All That Lives (44 page)

On the day of the funeral, the house swirled with activity as the snow had swirled on the day Father died. It filled the distances
and made it impossible to see three feet beyond what lay directly before our busy hands. Mother chose my dress for me, a woven
wool dyed with hickory nuts to the dark brown of autumn bark. Martha had left it behind.

“ ’Tis nice with your hair,” Mother told me, though I doubted it mattered. Richard and Joel had suits fashioned from the same
cloth and they wore them without protest, a testament to their deep sadness. Drewry wore dark gray, as did Mother, Frank and
most of the rest of the community, as black elder and juniper berries were plentiful in those parts and often used to dye
the winter wools. We were a somber crowd, but our preparations were much the same as those for a party.

“Help Chloe move the table up against the wall.” Mother busied herself giving instructions. I spread our whitest linen, ironed
by Chloe until it shone, and she put the fruitcakes out, leaving spaces for the biscuits and sweet breads we knew the neighbors
would bring. I went to the kitchen pleased to see Chloe had fetched five sugared hog’s heads from the storehouse and arranged
them on a platter. I craved the taste of the brown-sugared meat along my tongue, but I thought of Father and how he too had
felt a special liking for the sugared hog’s head. It pained me to know we would never share another.

“They’re bringing in the coffin …” I heard Drewry shout from the hall and I hurried back to see Dean and Zeke carrying in
the dark and shining box. Dean had toiled through three days and nights to complete Father’s coffin, and it was indeed a master’s
work. He and Zeke placed it on two tables Mother had set together, perpendicular to the hearth, and I saw the shine was from
liberal amounts of wood oil Dean had rubbed into the finish. He had carved a pattern of intertwined tobacco leaves along the
side.

“It seems a shame to hide so fine a piece beneath the ground.” Mother held her white cotton handkerchief up to her eyes, staring
at the lovely empty coffin in our parlor.

“ ’Twas masta Bell’s own idea.” Dean took a step forward, touching the wooden vine. “We were talking one day after Miz Lawson
died and he told me, ‘A tobacco vine ought to circle my box for what more vigorous emblem could a man wish for?’” Mother began
to cry and Dean and Zeke appeared likely to join her. I could easily hear Father making that remark.

“ ’Tis time the body should be placed inside.” Frank hung his massive head.

“Children, leave us to it.” Mother sighed, waving Joel, Richard and me into the kitchen where Chloe patted our backs and slipped
bits of brown sugar melting off the edges of the hog’s heads into our mouths.

“On the count of three …” I heard Frank Miles from the bedroom, instructing, “Heave!” I imagined Father’s corpse was heavy
as the stone above the phantom treasure. How would they maneuver him from the bed into the box? I licked the sweet and sticky
sugar off my lips and tried not to picture the scene.

“Jack! Jack!” Mother cried his name in pain and we heard Frank’s strong hammer driving nails into the walnut. A bad odor I
recognized as the smell of Jack three days hence replaced the lovely hog’s head in my nose. “I cannot bear it!” I heard a
clatter in the parlor and Mother burst into the kitchen, her handkerchief over her mouth.

“Oh Miz Lucy! Make no memory of him in death!” Chloe hugged Joel close to her. Mother did not reply, but pressed her back
against the door between the kitchen and the dining room, and her expression clearly wished to keep the day ahead away. The
back door burst open and the cold came in, along with Old Kate and Mary Batts.

“I heard them nailing, so we came around the back. Dreadfully sorry to hear of your misfortune. I done brought a nut-meat
pie, with our regrets.” Old Kate thrust the pie toward Chloe, who took it with one hand, prying Joel’s arms off her waist
with her other hand. “Ooh, the stench of death is foul in here!” Old Kate wrinkled up her nose, withdrawing her amulet from
her coat and dress. Mother sighed and wiped her cheeks. Standing straighter, she recovered herself. I heard a knocking behind
the pounding of the hammer and I realized the community was arriving to pay their last respects to John Bell, landowning upright
tobacco farmer, my father.

“We so appreciate your kind concern.” Mother thanked Kate and drew Joel from Chloe, allowing her to open the door to place
Kate’s pie on the dining table.

“Lucy, I also made you this …” Old Kate reached inside her coat, removing a scrap of velvet stuffed with herbs she dared to
call an amulet. “You can have it, free of charge, and I suggest you wear it, as it has herbs to keep the evil off.”

“Thank you, Kate,” Mother replied and as she reached out to take the gift Kate caught her hand, speaking close to her ear,
but I heard her whisper.

“You have tolerated enough, now, Lucy. Grieve not for the dear departed, for he shall suffer this earth no more.” I could
not stand to listen to her penny wisdom and I retreated to a solitary ladder-backed chair placed in the corner of the parlor
behind the coffin. I saw Thenny arrive with her family but I purposely did not look to her and I believe she could well sense
I did not wish to speak, as she followed her mother into our dining room.

When next I looked at the arrivals, I was pleased to see Josh Gardner, accompanied by his father. Mr. Gardner and my father
had not been friends, so I knew he was present only at Josh’s insistence. I was momentarily heartened, but then I remembered
the Spirit’s warning, and I became afraid to speak with him. Josh looked about the room for me and, seeing my position, frowned.
I saw him try to catch my eye but I pretended I had not by looking down at my two hands folded on my lap.

The parlor filled quickly, and the Reverend and Frank Miles moved to stand before the casket, so I was mostly hidden from
view. I sat listening to the somber murmur of voices, feeling, as I had on the afternoon when I was alone staring out into
the snow, the sounds in my ears and the shapes before me had no meaning.

“Betsy, Betsy …” I looked up and there stood Josh. Having paid his respects to the Reverend and Frank to get to me, he stood
at the head of the gleaming casket, and I had the sense he had been a long time waiting for my attention. “I want to tell
you how I long to relieve your grief. I did not wish to leave your house the day before yesterday, but I did wish to respect
your wishes, though they were contrary to my own.” Josh bent and lifted my hand from my lap to his lips. I allowed it, but
Father’s coffin at my elbow made the gesture grimly formal.

“Thank you, Josh,” I replied without a smile, for my despair was large. I saw behind him our parlor was full and overflowing
into the yard, reminding me of the Spirit’s early days. How the crowds had come. I tried to focus on the individual members
of our community wrapped in their warmest cloaks in our parlor, but I could only see a crowd of familiar faces. Who was simply
curious regarding supernatural acts of murder and who was there to pay their last respects to a man who had wielded power
in his dealings amongst them? Only a few had really known my father.

“Betsy, your father has gone to where we all shall go, though I mean not to further sadden you with that thought.” Josh sighed
with some frustration, but carried on. “Truthfully, it is hard to know what to say to you, but I did find a most modern poem
that expresses some approximation of my thoughts, and in later moments perhaps it may provide you small comfort.” From inside
his vest pocket Josh withdrew a piece of smooth folded paper, which he deposited onto my lap. “Perhaps I may call on you again
soon?” He squeezed my hand with affection. I shook my head no, most absolutely, as I was too frightened by what the Spirit
might do to us. There was a shuffle amongst the crowd and Josh was forced to move aside. Frank and Drewry set a wooden bench
before the casket and many people shifted, their backs to me. I opened the paper on my lap, easily able to focus on Josh’s
perfect script.

“Mutability”
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley

We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;

How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,

Streaking the darkness radiantly!—yet soon

Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings

Give various response to each varying blast,

To whose frail frame no second motion brings

One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest.—A dream has power to poison sleep;

We rise.—One wandering thought pollutes the day;

We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;

Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same!—For, be it joy or sorrow,

The path of its departure still is free:

Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;

Nought may endure but Mutability.

Where had he discovered such blasphemous poetry, and what was his meaning in sharing it with me? I was intrigued, and set
to read it over when the Reverend climbed up the bench in front of me and began to speak to the assembled in his loud church
voice.

“None of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether we die,
we die unto the Lord; whether we live, therefore, or die, we be the Lord’s.” A rush of cold air blew up the hill and in our
door, chilling all persons present until we were as frozen as stones in the stream, buried under ice and snow.

Oh here’s success to brandy, drink it down, drink it down,

Oh here’s success to brandy, drink it down, drink it down,.

The Spirit filled the room with a hundred voices on the chorus, so outside the sound resonated as if our home were a rumbling
brothel. Inside, the people in the parlor bowed their heads and shivered in silent prayer. At least, I hoped they prayed,
and did not bow their heads to hide their laughter, as the Spirit made a mockery of Father’s life.

Oh here’s success to whiskey, drink it down, drink it down,

Oh here’s success to whiskey, drink it down, drink it down,

For it always makes you frisky,

Drink it down! Drink it down! Drink it down!

The picture of Father draining his silver flask at his desk occupied my mind, and if not for the heavy stone in the pit of
my stomach that held me in my place, I believe I would have fallen on the floor under the casket in tears. The Reverend shouted
the Lord’s Prayer and Frank cursed the Spirit, but no voice could compete with the voice of the Being in song.

“We shall end this torment!” Frank pushed through the crowd and out the door, and I could see in the set of his deer-skinned
shoulders he was full of anger. I stood and climbed the bench beside the Reverend, so I might see out the window Frank’s plan
of action. He tore through the crowds running down the hill to the horse tie where Zeke waited with the sleigh that would
carry Father’s coffin to his grave.

Be like me, and good for a spree,

From now till the day is dawning,

“ ’Tis time!” Satisfied the horses were ready for the journey through the snow, Frank turned and ran back up the path toward
the house, shouting, “We must go now, to the grave!”

Good for any game at night, my boys,

Good for any game at night,

Drewry, the Reverend, Mr. Thorn and Calvin Justice simultaneously understood Frank’s intent and the Reverend stepped heavily
down to the floor to help the men lift the coffin.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for the Lord is with me.” He led the room
in prayer and struggled to balance his corner of the coffin as they turned to the door, but the Spirit would not allow the
Reverend to be heard and increased the number of voices singing its wicked tune.

My father he was a great drinker,

He never was sober a day,

And when he’d roll in, in the morning,

Oh these are the words he would say.

I’ll never get drunk anymore,

I’ll never get drunk anymore.

The pledge I will take, the whiskey I’ll shake,

Oh I’ll never get drunk anymore.

“Let us get on with it!” Frank shouted, and holding the head of the coffin he guided the men and Drewry forward. The crowd
parted, moving somberly, in contrast with the ribald Spirit. I followed the Reverend and Calvin Justice, who carried the foot
of the casket, and I was careful not to look at who I passed. In the hall, Mother handed me my coat, my gloves and hat, and
she wrapped her warmest lamb’s wool shawl around my right arm and her left, so we were both encompassed. We descended the
porch steps together, with Joel and Richard following us closely, bumping against our backs.

And when I lay down in me coffin,

These are the words that I say.

I’ll never get drunk anymore.

I’ll never get drunk anymore.

I looked up and saw the lawn of snow was filled with strangers, all silent and willing to wet their boots that they might
tell their grandchildren
they were there
on the gray winter day when John Bell was buried and the Being who killed him sang the songs of a brothel.

Oh row me up some brandy O

For on a journey I will go!

We walked slowly on the path Dean had shoveled under the pear trees and down to the horse tie, where the casket was loaded
into our sleigh. Dean had removed all the benches except the driver’s, but still the coffin had to be tied with ropes on both
ends to prevent it from slipping out. I could easily imagine the catastrophe of the casket flying through the air, the wood
box breaking into splinters, Father’s stiff corpse rolling into the snow. Frank climbed quickly on the bench and whipped the
reins against the horses’ backs.

“To the grave!” He whipped them wickedly and the sleigh took off at a great speed, toward the barn, and all the crowd gasped
and staggered back, afraid they would be hurt.