Down Home Dixie (13 page)

“That's his reenacting uniform,” Dixie said. “He only wears it when there's a battle.”

Memaw looked down her nose at that. “Kyle ought to have something better to do with his time than wearing a Yankee uniform. My ancestors are spinning in their graves to think you're dating a Bluecoat.”

“These ancestors in their graves, I seriously doubt that they're thinking anything,” Dixie said dryly.

“He's not only a Bluecoat, but one named Sherman,” Voncille added, returning to her mopping.

Dixie had never mentioned Kyle's last name around her family. She gestured wildly at Voncille, making a zipping motion across her mouth that her cousin was slow to comprehend. Behind Memaw's back, Voncille held her hands out in a palms-up, as if to say,
“Huh?”

“Excuse me? I must be getting as deaf as Claudia because I didn't hear a thing you said.” Memaw shot Voncille a look, which could have meant she'd heard but needed time to come up with a reply. On the other hand, it could also have meant she
hadn't
heard. You could never tell with Memaw.

“Vonnie, bring me a better rag, will you, please? This one's too linty.”

Voncille reached for an old cloth diaper, handed it to Memaw.

Memaw tossed the other rag aside. “Dixie, it so happens I've heard from Kathy Lou that Kyle caught you kissing Milo at the back door one night,” Memaw said. “She told me about it the other day.”

Voncille dropped the mop. Her eyebrows flew clear up into her bangs. “Is that true?”

Voncille knew very well that Kathy Lou never lied.

“Yes, but it wasn't anything. Just a peck.” Dixie went on wiping crystals.

Memaw frowned at that. “You're being awfully closemouthed about it, Dixie. If a woman doesn't run on about the man in her life, something is wrong between them. Stop trying to hide it and fess up.”

“Nothing's wrong, exactly,” Dixie said, realizing there was no way out of this discussion.

“So what's going on?” Voncille asked. She had completely given up trying to mop by this time.

Dixie figured she might as well spill the beans. “He's—he's—well, Kyle's a real Yankee. His forebears did happen to be real important to the Union cause.”

“Oh, well. That war was so long ago as to be insignificant,” Voncille opined.

“What's over is over,” Dixie agreed. “The point is, one of Kyle's
ancestors
was by no means insignificant. Not that this is a problem for me. The Great Unpleasantness was a long time ago.”

Memaw regarded Dixie with something less than understanding. “That's easy for you to say. When I was growing up back in the 1920s, my grandfather and great-uncles were still around to tell us how Sherman's troops rode through Yewville and camped by the Allentown Church. My great-uncle Addison's farm was ransacked by foragers who emptied every feather tick into the yard and rode off with his family's squealing pigs under their arms. His wife buried their silver in the swamp and never was able to tell anyone where to find it before she died in childbirth later that year. Not—” Memaw cast a rueful glance at all the silver still left to polish “—that I care if it's ever found.”

Dixie drew a deep bolstering breath. “Everyone knows the war meant hard times for folks around here. But those people are gone. If someone's relatives were involved in the Civil War, so what? And if Kyle's hobby involves making people understand that both sides suffered, that everyone who fought and died should be memorialized, I'd say that's a good thing.”

“My great-uncle would have tanned my hide if I'd said any such thing. Plus, the South Carolina State House still has Yankee bullet holes that were left unrepaired so no one would ever forget that we were defeated, occupied and stripped of our wealth, our culture and our heritage. To add insult to injury, the rest of the country is always putting us down and calling us dumb, redneck and racist, like we're not supposed to have enough sense to mind it.” Memaw's mouth clamped into an uncompromising line.

Dixie climbed down from the ladder and sat on a chair beside Memaw. “You and I don't know one single person who is dumb, redneck or racist, and it's as unfair of us to judge Kyle as it is when we're judged by those who don't know us.” She paused and took the plunge. “Memaw, Kyle's great-great-great-grandfather was a famous Union general. Kyle's full name is Kyle Tecumseh Sherman, Memaw.” Dixie kept her gaze steady while her grandmother absorbed this information.

“As in William Tecumseh Sherman.” Memaw's expression had taken on a steeliness, familiar only because it was the same way she communicated displeasure when one of the family shared the information that they didn't intend to be at church on Sunday.

“I've been reluctant to tell you. I grew up knowing how people feel about General Sherman around here.”

“The general must have been a despicable man,” Memaw said darkly, not bothering to hide her disdain.

“Who knows? Maybe in private life he had grandkids that he liked to bounce on his knee. Maybe he told funny jokes and—”

“His expression was what I'd call forbidding. Just check his picture in the encyclopedia,” Memaw said, her tone brooking no objection. She seemed to draw herself together. “Well. I won't tell anyone at the United Daughters of the Confederacy meeting next week who Kyle is. They'd likely make me clean up the kitchen after our meetings for, oh, the next ten years. Harboring a Yankee! Feeding him my fried chicken! I can't believe I've done that.” But a smile twitched at the corners of Memaw's mouth.

“Kyle and his reenactor friends and the United Daughters of the Confederacy have the same aim, preserving history, so that's something you all have in common.”

“I suppose that's true,” Memaw said reluctantly.

“You like Kyle,” Dixie reminded her. “He's making you a special birdhouse for out on the porch.”

“Well, you tell Kyle it better not be for housing Yankee birds, like those nasty starlings that come through and make so much noise on their winter migration. I'll have my birdhouse inhabited by nice Southern birds—mockingbirds, maybe.”

Dixie smiled at Memaw in relief. The worst was over, and she regretted that she hadn't been more upfront about Kyle's ancestry from the beginning. “I'll make you a special little real estate sign to hang on that birdhouse,” she promised. “One that says, For Rent, Mockingbirds Only.”

“You might get in trouble with some government housing authority over that one. You're not supposed to discriminate. Didn't they teach you that in real estate school?” Voncille asked.

“It's okay if it's only birds,” Dixie said jokingly.

“Vonnie, will you get me some of that iced tea out of the refrigerator? We all need a work break,” observed Memaw.

“I brought cookies, too.” Voncille went to get them, and Dixie gave Memaw a quick hug.

“Kyle really thinks you're special,” she told her grandmother.

“As he should.”

“Right.” Dixie beamed at her.

“Well, Kyle may be a Yankee, but at least he doesn't have a pointy head. That's real important, Dixie Lee. Real important.”

“I'd say there's more relevant things. Like whether he's good in the sack,” Voncille said as she handed them each a tall glass of iced tea.

“Vonnie!” Memaw said, scandalized.

“I'm not telling. Memaw might see fit to repeat it at the UDC meeting,” Dixie retorted self-righteously.

“Not that anyone there would be interested,” Memaw said with a certain feigned hauteur.

“Of course not,” chorused Dixie and Voncille, each of them poking the other in the ribs.

“Mom-
my!
” Petey's voice came wailing down the hall.

“Short nap,” Voncille remarked. “Remind me not to feed that kid M&Ms after lunch anymore.”

“Seems like maybe they did find that silver in the swamp,” Memaw mused as she resumed shining a big teapot. “Otherwise why would I have so much of it to take care of?”

Well, that went pretty well,
Dixie congratulated herself. If Memaw could accept Kyle for the fine person he was, anyone could.

Next she'd work on Bubba.

 

A
S IT TURNED OUT
, Dixie didn't have long to wait until Bubba dropped by to assess matters for himself.

“Dixie!” Bubba leaned out the window of his pickup truck. It was late afternoon, and she was walking back to the house after checking the mailbox.

She stopped leafing through envelopes and waved. “What's new, Bubba?” He had another man in the truck with him, and his old coon dog, Minnie Pearl, was riding in the bed of the pickup, her tail wagging faster than Odella Hatcher's tongue, and that was saying something.

“I'm on my way back from Bishopville. You busy?”

“Just ironing. Kyle's in the garage, building birdhouses.”

“I heard about your Yankee's hobby from Mayzelle. Say, would Katie like one of them birdhouses?”

“I'm sure she would. Why don't you come in and check them out.”

“Will do,” he said. He steered the truck into the driveway and parked it beside Kyle's. By the time he and his passenger got out, Dixie had walked around the house.

“Dixie, remember my cousin Chad. You've met at some time or another.”

“Why, sure we have. Hi, Chad, how have you been?” She recalled double-dating with him back when he'd been a star football player at Robert E. Lee Academy in Bishopville.

“Good to see you again, Dixie,” Chad said.

“Kyle?” she called into the garage. “Bubba's here, and he's brought his cousin.”

Kyle walked out. He was wiping his hands with a rag. “Paint thinner,” he explained apologetically as Bubba offered his hand.

“It don't matter,” Bubba said. “I've thinned paint a few times myself.”

After they all shook hands, Bubba held out a bottle of beer. “I heard you didn't get a chance to sample any of this,” he said to Kyle. “Milo told me that Dixie dropped the bottle before she got it in the house.”

That's all Dixie needed, a reminder of that night. “Let's don't go there,” she said hastily.

“You guys can come in and keep me company while I paint,” Kyle said.

“If you don't mind, I'll get Chad and me a beer from the cooler in my truck first.” Bubba took off.

Dixie said, “I'm going to finish ironing.”

“Sure, go ahead,” Kyle said, smiling at her. “The guys and I can visit.”

She started toward the house. She hadn't realized it before, but likely, Kyle was lonely for male companionship. Bubba and Chad could fill that need, maybe.

She felt a lightness in her step as she considered how well Kyle Sherman was fitting into her life.

 

“I'
LL BE DANGED
,” Bubba said. “Those are some nice houses for birds.”

“Yeah, well, it passes the time.” Kyle concentrated on slapping a coat of green paint on the roofs of five birdhouses. He'd reached the point where he crafted five at one time. This increased production, and he could always add individual touches in the details so they weren't identical.

“You sell many?”

“A few here and there.” In fact, Kyle couldn't keep up with the demand. Mayzelle's sister ordered some for her gift shop, and Glenda at the Curly Q had told Dixie that she'd like to stock several for her customers.

Chad surveyed the line of birdhouses on the shelf. “You've found a nice hobby,” he observed.

“Why don't you tell him your hobby,” Bubba suggested.

Kyle took a swig of beer. It was a good bit stronger than the brand he bought at Bi-Lo.

“Well, I like working on my old Corvette,” Chad said.

“That's not what I'm talking about,” Bubba said.

“Wait a minute, I was getting interested in the Corvette,” Kyle told them with a grin.

“No, it's his other hobby that will impress you,” said Bubba.

“I'm with a volunteer infantry division of Confederate reenactors,” Chad said. “We may have faced each other on the battlefield at Rivervale Bridge.”

“No kidding,” Kyle said.

“No kidding.”

A slow smile spread across Kyle's face. “Cool.”

“Yeah,” Chad said. “Except that you were fighting on the wrong side.” He was smiling as he said it, and Kyle grinned back at him.

“Let's take our beer down by the lake and talk about it,” Kyle said. He was interested in whether the Confederate reenactors felt a bond as close as the one he had with his friends back in Ohio. He was eager to share his own story, and he was glad that Chad wanted to hear it.