The Orphan Mother (16 page)

A week before, Lizzie had taken a basket of bread and cheese out the door and crossed the woods to the fire. There was an old hickory log along the path some distance away from the fire pit, which was where Lizzie usually left the food wrapped in a clean towel. By some trick of the woods, the echo of their voices was clear as anything right there at the log, and she could hear them as plain as day. Every other night she just left the food and walked back, uninterested in the talk. But that night, the last night she saw Bill, something caused her to sit down on the log, beside the basket, and listen.

She heard pacing, shoes scraping and thumping on the hard-pack. She heard the bright ring of a jar—of whiskey, she thought—put down,
clink
, upon a rock. It took a moment for the sound of their voices to clarify.

“You goddamn will do what I tell you,” came Dixon's voice, rough with power but mannered. “I tell you I have it all handled.”

“Said that before, didn't you?” Lizzie thought this was the voice of Aaron Haynes, who lived over near Hillsboro.

“Gonna be a big payday for all of us,” Dixon said. It sounded as if he'd said the phrase several times already.

“For you, you mean,” came another voice, shriller. “You just want us to do the dirty work.”

“Ain't that dirty.”

“The Army is coming back,” said Haynes. “They catch us—”

“Why would they even think of looking?” Dixon said. “Just keep doing what you're doing. Get the land.”

“Those people don't want to sell. Poor niggers never had a place of their own.”

“I'm sick of repeating this to you,” Dixon went on. “Just do what I tell you. Scare the hell out of 'em. You know how to do that, at least.”

“Don't see you out there scaring hell out of 'em.”

“I'm the one who's going to make you rich,” Dixon said. “Got to stay above all that. Stick with me and you'll be fine.”

They began to move, and Lizzie understood at least one of them was coming her way. She whipped around, nearly tripping on a pea vine, and ran—leapt—back to the cabin. Then she stood in the doorway as if nothing had happened.

When Bill at last came through the door and sat down at the kitchen table, he seemed much smaller than he had ever seemed before. The next day he left for a three-day logging trip, and was three days past due. She took this as a sign she should leave.

“I don't want that blood money, if there even is any,” Lizzie told Mariah now. “Ain't my business, and I don't want no part in it. I'm going to New Orleans, I'm going up in this world. All this place soon be dead and past to me. But I ain't been able to take my eyes off this little girl here. She everything, Lucy is, and this weren't something I knowed would happen to me, and now I wonder what any woman, even a Negro woman, thinks when she loses a child. And I owe you something at least, which I don't like but that's the damned truth. So I don't know if it help to know this, but I know your boy were killed by them men and my husband. They meant to do it, it weren't no accident or high spirits. They set out to kill themselves a nigger. Mr. Dixon was their puppet master, making them dance and do what he wanted them to do. Bill laughed about killing your boy, said that was one thing Dixon hadn't planned. But Bill is a stupid man. I myself know what happens when you send weasels into a chicken house. What happens ain't no surprise.”

She took a breath, stood up, walked over to Lucy, and took her up in her arms.

All the air in the house seemed to vanish. Mariah slipped through the door and out toward the path that would take her far away. Lizzie stood on the threshold looking after her, Lucy nuzzling at her bosom.

Now Mariah knew them. If she didn't know all their names, she knew where they walked and what they said to each other. She knew she could find them and touch them. And, most shocking of all, she had names: Elijah Dixon, Aaron Haynes. She had known Dixon was meeting with the big men from Nashville, but she had not known he was one of the brutes who yanked the life from her son.

“I should have strangled your child, Elijah Dixon,” she whispered to herself, and this thought so shocked and nauseated her that she had to stop by the side of the road and wait to be sick. When the waves of nausea passed, she continued on.
Just a baby
, she told herself over and over again as she walked. She vowed she would take no revenge upon babies, but men were another matter.

July 23, 1867

From the beginning, Tole and Hooper worked, or Tole went out to Carnton to help the women with their cemetery and around the house. But some days he had to himself, and on those days he went to the woods in the pockets of wildness that still ringed Franklin here and there. He came to know the wildflowers and to know how certain of the animal tracks—deer and raccoon, the smeared trail of the beaver—would lead him to water. He knew to avoid the understory of cedars and redbuds in the early spring, lest he find himself crawling with the inchworms suspended down on their tiny strings in curtains of the lower air's own green stars. This was hard-won knowledge of ordinary things.

On occasion, while he was working in the yard at Carnton, he liked to take small breaks, wipe the sweat from his brow, and watch the lady of the house, Carrie McGavock, step out the side of the house near the kitchen and take a few puffs of tobacco from an old pipe. The smoke curled around her head and she periodically waved it away from her face like she was shooing horseflies. Tole imagined she thought no one could see her taking respite from her well-known occupation of public mourning over in the cemetery, and for this he liked her better. Down the creek from Carnton he sometimes watched the Negro tenant Caruthers family on their new share stake, and the big Caruthers boys tearing around field and wood, sometimes tossing each other over the end of the porch and rolling down the hill.

Most often, however, Tole joined Hooper on his rounds. They chopped wood, made deliveries, and collected junk that could be fixed and sold in the Bucket. Why the people called Hooper “the ragman” was a mystery to Tole; he saw not one rag in all that time. Hooper collected old dresses, too, and perhaps that's what people meant by rags: the old dresses of white ladies, torn and stained, which he would bring back to sell at April and May's place, or to the market. He hardly ever had success selling those dresses, Tole noticed. Black women walked right on by. “But this fit you!” Hooper would call out after another who had passed them by in the market, nose in the air. Tole would look over then and Hooper would be smiling. It was a joke Hooper kept running, it was something that amused him. Days later they'd burn the dresses. Lace burnt quick and bright, crinoline smoldered.

Another thing Tole noticed: Negroes were always stopping Hooper to take him aside to ask him questions, or to beg for some advice, or to whisper something in his ear. Every day Tole watched Hooper baptize himself in the Harpeth in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, which in Tole's book made the ragman crazy, but nevertheless the black people of Franklin treated him as a wise man. It took some time before Tole understood.

Hardly a single white person ever noticed Hooper when he walked in the back through their kitchens to talk with cooks and maids about firewood and junk. They just kept carrying on their conversations—in their sitting rooms and hallways, in their libraries and dining rooms—as if Hooper weren't standing right there, hands in his pockets, trying to figure out how to carry a desk with a broken leg out through the door and kitchen to the cart. But by God, if Tole walked in to help him lift the desk, all conversation stopped and all eyes turned to him. Men put down their forks and stared at him. He and Hooper would carry the desk out, and as they passed through the kitchen he would hear the white talk begin again.

“You a strange nigger, thasall,” Hooper said once, as they pulled away with a full load. “They notice you. ‘Who the hell is this one?' they say. ‘Don't know him. What he want? Which people his?' They keep quiet. Strange niggers scare 'em. There wasn't never no strange niggers before. Back before, if there was a strange nigger walking through the town, he be locked up quick and they try to figure where he come from and who he got to be returned to. This ain't New York City. A black man don't just appear.

“But, if you not a strange black man, if you a black man they known since they were little and got used to ignoring, well”—Hooper smiled—“you hear a lot. They say any damned thing in front of you. When you young that make you mad. When you young and you strong and you stupid, you hate it and you want to fight it, you want to say, ‘I'm standing here, missus.' But when you get old and you can see the long stretch of time, you see what you got: a gift they don't even know they made to you. And so you keep even quieter and let them talk.”

Tole began hanging back in the kitchens so as not to disturb the delicate balance of known and unknowns, so that Hooper and the black ladies who worked in those big houses could go about their business like ghosts and the white people could keep talking. And they talked. Tole began to notice how, when they were done, Hooper would take a cup of water from the cook or the nurse, and they would stand close talking low for a few minutes, and then Hooper would stomp out of the house whistling.

The realization of what Hooper was came all at once to Tole, so fast he laughed out loud while they were driving away from a big house one day. “You the town gossip.” He poked Hooper in the chest.

“I hate towns,” Hooper said. But he didn't deny it. “There ain't a thing them black ladies don't know about them they work for, and there ain't a one of them black ladies I don't see every week.”

It was true. Through Hooper, over time Tole met the whole network of maids and cooks and nurses of Franklin, the whole network of Hooper's informers. He came to have knowledge of white men who drank too much, who cheated at cards. This wasn't knowledge for mere amusement, Tole realized. Hooper believed white people needed watching. Most of the time the news was exactly like gossip, the whos and whats and whens of white folks. Sometimes the gossip was good to a white man or woman, someone who was kind or generous, and Tole noticed that such news gave Hooper pause to recalibrate the system of relations he had been mapping for many years. But most men, white and black, never did much on principle, never acted crosswise with the crowd. Hooper—and Tole, for that matter, now that he thought about it—didn't care what was in a white man's heart or what he said; he cared about what a white man did.

Hooper sat up straight in his cart, as if he were in command of all he surveyed, and when they drove the mule down this street or that, he tipped his hat to the people and the Negroes tipped their hats back.

Tole admired the operation Hooper had going. It made him laugh at the misplaced confidence of white people. But he had his own ways of keeping track of such men, especially those who snuck around meeting in smokehouses and sheds and plotting their little revolutions.

July 23, 1867

The day after she met Lizzie, Mariah went to Franklin to deliver a beautiful baby girl—seven pounds, six ounces—soon born, named Annabelle Rose, and latched on to the mother's breast. Dusk was falling by the time Mariah washed herself and decided to stop by the Thirsty Bird Saloon for a visit with April and May.

Inside, the saloon was lively with chatter and laugher. In the corner, a young Negro boy, no older than thirteen, sat and banged rhythmically on a bass drum; beside him a heavy black woman with a long braid down her back played the clarinet. Eben Payne and his mother, Eloise. Mariah had birthed Eben. She and Eloise nodded to one another, but Eloise did not stop playing.

April was behind the bar, pouring drinks, chatting to customers. At a corner table, Mariah saw familiar faces: Hooper, May, and, surprisingly, George Tole.

“Mariah, come on over!” May hollered over the noise and chatter.

Tole stood up, stumbled backward toward the wall, and offered Mariah his chair.

“I don't mind standing, Mr. Tole.”

“Please sit,” he said, and Mariah did. Tole pulled another stool over and sat beside her.

When Tole stood up, Mariah noticed the shoes he was wearing. “Your boots,” she said.

Tole looked down.

“Those the shoes my boy made.”

“It was my idea,” Hooper said.

Mariah smiled. “They look a little handsome on you.”

“What brings you out this way?” May asked.

“I need reasons for visiting friends now?”

“'Course not. Except I know you and I know you ain't jus' come all this way to see little old me.”

“Old is right,” Mariah said.

“Don't you go runnin' that lip now,” May said.

Hooper leaned over to Tole. “I seen these two go at it a time or two. You don't want nothing to do with it. They scare even the toughest men.”

“I believe it,” Tole said, before asking Mariah if she would like a drink.

“I'm fine, Mr. Tole.”

Tole nodded and gestured for April behind the bar to bring him another. Hooper and May shared a look.

“So Mariah. What brings you out here?” Hooper asked this time.

“Baby come. Ashby house over off Walnut,” she said. Tole glanced over at her, mesmerized. “Pretty little thing,” she said. “Her little palm barely fit around my finger.”

Tole finished his drink too quickly.

“You all right there?” Hooper asked him. “Maybe you need to go sleep it off?”

Tole nodded without speaking.

“You need some help getting home?” Hooper asked.

“I manage.”

Tole looked at Mariah. “It's a pleasure hearing your stories about bringing babies into the world. See you back at the McGavocks'.”

“You will, Mr. Tole.” Mariah looked at him, worried.

Tole stumbled out of the bar, grabbing hold of barstools scattered about and finally reaching the door, before slipping out and stumbling his way out of sight. Mariah caught herself staring too long after he had gone and broke her gaze to look back at Hooper and May.

“What's goin' on between you two?” May asked.

“What do you mean?” Mariah snapped.

“You spending a lot of time with him.”

“He helps out around Carnton.”

“And?”

“And what? And not a damned thing.”

“Oh come on, Mariah. You hear the way the man talks about you.”

“We ain't children, May.”

“Trust me, I know it.”

“We just friends.”

“You fancy that man!” May said, teasing her. “Mariah got her a man.”

“You stop that. Actin' like a damn fool.”

May's face turned serious. “It's okay if you do.”

“It ain't like that, okay? I just buried my son. I ain't about to go start up some romance with a stranger. George Tole and I get on just fine. But it ain't more than that, and I'll cut that nonsense out your mouth if I hear it again.”

Where had this rage come from, flooding over her out of nowhere and leaving just as quickly? She asked May if she could have a sip of her water, and May nodded.

“Only having fun,” Hooper said.

“Y'all watching me. That's what this is about.”

“Yes,” May said. “We worried about you. You just lost your boy, and nobody gone say nothing if you enjoy a man's company.”

“Would that be so terrible?”

“Not at all. We just not sure about him, is all.”

“You not sure about Tole? Somethin' I should know?”

“You already know,” Hooper said. “He likes that drink too much.”

“Says the man sellin' it to him. I gonna remember that one, Hooper.”

“He a drunk,” May said. “And who knows what he saw during the war, Mariah. Men like him ain't all put together right.”

“I do,” Mariah said, coming to Tole's defense. “I know what he's seen and I know where he's been. I know why he drinks, and if I'm the only person who understands, then so be it. He might be all those things you say about him, but that ain't
all
he is.”

“We wasn't trying to—”

“Oh hush,” Mariah said, interrupting. “I know what you was trying to do.”

“He the saddest and angriest man I know,” May said. She was not afraid of Mariah, not like the rest.

“Well, I'm sad and angry, too, May. Maybe that's what I like about him.”

May placed her hand on top of Mariah's. “You do what you do and I'll shut my mouth.”

Mariah left the Thirsty Bird an hour or so later, after full dark. The air was sweet and cool against her face. She turned the corner onto Main Street and caught sight of Elijah Dixon ahead. She thought about avoiding him, but he seemed unavoidable, like an avalanche.

When they drew abreast, Dixon stopped her. “Mrs. Reddick,” he said. “I had hoped the next time I saw you would be as joyous an occasion as the last.”

The last time Dixon had spoken to Mariah, she had handed him his new baby boy. Now she said nothing, just looked him up and down in his fine seersucker suit.

“I suppose it's the tragedies in life that bring people together more often than not,” Dixon said.

“Or chops them apart,” Mariah said.

Dixon looked shocked to hear her speak so directly. “I suppose that's true.”

“Please excuse me, sir—”

“Heard about your boy,” Dixon went on.

“Yes sir.” He would never know how close he was to being strangled to death right there.

“So very sorry. A real tragedy.”

Mariah said nothing.

“I knew your son, Theopolis. Did you know that?”

“Oh yes, he spoke very highly of you, Mr. Dixon.” She had never spoken to Theopolis about Dixon. Her loathing for him was like acid inside her.

“I am certain we will find the evildoer who did this,” he said.

She could feel her fingernails biting into her palms. “Yes sir,” she said.

“We must also be careful not to rush to conclusions lest an innocent be strung up.”

“Wouldn't want no innocents to be strung up,” Mariah repeated, thinking of innocent little Augusten and his other four children, innocently playing in their beautiful house with their innocent servants and their clean carpets and innocent regular meals. She trembled with rage and was glad it was too dark for him to see it.

“Can't have the town getting it all wrong,” he said. “Can't put the crime on a man who ain't done it, I'm sure you understand. It's a damn terrible thing, no mistake about that, but these things take time to sort out and make right. Got to make it right and got to start not making it wrong. Patience, child, patience. Go to church and pray.”

“Oh yes, Mr. Dixon, thank you, sir.”

He frowned, not being a dumb man. Was she mocking him? A former slave, albeit a midwife, mocking the magistrate? Surely not.

Men across the street called to him. He flapped his hand at them like he wanted them to shut up and expected them to shut up when he said so.

The men went into the tobacconist. Dixon paused as if he had just forgotten something that needed to be said. He cocked his head at his feet, inserted his left hand into his waistcoat, cocked his head the other way. Mariah wanted so desperately to get home that she nearly ran. But she stayed, her freedom a relative concept.

“Your son was…” Dixon began, but let it trail away. He opened his mouth and shut it tightly again. His mustache danced, flecks of tobacco in it. “The smallest things have a way of turning into the biggest things of all. Have you noticed that?”

He turned and crossed the street before she could answer.

She refused to stare after him, so she stared at the ground in front of her, a few dandelion leaves poking out from a crevice in the dirt.
The biggest things of all.

She would not let Elijah Dixon breathe this air that had filled her son's lungs, that had touched his arms and cooled his sweat as he bent, exhausted, in front of a cobbler's bench. She might be a Negro and she might be a woman, she might be a former slave, she might have belonged to someone like a spoon or a vegetable peeler or a shoelace, but sometimes—as he said—the smallest things have a way of turning into the biggest things of all.

Yes. She had noticed.