Shadow Country (78 page)

Alone on the highroad in the leaden light, I knew my life had lost its purchase. Like a dark bird disappearing over distant woods, the future had flown away into the past. I hurried onward. I longed to run, and run and run and run, all the way home, but burdened with my father's heavy musket, I soon slowed, unable to run further.

TAP

A hard wind searched through roadside trees, cracking cold limbs. Over the rushing of blown leaves, fragments of voice commanded me to halt. When I whirled to defend myself, the rifle's weight swung me off balance. I fell hard on the frozen road.

A hard-veined black hand set down a water bucket and retrieved the fallen musket as I groped for it. When I clambered to my knees, Tap Watson backed away a little, brushing earth off the barrel, checking the load. “What you doin wit yo' daddy's shootin arn? What you runnin from? What's dem tears fo'?” The old man squinted in the direction of the ruin. “You knowin somethin 'bout dat shootin over yonder? Las' evenin, and again dis mornin?”

I shook my head, reaching out to take the gun. “None of your business, Tap.”

“Oh Lawd, Mist' Edguh.” He took his hat off, bent his head, but would not return the gun. “O Lawdy Lawdy!” Tears shone on his cheekbones, which looked like dark wet wood in the cold sunrise. “Been leavin dese few greens in dat place over yonder. You folks needin any?” He tossed his nearlimp croker sack against my chest. Astonished, I made no attempt to catch it. It flopped onto the frozen dust between us.

Tap raised the musket, waving the muzzle in the direction of the ruin. “We's goin back up yonder. Got to look.”

“You threatening me, Tap?” I picked up the sack he had dared toss at my chest.

“Nosuh. I b'lieve you is threatin me, Mist' Edguh.” He waved the gun again. “Get on now. I gots to tell dem at de Co't House. Gunfire late last evenin, den another shot dis mornin. Gots to tell 'em how I seen dis boy Mist' Edguh Watson runnin off from dere just now totin his daddy's shootin iron, which his daddy ain't allowed to haves back in de firs' place.”

I went ahead of him up the red road. “A black man's word won't mean much against mine. Just get you in bad trouble, Tap.”

“Barrel still warm, Mist' Edguh. Sposin I telled 'em dat?”

“It won't be warm by the time you get there. Anyway, it's very dangerous, messing into white men's business.” No answer came, only a slowing of the scuff of boots on the frozen clay. What would the Regulators do to any nigger who raised a weapon to a white man? I asked next. A nigger who slung greens at that white man's chest like he would toss slops to a hog? And threatened to report him to the bluecoats? If Major Coulter got wind of this, Tap Watson would be a stone dead nigger before nightfall.

But of course Tap's story would be told before the Regulators could shut him up. A loyal nigra, a “good home nigger,” a church deacon swearing on the Bible—who would doubt him? Who would believe Ring-Eye's stinky son even if he told the truth, that a traitor long ago given up for dead had been caught stealing from his trapline? That Colonel Robert Briggs Watson's nephew had only gone to get his rabbit back, taking a weapon in case the thief attacked, finding instead the traitor Tilghman, wounded mortally the night before. He had grabbed the gun barrel and the old gun went off. It was an accident.

Wounded mortally? Hold on right there, boy! How you figger it was mortal? You a doctor, boy? Wounded by who? You'd best get your story straight, young feller!

Colonel Robert would deliver a harsh judgment. Was a pilfered rabbit reason enough to kill a starving kinsman? An Edgefieldian, a Confederate officer, a battle hero? Colonel Robert would call it murder.

Oh, I warned you!
—I could hear Aunt Sophia now. At Clouds Creek, those “sky-crazed Celts” (Cousin Selden's term) were sure to seize on this excuse to cast out Ring-Eye's lineage for good. In the imminence of such injustice came a pounding ache so violent and a vertigo so sudden that I never even realized I was falling.

A black face inset in the gray heavens, mouth working without sound. Darkness came and darkness went. Jack Watson awakened, in grim humor. Panic had given way to a resolve as clear as that still point when, with the wind's dying, the shattered moonlight on the surface of rough water regathers its shards into one bright gleaming blade. How terrible that blade. How pure and simple.

No one lived near. I rolled up onto my feet so easily and swiftly that the black man stepped back in alarm. Leading the only witness back into Deepwood, I felt strength surge into my step, and every breath renewed me with wild power. I even teased Tap over my shoulder. Hadn't he only wanted me along because black folks were scared to be alone with corpses? With his contempt for darkie superstitions, Tap would normally be caustic in response. Today he remained silent, and when I turned, he stopped short in the road, then relinquished the musket.

“Dis sho'ly ain't no nigguh business, nosuh, it sho ain't.” Mumbling, he took out a bandanna, wiping his neck in the frozen air as he might have done in the hot fields of midsummer. “You too young to be mixed up in dis, Mist' Edguh.”

“I'm not mixed up in this. Unless you mix me.”

“Ain't fixin to mix nobody, Mist' Edguh.”

But it was really me who needed company. When I waved him toward the hole in the west wall he went ahead, then slowed. After a few more steps, he went no further. Having glimpsed what lay inside, he placed his hands over his eyes—“Oh Lawdamercy!”—and fell to his knees as I forced myself to look.

I had not tarried long enough to see the Owl-Man's body through the musket smoke. It had no head.

Without a tool to chip a grave in the frozen ground, we piled half-burned timbers on the trunk and legs. Tap mumbled prayers. “You was a good man, Cop'n Selden, suh,” he finished, bowing his head. “A very good man. Black folks ain' gwine fo'get you.”

Standing behind him, I lifted the musket and sighted down the barrel at the gray-frizzed scalp, the bare skin of the crown, the ears, the twitching skin and throbbing pulse, the humble skull. How fragile and transient the bent human seemed, with death hovering so close. One inadvertent twitch of my forefinger, already half numb with cold on the frozen metal. In leading me to kill by accident, Fate had betrayed me. In tempting me to obliterate the only witness, regaining my lost life, was Fate redeeming me?

At the base of my tongue was a quick metallic taste—not the taste of death but the taste of an unholy power to take life. I held my breath as with great care I lifted that numb finger from the worn and shiny lever of the trigger, but not before Tap Watson jerked his head around and stared into the eye behind the hammer.

FLIGHT

Even as I hurried toward Clouds Creek, my criminal sire, roaring with drink, was driving Major Coulter's cart like a loose chariot, careening around the Court House Square, scaring and scattering old ladies, dogs, and children, whipping his poor roan bloody. When one wheel was struck off by the wood sidewalk and the buggy pitched him headlong into the mud, he was seized and hauled forthwith up the courthouse steps and through the courtroom to the cells behind. Next morning he was charged with disturbing the peace, endangering life and limb, resisting arrest, and public drunkenness—everything the constable could think of that might hold him without bail until the next session of the circuit court.

I knew none of this when on Sunday before church, I went to collect my wage. From the stoop, I called good morning to the Colonel's wife as she crossed the corridor. Aunt Lucy only shook her head and did not answer. Then her husband came. He did not offer his hand, only coldly informed me that someone had reported a charred corpse in the Deepwood ruin and someone else had seen me on the road near Deepwood early yesterday morning. “It seems you were carrying a weapon. And a shot was heard.”

He stood in wait, perhaps still hoping that I might explain. I was struck dumb. Who would have gone into that ruin? And just stumbled on a body beneath stacked timbers? Tap had betrayed me.

“You must leave this district.” Colonel Robert's voice seemed far away. “You have no future at Clouds Creek.”

“Sir? If my work—”

“It has nothing to do with that. You are an exceptional young farmer.” Having no son of his own, he looked truly bereaved. He drew forth a money packet. “I've included fair payment for your hogs. Now go at once, you are in danger here.”

I searched his face as a shot bird follows the hunter's hand descending to wring its neck. There was no absolution in that gaze. I wanted to howl,
It is not just! It was an accident! And he was already dying!
An inner screaming, a ringing like crazed bells. I must have gone straight over backwards. Later I recalled a faraway
whump
made by my head and shoulders as I struck the ground.

Muffled hog grunts and the croon of chickens. Cold white winter sun.

“Edgar, try to sit up.”

“He fainted, did he? Wily as the father!”

A close warm smell of horse tack, burned tobacco. “He has these spells. Look at his color.” Less patiently, the man's voice said, “Mrs. Watson, please do as I ask. Fetch him a blanket.”

Rummaging, she called, “Does he know his father is in jail?”

I rolled away, sat up—“I'm fine”—fell sideways. Taking me under the arm, Colonel Robert tried to help me up off the cold earth onto the steps. Wrenching away made me dizzy and I sat down hard. I said, “It was not my doing. I never wished him harm.”

Cousin Robert nodded, leading me behind the house out of sight of the road. “Yet you know what was done and you know who did it.” He paused a moment. “I have come to know you, Edgar. You are prideful and stubborn. You will not betray the guilty. And since, to defend yourself, you must accuse—” He put his big hands on my shoulders, squeezing hard to make sure I understood that he understood. “Pay attention, Edgar. Men are out looking for you. If you're caught, you could be shot or hung.” He offered his hand. “You have had a hard bad road for one so young and were set a poor example. I am truly sorry.”

“It is not just,” I growled in a stony voice, as my kinsman's face began to blur. When I blinked my eyes clear, his hand was still extended. It withdrew at just the moment my own hand started upward to accept it.

“God knows it is not just,” he agreed quietly, scanning the countryside. “That is the way of His world.” He crossed the yard to the back stoop. With a last warning to stay off the roads till I crossed the Georgia line, he closed the door behind him. On the white wall of his house, in winter shine, the window glass, clear and empty, reflected the black limbs of the trees.

All my life I have recalled the proffered hand of Colonel R. B. Watson, the grained and weathered skin of it, the wrist hairs like finespun golden threads in the cold sunlight.

THE COWARD

I fled across the frozen fields. At Grandfather's house, I flung the hog pen gate clean off its hinge and drove my burly boys to freedom with hard kicks and curses. Their snouts would lead them to the Colonel's troughs. If not, let them run wild, grow black and boarish. I tossed my rags and a few books into some sacking along with cold clabber and a knife and slung this meager bindle from the musket barrel. Leaving the Artemas plantation open to the world for all to pillage as they liked, I headed out across my fields, following Clouds Creek upstream through the home woods to the Ridge spring behind the church. Seeing no sign of riders on the highroad, I headed west toward Edgefield Court House.

Nearing Deepwood, I took to the wood edge at the sound of cantering horses. Armed riders passed. At Edgefield, crossing the back lots, I saw Tap Watson in the distance, gleaning in the field. Climbing the livery stable fence, I paid my father's bill out of my pay, reclaimed the roan. “Heard you had some trouble, boy,” the hostler sneered, counting the money. “You and ol' Ring-Eye both.” He knew I was a fugitive, considered seizing me, and sidled up too close, but respectful of the musket and the cold cast of my eye, he decided against any attempt to take me prisoner.

“Ye're a hard one, ain't ye.”

“Try me and find out.”

I walked the roan down the dirt lanes between dwellings. In the Sunday silence, the lanes were empty. At Mama's cabin, a note on the table read “Dear Son.” They had left in haste while “your father” was in jail. She hoped that one day I might join them at this address in north Florida but if not, why then, good-bye. Did she mean, God be with you? Not thinking clearly, I returned the musket to the rafters.

The jail cells were upstairs back of the courtroom. I fiddled the old lock and slipped in quietly and listened. No deputy, no guard, not a sound. They were all out on the hunt for the young killer. The lone prisoner, sprawled upon his bunk, rolled over, squinted, jerked in alarm, yelled for the guard. I should have realized the whole truth then and there.

He asked me furiously what I wanted. Challenged, I did not know. Had I come to say I was sorry but I must take his horse? Had I, despite everything, merely come to bid farewell to my treacherous Papa?

I blurted foolishly, “I am no longer your son.”

“You walked all the way here from Clouds Creek to tell me
that
?” Hooting at my pomposity, my father lay back again, boots on the blanket, arm over his eyes.

“As of today, I am Edgar Addison Watson,” I persisted. “Uncle John Addison—”

“Damn him!” he sat up. “In this family the eldest son shall take the name of the paternal grandfather or be disowned!” I wanted to jeer—disowned from what?—but he was already commanding me to go make sure that his roan was getting the good oats he'd paid for at the stable. I told him that account was settled. Job awaited me outside. “Mama has left home and Minnie, too. I aim to follow 'em.”

He shook off this news of wife and daughter as the roan might shiver off flies. “Don't try taking my horse, you sonofabitch!” he yelled. “I'll get the law on you!”