Memories of Another Day (20 page)

"I'll be waiting outside, Daniel," Roscoe said with a gentle understanding, and went out the front door.

They stood there silently for a long while just looking at each other. Finally she let out a deep breath. "Are you going to Detroit with him?"

He shook his head. "I'm goin' home. The train kin leave me off at Turner's Pass. That's on'y eight miles from our place."

"And after that?"

"I don' know," he said.

"Will you be coming back?" Her heart was aching.

He looked into her eyes. "I don' think so. Miss Andrews."

Her eyes began to fill with tears. "Just for now, Daniel, for this time, please call me Sarah."

He hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Yes— Sarah."

She went into his arms and placed her head against his chest. "Will I ever see you again?" she whispered.

He held her gently without answering.

She looked up into his face. "Daniel, do you love me? Just a little?"

He looked down into her eyes. "Yes," he an-

swered. "Jes' how much I don' know. It's the fus' time I ever loved a girl."

"Don't forget me, Daniel," she wept. "Don't forget me.

"How can I?" he answered. "I'll never forget you. I owe you so much."

She held him tightly; and later, when he was gone and she was alone in her bed and she heard the train whistle at midnight, she turned her face into the pillow and could still feel his arms around her.

"I loved you, Daniel," she wept, saying the words she had never never been able to bring herself to say to him. "Oh, God, you'll never know how much I loved you."

pens to you, then all your father's life would of meant nothin\"

Daniel nodded. "I'll think on it, Mr. Craig."

''She's slowin' down," the brakeman said. ''You better git movin', Dan'l."

Daniel went out onto the tiny platform and waited on the bottom step as the train slowed to a crawl. Roscoe and the brakeman came out onto the platform. Daniel jumped, ran a few steps, slid down the embankment beside the tracks, then scrambled to his feet, waving his hand to let them know he was all right. They waved back, and the train began to pick up momentum again. A few minutes later it disappeared into the curve, and Daniel began walking through the hills toward home.

He found the old paths as if he had never been away. This was where he had grown up, and he knew the land Hke the back of his hand. He remembered when he was little and his father had taken him hunting for the first time. How proud he had been when he brought home a rabbit for the pot.

Engrossed as he was with memories, the two hours it took to walk the eight miles to his house seemed only as many minutes, so he wasn't prepared for the shock when he came out onto the road where the house had once stood.

He froze. It was reduced to a charred shell, only the frame and the chimney still intact. In the morning sun, the air seemed to shiver over the remains of the house. Behind it the bam stood, untouched, empty of life. He drew a deep breath and forced himself to walk into what had been the front yard.

There was a heavy sound behind him. He whirled quickly. The mule came out of the brush on the other side of the road. His big round eyes looked at Daniel questioningly.

The mule was the first to move. He came across the road to Daniel and nudged at him with his nose. Daniel

stepped to one side, and the mule continued through the yard into the barn.

Daniel followed him. The mule had his nose buried in the hay. Daniel looked into the trough. It was dry. He went back into the yard to the well. The big water bucket still hung there on the pump nozzle. He began pushing.the pump handle. It took some moments for the water to come gushing up and fill the pail. Daniel carried it back to the trough.

The mule raised his head and watched him. Slowly, Daniel emptied the water into the trough. Still munching bits of hay, the mule approached the trough. He looked down at it for a moment, then up at Daniel.

Daniel nodded. ''Yes, stupid mule, that's how water gits there. Drink up."

The mule seemed almost to be smiling as he cleaned his teeth of the hay. Then he put his muzzle delicately into the water and began to drink. Daniel turned away.

Without looking at the house again, he walked up the side of the small hill to the cemetery. He looked down at the graves, the earth still black and new over them. He took off his hat and stood bareheaded in the sun. He had never been to a funeral, so he did not know the right prayer to say. The only one he could remember was the one his mother had taught him when he was a little child. His lips i^oved softly.

''Now I lay me down to sleep.

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

God bless Maw; God bless Paw;

God bless my sisters and brothers . . .'*

His voice faded away, and for the first time the tears came to his eyes, blurring the graves. He stood without moving, the tears running down his cheeks. After a while the tears stopped, but he remained, the graves

and the small wooden crosses burning their way into his brain, the loss and hurt and emptiness draining his soul. Then suddenly it was over. The pain stopped. He closed his eyes for a long moment. He knew what he had to do.

Without looking back, he left the small cemetery and went up the path to the hill. He came around the sniall turn and there it was, as it always had been. His father's still—the small shed, the copper tubing, the stone jugs. It was as if nothing had happened.

He opened the door of the shed and went inside. It was dark, and very little light came in through the door. He reached up to the top shelf and found what he had come for. He searched again with his fingers and found the small box that he knew would be next to it. He took the tarpaulin-wrapped double-barreled 20-gauge shotgun and the box of shells into the sunlight. Quickly, he stripped away the tarpaulin. The gun was clean and shining. He cocked both hammers and pulled the triggers. They clicked in cleanly, the hammers snapping into the firing pin sharply. His father had always insisted on keeping his guns clean and in working order. He opened the box of shells. It was almost fiill.

He laid them down on a wooden bench and went back into the shed. This time he came out with a steel cutting saw and a file. Carefully he locked the shotgun into the vise on the workbench and slowly began to cut the barrel of the shotgun down to about a quarter of its length. When that was done, he filed the edges smooth, then wiped it clean with a lightly oiled rag. With another rag he removed the remaining traces of oil, and took the gun from the vise. He hefted the gun and looked at it. The whole gun, including the wooden stock, was now less than two feet long.

He put the gun down on the bench, picked up two stone jugs and set them up on the fence in the sunlight. He continued until he had ten jugs sitting about two

feet apart on the fence. He picked up the shotgun and placed a shell in each chamber.

He turned and measured the distance from the fence with his eye. About five feet. Just right. Holding the shotgun waist high, braced against his hip, he pulled both triggers. The kick spun him halfway around, and the noise seemed to shatter his ears. He turned back to check his target. He had missed completely. The jug at which he had been aiming was still untouched.

He went over to the fence, his eyes searching the tree behind it for traces of the buckshot. He found it. High and to the left and widely scattered. The tree was a few feet behind the target, which meant that he would have to move in closer for the gun to be effective. He moved deliberately. There was no rush. He had all afternoon.

By the time he was satisfied, he had used all the cartridges but four. Of these two went into the gun and two went into his pocket.

The sun was beginning its descent into the west as he went down the path. He went by the cemetery without stopping and right to the bam. The mule was standing contentedly in his stall.

He took a bridle and reins from a peg on the bam wall and approached the mule. The animal watched him warily.

*'G'mon, mule," Daniel said. ''It's time you eamed your keep."

Jackson began sweeping the wooden walk in front of Fitch's store at seven o'clock that moming. He paid no attention to the man who was sitting on the bench in the square across the street. He seemed just another farmer, catching a snooze, his hat pulled down over his eyes to keep out the moming light. Even the old mule tied to a nearby tree was not worth a second glance.

A little while later, Harry, the fussy chief clerk, came to the store and began setting up the doorway displays. He had just finished his work when Mr. Fitch arrived. Harry stole a glance at the big clock in the back of the store. Eight o'clock. Exactly on time.

Mr. Fitch was in a good mood. "Everything all right, Harry?"

The little clerk bobbed up and down. "Yes, Mr. Fitch. Every thing's just fine."

Mr. Fitch chuckled and went past him into the store. Harry followed him. "We have those new canned beans, Mr. Fitch. Do you want me to put them on sale?"

Fitch stopped for a moment, then nodded.

"How much, Mr. Fitch?"

"Three fer a dime, Harry. That's cheap enough an' still a good profit. They on'y cost us two cents apiece."

"I'll take care of it right away, Mr. Fitch," Harry said. Fitch continued on to his office in the back of the store as Harry yelled for Jackson to bring the canned beans up from the cellar.

Across the street, the man rose from the bench. He looked up and down the street for a moment. There weren't too many people about. Slowly he crossed the street to the store, his arms hugging his jacket close around him, his hat still low over his eyes. He entered the store.

Harry popped up from behind the counter. "Anything I can do for you, sir?"

The farmer didn't look at him. "Mr. Fitch aroun'?"

"He's in his office in the back."

"Thank you," the man said politely. He was already moving away as he spoke. He disappeared behind a stack of wooden crates near the office door.

Sam Fitch, seated behind his desk, looked up as the man came in. "Momin', frien'," he said in his customer voice. "Kin I be of he'p?"

The man stopped in front of the desk. He pushed

the hat up from his face to the back of his head. His voice was emotionless. ''I guess you kin."

Sam Fitch's face paled. '^Dan'l!"

Daniel was silent.

''I di'n' recognize you, boy. You growed so big," Fitch said.

Daniel looked at him steadily. ''Why did you do it, Mr. Fitch?"

''Do what?" Fitch tried to act bewildered. "I don' know what you're talkin' 'bout."

Daniel's eyes were cold. "I think you do, Mr. Fitch. What did we ever do to you to make you kill all of 'em?"

"I still don' know what you're talkin' 'bout," Fitch insisted.

"Roscoe Craig was there, hidin' in the bam, 'n' he saw all of it. He tol' me." Daniel's voice was still emotionless.

Fitch stared at him. He abandoned pretense but not lies. "It was an accident, Dan'l. You got to believe me. We never intended to start no fire."

"You never intended to kill my paw neither, did you? You on'y give the signal to shoot when he come outtathe house."

"I was try in' to stop 'em. That's what I was try in' to do. Stop 'em." Fitch's eyes widened as Daniel's coat swung open and the sawed-off shotgun came into view. He kept on talking as he shd open a drawer of his desk and reached for the gun inside. "I tried to stop 'em. But they wouldn' hsten to me. They was crazy."

"You're lyin', Mr. Fitch." Daniel's voice was flat and final.

Fitch had his hand on the gun now. Moving quickly for a man his size, he pulled out the gun and jumped sideways from his chair in front of the glass windows separating his office from the store. But he didn't move quickly enough.

The roar of both barrels was like a thunderclap in

the tiny office. Fitch's body was torn apart from chest to belly as the shot propelled him backward through the glass partition. His blood and insides spattered the wooden crates as they fell around him.

Slowly Daniel walked over and looked down at the broken body of Sam Fitch. He was still standing like that when the sheriff, followed by a deputy, came rushing into the store.

The sheriff took one quick look at Sam Fitch, then moved his eyes up to Daniel. He put his own gun back in its holster. He held out a hand to Daniel. ''I think you better give me that there gun, Dan'l," he said.

Daniel raised his eyes from Sam Fitch's body. ^'Sher'f," he said, ''he kUt my whole fam'ly."

''Give me the gun, Daniel," the sheriff repeated gently.

Daniel nodded slowly. "Yes, sir."

The sheriff took the gun and handed it to his deputy. "Come, Dan'l."

Daniel came out of the office and stopped to look down at Sam Fitch once again. When he raised his head to look at the sheriff, there was a strange agony in his eyes. "Sher'f," he asked in a hurt voice, "wasn't there nobody in this whole town to stop 'im?"

The judge looked down from his bench. Daniel stood silently before him in the almost empty court-, room. "Daniel Boone Huggins," the judge said solemnly. "In view of the extenuating circumstances, the death of your family and your extreme youth, and in the hope that the death and violence which have plagued this county the past year have finally come to an end, it is the considered judgment of this court that you be sent to the State Correctional Institute for Boys for a period of two years or until you reach the age of eighteen, whichever is sooner. It is the further hope of this court that you will apply yourself diligently to learning a trade and taking advantage of the many op-

portunities you will find there to become a useful member of society."

He rapped his gavel twice on the bench and rose to his feet. 'The court is now closed." He started down from the platform as the sheriff came toward Daniel.

The sheriff took a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. "Fm sorry, Dan'l," the sheriff said. 'The law says I got to use these on sentenced prisoners."

Daniel looked at him, then silently held out his hands. The handcuffs clicked and locked around his wrists.

The sheriff looked at him. ''You ain't angry, are you, Dan'l?"

Daniel shook his head. "No, Sher'f. Why should I be? It's over. Now, mebbe, I kin fergit it."

But he never did.

Now

The air brakes hissed as the big trailer truck pulled to the side of the highway. The door swung open and the driver stared at us as I got out of the cab. I held up my hand to help Anne down.

''You kids are crazy," the driver said. ''Gittin' off in the middle o' nowhere. It's thirty-five miles down the road to Fitchville an' fifty miles back to the next town. An' nothin' in between except maybe some sharecroppers."

Anne swung out of the cab. I picked up the backpacks. 'Thanks for the lift," I said.

He stared at me. "Okay. But be careful. These people ain't exactly friendly toward strangers. Sometimes they shoot before they ask question."

"We'll be all right," I said.

He nodded and closed the door. We watched the truck pick up speed, and in a moment it was lost in the highway traffic. I turned to Anne. She hadn't spoken until now.

"Do you know where we're going?" she asked.

I nodded.

Her voice turned sarcastic. "Mind telling me?"

I let my eyes scan the countryside, then pointed at a small hUl rismg above the trees about a mile from the road. "There."

She looked at the hill, then back at me. ''Why?"

'Til know when I get there," I said, I scrambled down the side of the embankment from the highway. When I looked back she was still standing there, staring down at me. "Coming?"

She nodded and started down after me. About halfway, she slipped. I caught her and she came to a stop, her head against my chest. She was trembling. After a moment, she looked up into my face. "Fm frightened."

I looked into her eyes. "Don't be," I said. "You're with me."

It took us almost two hours to reach the crest of the hill, another half-hour to the knoll about a quarter of the way down the other side. I dropped my backpack and sat on the ground. I took a deep breath, then, on my knees, began to feel the earth under the tall wild grass.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Looking for something," I said, and at the same moment my hand hit a stone. Carefully I felt it. Rectangular in shape, the upper surface slanting slightly toward me. Quickly I pulled the grass and weeds ft*om around it. It was a block of stone no more than two feet long and a foot wide. With my hand I brushed away the earth and dirt covering it until the letters etched into the stone were clear and sharp.

HUGGINS.

Her voice was soft behind me. "What have you found?"

I looked once more at the stone, then up at her.

"My grandfather's grave."

"You knew where it was?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No."

"Then, how?"

"I don't know," I said.

206

'*Tell her, son. I told you.'*

**You*re dead. You never told me anything even while you were alive.''

'7 told you everything. You weren't listening."

''What makes you think I'm listening now?"

His laugh was the deep, heavy chuckle I had heard all my life. ''You haven't any choice now. I'm inside your head."

"Let go, Father. You're dead. And I have my own life to lead."

"You're young yet. You have time. First you have to lead mine. Then you'll be able to lead your own."

"Shit."

"Exactly." The deep, heavy chuckle again. "But you'll have to learn how to walk before you can run."

"And you're going to teach me?"

"That's right."

"How are you going to do that with seven feet of dirt sitting on your head up there in Scarsdale?"

"I told you. I'm in every cell of your body. I am you and you are me. And as long as you live I'll be there."

"But someday I'll be dead too. Then where will you be?"

'' With you. In your child.'' \

The man's voice came from behind us. "Turn aroun' slow and don't make any sudden moves."

I got to my feet. Anne put her hand in mine, and slowly we turned toward the man. He was tall and thin, faded overalls and work shirt, sun-squint lines etched around his eyes, a wide-brimmed straw hat on his head and a double-barreled shotgun pointing at us across the crook in his elbow. ''Didn't you see the No Trespass signs along the path?"

"We didn't come along a path. We came up the side of the hill from the highway."

'Turn aroun' and go back the way you came. Whatever you was lookin' fer, you won' fin' it here."

**I ah-eady found what I was looking for," I said, pointing to the headstone on the ground.

He stepped to one side and looked down at it. "Huggins," he said softly, pronouncing it with a soft G. '^What's that got to do with you?"

'*He was my grandfather."

He was silent for a moment. His eyes searched my face. ''What's your name?"

'' Jonathan Huggins.''

"Big Dan's son?"

I nodded.

The muzzle of his gun dropped toward the ground. His voice seemed gentler. "You kids foUer me down to the house. My wife has some nice cool lemonade hangin' in the well."

We followed him down a path through the trees on the far side of the hill. We came out on a small knoll just above a cornfield. Beyond the cornfield was the house. If that was what it could be called. More a lean-to shack—odd pieces of wood nailed together, the crevices sealed with construction paper and tar, the roof more boards nailed together over plastic. In front of the house was a battered old pickup, dusty in the afternoon sun, whatever paint was left on it a faded, indistinguishable color. He led us past the cornfield, past the pickup, to the door.

He opened it and called in. "Betty May, we got visitin' folk."

A moment later, a girl appeared in the doorway. She couldn't have been more than sixteen, round face, round blue eyes, long blond hair and pregnant. She looked at us carefully, a hint of fear in her eyes.

"It's okay," he said reassuringly. "They f'om up No'th."

"How do?" Her voice was a child's voice.

"Hello," I said.

He turned to me, holding out his hand. ''Ym Jeb Stuart Randall. My woman, Betty May."

"Pleased to meet you, Jeb Stuart." I took his hand. *'ThisisAnne."

He made a half old-fashioned bow. "Honored, ma'am."

"Not ma'am, Ms."

"I beg your pardon, miz," he said, not picking up on the word.

She smiled at him. "Nice to meet you Mr. Randall, Mrs. Randall."

"Git the lemonade fom the well, Betty May. Our visitors must be parched fom the attemoon sun."

Betty May seemed to slip by us as we followed him into the shack. The interior was dark and cool after the bright heat outside. We sat down around a small table in the only room. On one wall were an old-fashioned coal cooking stove and a sink with cupboards over it; the other wall had one old wooden closet, a chest of drawers and a bed, over which was thrown a patchwork quilt. A small oil lamp was in the center of the table.

Jeb Stuart took a half-smoked cigarette from his pocket, placed it in his mouth without lighting it. Betty May came back into the house with a pitcher of lemonade. Silently she filled three glasses and placed them in front of us. She took none for herself, neither did she sit at the table with us. Instead she went to the stove and stood next to it, watching us.

I tasted the lemonade. It was thin and watery and very sweet. But it was cool. "Very good, ma'am,"

"Thank you," she said in her pleased child's voice.

"I heard on the news about your pappy passing away," Jeb Stuart said. "My sympathy."

I nodded.

"I seen your pappy once," he said. "He cut a fine figger, an' man, could he talk! I 'member Ustenin' to him an' thinkin'. That man could charm the angels fom the trees."

I laughed. 'That's probably what he's doin' right now. Either that or getting the Devil to change the working hours down there."

He didn't know whether to smile or not. ''Your pappy was a God-fearin' man. He's prob'ly up there with the angels."

I nodded. I had to remember that we didn't speak the same language.

"Yer pappy was one of us. Bom right yere. He made a name for hisself that the whole country could respec'." He fished in his pocket and came up with the familiar blue-four-leaf-clover-on-white union button, the letters C.A.L.L., one to each leaf, shining white. "When he started Up the Confederation, we was among the first unions to jine up with 'im."

"What union was that?"

"The S.F.W.U."

That made sense. Southern Farm Workers Union. The shit end of the union stick. Neither the C.I.O. nor the A.F.L. had ever bothered more than to collect dues from them. There wasn't any real money there. But my father knew better. He knew he had to begin somewhere. What he was looking for first was members, not money, and the South was ripe for picking. That was why he insisted on the word "Confederation" rather than "International." He was right. Within one year he had every union in the South with him, and with that as his base he moved rapidly, north, east and west. Three years later he could call on a national affiliation of seven hundred unions, with a membership of more than twenty million workers.

Jeb Stuart gestured to his wife, and without a word she refilled his empty glass. "I kin still remember his ever' word.

" 'I'm one a you,' yer pappy said. 'I was bom in these yere mountains. I he'ped my paw with the plowin' an' 'shinin'. My first job, when I was fourteen year ol', was in a coal mine. I punched cattle in Texas,

worked oil rigs in Oklahoma, loaded river barges in Natchez, drove a dump truck in Georgia, crated oranges in Florida. I been fired f om more jobs than any o' you fellers ever dreamed existed.'

''He looked aroun' the meetin' hall at us Tom under them big, bushy eyebrows. We was all laughin\ He had us. He knew it an' we knew it. He didn't smile, though. He was all business.

'' 'I'm not askin' you to leave the C. of I.O. to come and jine with us. The C. of I.O. is doin' a good job fer you. Even though ol' John L. is gittin' on up there in years an' sot in his ways an' them Reuther boys up No'th in Detroit is a mite young an' needs some sea-sonin', they still doin' a good job. But they cain't do it all. Not even when they git back together with the A.F. of L.—an' min' you, they will git back together —will they be able to do it all.

" 'I'm not askin' you people to saddle yerselves with more dues an' assessments. Heaven knows you fellers are payin' enough right now. I'm askin' you fellers to jine a confederation. Now, everyone in the South knows from their history books exactly what a confederation is. It is a group of people jinin' together of their own free will to preserve their rights as indi-vid'ls. Jes' like our great-gran'parents did years ago in the War between the States.

" 'The purpose o' the Confederated Alliance of Livin' Labor is to he'p each individual union to maintain its independent status and to achieve the best results fer its members. We give you services. Consultation, plannin', management. So that you can decide to do what is best for yerselves, jes' like the big unions and big businesses call in specialists fer their problems. You pay no dues, nothin' at all less'n you call us in to work fer you. Then you only pay us while we're workin'; when the job is finished, you stop payin'.' "

He picked up his lemonade and took a sip. "I didn'

know what he was talkin' 'bout, an' I don't think anyone else in the hail did neither, but it didn' matter. He had us all wrapped up."

I laughed inside. I knew the speech by heart, having heard it a million times. My father made it sound like a call to the Confederacy: the South would rise again. Once a union was signed up, that was only a beginning; then the sales program would go into action. I don't think there was ever a union that realized they needed so much assistance. Where they thought they had only one problem, C.A.L.L. would show them they had ten. Then it was all over but the shouting. And the beauty of it was, there was nothing the A.F.L. or the C.I.O. could do about it, because after all, C.A.L.L. was there to help them too.

''What happened then?" I asked.

''Later that summer, there was a great deal o' talk about goin' out on strike because there was a bumper harvest comin'. C.A.L.L. showed us we'd be hurtin' ourselves more than the big farmer, because there was a good chance of ever'body workin' for the first time in three years. An' if we lost that big harvest, it would take us more'n six years at increased wages to make up that loss. The predictions were all for a poor harvest the following year. That was the time to nail the farmer, when he needed it more than we did because half the membership would be out o' work anyway. An' it worked. The strike was over in two weeks. The farmers caved in; they couldn' afford a total loss."

I looked at him. "And after that there was always someone from C.A.L.L. down at the union office working on some important project."

He stared at me. "How did you know?"

I smiled. "That's where I grew up. I knew my father."

"He was a great man," he said reverently.

"Do you still think so now that you're farming on your own?"

He seemed puzzled. '*I don' understan'."

''I saw a field of com out there," I said.

'That's nothin'," he said. ''On'y three acres. I kin handle that myself."

'*What if the union comes in an' says that you have to have a couple men to help?"

'They ain't comin' up here. Ain't nobody comes up here no more. Not fer a long time. Nobody even knows I'm farmin' up here. The land all aroun' is wasted."

I remembered the words he quoted from my father's speech many years ago. "I he'ped my paw with the plowin' and 'shinin'."

Suddenly I knew. "My grandfather's still."

There was a sudden pale under his tan. ''What did you say?"

"My grandfather's still," I repeated. "Did you find it?"

He hesitated a moment, then nodded.