South of Shiloh (5 page)

4

MITCH DISCOVERED HIS SMOOTH BARITONE WAS
made for radio not long after he launched the monument project in the Timber Hills Treatment Center. Ostensibly, the project was inspired by the Alcoholics Anonymous requirement to make amends to those he’d harmed, which he interpreted to mean his mentor and father-in-law, Hiram Kirby. And, with his lawyer’s help, the project satisfied the judge’s community-service recommendation.

Ellie, relieved to see Mitch actually get excited about something, encouraged him to pursue the project full-time. Glad to have him out of the office, the board of directors at the bank accepted his resignation. And, like Mitch figured, Old Man Kirby approved. His son, Robert, had never taken such an interest in the family battlefield. When Robert deployed to Iraq as a second lieutenant with the guard, Mitch, a sergeant in the unit, had to forgo the challenge of sand fleas, 120-degree heat, and improvised explosive devices. He was stuck in court-ordered group therapy.

He’d started with small promotional radio spots. In a few months, with the backing of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ camps across Mississippi and Tennessee, he’d expanded the format into a weekly evening radio show he called
Southern Almanac
. The show’s original emphasis on preserving Southern battlefields from development attracted regional attention. A reporter at the Memphis paper had mixed his states up and termed Mitchell Lee Nickels the “Bluegrass Garrison Keillor,” and then ended his piece with speculation that Nickels was good enough to move up to a bigger market.

Mitch turned off Highway 72 on Corinth’s east side and parked on the trap rock apron of the small station behind the White Trolley restaurant. Powered by twenty-five thousand watts, WXRZ broadcast over a fifty-mile radius. Five hundred dollars in advertising bought Mitch half an hour a week. Tapes of the show went out to other stations in the region.

He sat for several moments, calming down after his encounter with Beeman. Carefully, he checked the surrounding street to see if the cop was still dogging him. Then he picked a portfolio up off the passenger seat, leafed through his program notes, and selected one slim sheet. Tonight he didn’t really need the notes, because he’d be talking primarily about the Kirby Creek event and the monument dedication. He set the portfolio aside, swung out of his truck, went into the station, and waved at the engineer sitting behind the console in the one-room studio.

As the minute hand moved toward the bottom of the hour, Mitch sat down, arranged his mike, and took a sip of water from the bottle that had been set out. Then the engineer cued him and cracked his mike.

“Good evening Alcorn. This is Mitchell Lee bringing you another
Southern Almanac
from the studios of WXRZ right here behind the White Trolley in Corinth where we can actually smell the slug burgers sizzlin’ on the griddle.

“Our show tonight is going to be less me and more you doing the talking because I know you have questions about the event at Kirby Creek this Saturday. But first I have the announcement you’ve been waiting for. Because of your support and contributions the monument is a reality. Special thanks go to the Heritage Development Corporation in Nashville for their very generous donation. The monument was put in place out in front of the Kirby House today. But we’re going to wait on the landscaping until the reenactors get through tramping around. Once they finish up we’ll get it all spiffed up for the dedication right after the Shiloh Living History. Okay folks. The mikes are open and I see the calls are stacking up.

“Hello, you’re on
Southern Almanac
.”

“Hey Mitchell Lee, this is Jimmy Tobin calling from Hatchie, and some of us over here are not real clear on how they got the dates all mixed around with the battle event and the dedication. Kirby Creek was after Shiloh, not before. I thought getting history accurate was still important around here.”

“Well, Jimmy, I hear you. But this year the Sons of Confederate Veterans decided to sponsor this super-hardcore authentic battle scenario and that means no spectators. We’ll still be doing an event on the anniversary but it’s gonna be more dedication ceremony and celebration than a reenactment. So’s not to conflict with the dedication, the SCV moved their reenactment up.”

Mitch punched another button. “Good evening, you’re on
Southern Almanac
.”

“Yeah, Mitchell, some of the boys I know are complaining about the way they cut off registration for Kirby Creek. It’s gonna cause a stink in some SCV camps. It’s discrimination.”

“It’s a problem, I agree,” Mitch said. “But you gotta see their side. Don’t get me wrong, these hardcore types do tend to roll their grits in little balls. On the other hand they expect a level of commitment most mainstream reenactors don’t, well, want to put up with.”

“Who thought this up anyway?”

“Way I heard it, a local boy went out to West Virginia last year for Rich Mountain. That’s the one where a couple hundred Yankees grounded their packs then hiked six miles up a mountain in the rain. Then they slept up there without their packs, blankets, ponchos, and most of their food.”

“Not my idea of reenacting.”

“Look at it this way, maybe somebody figured if you could get Yankees to march up a mountain you could get them to pollywog five miles through Cross State Swamp. Which is what they’re gonna do.”

The caller laughed. “Bleep that,” he said.

Mitch went to the next call. “Howdy, you’re on
Southern Almanac
.”

“So Mitchell Lee, you gonna be at Kirby Creek?”

“Not me. I never was into dress-up reenacting. I was in the shooting end. My father-in-law, Hiram Kirby, God bless him, we were on the Forrest Rifles until…” Mitch’s voice caught slightly.

“You got our prayers, you and your wife. Damn shame what your family is going through.”

“Thank you, sir.” Mitch paused for a moment before hitting the next call. “
Southern Almanac
, come on.”

“Talking about Forrest Rifles—where’d you learn to shoot?”

“Well now…” Mitch let his voice ruminate. “’Suspect I did just like most of you all out there. You see, my grandpa who raised me always had two squirrels for breakfast. Every morning from the time I was twelve till I started high school he’d get me up at dawn, hand me this old single-shot .22 and two long cartridges. Then he’d push me toward the woods and not let me back in till I had two skinned squirrels. And Grandpa, he didn’t like the meat shot up. Grandpa, he insisted on head shots.”

Mitch switched to the next call.

“Got a monument question. Now, the new Tennessee memorial they put up at Shiloh is cast bronze, am I right?”

“Yes sir, cast in Wyoming.”

“But the statue you put up is granite.”

“Southern gray, out of Georgia.”

“How come granite and not bronze?”

“Well, we had meetings on this and I figured we should honor those sleeping heroes with an old-fashioned flavor. Fact is, granite sculpture is a dying art. As the old sculptors retire there’s no new blood stepping up. Had to look all over the South till we found a hand-carver in Spartanburg, South Carolina.”

“’Appreciate what you done, Mitchell Lee.”

“Thank you, see you at the dedication. Now we gotta pause to pay the rent.”

After a commercial break, Mitch took a few more calls and then gave a weather report.

“So all you hardcore reenactors out there, you better double up on your blankets and gum rolls for Kirby Creek. According to the weather report, it’ll be rain all day tomorrow and into Saturday morning.

“And a special Alcorn County welcome to the Union boys from Illinois and Ohio coming down to join in our event. You fellas best pack some Deet in case some of our quarter-pounder skeeters hatch out early. And down here, fellas, the ticks never die. You been warned.”

Then he gave times for scheduled activities for the Living History event coming up on the anniversary of the Shiloh battle next Saturday. He sat back while the engineer ran a public service announcement about a church bake sale.

Mitch exhaled, looked at the clock, and ruminated how that media writer in Memphis was prescient when he coined the description “Bluegrass Garrison Keillor.” Mitch had completely stolen the format from the National Public Radio celebrity’s show.

He had studied Keillor’s tapes with special attention to his folksy, ironic delivery. He appreciated how Keillor got mileage out of his gentle mocking of his Scandinavian roots. Mitch used the same technique, telling humorous tales about the foibles of antebellum Mississippi. He made a point to sprinkle in factoids about local blacks who had contributed to the history of the area.

After another taped commercial, he cleared his throat, keyed the mike, and reread the temperature and tomorrow’s forecast for northern Mississippi and southwestern Tennessee. Thunderstorms through Saturday morning, then clearing and a high of seventy-five.

He looked up at the clock. It was time to wind it down.

He paused to allow his listeners an interval of preparatory silence. As the seconds ticked away, he floated to the familiar subdued whir of the almost-empty studio; just him and the engineer walled off in a glass aquarium stacked with flickering machines.

Then, just when the meditative silence verged on suspense, he slowly recited the signature quote from Faulkner with which he ended his broadcast; the same passage that had brought him to Hiram Kirby’s attention almost twenty years ago…

For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are loaded and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance…

Some shows, Mitch gave them the whole long passage. Tonight he stopped here, knowing that many of his listeners would shut their eyes, concentrate, and fill in the remainder. Older folks, mainly.

Mitch exhaled, pushed back from the desk, stood up, and stretched. Like the Great Man said. It’s all in the balance.

On the other side of the console, the engineer motioned to Mitch and held up the telephone. Mitch looked down, saw the red light flash on his phone console, and picked up.

Billie Watts, his attorney. Not an unexpected call.

“Hey, Billie, what’s up?” Mitch said casually.

“You know what’s up. Can we talk?” Billie’s voice sounded like cocaine jitters in an echo chamber.

Mitch took it in stride. “Sure. Say the parking lot at the Interpretive Center. Should be deserted. Be there in ten minutes.”

Then Mitch replaced the phone in its cradle. Patience, stay on task. So he shook hands with the engineer and spent a few moments of small talk before he said good-night. Then he left the station, got in his Ford, turned the key, zipped down the windows, and lit a Marlboro Light.

The night air was delicately crisp, with a damp tang of far-off wood smoke and green whisperings of spring. A smell of coming rain.

He opened his cell and called Ellie. No answer; the call went to the machine. Mitch left a message that he was leaving the station and would be home shortly.

Then he drove west on Highway 72 toward downtown Corinth. As he passed a gas station, he noticed a caravan of reenactors that had pulled over. He turned in to cruise the trucks, raising his hand in easy greeting to several men, who returned the gesture. The plates on the pickups identified Tennessee and Alabama. Bubba’s rust-bucket, back-road pickup with the shotgun hanging in the rack was passing from the scene. Now Bubba was naming his kids Windsor and Meredith and had a permanent cramp in his neck from talking on a cell phone and balancing his latte while he piloted a pimped-out 150 with plush leather seats. Like Mitch drove.

A knot of men quietly sipped coffee and chatted among the vehicles; they were dressed in well-cut Confederate sack coats and slouch hats. Serious living historians, the men were headed for Kirby Creek. The reenactment season had begun and the summer would be one long Confederate Halloween.

He left the reenactors behind, continued down 72 through the strip-mall alley that lined the highway, then, just past the Holiday Inn at the west end of town, he turned north onto Galyean Road. Moments later, he took a right on Linden Street, then turned right again and pulled into the empty parking lot. Mitch switched off the truck and lit another Marlboro.

Smoking too much. Darl wasn’t the only one getting nervous.

His eyes cautiously tracked the empty open area around the center, looking for the black shadow of Beeman’s car. Satisfied he was alone, he peered at the zigzag sidewalk that led up the gentle slope to the long, low, brick History Center operated by the Federal Park Service. The parking lot lights caught a gleam of metal in the walkway. They’d bronzed pieces of soldiers’ gear—haversacks, crumpled forage caps, shards of broken rifles—and embedded them in the concrete. “Battle detritus” they called it. On the left end of the building the ground swelled into a revetment, and through the embrasures he glimpsed the shadow of a barrel and the spokes on a cannon wheel.

A squeal of tires on asphalt announced Billie’s arrival as his silvery Mercedes-Benz SLK swerved into the lot and stopped in a lurch of trembling suspension. Billie Watts, Ole Miss, Law Review, sure to make partner in his daddy’s firm, heaved up and out of the low, sleek car. He wore designer jeans, handmade leather boots, a silk shirt open three buttons—so his tanned, hairy chest and gold chain hung out. Billie looked around and darted his frog-like tongue to lick up a faint trace of white powder on the left side of his sweaty upper lip.

Mitch did not get out to meet him.