Heaven and Hell (68 page)

Maybe her often-impractical partner was wiser than she knew.

Maybe she should stop chasing doomed dreams. Maybe she ought to make this visit to Leavenworth her last.

"No, the brigadier's not heard from him in weeks," Maureen said when Willa arrived on a gray, gusty morning.

"Is the general here?"

"No. He's riding the pay circuit again."

"Where's Gus?"

"I put him to hoeing the vegetable garden in back. It's entirely the wrong time of year--we've already harvested our squash and potatoes--but the poor thing needs something to fill his hours."

"He needs a normal life." Willa set her valise near the cold iron stove. "He needs schooling, parents, a home of his own."

"No disputing that," Maureen said. She looked older; the harsh prairie weather had wrinkled and aged her skin. "He'll not find those things here, I fear."

A low-pitched howling underlay their conversation. The front door
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The Year of the Locust 429

rattled in its frame. Maureen twisted her apron. "Mary and Joseph, I hate this place sometimes. The heat. That infernal wind. It's blown for weeks."

Willa went to the back door. From there she could observe little Gus, a sturdy, strong boy bending over a corner of the garden patch and listlessly poking at the dirt with his hoe. Dust and debris whirled over the garden and the nearby buildings. Gus's little round-crowned hat threatened to blow away at any moment.

Watching from the open door, Willa felt her heart near to breaking.

How forlorn he looked. As hunched as a little old man. Digging, chopping--to no purpose.

She stepped outside. "Hello, Gus."

"Aunt Willa!" He dropped the hoe and ran to her. She knelt and hugged him. Charles's son was almost four now. He'd lost his baby pudginess. Although he was outdoors a lot, he tended to fair skin and paleness.

Despite the wind, she took him walking along the bluff above the river. She was asking questions, which he answered with monosyllables, when she heard a hail behind them. She turned.

"Oh good Lord."

Down the path lurched Charles. Over the back of his gypsy robe he wore some sort of canvas sling from which the stock of his rifle jutted. His beard was long again, and unkempt.

Little Gus spied his father, a smile burst onto his face and he ran toward him. He'd gone but halfway when Charles stumbled over a rock and fell. Only a jarring stop with his hands kept him from slamming face first on the ground.

Gus halted, confused. Willa's expression grew strained. From the way Charles weaved as he stood up, she knew he was drunk.

"Hallo, Gus. Come give your pa a hug."

The boy continued to advance, but cautiously. Charles crouched down, enfolded the boy in his arms. Gus turned his head and Willa saw
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his eyes close and his mouth purse, as though he feared the man hugging him. The moment of spontaneous exuberance was gone.

Willa held her feathered hat against the gusting wind. That wind brought her a ripe whiskey smell. Drunk, all right. Gus quickly wriggled away from Charles. He looked relieved.

Charles stared at her, almost unfriendly. "Didn't expect to run into you. What're you doing here?" He spoke thickly, slowly.

"I wanted to see Gus. I didn't imagine you'd be around."

"I just rode in. Gus, go on back to Maureen. I need to talk to Willa."

"I want to stay out here and play, Pa."

43O ' HEAVEN AND HELL

Charles grabbed his shoulder, spun him and flung him toward the row of officers' houses. "Don't sass me. Go along."

Little Gus looked ready to cry. Charles yelled, "Go on, goddamn it."

Gus ran. Willa wanted to upbraid Charles, strike him, horsewhip him. The intensity of her emotion upset her, both in its own right and because she knew she wouldn't feel it if she didn't love him.

Somewhere on the post, artillery pieces fired practice rounds. Charles took Willa's elbow and turned her almost as rudely as he'd turned the boy. He all but pushed her down the weed-grown path toward the river.

Fighting for control, she said, "Where've you been, Charles?"

"Oh, do I answer to you about that?"

"For God's sake, I'm curious, that's all. Can't you recognize a polite question anymore?"

"Abilene," he muttered. "Been in Abilene. Had a job, but I quit it."

"What kind of job?"

"Nothing you'd care to hear about."

In a clump of willows near the edge of the bluff she stopped, confronting him. The wind stripped yellowing leaves from the weeping branches and flung them into the dusty gray distances. She hated the
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whiskey smell on him, the odor of unwashed clothing. Emotion overwhelmed her again.

"Why are you so angry all the time?" She braced her gloved palms on the front of the gypsy robe and, on tiptoe, she kissed him.

His beard scratched. She might as well have kissed marble.

"Look, Willa--"

"No, you look, Charles Main." Something warned her not to give rein to her feelings. She couldn't stop. "Do you think I'm here out of charity? I love you. I thought you loved me once." His eyes swept past her, to the dust-hazed river. "I want you to stop this wild life you're living."

"I came to see Gus, not hear lectures."

"Well, that's too bad. You'll hear this one. You don't belong on the Plains. Find a job in Leavenworth. Take care of your son. You've frightened him. You have to win him back. Can't you see that? He needs you, Charles. He needs you the way you were two years ago. I need you that way. Please."

He tugged the brim of his black hat low over his eyes, holding it against the roaring wind. "I'm not ready to come back here. I've got unfinished work."

"Those infernal Cheyennes--" She was nearly in tears.

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I

"For whom your heart bleeds. You go take care of your Friend ship

Society and your goddamn petitions."

Not an hour here, and it's all going wrong, she thought. "Why are you yelling at me, Charles?"

"Because I don't want you interfering with my son."

"I care about him!"

"So do I. I'm his father."

"Not much of one."

He hit her, open-handed, not hard. But she felt a pain beyond description.

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Holding her cheek, she stepped back. Her small feathered hat blew off. He stabbed a hand out automatically but the hat sailed by, lifting on a gust, spinning on through the willows and out past the edge of the bluff. There it dropped, slowing, spiraling toward the Missouri. "Oh,"

she said, a small, forlorn sound. Then she looked at him again. Something hard kindled in her blue eyes.

"You've turned into a complete bastard. I used to wonder why it was happening. I used to care. I don't any more. Your boy doesn't either, but you're too stupid arid drunk to see that. If you keep on, he'll hate you. Most of the time he's terrified of you."

"Christ, you're superior." He was loud, scornful. "First you had all the answers about the Indians. All the wrong answers. Now you're telling me how to raise my son. I don't need you. Take care of your own problems. Find some other man to drag into your bed."

"Go to hell, Charles Main. You just go to hell! No--" She shook her head, a violent movement. "You're already there, as low as anybody can get."

Enraged, he grabbed for her. She dashed by. "Willa!" A fleeting look back showed Charles her tear-streaked face. "Go ahead, run. Run!"

RUNRUNRUNRUN--it went echoing over the river. She was gone in the blowing clouds of leaves and dust.

"Miss Willa, you just got here."

"A mistake, Maureen. A huge mistake. Take care of that poor youngster. His father won't."

She walked all the way into Leavenworth City, the dust caking on her lids and lips and hands. A kindly ticket agent found her a basin of water and a piece of clean rag. She left on the four o'clock steamer for

St. Louis.

k

When she walked back into Trump's Playhouse, filthy from travel, the old actor was astonished at the brightness of her manner. "Call a 432

HEAVEN AND HELL

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rehearsal, Sam. I'm eager to get back to work. I'll not be seeing Mr.

Main again, if I'm lucky."

So boys! a final bumper

While we all in chorus chant-- "For next President we nominate Our own Ulysses Grant!"

And if asked what State he hails from

This our sole reply shall be,

"From near Appomattox Court House,

With its famous apple tree."

For 'twas there to our Ulysses

That Lee gave up the fight-- Now boys, "To Grant for President And God defend the right!"

Campaign verse in Greeley's New York Tribune, 1868

MADELINE

JOURNAL

September, 1868. Klan activity much increased in the state with elections less than two months away. York County, up near the N. Carolina border, is a hotbed. The Klan has seized the public fancy in a bizarre, faddish way. Visiting Marie-Louise here, Theo brought and displayed a tin of "Ku Klux Smoking Tobacco." He saw for sale in C'ston sheet music of a song written in the Klan s honor. In Columbia a base-ball team called "Pale-Faces" openly pays homage to the organization.

The Summerton "den" remains visible but has not moved against us. Sometimes cannot decide whether to laugh at this blight of pretentiously costumed bigots, or tremble. . . .

The muscular young black man, Ridley, put his arm around his wife. May was a slight, frail girl. She was in her third month, beginning to show.

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Ridley had come home tired from digging and hauling all day in the Mont Royal phosphate fields. But the weather was. so agreeable, he'd persuaded May to delay their supper and come enjoy the air with him. He felt good these days. He was earning a decent wage, and starting to build his own two-room house of tabby with help from his friend w

The Year of the Locust 433

Andy Sherman and some tools loaned by Mr. Heely, the white foreman of the Mont Royal work force. Ridley was proud to be able to do all these things, and go wherever he wished as a free man. That included Summerton, where he intended to vote for General U.S. Grant for president, as Mr. Klawdell of the League suggested.

The last redness of the day was fading behind the thick woods bordering the river road. Walking together, Ridley and his wife heard a low hooting. May huddled close against him. "Sun's gone. We walked too far."

"Felt so peaceful, I lost all track," Ridley said, all at once aware of the lowering darkness. He gripped her hand and lengthened his stride; he couldn't hurry her too much because of her condition. Suddenly, behind them, they heard horses.

Ridley and May turned to look. They saw glowing lights floating above the road, and a red shimmer. They heard the jingle of bridles.

Robed riders, carrying torches.

"May, we got to run. It's them Klan men."

She turned without a word and sprinted toward Mont Royal, her bare feet flying. He caught up with her and, side by side, they sped away from the trotting horses. Their bare feet thumped the sandy road.

Ridley's breathing quickened; soon he was gasping. May let out a groan.

The exertion was too much for her.

The four riders broke into a gallop. They quickly overtook the black couple. Ridley and May saw the shadows of the Klansmen appear on the road as they drew up close behind with their torches.

Two of the riders booted their mounts past the fleeing couple. Ridley smelled the animals as they dashed by, raising dust. The horsemen wheeled back in the center of the road. Ridley and May were encircled.

"Nigger, you know you're not s'posed to be out after dark," one
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of the riders said. All four were robed and hooded in scarlet cloth that rippled and gleamed when they moved. Ridley clutched May's shoulder, angry but not wanting to provoke them; they might hurt her.

"We were just on our way home, gentlemen."

"Gentlemen," another of them guffawed. "We're not gentlemen, we're hell's devils come to haunt rebellious darkies." The speaker dismounted and slouched forward. Ridley saw blue behind the eyeholes of the hood, but he didn't recognize the man by his build or his voice. The nan thrust a Leech and Rigdon revolver under Ridley's nose. "Where you from, boy? Answer me respectfully."

"From down the road. From Mont Royal."

"Oh, then you're one of them Union League coons who expects

"e's going to vote come November. Going to try to put that goddamn

^""ant in the White House, are you, nigger-boy?"

434 ' HEAVEN AND HELL

May's dark eyes flashed with fury. "He is. He's a citizen and just as good as any of--"

"May, stop," Ridley begged.

"We are the devil's agents and we demand respect," the man said, raising his revolver to strike the pregnant girl.

Ridley jumped between them. "Run, May," he shouted. His hands darted to the throat of the robed man. The man fired a round. The sound of it was thunderous.

"Jesus, Jack," another of the riders protested. Ridley dropped to his knees, a wound just above his belt pouring blood onto his shirt.

May screamed and leaped at the man with the revolver. Instead of shooting her, he drove his elbow into her round stomach. She cried out and fell on her back in the road, holding herself and weeping.

Her faded dress was twisted around her hips. She wore clean cotton drawers that suddenly showed a dot of blood. Jack Jolly pulled off his mask and gazed at May with repugnance. Another of the men said,

"She's just a girl, Jolly."

Jolly pointed the Leech and Rigdon between the eyeholes of the man's hood. "You ain't got a goddamn word to say about it, Gettys."

Ridley slowly rolled onto his side, quivered, lay still. Jolly gave a satisfied grunt, cocked the revolver, aimed at May's head and fired another round.

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Her body jerked. The sound boomed through the woods, rousing unseen birds that flapped away in alarm. Jolly laughed and wiped his damp chin with the hem of his hood.