My Old True Love (20 page)

The only trouble was that Mary was my brother’s wife and to get to where that bullet was heading, it first had to go through him.

I
WAS PROUD TO
mark the end of summer that year and felt a slight easing in my heart when the first cool rain fell up toward the middle of September. For the first time since burying my girls, I really felt like I might live. I have never cared for the end of summer since and figure I will go to my grave that way.

Me and Mary put our heads together and our gardens as well. Thank God there was a bunch of apples and pears that year. We figured if we was
real
careful with a wing and a prayer and everybody going a little hungry, we might just have enough to make it through the winter.

We talked about where to put the crocks of food to keep them away from the soldiers that was in and out of Sodom in a constant stream, and Larkin come up with the best idea. He got a maddock and shovel and crawled way back under the house and hacked out a root cellar that you could not see until you was right on it. Me and Mary and the young’uns worked every day and night putting stuff up, and it was almost like old times. Carolina worried Larkin to death dancing on the floor over his head. The only way he could get her to quit was by singing to her, as she was as foolish over them old songs as he’d been, and she would quit with the stomping to listen. Them was some good old times.

We built a holding pen back in the woods for our cows. Mary said this would not work because the big cats would get them. I allowed I would rather the panthers kill and eat them than for them to be killed to feed a single solitary soldier. I was sick unto death of all them
foolish men that we now had to contend with. What the damn Home Guards weren’t ten-percenting, the damn Yankees was raiding, and what little was left, the deserters was plime-blank stealing. To give you an inkling of how it was with us, I will tell you this. Larkin spent one whole day harnessed like a mule to the sled with me and Mary loading it up with hay. We’d no more than got it off and put in the hayloft than the Home Guard come through and took most of it. All you Yankee lovers don’t need to get your drawers in too big a self-righteous wad, neither. Your fine boys in blue come through later that evening and took the damn sled itself.

Larkin had give up all thought of staying at home. He stayed a night or two at Mary’s just the two of them, and when that was made known to me I throwed three fits and a quare spell. I told them they would be too much talk and that I would not have it. I was trying my best to protect them and was glad when Julie come to stay. I guess my reasoning was that now at least folks might think he was took up with her and that was the better of the two evils, if they is such a thing.

T
HEY HAS NEVER BEEN
no love lost in me for them high-browed folks up in Asheville. They have always thought themselves above us and I have no use for such. That feeling was only shored up in October when that man that I named Little Shitting Colonel come riding up to Mary’s when her and Larkin was getting in the last of the squash. Larkin said they’d already been seen so they was no need to even try to hide the squash, so he picked up the full basket and went to meet them. They was five of them and all of them dressed up in their little Confederate uniforms like that made them God’s gift. Now, people, I want to tell you that some men is not kind nor decent
and they was looking one right in the face. He was the sort of man what is perfect cut out for this business of war and as far as I’m concerned, every last one of them needs to be consigned to the deepest, hottest hole in hell. And I hope they all wind up in that hole with their backs broke. I will not even say I am sorry for the wishing of such an awful thing.

When Larkin told them they was looking at what food that was left, Little Shitting Colonel blared his eyes and said that was not why they was there. He jerked some papers out of his pocket and sort of waved them at Mary and asked if she was the wife of Hack-ley Norton.

Well, Lord have mercy, of course poor little Mary’s mind went to the worst place and her knees buckled under her. She sort of leaned over against Larkin and he had to hold her up for a minute to keep her from falling. But then that chin come up and she stepped out to meet it head on, bless her little heart. “I am his wife,” she said. “Where was he killed?” Little Shitting Colonel said, “Oh, no, madam. Nothing quite so noble as that. He is a traitor, Mrs. Norton. I cannot tell you whether your cowardly husband lives or has been murdered by one of his fiendish friends. All I carry are the papers that identify him as a deserter from the army of the Confederate States of America as of September 23, 1862.” Can you believe that somebody would use that word
fiendish
? Well, that is them people from Asheville for you.

“Why, that’s been over a month,” Larkin said. “How come now is the first we heard of it?”

Little Shitting Colonel made this big show of looking off in the distance and sighing big and loud. I guess he was trying to be a big shot and make sure everybody knowed what a high opinion he had of hisself. “I’m certain the government has much better ways to
waste the time of its men without rushing about madly to notify the likes of you folks of the goings and comings of men like this here Hackley Norton.” As far as he was concerned, he said, it was good riddance to bad rubbish.

Then he must’ve took a good look at Larkin, because he asked why it was he had not been conscripted. Larkin answered him with the truth, which was that he’d just turned seventeen back in the summer. You can rest assured that this was not the first time that boy had answered that question. But this was the first time he’d been asked to prove it. Larkin allowed as to how he had no way of doing that except the saying of it and that he did not lie.

Little Shitting Colonel had rared back in the saddle and said he wished he had a ten-cent piece for every time he’d heard that little tale. Then with eyes as flat as a snake’s he’d asked for Larkin’s name and he got a ugly look on his face and his thin little lips got even thinner. I have always said you should not trust a man that has no lips. And then he said to the rest of them men, “What do you think, gentlemen? Is this hulking giant the child he claims to be? Or is he lying to us so he can remain about to diddle this pretty little trick here?” Larkin said if he’d had a gun that would have been one dead son of a bitch. But he did not, and then Little Shitting Colonel said, “I repeat, can you prove your age?”

Larkin said Julie hollering from the porch was all that kept him from getting into it with them men. All I can say is thank the Lord somebody was thinking on that day.

“I can prove it,” she said as she come off the porch and marched her little self right up to them. She was carrying a Bible in her arms and talking a mile a minute. Mary might have been the pretty one, but they was no flies on Julie Chandler. “This here is his granny’s
Bible,” she said in a big loud voice. “The date’s wrote down when she married and when all of her young’uns was borned. Larkin’s in here too,” and she went to giggling like a foolish girl, and it was so unlike her that Larkin said all him and Mary could do was stand there and stare. “Though Lord knows,” Julie went on, “Larkin couldn’t of been her young’un. Why, she’d a been way too old to of birthed a young’un by the time Larkin come along. See, his mommie died giving birth and his granny wrote his name right next to her daughter’s name. It was the durndest thing. When he was born they surely didn’t ’spect him to live, though you’d never know it now, would ye? He sure is a big ole thing, ain’t he?” She made a beeline for Larkin then and locked her fingers around his upper arm and went to batting her eyes at him and looking up at him like she was going to take a bite out of him. “And, why, you know what they done? His Aunt Nancy, I mean. I don’t think his granny was for it, or least ways I don’t think she was, course I couldn’t swear to it since I weren’t there. Anyhow, they let Hackley name him.” She giggled some more. “Bless his heart! Hack-ley’s, I mean. He weren’t but a young’un hisself and, why, he named Larkin after one of his mommie’s brother’s coonhounds.”

I still get tickled thinking about it. She might still be standing there talking that bunch of foolishness if Little Shitting Colonel hadn’t hollered out, “Silence!”

Them other men took to laughing and one of them muttered, “They God.”

Julie drawed a great wind as though she was going to start in again.

But the little man had heard enough. “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, child, be quiet! I am not interested in all this prattle!” He looked at the Bible she was holding up to him and give a snort and allowed he’d
take her word for it. He lost all interest in Larkin and turned back to Mary. “Mrs. Norton, I am here to officially inform you that your husband is considered by the Confederate States of America to be a criminal and as such may be shot on sight, arrested, and hanged, or placed in prison for the rest of his natural life. Many of these men try to return home. Should he do this, it is your duty to your country to persuade him to turn himself in, or you must take it upon yourself to notify the authorities. We will be patrolling this area and will continue searching for your husband. Do you understand what I’m saying, madam?”

Larkin said Mary’s back got stiffer and stiffer the longer he talked to where she was ramrod straight by the time he finished and her eyes was blazing mad. “I am not deaf, mister, and I understand ever word. Give me them papers.”

Little Shitting Colonel was right taken aback with our Mary. But he still managed to say he’d told her because he’d assumed she wouldn’t be able to read.

“Give me your damned papers. I can probably read better than you can.” And she grabbed them papers right out of his hand and then she said, “Now git your Rebel asses off my land!”

They left then but not before Little Shitting Colonel had ordered one of his men to take the squash. That aside, I got the biggest laugh when they all three come by the house that evening and told me that tale.

I had only one question for Julie. “Where in the world did you get Granny’s Bible?” And with a grin she said, “It weren’t your granny’s, it were Mary’s.”

It done my heart good to know that a proper-mouthed Little Shitting Colonel from the big fine town of Asheville could be outfoxed by a skinny little mountain girl.

Some things is just too rich for words.

A
S THE DAYS OF
that year came to an end, Sodom got buried under a big heavy quilt of the first snow. The Home Guard come through just every little whipstitch taking what it wanted, and looking for what was now a crowd of men what had deserted from the army. They was all kinds of God-awful stories being tossed about. This one I know was the truth because Clarissa told me herself.

She was at home with her little baby that was just setting up good when the Home Guard come riding up wanting to know where her husband Craven was. She knew he was hiding out somewheres but did not know the exact spot. They would not believe her and drug her out fighting like a wildcat the whole way and tied her to a tree. Then they set her baby boy in the doorway where she knowed if he fell over he would fall onto the big flat rock they used as a step and bust his brains out. When she still couldn’t tell them where Craven was, they rode off and left her tied to that tree. Who knows what would’ve happened if Little Bob hadn’t come along. He’d been blinded by the fever when just a boy, but he was able to follow the sound of that baby crying and then helped her get untied. Poor old Little Bob. He got bit by
a mad dog two years later and went mad hisself and died.

They was all manner of stories every bit as bad as Clarissa’s, but the worst one I ever heard was the one Pete McCoy told us one evening when Larkin, Mary, and Julie had come by the house and we’d fixed supper. It was way up in the evening and all my little ones was asleep except for Abigail and Carolina.

When Zeke’s old dog went to barking something fierce, Larkin got up and went to the door. Old Shag would defend his people like ringing a bell, and I was sort of surprised when he quit barking right off and went to whining like he did when he knowed you. You could have knocked me over with a feather when Larkin come leading Pete McCoy to the table.

“You’re a long way from home,” I said. “Surely to goodness you ain’t out hunting on such a night.” He was an old hunting buddy of Larkin and Hackley’s.

“Lord, Arty, I wished I was hunting. I hate to bother younse, but I need help.” The top of his head barely reached Larkin’s shoulder. “They’s been some trouble over on Shelton Laurel,” he said in a low-pitched voice.

“We’ve heard some of it.” I said. “Come in and eat.”

“I’m obliged. My belly’s been trying to eat my backbone all day.”

I ain’t never seen nobody eat like poor old Pete did that night.

After his second glass of buttermilk he closed his eyes and sort of slumped back in his chair. “Nothing never tasted better,” he said.

“What all has happened?” Mary said.

He opened his eyes and studied her. “They’s been a slaughter over home.”

“What do you mean a slaughter?” I said with a look at Abigail and Carolina. I made up my mind right then that they was old enough to hear it. They might have to face a like thing one of these days, and
this might help them ready for it.

Pete rubbed his eyes and then rested his forehead on one hand.

“We been having a hell of a time. Like everbody else I reckon. They’s a constant flow outen Tennessee. They’re having a worse time of it than us, if you can believe it.” He looked at me. “How did you manage when it come hog-killing time?”

“We never had no hog to kill, damn them stealing Yankees to hell.” I said.

“Oh.” Pete said. “Reckon that took care of that. Well, my crowd was in a bad way ’cause we never had no salt. Not even a good handful. Know now what scraping the bottom of the barrel means. Mommie had not only scraped the bottom of her salting barrel, she’d scraped the sides. But word come to us that they was hoards of salt being kept in Marshall. For the soldiers, see. Plenty of it just setting down there in a warehouse. So John Kirk talked up a salt raid. Big gang of us got together and headed toward Marshall. Wednesday—no, Thursday, two weeks ago, the eighth of January. Reason I remember the day was ’cause I remembered that was the name of a fiddle tune Hack used to play for frolics.” His face fell in grim lines. “But this weren’t no frolic, not a’tall. We crossed through the Tater Gap about midday. Stayed around down in Walnut Creek till dark laid down, then headed out. We made good time. We aimed to get a raft at Macintosh’s Ford and make our way down the river, get the salt, and head back.” He barked out a laugh. “Hell, weren’t no need of a raft. River was froze solid as a rock. We
walked
down the river on the ice to the warehouse. Why, hit were easy as pie. One old man guarding all that salt. He laid o’er quick, even told us they was a wagon hitched up and ready to go right outside. We took as much as we could pile on that wagon. Some of us was even carrying a sack or two. They was some other stuff we took, too, blankets, bales of cloth,
and so on. Then as we’s going out of Marshall some of the townpeople come out of their houses and started hollering at us. This feller what was named Peek, Captain Peek, dressed up in his uniform come out and hollered fer us to halt. Then all hell broke loose. Peek drawed his gun and fired, and John Kirk shot back and hit him in the right arm. They was a lot of hollering and screaming. Then this one man slapped Johnny Norton. You know Little Johnny. He rared back and hit that fellow right there in the road. Them folks scattered like a bunch of yeller dogs then.