Heaven and Hell (104 page)

Charles laughed without humor. The book was My Life on the Plains, published two years ago. He hadn't had time to read it until now.

"I didn't know it was a humorous book," Willa said. Gus gazed out the sooty window at some rusty-colored cattle in a dairy shed.

"No, it isn't," Charles said. "But it's damn cleverly done. I mean, the bones are there. What's missing is the meat. The bloody meat. For instance, Custer calls one of the Cheyenne children we killed at the Washita a 'dusky little chieftain,' and 'a plucky spirit.' " He put in his leather marker and closed the book. "He's poured on flowing phrases like disinfectant. It was a massacre."

"Which doesn't seem to have harmed the book's popularity."

"Nor the General's reputation, either," Charles said with disgust.

George's son William III and his son's wife, Polly, walked up the steps of Lauber's Restaurant a moment ahead of George and Stanley.

William wore good Methodist black. He was twenty-seven now, in the third year of his pastorate at a small church in the town of Xenia, Ohio.

Although Constance had raised him a Roman Catholic, he'd met Polly Wharton, whose father was a Methodist bishop, when he was twenty one, and she had single-handedly won him as a husband and a member of her denomination. She had taught school to support them while he attended a seminary.

They had no children, but Patricia and her husband and their three, all under six years old, more than made up for the lack with noise and chatter at the round restaurant table. Patricia lived in Titusville. Her husband, Fremont Nevin, edited and published the Titusville Independent. George liked the tall, thoughtful emigre from Texas, even though

he was a Democrat. The couple's children were Constance Anne, who Crossing Jordan 663

was the youngest, Fremont Junior, and George Hazard Nevin. Growing up among the Titusville derricks, little George Hazard was already saying he wanted to be an oil man.

"Be sure you keep track of how many times you pay fifty cents at
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the gate, so I can reimburse you," George said to the adults after they were seated.

"What about Grandfather Flynn, Papa?" Patricia asked him.

"I had a very gracious message from him after Billy transmitted the invitation. He's quite old now, and he didn't feel up to making the long trip from Los Angeles. He said he would be with us in spirit. I gather he still handles a few cases that interest him. A remarkable person--like his daughter," he finished with an odd little catch in his throat.

Nevin, whose nickname was Champ, lit a cigarette and said to Stanley: "We're going to whip Hayes in November, you know. Governor Tilden is a strong candidate."

"I came here to eat, not to discuss politics, if you don't mind,"

Stanley said with ruffled dignity. George signaled the waiter. Laban rearranged his napkin in his lap for the third time. He didn't enter into the conversation. He didn't like any of the others in the family.

"We have a one-bedroom suite reserved," said the clerk at the luxurious Continental Hotel at Chestnut and Ninth Streets. The lobby was bedlam, the noise level heightened by two gentlemen shouting about their nonexistent reservations.

The clerk raised his voice too. "Shall we put a cot in the sitting room for your servant?"

Standing behind Madeline, Jane looked aggrieved, but she was too tired to fight. It had been a long journey from Mont Royal. Madeline was dusty and cross and not inclined to show a similar restraint. "She isn't my servant, she's my friend and traveling companion. She needs a bed like mine."

"We have no other accommodations," the clerk said. Another clerk, to his left, leaped back as one of the men with no reservation took a swing at him. The second clerk yelled for help from the office.

"Then we'll sleep together," Madeline said, almost shouting to make herself heard. "Have our luggage taken upstairs."

"Bellman," the clerk said, snapping his fingers. He looked outraged.

Patricia

said, "Fremont, don't play with your knackwurst." Fremont Junior speared it with his fork and flung it on the floor. Patricia smacked his knuckles.

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664 * HEAVEN AND HELL

Her husband said to George: "How many of the Mains from South Carolina will be joining us?"

George put down his stein of Centennial Bock Bier and shook his head.

"Only Orry's widow, I regret to say. Orry's niece Marie-Louise is having her second child in August. Her doctor advised her not to travel. As for her father, Orry's brother--" He drew a breath, his face grave. "After a good deal of thought, and despite the slight to his wife, who's a lovely person, I declined to send an invitation to Cooper. He made it clear long ago that he was a Main in name only. Like Ashton.

I never had any intention of trying to locate her."

Judge Cork Bledsoe, three years retired from the state circuit, kept a small farm near the seacoast, ten miles south of Charleston. On a hot July morning, seven men riding single file turned into his lane to pay a call. They were not Klansmen; nothing concealed their faces. The only garments they wore in common were heavy red flannel shirts.

No one knew exactly why red had been adopted by loyal Democrats for their mounted rifle clubs; the custom had gotten started a few months ago, up around Aiken and Edgefield and Hamburg, along the Savannah River, where resistance to Republicans and blacks was perhaps the most savage in the state.

Cooper rode third in line. He'd tied a large white kerchief around his scrawny neck to sop up sweat, but it didn't help much. From his saddle scabbard jutted the polished stock of the very latest Winchester big-bore, Model 1876--the "Centennial." It fired a 350-grain bullet heavy enough to stop a stampeding buffalo. Lately Cooper had acquired a taste for firearms, something he'd never had before.

Judith objected to her husband's keeping such a weapon at Tradd Street. She also disliked his new friends, and their activities. It made no difference to him; he no longer cared what she thought. They shared the same house but he displayed little affection toward her; their communication was minimal.

He considered the work of this group and similar ones throughout the state to be crucial. Only a government of dedicated white men could redeem South Carolina and put the social order right.

A dowdy woman with gray hair and bowed shoulders watched the horsemen ride into the dooryard and arrange themselves in a semicircle in front of the house. The woman had been pruning some of her roses;
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there were dozens of them, pink, dusty red, peach, fuming the air with their sweetness.

The spokesman for the callers, the lawyer Favor Herrington, touched the brim of his planter's hat. "Good day, Leota."

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"Good day, Favor." She acknowledged three others by name; Cooper was one. She didn't miss the rifle or shotgun each man carried on his saddle.

Herrington plucked his sticky shirt away from his chest. "Scorcher, isn't it? I wonder if I might have a word with the Judge? Tell him some of his friends from the Calhoun Saber Club are here."

Leota Bledsoe hurried into the house. Moments later, shirt cuffs rolled up and his hot-looking black wool vest hanging open, the judge shuffled out in his carpet slippefs. He was a slight man with mild brown eyes. He had shares in several of the larger phosphate processing plants near the city.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit by such a distinguished group from the political opposition?" he said with a certain sarcasm.

Herrington chuckled. "You know we're Democrats, Judge, but I hope you recognize that we're Straightouts, and not damn Co-operationists who want to crawl in bed with the damn Republicans."

"With those red shirts I could hardly make a mistake," the judge said heavily. All that spring there had been a fierce struggle between those who wanted to keep the Democratic Party pure and those who wanted to strengthen it by means of a coalition with some of the less obnoxious Republicans, such as Governor D. H. Chamberlain. Cooper and Straightouts like him were now resorting to some unusual methods to strengthen the party. Red-shirt rifle clubs. Visits such as this one.

Public meetings; even some useful, if bloody, rioting. The last day or two, he'd heard, darkies and white men from both sides of the river had been knocking heads up in Hamburg.

"We want to discuss the nominating convention in Columbia next month," Herrington said.

That irritated the Judge. "Blast it, boys, don't you waste my time.

Everyone knows I've voted Republican six years running."

"Yes, Judge, we know," Cooper said. "Perhaps that was in the best interests of your business.*' Casually, he laid a hand on the stock of the Centennial Winchester. "We don't believe that it's in the best
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interests of the state."

"See here, I'm not going to discuss my politics with a bunch of bullies who ride around selling their opinions with rifles."

"These rifles are for defense only," another of the Red Shirts said.

"Defense!" The Judge snorted. "You use those guns to frighten honest black men who only want the franchise, which is their Constitutional right. I know what this is, it's the Mississippi scheme. It cleaned all the Republicans and nigras out of state office over there last year, and now you're trying the same plan here. Well, I'm not interested."

666 HEAVEN AND HELL

He turned and shuffled back toward his front door.

"Judge, just a minute." Favor Herrington no longer sounded cordial.

In the rose-scented shadows, the Judge blinked at the armed riders.

"I don't deny what you say," Herrington continued. "Yes, we are encouraging the niggers either to change their vote or to stay away from the polls in November. We are going to turn the Republican majority in this state into a Democratic one. We're going to nominate a Straightout ticket next month, starting with General Hampton at the top, and we're going to redeem South Carolina from the carpetbaggers and mongrel legislators who are dragging her to shame and ruin. Now--"

he swabbed his shiny face with a blue bandanna--"to make that plan work, we must also convert erring Republicans to Democrats once again."

"Bulldoze them, that's what you mean," the Judge snapped. "At gunpoint."

"No, sir, Judge, nothing like that. We ask only that you do what's right for the state. We ask it politely and respectfully."

"Balderdash," the old man said.

Herrington raised his voice. "All your Republican brethren are doing it, Judge. It's a simple thing. Just change over. Cross Jordan."

"Cross Jordan, is that what you call it? I'd sooner cross the Styx into hell."

A couple of the Calhoun Saber Club members started to draw their rifles. In the house, the Judge's wife called a muffled warning. The dooryard grew very still in the heat. One of the horses dropped reeking
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dung. Herrington cued Cooper with a sideways glance.

Cooper tried to sound reasonable. "We are in earnest, Judge Bledsoe.

You mustn't take us lightly. You have a family to think about, many grandchildren. Wouldn't you prefer respectability to ostracism? If not for yourself, then for them?"

"Up in Charleston," Herrington added, "there are a lot of hooligans roaming the streets. Sometimes decent folk aren't safe. Especially girls of a tender age. You have two such granddaughters in Charleston, don't you, sir?"

"By God, sir, are you threatening me?" the Judge cried.

"No, sir," Cooper said with a sober expression. "All we want is your pledge to cross Jordan. To support Governor Hampton when we nominate him in Columbia. To tell others of your decision."

"You boys go to hell, and take your rifles with you," Judge Cork Bledsoe said. "This isn't Mississippi."

"I'm sorry that's your decision," Favor Herrington said with cold fury. "Come on, fellows."

They rode one by one from the sweet-smelling dooryard. Judge 1

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Bledsoe stayed on the porch, glaring, until the last rider disappeared up the Charleston pike.

Herrington dropped back to walk his horse beside Cooper's. "You know the next name on the list."

"I know. I'm not going to have anything to do with it. He's my son-in-law."

"We don't expect you to take part, Cooper. You're excused from dealing with Mr. German. But we're going to call on him."

Cooper wiped his sweaty "mouth with his long fingers. Softly, he said, "Do what you must."

Two nights later, unknown persons fired three rounds through the window of Bledsoe's house. At church the following Sunday, old friends in the congregation refused to speak to the Judge or his wife. On Tuesday, as their fifteen-year-old granddaughter and her governess strolled
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home on King Street at dusk, two young white men dashed from an alley, snatched the girl's reticule and threatened her with knives. One slashed the sleeve of her dress before they ran off. At the end of the week Judge Cork Bledsoe announced his intention to cross Jordan.

7776

THREE MILLIONS OF COLONISTS

ON A STRIP BY THE SEA

1876

FORTY MILLIONS OF FREEMEN

RULING FROM OCEAN TO OCEAN

City of Philadelphia

Centennial poster

"We won't be needing the suite," Virgilia said. "We have a reservation elsewhere."

The clerk at the Continental, the same one who had registered Madeline and Jane, was dubious. "Whatever you say, Mrs. Brown. I hope you're certain of your accommodations. I know of nothing to be had, not even hall space, in any of the good hotels."

"We'll be fine," Virgilia said. She left the noisy lobby and got into the hack waiting at the curb. Elegantly dressed in an overcoat with 1

668 HEAVEN AND HELL

velvet lapels and pearl-gray gloves, Scipio regarded his wife with mild displeasure.

"Why did you do that?"

She kissed his cheek. "Because it isn't worth the fight, darling. I want to stay where we won't be treated rudely and stared at constantly.

We'll have enough of it when we're with the family." She noted his frown and squeezed his hand. "Please. You know I'll always go to the barricades if it's important. This isn't important. Let's enjoy ourselves."