Grace (32 page)

A
LBERT PUSHES HIS
new cabinet against the wall while I pick through the bottles of wine and whiskey.

I can feel Albert looking at me, can tell he wants to ask me about Jeremy's coming and going a few nights ago, but I ain't got nothing to say.

“I understand if you still want to leave,” Albert say. “And be with him.”

“You worry too much,” I say. “What's Jeremy got that you don't?”

He smiles one-sided, all crooked-faced and ugly. Strangely beautiful, I think. I love him. But not the same as I did Jeremy.

“So I'm better than him?” he say. “‘Maybe I'm somebody worth spending the rest of your life with?”

I smile. “Don't you gotta leave in an hour. If you stop talking now you could save your strength. It's a long trip.”

“And if I gave my strength up now to ask, what would you say?”

“That Cynthia wants me to put all her liquor in order of their alphabet. But what do you think she'd say if I put the pretty ones up front?”

“M
R
. S
HEPARD
!” S
OLEDAD
cries, trying to shake him alive.

She goes searching through her house like she looking for something needed to fix him with—in her drawers and closets, the bedrooms.

She gives up and finally bursts out of her front doors, hysterical and screaming, her bare feet scramble down her porch, leaving red footprints. They get floured with dust as she runs up her dirt road toward the main one, her hair heavy with blood and whipping from side to side. Her closest neighbor, a quarter mile away, comes out his door from hearing her scream.

“He's dead!” she say. “Mr. Shepard's dead! That slave girl killed him!”

Part
V

46
/ HOMECOMING: 1869

Tallassee, Alabama

T
HE LAW PUTS
a limit on the time a person has to sue somebody.

And if they don't do it in that time, the hurt person has to drop the matter forever. And there's a time limit on how long the law has to catch somebody for a crime, too, even if the person did it. And if the law cain't catch him in that time, it means the criminal got away with it forever.

Not murder.

Murder has no limits. So the death penalty is always on the heels of the guilty. And there's a lot of talk here about what to do with the treasonous, deserters, and war criminals. It's how I know about limits. It's how I know soldiers who desert are murderers according to the people here. Innocent lives were lost because of them. The death penalty, folks say, is the right punishment. But not according to newest president of the United States.

President Johnson signed an order giving “unconditional pardons to all Civil War participants”—on both sides—including war criminals. The order came too late for Henry Wirz, the commanding officer of Camp Sumter in Georgia where Union soldiers were starved, mistreated,
and killed. Wirz was convicted of eleven murders and conspiracy and was hanged a war criminal.

He wasn't the only one.

There were at least two war criminals punished, but there are thousands of deserters, hundreds of them being hunted down and killed and murdered, all off the legal record.

As many as one in three soldiers deserted. So, one in three were eligible to die as cowards. Those men say they were scared or said they were fighting to save their families not a nation; they didn't sign up for this. It was the old president, President Lincoln, who said no to killing more deserters: “American people will not stand to see Americans shot by the dozens and twenties.” But not everybody agree with Lincoln. The Civil War is proof they didn't. It's been over four years since the end of the Civil War and folks are still angry, Confederate flags still fly. And it's still true that the death penalty is always on the heels of a murderer.

Jackson came home three nights ago by surprise from the new war out west. Even with a son five years gone, Sissy's first question was, “You told somebody before you left, didn't you, son? Honorable?”

But Josey didn't ask no questions when she saw him standing in the darkened doorway, a hero with the night sky behind him. She collapsed with all her burdens in the spot where she stood. It's where his comforting arms would hold her 'til daybreak.

And now, they sit before the popping fire, Jackson's arms around her still, her body slouched into him. It only took Rachel and Squiggy a half minute three nights ago to find themselves lost in Jackson, too. They've been hanging on him like cares. “This is your daddy,” Josey told 'em that first night, and now they move when he moves, follow him in and out the house, from one side of the room to the other. And right now, they're a step away, busying themselves with a piece of coal, coloring tree bark, and forming letters, but they're still keeping an eye on him. Sissy, too, in her rocking chair.

“And my daddy?” Josey say. “Any word from him?”

“I heard his regiment went north into Dakota territory the month before I made it to Texas,” Jackson said. “They call negroes like him buffalo soldiers,” he said.

“But you?” Sissy said. “You came home?”

“Negro fighters ain't getting proper shelter out there, Momma . . . food. Deal was we was gon' get guns and ammunition, new shoes and quality goods. Instead, we got rotten Civil War rations and cheap blankets that fell apart in the rain. They're the ones that broke the contract and don't care if we die.”

“So they just let you go home?” Josey said.

“Put it this way . . . they know I ain't coming back.”

“Did I raise a deserter, Jackson? Is that what you did, son? You telling me I raised a coward?”

“Momma, I ain't gon' kill Indians. Treat 'em the way white folks treat us.”

Sissy shakes her head. “Oooh . . . they gon' come for you, Jackson. They gon' come and you deserve what you get. Always turning your back on folks that treat you right.”

“Is that what I do, Momma? Huh? I mistreat folk?”

Sissy pushes back in her chair hard enough to set herself rocking in half swings.

F
ART SOUNDS ARE
echoing from the bottom of the porch where Jackson got his face buried in Squiggy's belly, blowing. Rachel and Josey are beside themselves with laughter. It's been thirty-two days since Jackson's came home and it's like they've always been as perfect as a white family.

All but Sissy.

Jackson and Sissy ain't talked since a month ago when she told him she raised a fool. She finished breakfast without a word to nobody and
stayed behind when everybody went outside. She don't say much to Josey now, neither.

“Daddy!” Rachel calls. “Look at me, Daddy.”

Squiggy slides from under Jackson and tries running but Jackson tackles him by the legs.

“Daddy!” Rachel says, holding the edges of her dress out like she's about to spin. “Look at me, Daddy. Daddy? Look at me!”

“Just do it, already!” Sissy say, bringing herself outside.

“She's just excited to see her father,” Josey say, hanging wet clothes on the porch rail.

“It's all right, Momma. Show me when you ready, Baby Girl.”

Rachel starts spinning.

“Ain't all right,” Sissy say. “You need to spend yer time with that boy. He can't talk, hardly run. Simpleminded.”

“Ain't nothin wrong with Junior's mind,” Jackson say. “He ain't simple nothin.”

“Daddy, you didn't see me!”

“He just gotta catch up, is all. . . . Ain't that right, Lil' Man? You'll be talking soon, won't cha? Say, Mama. Say, Ma-ma-ma.”

He don't.

Rachel skips over and kneels down to Squiggy, leaning too close to his face. “Say, Ray-chel,” she say. “Come on, Squiggy. Say, Ray-chel.”

He don't.

“Say, Da-dee,” Jackson say. “Da-da-da.”

Squiggy makes an
ah
sound, then blows his lips like another belly fart.

“He did it!” Jackson say. “He said Dada!”

“He did not say Dada,” Josey says, laughing.

“You're just jealous he said Dada before Momma.”

“He didn't.”

“Say Dada again so Momma stay jealous,” Jackson say. “Or say, Rachel.”

He don't.

“What about me?” Sissy say. “You ain't gon' teach him ‘Nana'?”

“Aw, Momma, we just messing around. And you know, ‘Momma' or ‘Dada' 'posed to come first, anyway?”

“First, huh? If I recall, I was first. Been here first a long time. Ain't I family, too?”

Jackson smiles, understanding something, and goes slowly to his momma, aching from sitting too long. He limps up the porch to Sissy and hugs her stiffened body. “Is that what this is about, Momma?”

“You turned on me, Jackson?” Sissy say.

“Aw, Momma. You are first. The only momma I got.”

Sissy snorts.

She stayed on the porch mumbling to herself and watching Jackson and his family hold hands and walk in a circle, singing, “Ring a ring a roses. We all fall down.” No one noticed when she went inside. They fall backward at once, laughing, and Jackson kissing Josey, more passionate than he should for the light of day or for children around.
Embarrassing.

“Let's play another game,” Jackson say, smiling slyly at Josey. “Rachel, you and Squiggy hide and me and your momma come find you soon.”

“Hide?” Rachel say.

“Thas the game,” Jackson say. “You and Squiggy hide and me and Momma come look for you and find you.”

Rachel grabs Squiggy's arm and they take off running, veering right behind the house. After a moment Squiggy comes back on his own, and finds a side-lying barrel out front to climb into.

“Funny how he understands what we tell him,” Josey say.

“People don't need to talk to be able to understand,” Jackson say. “More people should be like him.”

Jackson pulls her close and kisses her deeply.

Way back near the tree line of the woods, a sway of trees gets my attention. I haven't felt winds all day. I stay still and watch the spot. The tree limbs creep open, then shake closed. I go to the spot where I think it happened—close enough—and wait for it to happen again.

The bushes part to the left of me and a white man stands in the space watching Josey and Jackson. He's in a uniform. An old Confederate one.

He sees Jackson and Josey and turns around running through the woods. I chase after him but after two miles, he's still running fast as he can and only slows when we get about a hundred yards from an opening in the woods. On the other side of the opening is the top of a tent, and smoke is rising from a smothered-out fire. I rush ahead of Josey's snooper to the signs of life.

Two more soldiers are there.

One's fat, one's skinny.

They're wearing faded gray uniforms and sitting on logs, cleaning guns. But Fatty startles at the sound of Snooper's approach. He stands quick and drops his cleaned gun for another one in his trousers. Skinny do, too. Both of 'em point their pistols at the edge of the forest and before Snooper emerges, Fatty shoots, tearing the bark off the tree to the right of Snooper's head.

Snooper waves his arms, stomping out from between the trees, still moving toward 'em, like he ain't bothered by bullets. “This whole damn place gone crazy!”

Fatty and Skinny lower their pistols. “We didn't know it was you, Boss,” Fatty say.

“It's madness!” Snooper say. “The devil's work, that's what! He's alive and well in Alabama!”

From behind the tent comes a third man, another soldier in butternut-colored trousers and he's closing the last button on his gray coat. His soldier suit got gold stars and a wreath sewn into each side of his up-perched collar. “Colonel,” all the men say, saluting him.

There's a disquiet here.

I feel it immediate.

Like walking into a room of somebody else's best friends and when they see a stranger, everybody gets quiet.

A pack. The killing kind. Bonded by some hunger.

“What do you have to report?” Colonel say to Snooper.

“A nigger and a white woman, sir. They was kissing and hugging up on each other. Everything's all gone to hell, that's what,” Snooper say.

Colonel shifts his trousers, signals to Fatty for his pistol. He say, “So what are you going to do about it, soldier?”

“Are they outlaws, sir?” Fatty say, giving Colonel his pistol.

His question makes Colonel red-faced. “Do you know what negroes do?” Colonel say, disgusted. “And what that nigger is doing to that white woman in bed right now? Sending our great nation to hell, is what. Next thing you know they'll want to marry. First, the government takes our property and rights and give it to niggers and then they give 'em our women, too.” He cocks his pistol. “I'll show you what I'm going to do about it.”