Charleston (42 page)

Cal stumbled down the stairs at half past ten. Ouida's boy had been home four weeks. The first few days were a delirious ecstacy of reunion; Ouida wept frequently. At first she neither understood the meaning of Cal's whipped look nor clearly heard his bitterness. Then, as she awoke to the changes in him, a battle began. Sometimes it was a skirmish of glares and pouty silences, sometimes a frontal assault of angry words. This morning he seemed benign, if bleary eyed.

“Good morning, Mama.”

“In the name of heaven, cover yourself.” Cal wore only a pair of drawers. His hair was uncombed, his hairless chest bright with sweat. They were into the hot season, without a single house slave to cool the white masters with fans.

“You've seen me with less on than this,” he said. “'Least I hope you swaddled me once or twice when I was a babe. Give us a hug.”

“Stay away from me. You smell like a groggery. Where do you get liquor?”

“There's plenty to be had if you know where to look.”

“How do you pay for it?”

“Cards and dice, Mama. Sometimes faro. I learned skills in the army. Anything for breakfast?”

“Do you think I'm a nigger cook you can order about?”

“No, but far as I can see, there isn't another cook at Prosperity Hall, nor a washerwoman, nor anybody else to do for us.”

“Dear Lord, what ever brought this on? What happened to you?”

A muscle in his throat quivered. “I'll answer you the way I answer anybody who asks, Mama. The war happened. You and your Goddamn friends happened, the ones so eager to send boys off to fight, though they'd never go themselves, oh, no. Old men issue orders, young men die. It's a tradition, isn't it?”

“The Yankees did this,” Ouida moaned, kerchief at her eyes. “I'd kill every Yankee on earth if I had the power.”

By then he'd left the hall for the kitchen. She heard him knocking about, dropping a pan, breaking a piece of crockery, spewing his filthy oaths. That he should have come home a wastrel, a burnt-out wreck, broke her heart. What they had done to him demanded punishment.

 

In the soggy July heat Gibbes walked the fallow fields at Malvern. Once indigo had flourished here, and cotton. The weedy desolation mocked him; reminded him of his straits. All the money earned through Palmetto Traders had been spent. His Confederate bonds were worthless. So, it seemed, was his land.

He and Snoo had moved out to Malvern because he loathed the sight of all the strutting soldiers and, as Snoo put it, “The streets are so niggery anymore.” Gibbes had to drive the coupe rockaway himself, with Snoo and their luggage inside. The coach's glossy carmine paint had faded and grown dull. Bits of the gilded
B
s on the side panels had flaked away.

Leaving the city, they'd passed the site of the old Fair-grounds Prison, now a burying ground for the blue-bellies. In May, Union fanatics had celebrated some sort of memorial day at the cemetery. Gibbes had leaned over and spat at the graves as they rolled by.

 

Gibbes's fine cambric shirt stuck to his back and belly. Gnats deviled his neck. Little triangular burrs attached themselves to his pant legs as he walked. Leaving the field, he sat down beside a magnolia, weighted with unhappiness. His finger traced in the dirt, the same two letters,
OW
, over and over.

In the war's aftermath resistance had hardened within Gibbes. He refused to take Andrew Johnson's oath, even though he fit none of the excluded classifications. He hadn't been a high-ranking officer of the Confederate army or navy. He no longer possessed $20,000 in liquid assets. Even so, he was damned if he'd swear loyalty to the Constitution and obedience to the laws of the nation. On Independence Day he had refused to show the Stars and Stripes at Malvern.

The North poured out a poison stream of propaganda about equality for the freed slaves. It was sponsored and promoted by a powerful clique of extreme Republicans bitterly opposed to Johnson's generally moderate reconstruction plan cast in the forgiving mold of Lincoln's program. He'd be a dead man before he'd go along. Top to bottom South Carolina's situation was intolerable. But what to do about it? Damned if he knew.

He traced
OW
again, then scowled and scuffed it away with his boot. He walked into the silent house. He presumed Snoo was napping. They lived without servants, forced to do all the chores themselves.

On the river porch he picked up a
Mercury,
now filled with Yankee flummery and precious little news. He rocked in a rocker, swore at the midges and mosquitoes, flipped the pages for items of interest. He found just one. The recently appointed provisional governor, Benjamin Perry, had called a special election of delegates to a convention in September to write a new state constitution.

Election?

The idea was so simple and obvious. If true sons of Carolina were to keep the state out of the hands of the white radicals and the black-hearted niggers, those patriots must launch a new war, a secret war whose soldiers appeared outwardly docile and cooperative.

He dragged himself upstairs, his hands on the bannister pulling, his artificial leg thumping the risers. “Snoo?” He burst into her bedroom, where she sprawled behind gauze curtains hung from the four-poster's canopy. She'd put on a thin summer gown for her nap, not expecting interruption. He could see her sex and the round, rosy breasts that had first attracted him.

“Snoo, wake up, I want to tell you something.” He batted the curtain aside, flung himself down beside her. She murmured and frowned in her sleep. “I'm going to run for office. Help write a new state constitution. You hear me, Snoo?”

Gradually her eyes focused. “No. Tell me again.”

He did, a step at a time. First, the special convention; he'd campaign to be a delegate from Charleston. He knew he'd win; influential friends would support him. The next step was more important. A new legislature would be elected to write new laws, find clever ways to evade or vitiate the dictates of the madmen in Washington.

“My Lord, aren't you the ambitious one?” Snoo said. “But, sweet, can you do any of that without taking their old oath?”

“Doubt it. I'll have to go before a judge and sign the damn thing, even if it makes me sick to my stomach.”

“You really want to go into politics?”

“It's the only way. White men have got to reclaim this state.”

Drowsily, she tickled his chin. He noticed that her nipples had enlarged. “Well,” she said with the coy smile she affected at such moments, “I 'spose I could be happy as the wife of an important politician and war hero. But before you go into politics, why don't you go here?” She pulled the hem of her gown above her waist.

Feeling good again, Gibbes got busy hauling off his britches. When he kissed Snoo he thought of Alex.

Next morning he bade Snoo good-bye, mounted the one decent saddle horse left to him, a strong bay named Trajan, and took the road to Prosperity Hall to announce his decision to his sister.

Though never musical or inclined to sing much, Gibbes was in high spirits. He bellowed “I Am a Good Old Rebel” as he galloped:

When he cantered up the drive beneath the tall pines, he saw an unfamiliar horse tied to the ring block. He recognized the regulation black leather saddle and bridle, the indigo-blue saddle blanket with its orange border. What the hell was a Union soldier doing at Prosperity Hall?

He opened the front door, called out, “Hello the house?”

“Gibbes? Brother, is that you?” Ouida trilled it like a bird. “We're in the parlor. Come meet my guest.”

Straw hat in hand, Gibbes brushed at his hair to neaten it, then walked into the room, whose soggy heat almost made him gasp. A Union officer, ruddy, thick waisted, and no more than five feet tall, rose politely. His shoulder straps had gold-embroidered leaves at the ends.

Ouida's face was a mask of white powder scribed by trickles of sweat. “Major Fryberg, this is my brother, Mr. Gibbes Bell. Gibbes, this is Major Klaus Fryberg, did I pronounce that right, Major?”

“Indeed, ma'am. Pleased to know you, sir,” Fryberg said in a queerly nasal voice. He offered his hand while Ouida rattled on.

“Major Fryberg's surveying the roads and bridges hereabouts. He stopped in to ask permission to water his horse and I invited him to tea. Some of my special lemon herb tea that Miss Bess liked so much.” Gibbes froze. Miss Bess was a fat calico Ouida had owned briefly last year. The cat had unwisely lapped rainwater from a pot where pale pink oleander grew. Dark leathery leaves had dropped from the plant and floated in the water. An hour after Miss Bess imbibed, she started to choke and convulse. At the end of another hour her heart stopped. The veterinarian explained.

“
Nerium oleander
is an evergreen of the dogbane family. The flowers are pretty, but the plant itself is deadly. The sap's toxic to pets and humans in varying degree. One crushed leaf can kill a large sheep. They grind the leaves to
make powder to kill rats.” He proceeded to describe the horrific symptoms of oleander poisoning.

Major Fryberg cleaned his sweated brow with a big blue handkerchief. “You're mighty hospitable, Mrs. Hayward. We don't get such a friendly reception elsewhere in the district.”

“Well, the war's over, and we must all be countrymen again, mustn't we? If you gentlemen will sit yourselves down and get acquainted, I'll have the tea in a jiffy.”

Gibbes threw his hat on a love seat. “Let me help you, sister.”

He grasped her elbow and fairly pushed her through the narrow door to the pantry hall. He swung her against the wall, gripping her arms. “Have you gone crazy?”

“I'm as sane as you are,” Ouida whispered. “I'm going to serve him some of my special tea.”

“With some oleander leaves crumbled into it? In half an hour he'll be puking and shitting all over your floor. It may take him hours to die. Then what are you going to do with him?”

“Lock him in the cookhouse till he's gone. There's no one to hear him cry out. Cal's in town for the night, liquoring himself to death.”

Steam was spouting from a kettle on the stove. A silver tray on the chopping block held fine old cups and saucers inherited from Lydia, a small strainer basket of silver mesh containing tea leaves, and a saucer of slices from a wrinkled lemon. The veterinarian said oleander tasted like the very bitterest of lemons.

Gibbes nodded at the strainer basket. “Empty that.”

“You're hurting me.”

“I'll do worse if you don't obey me.”

“I want to kill Yankees.”

“That isn't the way to beat them. I know the right way. I don't want you arrested, Ouida. I don't want your reputation hurt. No, no,” he whispered, pulling her into his shoulder and stroking her hair. Her powdery chin smeared the lapel of his frock coat.

Her strident breathing subsided. He dropped his hands. “Throw it out, Ouida. Brew regular tea.”

She sniffled. “All right.” She carried the strainer to the door and dumped its contents in the weeds. Gibbes smoothed his shirt, composed his face, walked back through the swing door.

“Tea's coming, Major. Just a few more minutes.” He smiled. “Where do you hail from, sir?”

“Bangor, Maine,” the major said. “I've always heard of Southern hospitality, Mr. Bell. Now I understand the phrase.”

“She's moved her damn school.”

Folsey lounged in the parlor of the spacious house on George Street that had been in the family since Crittenden's day. “You sure about that?”

“Saw it for myself. You know the abandoned Daws place next to Bells'? I climbed up to the second floor—damn scary, stairs are half caved in. From a bedroom there's a fine view across the broken-down garden wall.”

“Rex, you're a born snoop.”

“When it comes to nigger mischief, that I am. She's teaching the darkies in her dining room, at night. Seven grown men and women. It's a damn outrage.”

“Now, just a minute. Your own mother's teaching pick-aninnies in public school, isn't she?”

“Damn if I can do anything about that. Anyway, they handed her the class, she had no say.”

Folsey's guest, Rex Porcher-Jones, was a prewar graduate of South Carolina College and expert at toadying to those he considered his betters. His face was round as a pie, white as the lard that greased the pan. “Two hundred
says you can't hit the woman from the Daws house,” Folsey said.

“Hit her? You mean with a bullet?”

“I don't mean a slingshot.”

Rex's consternation warred with eagerness to please. He hedged. “That's a damn lot of money.”

“All right, make it fifty. Won't owe you so much if I lose.”

With a sweating palm Rex shook hands to seal the wager. Kaspar walked into the room barefoot. Although it was nearly noon, he still wore his nightshirt. He smiled drowsily and reached for the glass of Madeira Folsey had been sipping. Folsey tousled his hair as he ushered Rex to the hall.

Rex peered at a box of white-painted stakes lying against the baseboard. Each stake bore a black two-digit number. “What are those damn things?”

“Little scheme of mine. You know Sherman's field order giving vacant land from Charleston to Port Royal and thirty miles inland to any niggers who care to claim it? General Saxton down at the Freedmen's Bureau in Beaufort, he's started to parcel it out, forty acres at a time.”

“Still don't understand. What's the damn number mean?”

“Not a blessed thing. A big buck named Slope, brute with forehead like this”—Folsey slanted his hand in front of his brow—“he sells the sticks for me. He tells the colored folks they're freedom sticks, all they've got to do is plant one at each corner of a piece of land and it's theirs, nice and legal. We charge four dollars the set of four. Slope keeps a dollar, I take the rest. Sold over two hundred so far. Isn't that a stitch?”

He slapped Rex on the back. “I look forward to paying off my bet. Just don't get caught.”

 

Plato Hix learned the copperplate script alphabet using a quill pen. Alex insisted that he draw ruled lines on the blank pages before he practiced. He wrote letters, words, phrases, then sentences from an exercise book she supplied. His spelling was abominable; he made frequent er
rors even when copying a maxim.
Christanity cals for kindness
.
Hard work takes away sadnes.
Plato couldn't imagine someone working harder than he did, and he was constantly sad about it.

He and Mary and their children, Benny, named for Benjamin Franklin, and Abby, named for Mary's mother, rented two tiny rooms in a rookery on Prioleau Street, near the Cooper River piers. Every corner and cranny of the three-story building smelled of dirt and rotting garbage and human waste.

The Hix family could afford nothing better. Plato's night duty with his fire brigade brought in no money. With his crippled hand the best job he could find was boot-blacking in a dim hallway off the lobby of the Mansion House. Crouching on his homemade box of polishes and rags, he earned a dime per customer. He paid three cents of that to the hotel manager.

Plato's back ached from bending over the fancy footwear that gentlemen presented for his attention all day long: gray leather ankle boots with laces; elastic-sided boots with patent leather toe caps; low heels, high heels, stacked heels. Any mistake had consequences, as when he accidentally dabbed brown paste on the suede upper of a gentleman's buttoned boot. For that he got a knock in the head and a cursing out, as well as a dollar fine from the manager.

Plato was determined to improve his lot, so he went to South Battery one night a week to study and write in his copybook. Miss Alex gave him a small dog-eared dictionary she'd bought at the Marburg Bookshop. It taught him words he might need if he ever found the courage to write about Maj. Owen Wheat. Plato, Mr. Gibbes Bell, and Major Wheat had all served under Gen. Wade Hampton, though Gibbes Bell hadn't come along until the spring of 1862, replacing an officer who stepped on a buried torpedo during McClellan's siege of Yorktown.

July turned the tenement to a furnace. Plato's pride, little Benny, developed a severe headache, then a pronounced jaundice. It was the dreaded yellow fever. People
either died of it or they recovered, without a doctor's intervention.

To buy ice to cool his son's throat and feverish skin, Plato begged for an advance from the hotel manager. He was refused. He contemplated robbing some stranger on the street, but while he was still pondering the danger, Benny's fever broke. Miraculously, the boy recovered without apparent damage.

The near tragedy taught a lesson. He could no longer subject his family to such extreme poverty, not when he possessed a secret that might rescue them from it.

He decided he'd learned what he needed in Alex's class. He stopped going, without informing her. While Mary and the children slept, Plato sat over a candle with quill and copybook, laboriously composing an account of the demise of Maj. Owen Wheat.

 

“Plato Hix hasn't been to class for three weeks. I'm going to call on him and find out why.”

In the steamy dusk Maudie's face ran with sweat. The house was so still, Alex fancied she could hear the ancient beams settling for the night. Ham had left before candlelighting time, to weed and water St. Michael's churchyard for an hour, as his friend Petigru had done regularly. Ham would spend the rest of the evening with some gentleman who hoped to resurrect the Fortnightly Club.

“Wouldn't do that,” Maudie advised her. “Heat's got people in bad temper. Saw two fights at market today.”

“Who was fighting? Whites? Colored? The soldiers?”

“Pick any one of 'em. They're all mad as hornets. Besides, Prioleau Street's a bad part of town.”

“I'll go with her,” Little Bob said from his chair at the dining table. Alex tried to read his round face. It was expressionless.

“I'd be happy for the company, Bob.” The boy slipped to her side, clasped her hand. He'd never broken out of himself like this before. It delighted her.

They walked to East Battery, past the abandoned gun emplacements, then turned north. She tried to converse
with Bob, but he answered her questions with monosyllables. Still, he held her hand tightly.

The August evening was oppressive. It had been one of those late summer days she called white days: sunless, the sky a simmering blank whose color reminded her of dingy linen. On the stoop of a pale pink house a man and woman quarreled, pouring out a torrent of foul language. Little Bob seemed unfazed.

A raggedy drunk approached, reached for Alex's arm. Bob said, “Go 'way, you old son of a bitch.” Before the drunk could decide if he was angry, they escaped.

“A lady is certainly safe in your company,” Alex said, laughing. She really wanted to ask where he'd learned to curse. Bob responded with pursed lips. She counted it a smile.

At Queen Street they turned east into Vendue Range; Prioleau led north off of it near the water. The street was crowded with unkempt men and a few prostitutes. Inside a dimly lit dramshop men serenaded the past.
“Hurrah, hurrah, for Southern rights, hurrah—hurrah for the bonnie blue flag that wears a single star.”
Several others lounged on benches outside. One hailed Alex, invited her to sit on his lap.

When they were still a few steps from Prioleau, they heard new singing. Male voices again, loud and slurred.
“We'll hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree, oh, we'll hang Jeff Davis—”
Around the corner came a sizable gang of black soldiers. A brickbat flew over Alex's head, hitting one of them in the chest.

“You fucking niggers better not come down this street.”

A soldier pointed at the dramshop. “One of them white boys threw it, I seen him.” Men at the dramshop stepped into the street. The Prioleau intersection lay beyond the soldiers; Alex and Little Bob were cut off in both directions.

She flashed looks right and left. No easy sanctuary there. The soldiers sauntered toward her, taunting the whites. A corporal tried to push Alex aside. She refused to move. One of the white roughnecks yelled, “The coon's molesting that white woman.”

It took nothing more to ignite the brawl.

Men from the dramshop rushed past her. She glimpsed a dirk, metal knuckles. The soldiers lined up across the street and met the attack with swinging fists. A white man inadvertently pushed Alex forward; a black fist smashed her jaw. “Miss Alex,” Bob cried as she fell to her knees. Men were all around her, pummeling and kicking, biting cheeks and gouging eyes. She tried to crawl out of the thicket of legs; someone walked on her fingers.

Bob started punching anyone handy, got a brutal slap in return. Alex rose to one knee, groggy and nauseous. Someone grabbed her shoulder, tore the sleeve of her dress. A black corporal fell against her, face split open from eyebrow to chin. His blood stained her bodice as he slid down and passed out. She clutched Little Bob's hand, consumed with panic.

“Get out of the way, stand aside.”

Who the man was, she didn't know. He bulled through the crowd, a shadowy phantom with a revolver. “Follow me,” he said, then spun suddenly to jam the gun muzzle against the jaw of a white man who'd laid hands on him. “You want to eat this, sport?”

The man slid away. Alex recognized the stranger's voice but not the beardless face. When he turned his head, the dramshop lanterns showed her Richard Riddle's flecked eyes.

“Where did you come from?”

“A table in the tavern where I was enjoying sausage and a glass of combustible. Let's get away from these damn fools before they kill us. Boy, hang on to my hand.” Richard booted a soldier's rear and opened a path.

They ran west on Queen, Alex panting to keep up with Little Bob and their rescuer. All three darted out of the way of a detachment from the provost guard hurrying to the riot at double time. The provost guards charged in, attacking their fellow soldiers with truncheons. Alex heard cries of pain, saw men drop, mercilessly clubbed. Sickened, she turned away and followed Riddle.