Last of the Dixie Heroes (15 page)

They went inside: books everywhere, on floor-to-ceiling shelves, on tables, chairs, the floor. On the spines and jackets Roy saw the same images—muskets, cannons, flags—read the same words—
blue, gray, Lincoln, Davis, Grant, Jackson, war.

Lee took the gun into the kitchen, laid it on the table beside a vase of purple and yellow flowers; a fine crystal vase—Roy remembered Marcia admiring a similar one in a store window. “Know much about small arms?” Lee said.

“Nothing.”

Lee knelt, peered down the barrel. “No rust at all—it must have been practically soaked in oil. Whale oil being what they used back then. First, you pull the hammer back to half-cocked. Then bring the lever down like this. Rotate the pin, pushing down this little button. And the whole breech block slides out just like so.” Lee held up the breech block. “These are the vent holes—it’s all about controlling rapidly expanding gas.” He dug a toothpick into two tiny holes in the breech block. “Like it was cleaned yesterday.” Lee put the gun back together, found linseed oil under the sink, rubbed it into the stock and grip. He went still. “Don’t laugh at me if I tell you this.”

“What?” Roy said.

“It feels like something coming alive in my hands.”

Roy didn’t laugh.

Lee laid the bullets on the table. “No cartridges,” he said, “meaning these were probably picked up off the ground. I doubt cartridges would have fired anyway, after all this time. Instead—” He left the room, returned with a small plastic tube, a brass cylinder, and a red can with
Globax
on the label.

“Not wearing synthetics, are you, Roy? Static electricity can be a problem with this stuff.”

“I know,” Roy said.

Lee glanced at Roy, then at the label. He turned the can so the word was out of sight and held up the brass cylinder, as though distracting a child with something shiny.

“Adjustable powder measure,” he said, twisting a screw in its base. “A fifty-two caliber takes sixty grains, but we’ll shoot straighter with fifty.” He poured powder into the plastic tube. “No plastic tubes back then, of course, but they do work well with these ring tails.” He stuck one of the bullets in the top of the tube, opened the breech, jammed the tube right into the barrel, leaving the bullet and powder inside. “As for caps, musket ones will do.” He stuck a tiny hemisphere of copper onto a nipple under the hammer, then closed the lever with a snap. The sound itself was satisfying.

They went behind the house. It was very quiet, not like being in the city at all. Ahead lay a long, narrow stretch of lawn, not much wider than a country lane, with a line of trees on one side and a high brick wall on the other. “There were riding trails in here when my grandmother was young,” Lee said. He raised the gun, aimed at a low wooden fence—a riding jump, Roy saw—in a sunny patch a hundred yards or more down the grassy lane. Glass bottles glinted on top of the fence.

Lee lowered the gun. “You first,” he said, handing it to Roy.

“I’ve never fired a gun,” Roy said.

“Then this is even more special,” Lee said. “Hold it like so.” Roy held it like so. “Look through that V with your right eye.” Roy looked through the V with his right eye. Coke bottles, seven of them. The middle one was framed in the V. “Pull the hammer back all the way, Roy. Now squeeze like you want just a little toothpaste, but all at once.” Roy squeezed the way Lee said. He heard a bang, felt the kick of the gun, much stronger than he’d anticipated, strong enough to hurt, saw a puff of blue-gray smoke, smelled burned chemicals—nitrates, a smell he knew.

Lee put on his glasses. “My God,” he said.

The middle Coke bottle was gone.

“Beginner’s luck,” Roy said.

Lee took the gun, reloaded it, handed it back to Roy. “Don’t you want a turn?” Roy said.

“I’d rather watch y— I can wait.”

Roy raised the gun, got the Coke bottle on the left end into the V, squeezed the way Lee had told him. Bang—another satisfying sound; kick—a kick he was more prepared for this time, a lively kick, he thought; puff: and the Coke bottle on the left end was gone.

“You lied to me,” Lee said.

“About what?”

“Never firing a gun before.”

“It’s true.”

Lee shook his head. “I can tell, just by the way you stand.”

Roy looked down at his feet; he hadn’t been aware of standing in any particular way. “I know nothing about guns,” he said.

Lee looked at him, eyes sharp and intent behind the small lenses of his glasses. His gaze shifted again to Roy’s cheek. “Whatever you say,” Lee said. He reloaded the gun.

The scratches, her new lips, Dr. Nordman. His whole body started to shake. Roy knew he wouldn’t hit another bottle. He tried to take aim at the next one on the left, trembling in the V, forgot everything Lee had told him, thought only about Dr. Nordman sitting on the edge of the bed. How was anyone going to make that right? The next bottle on the left shattered, glass bits like sparks in the sunlight, although Roy wasn’t aware of pulling the trigger.

Area managing. Shatter.

Regional supervising. Shatter.

Ferrucci. Shatter.

Rhett in New York.

One bottle left. Roy became aware of that, also became aware of a big problem, which was the tears pooling in his eyes, rolling down his face. The bottle went blurry in the V.

Rhett in New York: living in a fancy kind of building Roy couldn’t visualize, in an expensive part of a city he’d never seen, growing up in a life he didn’t know. There were forces out there. Some people knew how to use them: Curtis was probably one of those. Some people didn’t: Marcia, most likely. And the rest were barely aware of the forces at all: that was him.

Rhett in New York.

Shatter: the glass bits making a strange golden explosion this time because of the wetness in his eyes. Lee looked away, said nothing. He walked slowly toward the riding fence, moving through the shade of the trees and into the patch of light, staring down at all the glittering in the grass.

Roy didn’t remember his career counseling appointment until it was too late.

SIXTEEN

Roy turned over the sheet of paper on which he’d written the headings
House Projects
,
Budget (w/new salary)
,
Managerial Skills
. On the blank side, he wrote:
Bills
. Then he wrote:
$
. He sat there. The stack of mail on the table had an unsettling personality of its own.

Roy admitted something to himself: he wasn’t good with money. Money had rhythms that he didn’t get. Some people heard the beat: Barry, for example, watching money move on his screen, shorting Yahoo, all that. Barry, hunched over, ass hanging out of his briefs, felt the rhythm. Roy closed his eyes, tried to think of some moneymaking idea. Nothing came.

He needed a moneymaking idea. While he was admitting things, why not admit the truth about his finances since the divorce and the loss of Marcia’s income? The house was all his now, but the equity was tapped out and the full mortgage payment was now all his too. Seventy-two seven, plus bonuses. He never wanted that number in his head again. It was the very next thing he thought of.

After that came the emerald necklace. Six grand on the home equity, two thousand on his credit cards, now maxed out.
It can go back?
He remembered her saying that. Didn’t it mean she would be sending it over any day now? Roy looked out the window, saw a UPS truck coming slowly down the street. It went slowly by and slowly disappeared around the corner. Could he call her and ask for it? He turned the sheet back over. Under
House Projects
, he read
bathroom
, and under that
tiles
,
mirror
,
little lightbulbs
. He wrote:
Hello, M., I was wondering about that necklace
. He scratched that out and tried:
Now that things turned out the way they did
. And:
Maybe it slipped your mind but
. He couldn’t do it.

Roy reached out toward the pile of bills. His hand hovered above the top one, moved to a manila envelope lying on the other side. Roy had forgotten all about it. He took out the two old-style photographs—he and Earl, he and Lee—and the computer printout: “Roy Singleton Hill—A Biographical Sketch.” He removed the Post-it—“Dug this up last night. Enjoy—J. Moses”—and started reading.

From the Nathan Bedford Forrest Homepage: NBF called Roy Singleton Hill his “Angel of Death.” Hill’s forebears came to east Tennessee from North Carolina in the early 1800s, not later than 1813 when the marriage of Robert Hill to Elizabeth Singleton is recorded at the Church of the Savior in Ducktown, Tennessee. The Singletons owned land in what is now Cherokee National Forest, but they didn’t become prosperous until Robert Hill’s decision to build a lumber mill on a stream that passed through their property, sometime in the 1820s. RSH was born in December of 1831 or January of 1832, third of six children, four of whom survived to adulthood. Little is known of his early life or education (if any). He met NBF on a trip to Memphis in the mid-1850s, perhaps as a customer. RSH joined the 7th Tennessee Cavalry in February 1862, just before the retreat from Fort Donelson. He served in all Forrest’s major campaigns and had a noted reputation as a horseman and marksman, being mentioned in dispatches after the battles of Spring Hill, Brice’s Crossroads, and Chickamauga. His feat on the morning of the second day of Chickamauga, when he single-handedly took a Yankee battery before turning the cannon and firing it into the Union ranks, became legendary in CSA annals. He was also present at the capture of Fort Pillow, April 12, 1864, but his role, if any, in that controversial action is unknown. RSH married in the early 1850s and had one son, who may have died in infancy. RSH himself was killed at the end of the war or shortly after, possibly while defending the mill from an attack by renegade Yankee deserters and freed slaves.

Roy read it again. He knew little of Chickamauga, had never heard of Spring Hill, Brice’s Crossroads, Fort Pillow. All he knew was that Roy Singleton Hill’s only son couldn’t have died in infancy, not with him sitting here reading this. He picked up the pen, the pen he’d used to write
Bills
,
$
, and those preambles to Marcia, crossed all that out, and in the empty space below began to draw. Roy hadn’t drawn anything for a long time, not since grade school, probably around Rhett’s age: he remembered Mrs. Hardaway standing by his desk, her finger following the line of some picture he had drawn. He could even remember the drawing—a foot-ball player, diving for a loose ball—and Mrs. Hardaway’s finger—skin the color of coffee beans, her nail bright red. Mrs. Hardaway had had a funny laugh that got more and more high-pitched until it went inaudible and left her shaking silently; he’d liked Mrs. Hardaway.

The drawing he was making came into focus. Scribbles, really: they showed a uniformed man, his face still blank, gun butt raised high. There was a cannon in the background and the sketchy beginning of a body at his feet. A flag—the rebel flag—hung in the sky, suspended like a religious vision.

Night fell. His drawing, the bio, the stack of bills all faded away. Roy didn’t turn on the lights. He didn’t hear the key in the lock and the front door opening, didn’t hear footsteps in the hall. A form materialized in the kitchen.

“I’m not going,” Rhett said.

Roy snapped out of it: Rhett, appearing like this to remind him of what he should be doing instead of zoning out in the dark. He rose. “Son,” he said. “Your ma—your mother bring you?”

“No.”

“How did you get here then?” Roy switched on the lights.

“I’m not going.” Rhett wore new clothes, or at least clothes Roy hadn’t seen on him before, a polo shirt and khakis with cargo pockets; his hair was cut short and the unruly tuft of stick-up hair was gone.

“Not going where?” Roy said, peering out the window, failing to see Marcia’s car, or the Porsche, or any car parked in front of the house.

“Fucking New York,” Rhett said.

“Don’t say fucking.”

Rhett mimicked him. “Don’t say fucking.”

Roy turned from the window. “You can’t talk to me like that,” he said.

“Everybody else does.”

That knocked the life out of Roy for a moment. Then it came rushing back, and he was rushing, had his hands on the polo shirt, had Rhett up off the floor, the boy’s eyes widening. The buzzer went.

Roy froze with Rhett in the air, their gazes locked together, Rhett’s eyes turning frightened, Roy with no idea what his were like. He lowered Rhett to the floor, not gently, not hard, just lowered him, and went to the front door, fighting for breath.

Gordo, with Jesse Moses and Earl Sippens standing slightly behind him: Jesse in a suit and carrying a briefcase as though he’d just come from work, Earl wearing a pink blazer and smoking a cigar, perhaps coming directly from work as well.

“Hey,” said Gordo, “the man.”

They were all looking at him funny, gawking the way the guys from shipping had gawked at Dan Marino one night when he’d walked into Sportz. “I’m kind of busy right now,” Roy said. What were they gawking at—the way his body trembled, aftereffect of laying hands on his son?

“A crack shot, for Christ sake,” Gordo said. “Who’d of guessed?”

“It’s not true.”

“Fuckin’ dead-eye dick is what I hear,” said Earl, pushing his way up onto the top step with Gordo. “Oops, there, son, sorry about that F-word, didn’t see you.”

Roy turned, saw Rhett watching from the kitchen door. Earl went past Roy, into the house.

“This your boy?” he said.

“Yes, but—”

“How’s it goin’, son? Earl Sippens.” He grabbed Rhett’s hand, pumped it up and down. “What’s your name?”

“Rhett,” said Rhett, but not clearly; Earl probably didn’t catch it.

“Have one of these already?”

“No,” Rhett said.

“Take it,” said Earl, handing Rhett something Roy couldn’t see.

“Thanks,” said Rhett, pocketing it.

Earl poked his head in the kitchen. “Fine place you got here, Roy.”

Roy turned back to the stoop, looked past Gordo, beaming in that way he did when he’d had a few but no more than a few, to Jesse.

“Maybe if we could just have a quick peek at the carbine,” Jesse said.

Roy brought the gun into the living room.

“Sharps new model eighteen fifty-nine,” Jesse said, “and brass mounted too. Know how many of these they made?”

“Hundred thousand?” said Earl.

“Not brass mounted,” said Jesse. “Thirty-five hundred.”

“Worth some shekels, then,” said Earl.

Jesse paused, his long and finely shaped finger tracing the outline of those five letters on the stock. “But who would want to sell it?” he said.

“Missed me with that one,” Earl said.

They clustered around the gun, passed it back and forth, aimed it out the window at the streetlight.

“Pretty cool, huh, Rhett?” Gordo said.

“It looks old,” Rhett said.

“Course it’s old,” said Gordo. “Belonged to your great-great-whatever he was.”

“One of the best marksmen in the South,” said Jesse, “according to the documentation.”

“And a talent passed on to your daddy, seems like,” said Earl.

They all looked at Roy; Rhett followed their gazes, up to his father.

“Any pellet primers in that patch box, Roy?” Earl said.

Roy didn’t understand the question.

“Lee used musket caps,” Jesse said, opening a bit of filigreed brass in the stock that Roy had thought was just decoration. There was a little hollowed-out box underneath. Something fell from it, dropped on the floor.

Gordo picked it up.

“Pellet primer?” said Jesse. “Wonder if the compounds are intact.”

But it wasn’t a pellet primer, unless pellet primers looked like keys. Gordo held it on the palm of his hand, a brass key, small and simple, with a ring for a handle, a thin cylinder, two little teeth at the end.

Earl took it. “What’s it open?” he said, squinting at it under the light.

No one had any ideas. Jesse put it back in the patch box, handed the gun to Roy.

“We’ve got an event this weekend,” he said. “Up at Chickamauga.”

“Be some Yankees there,” Gordo said.

“Mostly from Pennsylvania,” Jesse said, “but some all the way from New Jersey and Connecticut.”

“Gonna have us a fun time,” Gordo said.

“Shooting contests and the like,” said Earl, “aside from the battlefield reenactment. Sure be nice to show those Yankees a thing or two.”

“We’ve talked this over, Earl and I,” Jesse said. “You could tent with us. Not necessarily joining the regiment—”

“No obligation whatsoever,” Earl said.

“—but getting a better perspective than the ordinary spectator,” Jesse said.

“And having some fun,” said Gordo.

“This weekend is out,” Roy said.

“Maybe later then,” Jesse said.

“When’s Lookout Mountain?” Earl said.

“This is a busy time for me in general,” Roy said.

From the way Earl and Jesse were looking at him, Roy knew they’d heard all about Globax.

“Help me with something for a second, Roy,” said Gordo, drawing him into the kitchen. He closed the door. “Might do to reconsider about Chickamauga,” he said. “Take your mind off things.”

“What things?”

“Come on, Roy. I know what you’re going through.”

“Do you?”

“Even worse, in my case—I was headed for promotion.”

“The fuck you were.”

“Huh?”

“Forget it.”

Gordo came closer, close enough for Roy to smell his boozy breath. “What’s that mean, the fuck I was?”

Roy didn’t say anything, probably wouldn’t have, if Gordo hadn’t repeated the question, a little louder, jabbing a finger at his chest this time, almost touching.

“The job was mine,” Roy said.

Gordo’s face got all confused. “You didn’t get fired?”

“You stu—” Did he himself appear to Barry, say, the way Gordo appeared to him now—slow, dull, out of it? He toned himself down. “Yes, I got fired. But before that, you were Pegram’s choice, I was Curtis’s. Curtis won.”

Gordo’s face went through another stage or two of confusion—Roy could feel him adding it all up—then returned to normal. “Curtis,” he said.

“Don’t start.”

“Were you ever going to tell me, good buddy?”

“Probably not. What difference does it make now?”

Gordo thought that over. “If it does, I’m not smart enough to see it.”

“Me neither.”

They shook hands.

“Come this weekend,” Gordo said.

“Marcia’s taking Rhett to New York.”

“With that Barry guy?”

“Someone else. To live.”

Gordo didn’t know what to say.

After they left, Roy called Marcia.

“You mean he’s not in his room?” she said. “We—I just got home.”

“Better come get him.”

“But how did he get there?”

Roy hung up, turned to Rhett.

“Why did you have to do that?” Rhett said.

“Think about it.”

“I’m not going.”

Roy went over, put his hand on Rhett’s shoulder. Rhett shrugged him off.

“There’ll be opportunities I can’t give you.”

“Why not? You’ve got a good job.”

Roy didn’t say anything: how would the truth help Rhett?

“Grant’s an asshole,” Rhett said. “Not an asshole like Barry, another kind.”

“How would you describe the difference?”

Rhett looked at him for a moment. Then he started laughing, loud unrestrained laughter of a kind Roy had never heard from him before. Roy caught a glimpse of what he might be like as a man.

* * *

A taxi pulled up outside, Marcia in the back. The driver honked.

“Where’s her car?” Roy said.

“Sold,” said Rhett. “There’s a BMW waiting in New York.”

The driver honked again. Marcia got out. They watched her come up the walk, listened to the buzzer.

“I’ll see you before you go,” Roy said.

“And then what?”

“It’s two hours by plane,” Roy said. “Back and forth is easy.”

Rhett looked at the floor. Roy couldn’t get used to him without that tuft of untamed hair. Children had a kind of power they lost in adolescence.

The buzzer again: she kept her finger on it this time. Roy went to the door, opened it.