Heaven and Hell (50 page)

The man had

"Cen concealed there, waiting. Charles jumped back, panicky because he'd left his sidearm at the fort. The moment the attacker stepped into the light from a saloon next door, Charles saw the chrysanthemum on his lapel, and smelled the gin.

"You damned, base cad!" Sam Trump's face was blotched by

. Ser- His temples were stained by hair dye that had run. He raised his 3l6 HEAVEN AND HELL

fist, intending to strike Charles's head. Charles took hold of his forearm and with no trouble kept it away. Trump twisted and struggled.

"Let go, damn you, Main. I'm going to give you what I promised you for hurting that fine young woman."

"I didn't hurt her. We just had an argument."

"You did more than argue. She ran in sobbing. She has iron courage, and I have never seen her so devastated." He tried to lift a knee and kick Charles's groin through the furry overcoat. Charles easily threw him off balance. The actor cried out and landed on his rump.

Trump's breathing was strident. He moved tentatively on the ground, as if he'd twisted something. "It must give you satisfaction to injure persons weaker than yourself. You're no better than those savages you purport to hate. Take yourself out of my sight."

Charles hauled his boot back, ready to kick the old fool. Then reason took hold. He mounted the troop horse and quickly trotted away up the street, shaking with anger and self-loathing. If there had been anything at all left between him and Willa Parker, it was gone now.

Madeline's journal

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November, 1867. Impossible to do business at the Gettys store.

His rates remain a usurious 70%, and a share of the crop. Those are his terms for whites. Black men are turned away.

. . . People somewhat mollified by appointment of Gen. Edw.

Canby to command the military district. A Kentuckian; not as harsh as old Sickles. Gen. Scott, in charge at the state Bureau, is said to have ambitions to be the next gov. Very odd for a man who first arrived in Carolina as a war prisoner. Opinion of him is divided.

Some say he is a trimmer. Does he want to govern the state in order to loot it? . . .

We continue to flirt with ruin. A late-season storm brought salt tides flooding far up the Ashley. Our rice crop was killed. The old steam-driven saw I saved so hard to buy for the mill broke during the second day of operation. Repairs are dear. To pay, I will have to short Dawkins's next bank installment. He will not be happy.

But there are crumbs of good news. Brett wrote at last. Her little boy, G. W., grows and thrives in the San Francisco climate After a year's hardship, Billy's engineering firm has won a contract for the water, gas and elevator systems in a new hotel.

Hearing of successes like theirs, I am sometimes tempted to abandon this place and start over myself. Only what I promised you, Orry--the dream of rebuilding--keeps me here. But every pPwf

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day seems to push the realization of the dream further into the distance . . .

. . . Special election soon, to decide whether we shall have a constitutional convention. The Army continues to register males to vote. If they are black, the new U. L. club instructs them on how to exercise that right . . .

In the autumn dusk, Andy Sherman hurried through the hamlet of Summerton. A soldier, one of- the registrars, was hauling down the American flag hung outside the abandoned cabin taken over by the military.

Nearby, a corporal chatted with a barefoot white girl winding a strand of her hair round and round her finger. Andy marveled. In some
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ways, the war might never have happened at all.

In other ways it remained a hard reality. On the dark porch of the store, someone in a rocker watched him go by, following his progress by turning his head. Dying light flashed off the glass ovals of spectacles.

Andy could fairly smell the hostility.

After walking a mile more, he turned off the river road onto a narrow track fringed by palmetto and prickly pear. The moon hung above the trees now, a brilliant white circle. A black boy with bad teeth guarded the road with an old squirrel rifle. Andy nodded and started by. The boy barred him with the rifle, sheepishly. "Passwords, Sherman."

Passwords, a secret grip--Andy found it childish and insulting.

Unfortunately most of the club members enjoyed such things.

"Liberty," he said. "Lincoln. League."

"God bless General Grant. Pass on, brother."

He entered the cabin after being inspected by Wesley, a bullet headed black man with a pistol in his belt. Wesley assisted the club's organizer and was suited to the task; he was a bully.

A look of dislike passed between them. Andy slipped to a back bench, noting about twenty others present, young and old. The organizer nodded a greeting from the end of the cabin where he stood before a framed portrait of Lincoln swagged with a piece of dirty bunting.

Nothing about Lyman Klawdell impressed Andy. Not his shabby clothes and jutting teeth, not his whining Yankee voice or tied-down Colt revolver. Klawdell called for a lantern to be blown out, which left a single candle burning on a crate near the portrait. The candle lighted

Klawdell's chin and long nose from beneath. His eyes gleamed in the black hollows of the sockets. The eerie effect produced some nervous shivers and grins.

Klawdell rapped a gavel on the crate. "Meeting of the Union League

<~lub, Ashley River District, now in session. Praise God, praise freej d°m, praise the Republican Party."

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"Amen," the listeners responded in unison. Andy remained silent.

To be a free man did you have to recite on cue?

"Boys--" If any of the others took Klawdell's word as an insult, Andy saw no sign. "We are approaching a momentous day for South Carolina. I refer to the special election to call the constitutional convention that will set this state on the right path at last. We must have a convention in order to thwart His Accidency, Mr. Johnson--" groans, jeers--"who has proved no friend of the colored man. He continues to
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work against the Congress as it seeks to guarantee your rights--"

Andy saw bewilderment on many faces, the result of Klawdell's two-dollar words. To impress men, did you have to confuse them?

"--and lately has perpetrated an even greater outrage, suspending the powers of one of your best friends, the Honorable E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War and loyal supporter of our beloved President Lincoln.

Johnson wants to keep Stanton from doing his job because he's doing it so well. It's Mr. Stanton who sent the soldiers to protect you. Johnson also wants to test a fine law which the Congress passed to prevent exactly this sort of interference. Do you know what's going to happen to Johnson?"

The men answered, "No." Andy grimaced. Klawdell thumped his gavel.

"Your Republican friends are going to twist Johnson's tail. They may even throw him out of office."

That produced a lot of applause and foot-stomping. "All right, settle down," Klawdell snapped. "We have important business here at home too. How many of you boys have gone to Summerton and signed up to vote in favor of the convention?"

Hands were raised, all but Andy's and that of an old man. Klawdell didn't like Andy and singled him out, pointing with the gavel. "Explain yourself, Sherman."

Affronted, Andy leaped to his feet. "I work all day just to stay alive. They won't sign you up at night, which is the only time I've got free."

"Come on, tell the truth," Klawdell said. "That woman who runs Mont Royal won't let you register. She pretends to be a friend of the colored but she isn't. Why don't you speak out and denounce her the way you should?"

"Because she is a friend, and I won't lie about her."

Klawdell licked his lips. "Sherman, some of these boys felt the same way about their masters for a while. Do you know what happened to them?"

"I do." He pointed to Rafe Hicks, a tan youth with a dirty ban Banditti 319

dage tied around his head. "Some of 'em got jumped after dark, and got the hell beat out of them."

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"Then take a lesson. Denounce her."

"I will not. You want that, I'm out of this club."

He walked quickly to the door, tight inside. Wesley blocked his way, just itching to pull his pistol. Andy stopped, fisted his hands and stared Wesley down. In a low voice he said, "You try to stop me, Wesley, you're going to have broken bones. Or worse."

Wesley cursed and started'to draw. Klawdell whipped out his revolver and used the butt for a gavel. "All right, all right, everybody calm down. We need your vote more than we need a fight in here, Sherman. If you're willing to register--"

"I am. I just have to find time."

"Then we'll forget about the rest."

Andy gave him the same kind of hard stare he'd given Wesley.

Then he returned to his bench. A couple of the men he had to step over to reach his seat leaned far back, afraid that even a touch might anger him. Andy felt some small satisfaction, but bitterness too. The League men were pouring into the South--to help educate the freedmen, they said. Why did that education have to include sowing distrust, even hatred, of good white friends? Andy could never think of Madeline as anything but white.

Klawdell resumed. "The special convention will be a great thing, boys. But it will never be convened unless a majority of South Carolina voters approve. Sherman and Newton have got until November 19 to signup."

The old man, Newton, said, "But we got to do that in Summer ton, Captain. Gettys and his friends, like that Captain Jolly, they say, don't stop in Summerton, nigger. Move right on through."

"Why do you think there are two soldiers at the crossroads, Newton?

Not just to sign you up. To make sure no one interferes with you when you do it. You tell Gettys and his pals to lean down and kiss your ass." .

As the clapping and laughter burst out, Andy winced again. Somehow the tone here was all wrong. His black friends and neighbors were being treated like children. He almost stood and walked out for good. ynly the club's larger purpose, more important than Klawdell's behavior,

kept him from it.

Klawdell saw Andy's resentment and took a more moderate tone. 1 u say it again, Sherman--we need you and Newton both. Every v°te counts. Sign up. Please."

Well, that was better. "Don't worry. I will."

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"Praise God," Klawdell exclaimed. He put his revolver away and grabbed the gavel. "All right, let's hear it." Whack went the gavel.

"What's the party for the colored man?"

All but Andy said, "Union Republican."

Whack. "Who are your enemies?"

'' Johnson. Democrats.''

Whack, whack. "Who'd steal away the rights we fought and bled to give you, the rights Abe Lincoln died to give you?"

"Democrats!"

"Now tell me the name of your true friends."

They stomped for each word. "Union--Republicans."

"Who's going to take over this state?" Now Klawdell was shouting.

"Who's going to take over this whole country and run it right?"

"Union Republicans! Union Republicans!" The stomping shook the cabin. Andy kept his mouth shut, his hands laced together, his work shoes tight against each other on the floor. He scowled as the others swayed and clapped and filled the cabin with their din. "Union Republicans! Union Republicans!" Some of the men glared at Andy. He glared right back, damned if he'd act like someone's trained dog. He continued to sit straight as a rod, in silent protest.

The next day, about an hour before sunset, Andy appeared at the Summerton crossroads. Walking swiftly, he approached the flag-decorated cabin. The corporal stepped out, shook his hand and escorted him inside.

Through the window of the Dixie Store, Randall Gettys watched.

When Andy reappeared in ten minutes and started for home, looking pleased, Gettys immediately penned a letter to Des in Charleston.

She has now registered every one of her niggers. I have urged caution but we cannot wait much longer. You had better come down and talk about it.

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He then wrote his cousin Sitwell, up in York County.

The mephitic Republican League is inflaming all the local colored men.

They outnumber us and will out-vote us this month. We are desperate for some safe means of thwarting them. Have you heard anything further of that secret society in Tennessee?

The vote to call a convention passed overwhelmingly. I suppose there was never a doubt. As many as 80,000 freedmen registered, and only about half that number of whites.

w?

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The military persuaded Andy to declare himself a delegate candidate, and he did. He will go to Charleston in January.

It is our only good news. Two bad crops this year--the steam saw still not repaired--Dawkins demanding the quarterly money-- we are even closer to ruin. On the very edge. Again last night

Prudence and I argued over appealing to George H. I prevailed, but wonder if I am right. Wouldn't it be better to beg than to lose everything? How I wish you were here to guide me.

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Charles, Gray Owl and the ten-man detachment returned to the field, patrolling the railroad east of Fort Harker. On that segment of the line Indian attacks weren't as frequent as they were between Harker and Fort Hays to the west, but neither were they unknown.

They experienced a spell of unusually hot weather. Warm air shimmered over the plains, creating silver lakes in the distance; lakes that vanished long before a man reached them. On a sunny morning, the soldiers were walking their horses in column of twos just to the north of a line of low rolling hills. On the other side, parallel with the hills, ran the railroad and the telegraph.

Charles was thankful to be moving again. It helped ease his feelings
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of sadness and anger about Willa. Except for that, he felt good about things. He had a fine horse; Satan ran strongly, wasn't nervous about gunfire, and had exceptionally good wind. He had ridden the piebald long enough so that horse and man could almost sense one another's thoughts.