The Coffin Quilt (14 page)

My brother Bill rushed onto the platform and started slashing Ellison, too. There was blood all over the place. I saw my brother Jim standing there watching, but he made no move to stop it.

From somewhere way behind me I heard Ma's voice praying.

Even though he was cut up like a hog on butchering day, Ellison landed Tolbert a blow on the head that knocked him flat. Tolbert lay still. Then Ellison grabbed up a piece of log from the end of the platform and raised it to dash Tolbert's brains out, but Pharmer stepped up with his Smith and Wesson and fired.

The shot echoed like the sound of God's fist. Everybody screamed, then got real quietlike. Tolbert bestirred himself, got up, and stood, real wobbly. Then Mary came and took him off the platform, just before Devil Anse
Hatfield stepped up and bent over his wounded brother. Devil Anse near went crazy then. He started shaking like he had the palsy, reached for his gun, and fired at Pharmer. He missed, and that made him even crazier. He cussed up a storm and grabbed Pharmer. But afore you know it, John Hatfield, who was a sheriff's officer just like Jim, grabbed Pharmer and arrested him.

"I'm a-takin' ye to the jail in Pikeville," he said.

Next thing you know, Tolbert broke away from Mary and came to stand with Pharmer.

"Where's t'other one?" John Hatfield asked. He directed his question at the crowd, but nobody answered.

My brother Jim then decided it was time to act. "I'm senior officer," he told Hatfield, "and I'll take 'em in hand."

But the Hatfield sheriff's man would have none of it. "Do ye think, Jim, that I'll turn McCoys over to you? Now where's t'other one?"

Then somebody was dragging my brother Bud over. "I didn't do anything," he was saying.

Bill came forward. "T'weren't Bud, it was me," he said. By now that Hatfield officer was so confused he couldn't have told a bear from a bobcat. He started in asking the crowd who did the knifing, Bill or Bud, while Jim stood there, grim and waiting.

But nobody knew. Bill and Bud looked too much alike. Some people allowed that it was Bud, so Officer Hatfield took Bud and left Bill standing there with his mouth open.

"I'm a-goin' along with you all," Jim said. Then my brothers Sam and Floyd said they were going, too.
Officer Hatfield looked like he had all he could handle. He didn't object.

"Pa McCoy, don't let them take them," Mary begged.

"No need to worry, Mary," he said. "No Kentucky jury will convict a McCoy for killing a Hatfield. And I'm a-ridin' into Pikeville now to get a lawyer."

He rode off. The crowd separated, mumbling and carrying pieces of the fight home with them, like the ham and chicken in their baskets. They would feed on it for a long time.

"It's not a jury or lawyers I'm worried about," Mary told me. "It's those darned fool Hatfields. They'll kill those three. Doesn't anybody know it?"

"Jim's with them," I reminded her.

She put her hand on my shoulder. "How would you like to come home with me tonight, Fanny?" she asked. "Keep me company, please."

I asked Ma and she said yes, so I went along with Mary. The sun was setting, but in the woods it was already dark with shadows as we hurried along with baby Cora. Mary wrung her hands and worried, and I comforted her. It would be all right, I said over and over, Jim was with them. But I knew it wasn't all right. I knew it true before we got to Mary's house.

'Cause there in the darkened woods, rushing around and hissing, I saw Yeller Thing.

I
COULDN'T RECOLLECT
the last time I saw him. Times there were I'd forgotten him, forgotten to look for him in the woods. I couldn't recollect the last time I'd bothered to make a cross in the dirt with my toe, spit in it, and make a good wish before I left the house.

I'd come to think of Yeller Thing as something from my childhood that I had outgrown. But there he was, slinking and stinking around us as we made our way to Mary and Tolbert's house. Greenish yellow and shining with some unearthly glow. Waiting for me. I could feel him looking at me even though I knew he only had holes where those eyes should be. I could feel the slimy breeze he made as he circled around me, breathing and waiting.

Mary didn't see him, of course. So I acted brave and clutched her hand, pretending I was giving her comfort and not that she was giving it to me.

***

N
EXT MORNING SHE
woke me at first light, bundled up baby Cora, and we walked to our house. "We'll have breakfast there," she said. She was scared. She needed kinfolk.

There was a strange yellow cast to the air that morning. Something brooded over our house. I felt chilled in the August heat and sat next to the stove in the kitchen.

Pa was still in Pikeville, getting a lawyer for the boys. He'd wait there with the lawyer, Ma said, for the boys to be delivered there today by the sheriff's officers.

Alifair served breakfast. A few times I caught her looking at Mary with something in her eyes I couldn't name. Like she knew things. Like Yeller Thing, I minded. Alifair had toned down some since her typhoid, but hate still brewed in her like the whiskey in Floyd's still. And she stirred it all the time, the way you're supposed to so it won't go bad.

I knew she still hated me, and I still hated her. But she hadn't held my head under the pump of late, though she still gave me the rough side of her tongue regular-like. I had the feeling that she was saving up all her hatred for one fine moment.

Calvin was outside with Bill, doing the chores. We all knew, I think, that Pa should have been home from Pikeville already, that Pharmer, Bud, and Tolbert should have been delivered safely there to the jail. Funny the things we talked about. A new dress Ma was making for Alifair, how much soap we needed to make for the winter. At one point Alifair dropped a knife and we all
jumped like a cannon went off. And Alifair got vexed with Ma for mumbling her prayers.

"There's a time for eating and a time for praying, Ma," she snapped. "Eat. You may need your strength."

Ma looked up as if she was disturbed from a dream. "What will I need my strength for?"

"Nothing," Alifair said. But she said it too quicklike. And again I felt that she knew something, that maybe her powers were working. "Nothing, Ma. Just pray if you want. I'm sorry."

Next thing we heard a horse ride up and everybody stopped eating. "Must be Pa," Ma said. And we all got up and went outside. It was not Pa. It was brother Jim. Calvin and Bill had come out of the barn and he was standing there talking to them real softlike. They turned and looked as the door slammed behind us. And nobody spoke for a minute. Jim looked abashed, like he'd just got caught stealing molasses candy.

"Tell me," Ma said.

I could see that if Jim had his druthers he'd have died first. "They been taken, Ma. Never got to Pikeville. About forty Hatfields rode up yesterday and took 'em off. Out-gunned us."

"Where?"

"West Virginny."

Mary gave a little scream and set down baby Cora. She started toward Jim, but Ma held her back. "Why West Virginny when this is a Kentucky fuss?"

"Devil Anse wants 'em in hand. Until he knows for sure that Ellison won't die."

"And if he dies?"

Jim shrugged. "T'weren't nothing we could do, Ma. Officer Hatfield didn't want to give 'em up any more than me or Sam or Floyd."

"So what do we do now?" Ma asked.

"I'm on my way," Jim said, "to get Pa. We'll round up some McCoys and go fetch 'em home from West Virginny."

"No!" Ma near shouted it. "No, Jim, it'll only mean killing. No more killing! The just man is glad in the Lord and takes refuge in Him."

"Ma," Jim said softly, "Psalms will be no help. It's men we need. McCoys with guns."

"If you go in with McCoys, they'll kill my boys!"

"If we don't go in they'll kill 'em anyways."

Another muffled moan from Mary.

"But others will fall!" Ma wailed. "Hasn't there been enough strife between us?"

"I don't care about others," Jim said. "I care about my brothers. I'm a-goin', Ma."

She ran to him. She grabbed his arm and turned him to face her. "No, Jim, wait. I beg you. Let me go!"

"You?"

"I'll go face down Devil Anse myself. I'll beg for my boys' lives. He won't hurt me."

"Ma, McCoys don't beg Hatfields for anything," Jim told her.

But she was already started back in the house. "You give me this chance, Jim. You promise me you'll wait until I've had this chance. I'm your own ma. You've got to heed me."

Jim was lost and he knew it.

"The Lord'll set a place for me at the table in the midst of my enemies," Ma said.

"I'll go with you, Ma," Jim said.

"No! No McCoy men and no guns. Just me and maybe Mary."

"Yes," Mary said, "yes. I'll go, Ma McCoy." She grabbed my arm. "And I'll bring baby Cora and Fanny. A delegation of women. How can old Devil Anse turn us down?"

***

L
OOKING BACK ON
it now, I see that I shouldn't have done it. I was old enough to know Ma was crazier than a hooty owl. I should have said no, I'm not going. Let Jim go get Pa. One of us should have had some sense. And I think if I'd said no, it would have made Mary stop and think, too. It was my place to say no. Ma was off somewhere, thinking of that place the Lord was going to set for her at the table in the midst of her enemies. Maybe already seeing that linen cloth and shiny silver. Mary only wanted to see Tolbert; baby Cora was too young. It was up to me and I went along with it. Because I was so honored to be asked. So glad to be part of it all. I sailed into the house, right past Alifair, who glared at me like she wanted to hold my head under the pump, and I made ready to go.

Baby Cora rode in front of me on the horse. I can still feel her warm sturdy little body against mine, hear the way she said, "Goin' to see Da Da." I think I shall always hear it.

At the Mate Creek Schoolhouse across the Tug,
Devil Anse greeted us like some ancient god, gray beard flowing, dressed in a black suit and hat. A perfect gentleman he was, helping Ma down from her horse, chucking Daby Cora under the chin, and explaining how he was just holding the boys until he could be sure Ellison wouldn't die.

"And if he does?" Ma asked.

"Then we'll escort 'em back to Kentucky, to the jail," he promised. "Just want to make sure they don't escape between now and then is all."

"Mr. Hatfield, don't you think it's time this foolishment stopped between our families?"

"Mrs. McCoy," he returned, "it never would have started if your Roseanna hadn't run off with my boy. It's what this grew out of."

There it was between us.

"I held off my Jim from rounding up McCoys. That shows my heart is in the right place."

"If McCoys attack, your boys would be the first ones dead."

"I'll keep my men away if you promise to keep my boys alive," Ma said.

"No," Mary put in. "No, Ma, please. Don't promise. And don't beg."

Ma told her to hush. And she picked up baby Cora herself and carried her into the schoolhouse, proud, like we were walking through the parted waters, me and Mary trailing behind. "My Roseanna paid for what she did," she told him. "Your boy don't seem to be suffering any."

M
Y BROTHER
C
ALVIN
was out back shooting at a hawk that had been plaguing our chickens all week. Every once in a while we'd hear a shot and everybody in the kitchen would jump.

"Fanny, go tell your brother to stop that shooting," Alifair ordered. "You'd think he'd have more sense. Ma is spooked. And he should have more respect for his brothers."

Alifair was in a fine fettle, like she always was when things got bad in our house. Trouble brought out the best in her. And we had it now, all right. The kitchen was full of neighbor women who'd brought food, like you always do at funerals. Alifair had been in charge since two days ago when Jim came and told us that my brothers were dead.

All three of them—Tolbert, Pharmer, and Bud—shot by Devil Anse and his men under the pawpaw trees on
the Kentucky side of the Tug, the day after we visited them at the Mate Creek Schoolhouse. After Devil Anse had promised Ma that he'd keep them alive. Shot in cold blood.

I saw their bodies when Jim and Calvin brought them home yesterday. I peeked into the parlor when Ro and Alifair and neighbor women were washing and dressing them.

They were full of bullet holes. I don't think I'll ever be able to go into our parlor again.

All I could think of was what Tolbert had said to Ma when Mary and I and baby Cora went with her into that schoolroom. The same thing Mary had said. "Don't beg for our lives, Ma. Don't ever beg a Hatfield. And don't ever believe what they tell you. Send for Pa."

Ma hadn't sent for Pa, who was still in Pikeville waiting for his boys to be delivered there by the sheriff's of ficers. She'd believed in the Lord setting places for my brothers in the midst of men armed with Spencer rifles. And now she was in the parlor with Tolbert's wife, Mary, little Cora, and Roseanna, saying, "I believed Devil Anse. I had his promise." Or allowing how God was going to welcome her boys into heaven. It was enough to make a person never want to pray again.

Today, the first day of September, was the funeral. Three fresh graves were dug high on a hill above the creekbed road. A secret place where they couldn't be found. I still couldn't believe my brothers were gone. Even though Yeller Thing had warned me.

Where did they go? To Ma's heaven? Would there be bees for Pharmer to tend there? Pheasants for Bud
to hunt? What would Tolbert do on this first day of September, with the air cooling and the woods calling?

I worked my way around to the back of the house, past clusters of men in Sunday suits and hats, some with gold watch chains dangling right next to their pistols. Others jawing, with rifles poised in one hand. Neighbors and McCoys. I didn't even know who all some of the McCoys were. But they raised their hats and mumbled condolences as I passed.

I nodded politely, feeling very grown up. I was wearing a new brown calico and a white apron. At nine, men raised their hats to you in these mountains. At fifteen or sixteen a girl wed. There was my sister Trinvilla talking with Will Thompson, the preacher's son, who'd been coming around courting her regular-like this summer. And she was fourteen, but a true woman already. I went down to the chicken coop, where Calvin was sitting under a tree, waiting for that hawk. He nodded curtly to me. I sat down. "Alifair said to stop shooting. It's spooking Ma."