My Old True Love (15 page)

He was right. This was only one of many things that happened to us here in this part of the world during that damn war. They was so many bad things that took place here that we come to be called Bloody Madison. And oh, God, it were a bloody place even after the damn war. The sheriff’s family brought charges against Charles Tweed’s family and they fought it out in the courthouse years later. That always seemed funny to me since the sheriff was dead and so was Charles. He got killed up in Kentucky when he was up there fighting. As a matter of fact he went down right beside Zeke. And God forgive me, but all I can say is if a bullet had to take somebody on that day I am glad it was not Zeke.

In case you’re interested the vote that day in Marshall went 28 for leaving out and 144 for staying in. I reckon I do not need to tell you that Daddy and Zeke was two of that 144. I reckon I do need to tell you that if us women had been able to cast a vote they would have had to rewrote that ballot. It would have had to read For, Against, and No War A’tall. Do I need to tell you where Arty would have put her
X
? No, I did not think so.

T
HE WAR COME RIDING
in for us on the hot breath of an early summer and the men went pouring out of Sodom like water through a sieve.

Mary’s daddy Andrew and her brother Andy rode off for Asheville the day after we caught wind that North Carolina was leaving the Union. Fools went with big grins and shooting off their guns. They went to join up with the South and Zeke never said a word as we stood on the porch and watched them go.

He did say something when his brother Shadrack went with the same intent a week later. He said, “Well, there goes my brother, Arty,” and his voice broke at the end. I would not say nothing. I did not care which way Shadrack Wallin went. For somebody who had not spent much time worrying in the past I was making up for it now. The worry that laid in my breast was much bigger than the baby I was five months gone with.

My own brother Robert left and never even told Mommie he was going. Oh, how that broke her heart.

Mary’s other brother Jonah that was Hackley’s friend went one evening and nobody never heard from him again. Poor Lucindy. She lost all of her boys in that damn war and was not worth killing from then on. She died when she were fifty-four, an old wore-out woman.

You could hear Big John Stanton’s ax thwacking for a solid week. He split more wood than I have ever seen in my life before he rode off. Daisy noted it down in her Bible:
this 6th day of July 1861 is one on which my pur hart has brok. John has gone to the war.

I
KNEW IT WOULD
come home to roost with me as well, and I vowed to myself that I would not throw a big fit when it come. I spent a lot of time hiding around from Zeke so he would not know
how much I was crying. I swear I was just like a young’un apt to go to crying at the least little thing anyway. But this was like I was standing under a big hammer just waiting for it to fall right on my head. And even though I had tried to ready myself for the blow, when it finally fell on me it almost drove me to my knees.

I was out on the porch trying to catch a breeze when he come up behind me. The young’uns were asleep and it was so peaceful and quiet except for the sound of the night bugs out in the trees. My name come from him on a sigh and all the hair stood up on the back of my neck at the word. “Arty,” he said and that was all. But I knew what it meant. The child within me gave a great knock and was still. I laid my hand over my belly and it seemed like we stayed like we was for a long time. Finally I said, “Well, tell me what to fix for you to take with you,” and he told me later that night as we was laying next to each other in our bed that he had never loved me more than he did right then.

But I did not cry.

The next day he plowed the upper field and all of us went to planting late corn. I kept looking at him wanting to fill my sight with him standing there stripped to the waist and his lean body glowing with sweat. John Wesley, Carolina, and Abigail was out with me covering the last hills. Sylvaney, Ingabo, and Zeke Jr. was playing out under the big poplar at the edge of the field.

“Sylvaney, honey, go get us a bucket of water,” he called out and her little head popped up and she was off toward the house at a run. I watched her go and thought again how much she favored me. That is one thing I will have to admit about me and Zeke. We had the prettiest young’uns. And of the whole bunch Carolina was the only one dark like the Wallins.

I looked back at Zeke and found his eyes on me. They was as purple as the lilacs that bloomed down by the house. I felt the tears starting and got really busy covering up that corn.

When I looked back at him he had turned and the plow point was parting the dirt digging a straight dark furrow that looked like water streaming out behind him.

I
T WAS IN THE
cool dark of the next morning that I grabbed onto him as like to never let him go. I kissed his face all over and his breath smelled like biscuits and gravy. I put my face into the hollow of his throat, but I did not cry. “Don’t worry about John Wesley running off. He done that so you would not see him cry,” I said, and the face I offered to him was as dry as dust. “How’ll you manage?” And his eyes seemed like they was digging around inside of me trying to see my very heart. “Hush,” I said and put my palm flat against his mouth. “Don’t say no more. If you’re going, go on. Larkin said he’ll help me and he will. Now go on.” I nodded out toward the road where Hugh set his horse. His fingers dug into my arm and he said, “I love you, Arty.” I thought then I was going to break down, but I did not. “I know that,” I said. “And I never have knowed love with nobody but you.” And I tried one more time to memorize his face by the light of the stars. “Don’t be no hero, Zeke,” I said. And he said “I ain’t no hero, Arty,” and then he pulled away from me and a space ain’t never been as empty as the one he stepped out of. He got up on his horse and I started to turn back toward the house. I could not stand to look at him anymore, and I balled my hands into fists and went almost running. And then I thought, “Arty, you cannot let him go like this,” and I made myself stop and watched him go until I couldn’t make out his shape anymore.

Then I cried and them tears I had been so stingy with come in such a flood that I thought I would surely drown.

O
N THE DAY
P
EARL
was born I was as restless and cagey as an old sow bear. I had gone up on the ridge above the house and was allowing my eyes to feast on the colors of that fall to see if that would calm me down. I loved watching the change come on and my eyes picked out the red maples that were always the first to change. On down the slope was the deep gold of the striped maples and the bright orange of the sugars. Mixed all in was the bloodred of the dogwoods. And way up on the very top of the ridges was the soft yellow of the chestnuts. It was almost as though the mountains knowed somehow of what hardships was waiting for us and was trying to put on a big show now. I leaned down to pick up a chestnut burr and the pain grabbed me low in my back. You can just imagine what I thought when I went to straighten up and could not do it. I knew right then that this baby was going to come and come quick. I hollered for John Wesley and he come running with his eyes big as saucers. It is a good thing he come fast as he did, for if he had not I would have had her right out on the mountain. I just barely got back to the house and she was born. Let me tell you, this is surely the way to have a young’un. Abigail was all that was there to help me and all she really did was catch her when she come out. And as I looked at her little round head covered up with all that black hair, I thought, “Well, they will be no doubt as to who daddied this one, Lige Blackett, thank you very much,” because it was just like looking at a little bitty Zeke Wallin.

But Lige Blackett never got to see my precious Pearl. He fell dead as a doorknob two weeks later.

Larkin and Hackley had been all day stripping cane when Julie run
to get them. Hackley wanted to have a molasses making which as usual was just him an excuse for a big drinking and a frolic. But I must say since he’d mentioned it my mouth had been pouring water at the thought of a big mess of ’lasses. They was nothing better in the winter time than a chunk of cornbread smothered in butter and warm ’lasses.

They was hot and quarreling like two old women when they stopped by the house on their way down to the Blacketts’. Larkin had been stung by a hornet and Hackley was giving him down the road about it. “You still favoring that sweat bee sting, Larkin?” he said. And Larkin said, “Sweat bee, hell, it was big as a damn crow.” I fed them and sent them on their way and was glad to see the back of them.

Pearl started to fret and I picked her up and held her while she nursed. She was a good baby and had kept that big thick mat of hair. I smiled at the little bows Abigail had tied all through it and kissed the top of her head. They is nothing in this world that makes your heart go all peaceful like kissing the downy top of your young’un’s head. I was not even sore these two weeks after her birth. I reckon what your body has done six times before it has no trouble remembering on the seventh time around. And I was glad of it.

I fixed a big pot of stewed taters to take to the setting up and by the time I got over there the house was standing full. My young’uns scattered and Mary met me on the porch but her eyes were all on Pearl. She took her and I could see the want on her face like somebody had painted
I want me one, too
on it. I went on in the house to speak to the family, and who should I see but Andrew Chandler big as you please standing right by the cooling board where they had Lige already laid out.

“Why, howdy, Arty,” he said. And I howdied him right back. It was no secret that my man and Hugh was fighting for the Union. And they was no secret that the Chandlers had casted their lot with the South. But we was still neighbors, and through Mary we was family. I could be as polite as the next one. I had nothing to say when Shadrack come slinking around like the yeller dog that he was, though. As far as I was concerned, he was not family for all that he was Zeke’s brother.

Late up in the night Andrew cornered Hackley and set in on him about when he was going to join up. “Ride back with me tomorrow morning. I’ll get you in without a bit of trouble.”

“I ain’t about to go off and leave Mary till I have to,” Hackley said.

“They’s some of us around here starting to wonder who’s going to look about our own.”

I could tell by how red Andrew’s face was that he was getting mad.

“That’s what I mean. I can get you in with them that’s staying around here.”

And I could tell Hackley was getting hot, too. “I ain’t leaving Mary till I have to.”

“You sure it’s not that now everybody’s leaving you’d hate to give up being the only rooster in the henhouse?”

It went quiet as a tomb in that house, and Hackley sounded sort of strangled-like when he said “You accusing me of something?”

And I thought,
Andrew Chandler, you better hush right now or you will have my brother to kill.

Thank God for cooler heads, because Sol Bullman stepped right in between them and said, “Why, Hack, Andrew, what is the matter with younse? Acting like two little boys, I say. And us here trying to bury poor old Lige. It always proves an amazement to me how you
never know when the angel of death is going to come swooping out of the sky and cut you down.” He looked from one to the other.

And you know me. I piped right in with, “Why, what are you talking about, Sol? Lige was ninety year old.”

Andrew popped a shaking finger right under Hackley’s nose and said big and loud, “You mark my words, Hackley Norton. Time’s coming when you won’t be able to set on your fence. You’ll have to jump one way or the other. So you ought to decide whether you are with us or against us.”

“Why, I reckon I’ll ride that fence for now. I’m for me and mine, and if you need reminding, mine just happens to be yours, too!” Hackley said, and his voice was just as big and loud.

Andrew flipped the back of his hand at Hack and went on out the door. And I was even gladder to see the back of him.

Sometimes, especially if the person is old, a setting up can be right jolly, but this one was not. It seemed like them harsh words that had been flung back and forth cast a pall over everybody and it was a quiet night spent round poor old Lige. As we was walking home the next morning a big wind come up and it turned off cold. I told Abigail that it was blowing straight out of the north and she said, “Ain’t that where Daddy is?” I could not even answer her.

When I went to bed that night the wind had laid down and I knew they would be a big frost come morning. I laid there listening to my young’uns sleep and my eyes just poured water that I could not let leak when they were awake. I missed Zeke so bad that I finally scooched up next to Pearl and held on to what felt like all I had in this world left of him.

It looked like it had snowed the next morning and I had to break a rim of ice to get water from the spring.

We buried Lige that day and I had never seen a bluer sky in all my life.

W
E LET OURSELVES BE
lulled along that fall. I must say that there is a certain peace in knowing that nature will move things in the direction they’ve been going for generation after generation. For me they was comfort in knowing that I went along doing the very same things that Mommie had done and that Granny had done before her and so on. The war was still roaring all around us but there in Sodom it was still out of our sight, and as they say, out of sight, out of mind. You couldn’t help but notice it when we all got together for a frolic since they was no men to dance with and us women would dance together with one of us taking the man part. I will have to say it was not near as much fun, but Hackley made sure the music was good even though Lum was gone off to the fight.

When we killed our hog it was up to me and Larkin to do the biggest of the work. Bless his heart, he stayed all night with me and we ground sausage till almost daylight. I told him I’d come help cut cane when it was ready, and he said that would be good and if the frosts held true they would be cutting it in a week.