Shadow Country

by Peter Matthiessen

  ROGUE’S MARCH

  The Honorable Tillman Watson (although illiterate, Mama said) was now a state senator and a vice president of the Edgefield Agricultural Society. Like Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun, he was an old Borderer in his appearance, being tall and rangy, with an imposing forehead and fierce deepset eyes sunk back beneath heavy black brows in a long bony face. Though he had been kind enough during my childhood, Great-Uncle Tillman shunned me now to spare himself the effort of concealing his dislike of my father. As a prosperous man, it pained him, too, to see a ragged boy working his late brother’s plantation all alone in the forlorn hope that he might one day earn it back.

  As for the other Clouds Creek kin, they were civil but not hospitable, being similarly at pains to separate themselves from “the Bad Elijah.” Though I never complained about my solitude, the Colonel worried that living alone in that damp and decrepit house, young Cousin Edgar might sicken or go mad. I was too proud to tell him how much I preferred solitude to the terror of existence under my father’s roof.

  “I wish you had known your grandfather,” Colonel Robert was saying, avoiding my eye so as not to embarrass us both. “A kind and gentle man and well-respected planter until whiskey took him.” Though he made no mention of my father, his keen glance was a warning that alcoholic spirits might be the ruin of my lineage. “I shall assist you if you deserve that, Edgar, and not otherwise.” He said this harshly. No thanks being expected, I kept still.

  Another day, I asked him if he knew what had become of Selden Tilghman. He considered the hands clasped on his knee before muttering what he had heard, that “ruffians without civil authority” had given Colonel Tilghman one hundred strokes of the lash, then tarred and feathered him. In a hoary medieval clamor of tin pots, cat-calls, and chaotic drumming, he’d been ridden backwards on a pole in an old-fashioned “rogue’s march,” after which he’d been dumped into a hog wallow at Hamburg, the despised Republican settlement on the Savannah River across from Augusta, Georgia. Tilghman had regained consciousness before hogs found him and had crawled away—all that was rumor. Nothing had been heard about him since.

  “He is dead, then?”

  “I pray that he is dead.” Even if the man survived, he would be hunted down and killed should he return to Edgefield District, not because his punishment had been insufficient but because of the bad conscience of his neighbors, to whom he remained a specter of reproach.

  Colonel Robert’s repudiation of the martyrdom inflicted on a Confederate hero by “that half-mad Coulter and his gang” had been evident since the day he’d fired Claxton. (Again he avoided mention of my father.) “They cannot dignify unlawful violence by calling themselves ‘Regulators.’ ‘Regulation’ occurred a century ago when your great-great-grandfather led the citizens’ militia. These night riders of today are not patriots but vigilantes, and the cruelties they perpetrate would be villainous even in time of war.” He had agreed with Selden Tilghman that renegade violence kept the old wounds open, and that such actions would isolate the South as a polluted backwater of the republic.

  While not in sympathy with Tilghman’s New Light heresies, Colonel Robert respected the integrity and courage of that God-stunned man. “Your mother’s cousin was abominated because he warned the public—publicly—about what had become monstrous in all of us.” He flushed. “To enrich ourselves, we Christians sanctioned human bondage, so what can we say now in our own defense? My God! The enslavement of our fellow men even after they were redeemed as our fellow Christians! How did our churchmen defend this for so long?” He shook his head. “My father owned a thousand slaves, Uncle Tillman, too, and Aunt Sophia, Uncle Artemas—all the siblings. We were large slaveholders until the end, saw nothing wrong with it. We went to war for it. And many thousands of our best young men would lose their lives for this great sin and grievous wound to the republic that made a travesty and lie of our Constitution.”

  I was astonished by these heartbroken words from a Southern officer, wounded at Fraser’s Farm and Gettysburg and decorated for gallantry in the Great Lost Cause.

  While they were small, my frisky shoats kept me company inside my empty house. I constructed a snug pen in a side room which I bedded with dry straw and mucked out faithfully. Rejoicing in their progress, I hauled slops and mash and gallons of fresh water to this roisterous bunch, talking back to them in their squeal language, with suitable chuffs and a few explosive harfs of false alarm. I even moved my bedding to a place beside the pen where I could share in their well-fed contentment. They nudged my boots in greeting, seeking treats out of my pocket or a good rub of the bristle tuft between those pale blue eyes. Listening to this gang of mine, in their eartwitching sleep, I would find myself smiling in the dark, even laughing quietly, drawing forth sweet giggles of pig mirth.

  When spring came, I built an outside pen, and on Sunday afternoons, I led my sturdy band across the country. They would hurtle off in all directions, farther and farther in their forays, until they tired and came trotting in, heeding my call and following close behind all the way home. SooEEEEEEE! Pig, pig, pig! I sang across the meadows to celebrate my calling as a pig man. Colonel Robert warned me that hearing young Cousin Edgar in the distance and taking his mournful calls for cries of solitude was sorely troubling to certain Watsons on the lands around, and perhaps this good man, despite my reassurances, was the most troubled of all.

  A SOMBER HARD-FACED BOY

  Sunday dinners at the Colonel’s house were gradually reduced to one each month, until finally Aunt Lucy dispensed with my company entirely. So inhospitable did she become that I had to wonder if she was excluding the son out of her bitter disapproval of the father. In wretched loneliness, I longed to whine that my father had hurled me headfirst against a log butt, how I had lain unconscious for hours, how I had suffered headaches ever since. But I refused to solicit sympathy at the cost of such disloyalty, knowing also that betraying weakness before these Clouds Creek Watsons would only convince them that the son was made of the same poor stuff as the father and cause Colonel Robert to lose faith in my resolve.

  The final pronouncement on my character was reserved for Great-Aunt Sophia Boatright, who made regular rounds of the Watson households in her buggy. As monitor of the Old Squire’s heritage and high standards, Aunt Sophia saw to it that services and prayer meetings were duly attended and family deportment rigorously maintained. One day, careless of the fact that “Elijah D’s boy” was reading outside the window in the Indian summer sun (borrowing books having become my poor excuse for hanging around the outskirts of those family Sundays), she held forth to Aunt Lucy on “the fatal weakness” of poor dear Artemas that had led straight to the dissolution of his son. In no uncertain terms she blamed “that spoiled Addison girl” whom Elijah D. had married for the unwashed aspect of that “somber hard-faced boy.” As for “that Minnie or whatever they call her,” she was dismissed as “rather a pretty thing for a near-halfwit.” Aunt Lucy assured Aunt Sophia that poor peaked Minnie was not half-witted, merely scared out of her wits. She confessed, however, that the girl’s brother could no longer be tolerated in her house due to his odor, which no doubt emanated from his hogs. Her voice died as she realized that that somber hard-faced boy might be somewhere within earshot.

  Young Edgar—the voice of Colonel Robert, who had just come in—had toiled like a wretched slave since early childhood: he had been deprived of education and even decent clothes, as the ladies knew. What did the family expect of him, then? And who had extended a hand since his arrival? How many of his kinsmen knew or cared that Edgar, condemned to spend his evenings all alone, was probably better read already than any Watson in Clouds Creek?

  “Well, that’s not saying much,” Aunt Sophia snorted. “Poor old Tillman can scarcely write his name, let alone read it! Anyway, all this reading is bad for that boy’s brain. He talks like a book, which is all the fault of Ellen’s cousin, the one who spelled Tillman the old Tory way.” Such a pity, she exclaimed, that the b
oy had not been orphaned; dear old Tillman, with no heirs, might have adopted such a promising young man. Reminded that Tillman had a spry young wife, she nodded grimly. “Yes. A barren wife. Who will inherit everything.”

  Colonel Robert respectfully rebuked her. “Amelia has been good to him, Aunt.” With affection, he quoted my great-uncle, who favored rural accents: “I never had but the one wife and she done me all my life.”

  Young Edgar was bright, industrious, and very able, the Colonel concluded. With any luck, he would restore the Artemas plantation. “That is doubtless to his credit,” the old lady retorted, “but I don’t like the look of him and that is that.”

  “Very likely the boy is aware of your opinion, Aunt Sophia, but you might lower your voice in case he’s not.” Colonel Robert must have pointed toward the window for there was a stiff silence in that room.

  “Oh? An eavesdropper, you mean?” Aunt Sophia’s voice flew out into the sunlight as I ducked down to slink away around the house. “Speak up, boy! Are you out there?”

  “No, ma’am. I mean, yes, ma’am.” The fire of humiliation, the dread of banishment. I hadn’t known how I had offended them, nor that my great-aunt disliked my looks, nor that I stunk. The knowing scared me. When they went into the dining room, I slipped through the front door and peered into the hall mirror. What I saw was a common boy, husky for fourteen and roughly dressed, a freckled blueeyed boy, straight nose, strong chin, hair a dark red auburn. Nothing out of the way except, perhaps, the set cast of the expression, ingrown, solitary—yes, a hard and somber face, just as she’d said, moss-toothed and dirt-streaked. I liked it no better than she did. And I was shocked by my strong smell indoors.

  Confronted by Edgar Watson’s face, I hated the name Edgar. “Edgar,” I whispered. “You stink, boy.” But I had no idea how to escape myself.

  JACK WATSON

  At Christmas, which I spent alone, I was given a real hog-bristle toothbrush, a bar of brown Octagon soap, and a hand-me-down outfit of spare clothes, including a warm jacket from the Colonel. Winter passed. Imagining unfriendliness in their closed faces, I grew ever more removed from my Clouds Creek kin. In certain weathers, out of loneliness as much as cold, I piled up clean straw and slept in my own corner of my hog pen.

  In March, the Colonel hired me for the spring planting so that I might put aside a little cash. The other hands were nigras, all but a newcomer who turned up one day in the next row and kept watching me as we were planting peas. Distracted, I worked sloppily, and finally the other pointed at my “crookedy rows,” saying he would not share the blame for such poor work so I’d better do them over. I asked him who he thought he was, giving orders to Colonel Watson’s kin, and he just sneered. “That makes two of us,” he said.

  Rudely I said, “You are no kin to me. I have never seen you around here.” “No?” he said. “My daddy is ol’ Elijah D. You kin to him?” Angry, I called him a damned liar. “Elijah D. Watson has one son,” I said, “and that is me.” He laughed at me, having known who I was right from the start.

  “Your daddy has two blueeyed boys,” he baited me. “One has a shadow in his blood, that’s all.” And he pinched the tanned skin of his cheek so hard that it went white. I had noticed his use of crookedy, a darkie word, and now I knew.

  “You’re a damned mulatta, then? That what you’re saying?”

  “Yassuh, massuh.” He leered into my face. He had blue eyes, all right, but I could see the shadow in the skin.

  “Better watch out, telling lies on white men. You best stay clear of me.”

  “Brother Edgar.” He stopped smiling. “Just you plant them fuckin peas straight like I told you, Brother Edgar.” He spat those bad words at my eyes like venom.

  I threw the hoe aside and went for him. He was ready for me, as furious as I was. In our struggle, rolling in the furrows, he glimpsed Colonel Robert at the field edge and hissed a warning to let go. Drenched in sweat, we went back to our peas.

  As it turned out, this angry youth was already in danger from the Regulators, the Colonel said. Jack would have to be sent away for his own safety. “He’s too outspoken. Jack knows the Yankees will betray their own Reconstruction Act and the freedmen with it. He is angry and bitter. I have full rights as a citizen, he says, the law is the law. But the law is no longer the law, alas, in Edgefield District.”

  “Jack?” I said. I could scarcely believe it.

  “Jacob Watson. From Augusta. Hates the name Jacob because he hates the man who gave it to him.”

  Stupidly jealous of the Colonel’s concern for this mongrel Watson, I felt threatened. “This Jack Watson doesn’t know his place, sir. That what you mean?”

  “That’s what you mean, Edgar.” The Colonel measured me from beneath his heavy brows. “Sooner or later, they will come for him—those who judge that he does not know his place,” he said.

  “The Regulators?” I stood up, hot. My heart was pounding. “I didn’t mean—”

  Jacob’s mother, he explained, was a light-skinned slave girl who had worked in this house until she became pregnant. After she was sold away, it was put about by the ladies of the family that she had been raped by some white drifter, but the family knew that a young Watson was the father.

  I nodded and got up and went away.

  • • •

  By 1870, when Elijah D. Watson and his son were listed in the census as “farm laborers,” my father had sold off everything he could lay hands on save his horse and rifle. A few bits of hidden jewelry were his wife’s last tokens of her family past. Mama was listed no longer as “Mrs.” but as plain Ellen Watson, which signified that she was no longer a gentlewoman in our community. For a Daughter of Edgefield, that humiliation confirmed the ruin of her husband’s reputation and the loss of our good name.

  One Sunday, Tap rode to Clouds Creek on his mule, bringing word that Mama wished to see me. I rode the mule with the colored man up behind, grumbling about his crotch when the mule trotted. At Edgefield, Mama came running out to meet me, scarcely able to contain her happy news.

  The previous year, Great-Aunt Tabitha Watson and her daughter Laura, who was Mama’s childhood friend, had journeyed to north Florida to see to the plantation of Laura’s deceased husband, William Myers. In a letter to Laura, Mama had revealed her unhappy marriage to Elijah Watson, which Aunt Tabitha had famously advocated and supported. Requesting shelter, Laura’s old friend mentioned that her strong and willing son was held in high esteem by Colonel R. B. Watson as a very promising farmer: surely this young man would be an asset on her Florida plantation.

  Mama told no one what she’d done. A few months later, when her prayers were answered in a return letter sent in care of her brother, she began her preparations for departure. We were to leave in the next days on a cotton cart bound for Augusta, where we would join other pioneers in a wagon train on the old Woodpecker Trail south across Georgia. Asked how she would manage without Cindy, Mama looked surprised. “She will go, too, of course.” And Lulalie? And Tap? Mama waved away these complications. Her servant’s domestic arrangements were her own affair, Mama said blithely. No doubt Cindy’s people would follow when they could.

  In her excitement, Mama had never considered my situation either but simply assumed that her son would abandon those dull Watsons to escort his family on this journey. I was silent awhile, not knowing what to say. I felt vaguely homesick for some reason, but whether for Mama’s household or Clouds Creek, I was not sure. I had been so excited by my plan to slaughter one of my young pigs and bring my first ham to Edgefield as a Christmas present.

  When I told Mama I would not be going, she became exceptionally vexed. “But I promised them! They may not want us there if you don’t come!” When I stood unmoved, she pled. “This is a long perilous journey, Edgar. Who will protect us?” Next, she said, “You are my son! And your sister needs you!”

  But Mama was ever practical, and seeing my expression, soon gave up. With or without me, she would make good her escape, there
was no stopping her. She mustered a sort of smile. “Your heart lies at Clouds Creek, I see,” she said in a sincere manner. “I understand. We shall miss you, Edgar, of course we shall,” she continued briskly, attention already shifting as the next thing to be taken care of came to mind, “but no doubt we shall get on fine without you.”

  I could not help wishing that she had entreated me. To stay was my choice and yet, ridiculously, I felt abandoned and even a bit hurt that my family would leave home forever without appreciating Edgar’s Christmas ham. I tried to laugh at my bruised feelings but could not. Yet walking home that afternoon and evening, I cheered up a good deal, as my disappointment turned to admiration. “Well, now, Aunt Sophia,” I could say to that old blunderbuss, “it looks like ‘that spoiled Addison girl’ has some grit and spirit!”

  At Clouds Creek, Colonel Robert, too tactful to say I had made the right decision, awarded me a rare smile of fond pride: Cousin Edgar knew where Watson duty lay and had the character to make this sacrifice. The good man took me by both shoulders, saying, “I have full confidence in your abilities, Edgar; I have come to cherish the belief that one day you will indeed redeem your family property.” And he quoted that notable Edgefieldian, the former governor James Hammond: Sir, what is it that constitutes character, popularity, and power in the United States? Sir, it is property, and that only!

  All my life, I would be guided by those ringing words.

  DEEPWOOD

  Still unsettled by my womenfolk’s escape to Florida, I needed to reach out some way, make them a parting present, and since I was penniless and my pigs too young to slaughter, I wanted to trap a rabbit or squirrel or possum for a pie. Avoided as a haunt of restless spirits, the old Tilghman place had always been my hunting ground; knowing the wild things’ passages through glades and hollows as a nesting bird knows every point throughout its territory, I ran a new trapline through its ancient forest.