forgive you for pronouncing judgment on Jack Renfro!”
cried Aunt Birdie, and she gave a clap of the hands, while Jack groaned.

“No!” said Judge Moody. “I wasn’t feeling my way along that road to come to this—”

“He’s where he is now because he’s lost,” said Mrs. Moody. “But can you show me a man anywhere that’s got the fortitude to admit that for himself? No.”

“I forgive you for being lost,” said Aunt Beck.

“—and I don’t want your forgiveness for being a fair judge at a trial. I don’t deserve
that
.”

“Judge Moody, me and you feel the same way about it!” cried Jack.

“Look at the boy, Judge Moody. Jack Renfro might just as well have been a boy was never heard of around here for the treatment he got from you in Ludlow. I don’t believe his mother will ever get over it,” said Uncle Curtis. “You need some pretty tall forgiving for that.”

Miss Beulah marched up to Judge Moody with the cake plate and its crumbling remains held up in front of her chest to offer. “Don’t tell me, sir, you have nothing to be forgiven for, I’m his mother.”

“But the fact remains that whatever judgment I passed on this boy I’d be very apt to pass again, if the same case came to court,” said Judge Moody.

“I knew it!” said Uncle Dolphus.

Brother Bethune was coming around the table and now he walked close to Judge Moody and linked arms with him. “I even forgive you myself for calling me ‘old man,’ but don’t try it again very soon,” he said. “Come with me—march one step further and you can take a bow,” he coaxed the Judge. “I’m going to let you meet her. Mis’ Vaughn, here’s who’s come forty-five miles to wish you happy birthday.”

“In whose place? Who are you trying to fool?” Granny asked Judge Moody.

Miss Beulah ran to protect her, but she had already found the little wilted bunch of dahlias and swatted feebly at Judge Moody. He backed away, and Jack caught him, then guided him out of Granny’s hearing.

“I’m sorry, Judge Moody—Granny’s jealous of who tries to get in our family,” Jack said. “But her shooing you off don’t make
me forgive you any the faster! Judge Moody, here you are because you and Mrs. Judge would be roofless in Banner and in danger of starving without us. And you’re welcome to the table. And I owe you a raft of gratitude for veering and not killing my wife and baby. And I’m going to get your car back the way it was going in Banner Road. But I ain’t going to forgive you for sending me to the pen! Because listen, Judge Moody, you caused all these you see here smiling to do without me for a year, six months and a day while I was ploughing Parchman. And I take it right hard, and it gives me right much of a shock on the day of my welcome home, to hear ’em all forgiving you for it—all but Granny.” He gave Granny a look, and then cried, staring all around, “Is the whole rest of the reunion going to forgive him? Mama, Papa, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins? Every last one except my wife?”

“I told you so,” said Gloria.

“It’s all part of the reunion. We got to live it out, son,” said Mr. Renfro.

“No sir, I don’t forgive you, Judge Moody,” Jack told him. “Oh, I’m boiling for ’em still, for the way you deprived ’em. And
now
hear ’em!”

“Jack, make up your mind your family is always going to stay one jump ahead of you,” said Gloria.

“I don’t forgive you at all, sir,” said Jack in a clear, loud voice.

“All right! Fine! I prefer it that way,” Judge Moody said with some vigor. “Thank you.”

“You’re more than welcome,” said Jack. He thrust out an arm, and he and Judge Moody shook hands.

“None of this would have happened if Grandpa Vaughn had had this reunion in charge,” said Miss Beulah. “And least of all this headlong forgiving of the first craven soul that comes and offers. Oh, Grandpa Vaughn, I miss your presence!”

“We’re just at the wrong end of Boone County!” Mrs. Moody burst out.

“Can I just tell
you
something?” interrupted Miss Beulah. “That coconut cake’s so tender I advise you to eat it with a spoon.”

“And now who wins for giving the biggest surprise?” Brother Bethune called, sweeping Lady May up out of her mother’s lap and running with her back to his place, then setting her onto his gun shoulder. “It’s a pretty little girl—the one you see raised at last above your heads. She answers to the name of Lady May.”

“And if that ain’t the longest upper lip in Boone County!” said Aunt Nanny.

Lady May, who had drawn a deep breath, took a look down at everybody, and then it came.

“And I want to take this opportunity to say,” said Brother Bethune right over the baby’s crying, almost crying himself, “that never have I seen any more of a family gathered together since the Bethunes started to go. There’s been a Bethune and a Renfro to go every year, till this year somebody fooled us out of the Renfros. Wonder whose turn it’ll be next time, Mr. Ralph?” Brother Bethune cranked his head around the baby’s kicking legs and put it to him. He ripped out a bandanna, paused to mop his face, then the baby’s, and drove on. “At no reunion the summer long have I enjoyed any better attention or seen any better behavior. The interruptions has been few and far between. And the boat—the boat this little baby, the youngest Renfro walking today, is travelling up on the river of life, I hope the oar of faith and the oar of works will row that little boat clear to the gates of Heaven.”

He shut his mouth in a black line, put Lady May down on the ground, and from all around the yard the other babies all cried with her.

“And now, precious friends—if you think
this
is a big reunion! If you think
this
is a pretty full count and a brave showing! Wait! On the Day of Judgment and at the Sounding of the Trumpet—!”

“
I
can wait!” sang out Uncle Noah Webster.

“Why, Banner Cemetery is going to be throwed open like a hill of potatoes!” Brother Bethune cried. “All those loving kin who have gone before, there they’ll all be—waiting for you and me! How will you start behaving
then
, precious friends? I’ll tell you! You’ll all be left without words. Without words! Can you believe it? Think about that!”

He threw out his arms and stood there, open-mouthed.

“Ain’t we given him a splendid time?” Aunt Birdie exclaimed.

“Sometimes I think it was an old bachelor like Brother Bethune that thought up reunions in the first place,” said Aunt Nanny.

“Three cheers for Brother Bethune!” shouted Uncle Noah Webster.

“Brother Bethune has not accepted many earthly titles,” croaked Brother Bethune. “He is content to be one of God’s chosen vessels.”

“Three more cheers for Brother Bethune!”

“Never asked the church for a cent of money and never needed such. Without script or purse,” he whispered, as the cheers died down.

“That’s right, Brother Bethune. Sit down, Brother Bethune,” several voices invited him.

“I may not have very many earthly descendants,” Brother Bethune in an unmollified voice went on. “If you want to come right down to it, I ain’t got a one. Now I
have
killed me a fairly large number of snakes. I have kept a count of my snakes I have killed in the last five years, and up to and including this Sunday morning, the grand sum total is four hundred and twenty-six.”

They cheered.

“Brother Bethune holds the title of champion snake killer of this entire end of the county,” contributed Uncle Curtis. “And I suppose he limits himself to the Bywy on this bank and five or six little branches of it. Is that so, Brother Bethune?”

“It is so so far,” said Brother Bethune, still not sitting down.

“You use the old-time twelve-gauge shotgun, I believe,” said Mr. Renfro. “That is your main weapon.”

“It is my only weapon,” said Brother Bethune. He threw out an arm for it, where it stood against the tree—as long as he was, its barrels silver-bright—and shook it at Uncle Nathan, who slowly saluted him back with his paint-stained hand.

Brother Bethune sat down with a groan. His eyes went first to the cake plate, where the last slice of birthday cake stood caving into its crumbs. With the flat of her knife, Granny rapped his reaching fingers.

But here ran Miss Beulah, who set a plate in front of Brother Bethune and rained down on it a collection of chicken gizzards, clattering like china doorknobs. She forked onto the plate the last pickled peach, so heavy it would hardly roll. Brother Bethune gave a hoarse sound of appreciation.

“Did Brother Bethune forgive Jack?” Aunt Birdie asked.

“No, he didn’t. He was on the track, but he swerved,” said Uncle Curtis.

Mr. Renfro split open seven or eight more watermelons and passed them around. Each time, he gave a different girl the bursting red heart to drown her face in. Each time, giggling, the girl accepted it.

“Listen, I want to know something,” said Aunt Birdie. “If it wasn’t to make trouble for our boy today, why did you come along Banner Road at all? Judge Moody, will you tell me?”

“My presence in this end of the county has nothing to do with him or the rest of this crowd,” said Judge Moody. “I’m here on an errand of my own. I was doing my best to find a way across that river, that’s all.”

“But we didn’t want to get up on that bridge,” said Mrs. Moody.

“Shied at the bridge? Well, I don’t entirely blame you,” said Mr. Renfro.

“Why, of course they don’t want to cross that,” said Aunt Beck. “Neither do I. And I don’t.”

Miss Beulah said, “I reckon they must know the story.”

“No,” said Judge Moody warningly. “I just took a good look at it.”

“That bridge is a bone of contention between two sets of supervisors, now that’s one safe thing to say about it,” said Mr. Renfro. “It’s crossing the river between rival counties, you know. Boone on this side, Poindexter on the other.”

“There’s a sign hanging from the top saying ‘Cross at Own Risk,’ ” said Judge Moody.

“With a skull and crossbones on it,” said Mrs. Moody. “Do you argue with that?”

“And the same sign hangs for them on the other side,” said the unexpected deep voice of Uncle Nathan.

“Boone and Poindexter, each one of ’em owns that bridge as far out as the middle,” said Mr. Renfro. “Let something get the matter with it and the blame goes flying backwards and forwards, thick and fast. And that’s about the end of it.”

“I’d hate to hear the story,” said Mrs. Moody accusingly.

“Clyde Comfort had been out gigging frogs that night, and was just pulling in,” said Mr. Renfro, setting down his glass of lemonade. “And passing under the bridge in his boat, he chanced
to look up. And he seen the three-quarter moon shining at him just like the bridge wasn’t there. There’s been a great big bite taken out of the floor of that bridge on the Boone County side, right where it leaves the bank at Banner, and the moon’s peeping through at Clyde just like through a gap in the clouds. The first few rows of planks had give way and fell in, or somebody had carried ’em off out of meanness, nobody ever knew. If they’d been pitch pine, I wouldn’t have put it past Clyde Comfort himself to run off with ’em, to feed the fire in his boat,” he assured Judge Moody. “Well, while he sat there marvelling, he says, he heard a horse and buggy come tearing down the hill into Banner, lickety-split for the bridge. And it’s still dark. The pine-knots burning down in Clyde’s boat and the three-quarter moon in the sky, that’s all the light there was anywhere. And about that same time, Clyde out of the other eye saw him a big fat frog, the kind he was looking for all night, just setting there waiting on him. What was Clyde going to do, hop out and skin up that bank to holler to ’em when he didn’t know who—or not lose that frog? Well, he took the path of least resistance. Clyde liked to tell it longer than that, but that’s the substance.”

“Mr. Renfro, are you trying so hard to entertain Judge Moody that you’d give ’im that story from the other side?” cried Miss Beulah. “What that story is about is Mama and Papa Beecham being carried off young and at the same time, how that bridge flung ’em off and drowned ’em in that river one black morning when the Bywy was high, and afterwards being found wide apart.”

“Oh, at least I’ve heard that one,” protested Aunt Cleo.

“Our papa was a Methodist circuit rider, from over in Poindexter County,” Miss Beulah began. “And he circuited around here for the declared purpose of finding himself a wife. Clapped his eyes
one time
on Ellen Vaughn stepping out of her father’s church one pretty Sunday, and it was all over for Euclid Beecham.”