Nothing Gold Can Stay (7 page)

The other man hesitated.

“If you want to get to Tennessee,” the farmer said, “you got to do what I tell you.”

“I don’t like none of this,” the youth muttered, but he did not resist as his companion wrapped the rope twice around his wrists and secured it with a knot.

“Toss me my Barlow,” the farmer said.

The older fugitive did, and the farmer slipped the knife into his front pocket.

“All right then,” the farmer said, and nodded at the tote. “You got fire?”

“Got flint,” the other man said.

The farmer nodded and removed a thin piece of paper from his pocket.

“Bible paper. It’s all I had.”

The older fugitive took the proffered paper and unfolded it.

“That X is us here,” the farmer said, and pointed at a mountain to the west. “Head cross this ridge and toward that mountain. You hit a trail just before it and head right. There comes a creek soon and you go up it till it peters out. Climb a bit more and you’ll see a valley. You made it then. ”

“And him?” the man said of the youth.

“Ain’t your concern.”

“It kindly is,” the man said.

“Go on now and you’ll be in Tennessee come nightfall.”

The youth’s shoulders were shaking. He looked at his companion and then at the white man.

“You got no cause to tie me up,” the youth said. “I ain’t gonna be no trouble. You tell him, Viticus.”

“He’d not be much bother to take with me,” the older fugitive said. “I promised his momma I’d look after him.”

“You make the same promise to his father?” the farmer said and let his eyes settle on the older fugitive’s shoulder. “From the looks of that scar, I’d notion you to be glad I’m doing it. I’d think every time you looked at that red hair of his you’d want to kill him yourself.”

“I didn’t mean to hide from you,” the youth said, his breathing short and fast now. “I just seen that gun and got rabbity.”

“Go on now,” the farmer told the older fugitive.

Two hours later he came to the creek. The burlap tote hung over one shoulder and the lantern hung from the other. He began the climb. The angled ground was slick and he grabbed rhododendron branches to keep from tumbling back down.

There was no shingle or handbill proclaiming he’d entered Tennessee, but when he crested the mountain and the valley lay before him, he saw a wooden building below, next to it a pole waving the flag of Lincoln. He stood there in the late-afternoon light, absorbing the valley’s expansiveness after days in the mountains. The land rippled out and appeared to reach all the way to where the sun and earth merged. He shifted the twine so it didn’t rub the ridge of scar. Something furrowed his brow a few moments. Then he moved on and did not look back.

PART

II

A Servant of History

A
servant of history. Since accepting his employ with the English Folk Dance and Ballad Society, that was how Wilson thought of himself and, in truth, a rather daring servant. He was no university don mumbling Gradgrindian facts facts facts in a lecture hall’s chalky air, but a man venturing among the new world’s Calibans. On the ship that brought him from London, Wilson explained to fellow passengers how ballads lost to time in Britain might yet survive in America’s Appalachian Mountains. Several young ladies were suitably impressed and expressed concern for his safety. One male passenger, an uncouth Georgian, had acted more amused than impressed, noting that Wilson’s “duds” befit a dancing master more than an adventurer.

After departing the train station and securing his belongings at the Blue Ridge Inn, Wilson walked Sylva’s main thoroughfare. The promise of the village’s bucolic name was not immediately evident. Cabins and tepees, cattle drives and saloons, were notably absent. Instead, actual houses, most prosperous looking, lined the village’s periphery. On the square itself, a marble statue commemorated the Great War. Shingles advertised a dentist, a doctor, and a lawyer, even a confectioner. The men he passed wore no holsters filled with “shooting irons,” the women no boots and breeches. Automobiles outnumbered horses. It had all been immensely disappointing. Until now.

The old man was hitching his horse and wagon to a post as Wilson approached. He did not wear buckskin, but his long gray beard and tattered overalls, hobnailed boots, and straw hat bespoke a true rustic. The old man spurted a stream of tobacco juice as an initial greeting, then spoke in a brogue so thick Wilson asked twice for the words to be repeated. Wilson haltingly conveyed his employer’s purpose.

“England,” the rustic said. “It’s war you hell from?”

“Pardon?” Wilson asked, and the old man repeated himself.

“Ah,” Wilson said. “Where do I hail from?”

The rustic nodded.

“Indeed, sir, I do come from England. As I say, I am in search of British ballads. Many of the old songs that have vanished in my country may yet be found here. But as a visitor to your region, I have little inkling who might possess them. The innkeeper suggested an older resident, such as yourself, might aid me.”

Wilson paused, searching the hirsute face for a sign of interest, or even comprehension. He had been warned at the interview that the expedition would be challenging, especially for a young gentleman fresh out of university, one, though this was only implied, whose transcript reflected few scholarly aspirations. In truth, Wilson had been the Society’s third choice, employed only when the first decided to make his fortune in India and the second staggered out of a pub and into the path of a trolley.

“Of course, aside from my gratitude, I have leave to pay a fair wage for assistance in locating such ballads.”

The old man spat again.

“How much?”

“Three dollars a day.”

“I’ll scratch you up some tunes for that,” the rustic answered, and nodded at the wagon, “but not cheer. We’ll have to hove it a ways.”

“And when might we set out?” Wilson asked.

“Come noon tomorrow. You baddin at the inn?”

“Badding?”

“Yes, baddin,” the old man said, “sleepin.”

“I am.”

“I’ll pick you up thar then,” the rustic said, and resumed hitching his horse.

“May I ask your name, sir,” Wilson said. “Mine is James Wilson.”

“I a go ba rafe,” the old man answered.

They left Sylva at twelve the next day, Wilson’s valise settled in the wagon bed, he himself on the buckboard beside Iago Barafe. They passed handsome farms with fine houses, but as they ventured farther into the mountains, the dwellings became smaller, sometimes aslant and often unpainted. To Wilson’s delight, he saw his first cabin, then several more. They turned off the “pike,” as Barafe called it, and onto a wayfare of trampled weeds and dirt. As the elevation rose, the October air cooled. The mountains leaned closer and granite outcrops broke through stands of trees. The remoteness evoked an older era, and Wilson supposed that it was as much the landscape as the inhabitants that allowed Albion’s music to survive here.

He thought again of his university dons, each monotoned lecture like a Lethean submerging from which he retained just enough to earn his degree. Now, however, he, James Wilson, would show them that history was more than their ossified blather. It was outside libraries and lecture halls and alive in the world, passed down one tongue to another by the humble folk. Why even his guide, obviously illiterate, had a name retained from Elizabethan drama.

A red-and-black serpent slithered across the path, disappeared into a rocky crevice.

“Poisonous, I assume,” Wilson said.

“Naw,” Barafe answered, “nothin but a meek snake.”

Soon after, they splashed across a brook.

“We’re on McDawnell land now,” the older man said.

“McDowell?” Wilson asked.

“I reckon you kin say it that way,” Barafe answered.

“The family is from Scotland, I presume,” Wilson said, “but long ago.”

“They been up here many a yar,” the old man said, “and it’s a passel of them. The ones we’re going to see, they got their great-granny yet alive. She’s nigh a century old but got a mind sharp as a new-hone axe. She’ll know yer tunes and anything else you want. But they can be a techy lot, if they taken a dislikin to you.”

“If my being from England makes them uncomfortable,” Wilson proclaimed, “that is easily rectified. My father is indeed English and I have lived in England all my life, but my mother was born in Scotland.”

Barafe nodded and shook the reins.

“It ain’t far to the glen now,” he said.

The wagon crested a last hill and Wilson saw not a dilapidated cabin but a white farmhouse with glass windows and a roof shiny as fresh-minted sterling. Yet within the seemingly modern dwelling, he reminded himself, a near centenarian awaited. A fallow field lay to the left of the house, and a barn on the right. Deeper in the glen, cattle and horses wandered an open pasture, their sides branded with an
M
.

A man who looked to be in his fifties came out on the porch and watched them approach. He wore overalls and a chambray shirt but no sidearm.

“That’s Luther,” Barafe said.

“I presumed we might be greeted with a show of weaponry.”

“They’d not do that less you given them particular cause,” Barafe answered. “They keep the old ways and we’re their guests.”

When they were in the yard, Barafe secured the brake and they climbed off the buckboard and ascended the steps. The two rustics greeted each other familiarly, though their host addressed his elder as “Rafe.” Wilson stepped forward.

“James Wilson,” he said, extending his hand.

“Good to meet you, James,” the other replied. “Call me Luther.”

Their host took Wilson’s valise and opened the door, then stood back so the guests might enter first and warm themselves in front of the corbelled hearth. The parlor slowly revealed itself. A carriage clock was on the mantel, beside it a row of books that included the expected family Bible but also a thick tome entitled
Clans of Scotland
. More of the room emerged. A framed daguerreotype of a white-bearded patriarch dominated one wall, on the opposite, a red-and-black tartan, its bottom edge singed. Two ladder-back chairs were on one side of the hearth and on the other a large Windsor chair plushly lined in red velvet.

“Please sit down,” their host said. “I saw you coming from a ways off so stoked the fire for you.”

A middle-aged woman entered the parlor with a silver platter. On it were bread and jelly and coffee, silverware and saucers, two cloth napkins. Luther placed a footstool between his guests, and the woman set the platter down.

“This is Molly,” their host said, “my wife.”

The woman blushed slightly.

“We just finished our noon dinner,” she said. “If we’d known you were coming, we’d have waited.”

Like Barafe, Luther and his wife had prominent accents, yet both spoke with a formality that acknowledged “d’s” and “g’s” on word endings. Barafe sat down and tucked his napkin under his chin with an almost comic flair. Wilson sat as well, only then saw that the Windsor chair was occupied.

The beldame’s face possessed the color and creases of a walnut hull. A black shawl draped over her shoulders, obscuring a body shrunken to a child’s stature. The old woman appeared more engulfed than seated, head and body pressed into the soft padding, shoe tips not touching the floor. And yet, the effect was not so much of a small woman as of a large chair, which, like the velvet lining, gave an appearance of regal authority.

“Granny,” Molly said. “We have guests.”

Wilson stood.

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, madam,” he said, and gave a slight bow.

“This here is James Wilson,” Barafe said, suddenly impelled to use surnames. “He come all the way from England to learn old tunes.”

The matriarch blinked twice and then stared fixedly at Wilson. Her eyes were of the lightest blue, as if time had rinsed away most of the color, but there was a liveliness inside them. Wilson sat back down.

“He’s gonna learn ’em and haul ’em back to England,” Barafe added, all but waving a Union Jack over Wilson’s head.

“I do indeed come from England, madam,” Wilson said, “but my mother is a proud Scot and I too proudly claim the heritage of thistle and bagpipe.”

The proclamation was a bit disingenuous. Wilson’s mother, though born in Scotland, had moved to London at sixteen and rarely spoken of her Scots roots. Nor had she encouraged her son to think of himself as anything but English. The sole acknowledgment was a blue-and-black tartan that hung, rather forlornly, on an attic wall. The old woman made no reply, and Wilson, wondering if he should summon forth other lore worthy of a loyal scion of Scotland, decided on a more direct tack.

“And of course I will gladly pay you for your trouble,” Wilson added.

“If Granny learns you some songs, you’ll pay no money for them,” Luther said, “but it’s her notion to do or not do.”

At first it appeared that the matriarch might not deign to respond. Then the sunken mouth slowly unsealed, revealing a single nubbed tooth.

“I can sing a one,” the old woman said, “but I’ll need a sup of water first.”

Wilson opened his valise and took out the fountain pen and ink bottle, a calfskin ledger. He set the ink bottle by his chair, opened the ledger, and wrote
Jackson County, United States, October 1922.

“If you could give me the title of the ballad first, that would be helpful,” Wilson said with proper deference.

“It’s called ‘The Betrothed Knight,’ ” the old woman answered.

Her voice was low but surprisingly melodic. Wilson wrote rapidly as the matriarch sang of a deceived maiden. Several words were pleasingly archaic, but even better for his purposes, the mention of a knight supported England as the ballad’s place of origin. Dipping the pen into the ink during the refrain, Wilson set down all the words in one listening.

“That’s a bully one,” Barafe said.

“Yes,” Wilson agreed. “Most excellent indeed. Do you know more, madam?”

The old woman appeared reluctant, so Wilson tried another approach.

“Your name will appear on the page with the ballad,” he noted, “so you will be properly honored.”

The appeal to vanity had the opposite effect intended. The old woman asked why she should get “notioned” for something that wasn’t hers. She pulled the shawl tight around her neck and chin as if to muffle any further word or song. Luther went to the hearth and picked up the poker, stabbed at the fire until the slumbering flame sparked back to life. As their host leaned the poker by the hearth, Wilson saw that, by accident or design, the poker’s prod was shaped like an
M
. Wilson nodded toward the bookshelf and its tome.

“Of course sharing your ballads does Scotland a great service as well,” Wilson noted. “You are preserving a vital part of your ancestors’ and descendants’ history.”

The old woman did not speak but her eyes were now attentive.

“And part of mine as well,” Wilson reminded her, and racked his brain for something beyond the Merry Olde England perspective of Scotland as a mere barnacle on England’s ship of empire.

Macbeth and a joke about bagpipes and testicles emerged first, then, wedged between William the Bruce and Bonnie Prince Charlie, a muddle of dates-feuds-clans and, finally, tam-o-shanters and tartans.
Tartans.
Wilson left the chair and walked over to the red-and-black tartan, let a thumb and finger rub the cloth. He nodded favorably, hoping to impart a Scotsman’s familiarity with weave and wool.

“Our tartan hangs on a wall as well, blue and black it is, the proud tartan of Clan Campbell, and no doubt ancient as yours, though better preserved, which is to be expected, since ours has not traveled such distances.”

“And not burned,” the old woman said grimly.

Luther and Molly glared at Wilson, and despite the fire, a gust of cold air seemed to fill the room.

“Your tartan,” Luther asked, “an azure blue?”

“Well, yes,” Wilson answered.

“Argyle,”
the beldame hissed.

Wilson removed his finger and thumb from the tartan.

“Pardon me,” he said. “I’m certain the tartan has been as well cared for as possible. It has just endured a longer journey than ours, across an ocean. And my touching it, I meant no disrespect.”

Barafe looked up from his plate, finally aware that some drama was unfolding around him.

“What did you say to vex Granny
McDonald
?” Barafe asked.

For a few moments the only sound was the ticking of the clock. A disquieting thought nudged Wilson, some connection between English Kings and Argyle Campbells and, thanks to Iago Barafe’s sudden gift of enunciation, Clan McDonald.

“Perhaps we should go,” Wilson said, stepping over to pack up his valise. “I’m sure we have taken up enough of your time.”

“Not till I sing one more song,” Granny McDonald said.