Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Ron Rash

  The black man nodded.

  “So where you run off from?”

  “Down in Wake County, Colonel Barkley’s home place.”

  “Got himself a big house with fancy rugs and whatnot, I reckon,” the farmer said, “and plenty more like you to keep it clean and pretty for him.”

  “Yes, suh.”

  The farmer appeared satisfied. He did not uncock the hammer but the barrel now pointed at the ground.

  “You know the way over the line to Tennessee?”

  “No, suh.”

  “It ain’t a far way but you’ll need a map, especially if you lief to stay clear of outliers,” the white man said. “You get here last night?”

  “Yes, suh.”

  “Did you help yourself to some of them apples?”

  The black man shook his head.

  “You got food in your tote there?”

  “No, suh.”

  “You must be hungry then,” the farmer said. “Get what apples you want. There’s a spring over there too what if your throat’s dry. I’ll go to the cabin and fix you a map.” The white man paused. “Fetch some corn to take if you like, and tell that othern he don’t have to hide in there lest he just favors it.”

  The farmer walked back toward the cabin.

  “Come out, boy,” Viticus said.

  The tassels swayed and the youth reappeared.

  “You hear what he say?”

  “I heard it,” the youth answered and began walking toward the orchard.

  They ate two apples each before going to the spring.

  “Never tasted water that cold and it full summer,” the youth said when he’d drunk his fill. “The Colonel say it snows here anytime and when it do you won’t see no road nor nothing. Marster Helm’s houseboy run off last summer, the Colonel say they found him froze stiff as a poker.”

  “You believing that then you’re a chucklehead,” Viticus said.

  “I just telling it,” the youth answered.

  “Uh-huh,” his elder said, but his eyes were not on the youth but something in the far pasture.

  Two mounds lay side by side, marked with a single creek stone. Upturned earth sprouted a few weeds, but only a few. The youth turned from the spring and looked as well.

  “Lord God,” he said. “This place don’t long allow a body to rest easy.”

  “Come on,” Viticus said.

  The fugitives stepped back through the orchard and waited in front of the barn. The farmer was on his way back, a bucket in one hand and the flintlock in the other.

  “Why come him to still haul that gun?” the youth asked.

  The older man’s lips hardly moved as he spoke.

  “Cause he ain’t fool enough to trust two strangers, specially after you cut and run.”

  The farmer’s eyes were on the youth as he crossed the pasture. He set the bucket before them and studied the youth’s face a few more moments, then turned to the older fugitive.

  “There’s pone and sorghum in there,” the farmer said, and nodded at the bucket. “My daughter brung it yesterday. She’s nary the cook her momma was, but it’ll stash your belly.”

  “Thank you, suh,” the youth said.

  “I brung it for him, not you,” the farmer said.

  The older fugitive did not move.

  “Go ahead,” the farmer said to him. “Just fetch that pone out the bucket and strap that sorghum on it.”

  “Thank you, suh,” the older fugitive said, but he still did not reach for the pail.

  “What?” the white man asked.

  “If I be of a mind to share…”

  The white man grimaced.

  “He don’t deserve none but it’s your stomach to miss it, not mine.”

  The older fugitive took out a piece of the pone and the cistern of sorghum. He swathed the bread in syrup and offered it to the youth, who took it without a word. Neither sat in the grass to eat but remained standing. When they’d finished, the older fugitive set the cistern carefully in the bucket. He stepped back and thanked the farmer again but the farmer seemed not to hear. His blue eyes were on the youth.

  “You belonged to this Colonel Barkley feller too?”

  “Yes, suh,” the youth said.

  “Been on his place all your life.”

  “Yes, suh.”

  “And your momma, she been at the Colonel’s awhile before you was born.”

  “Yes, suh.”

  The farmer nodded and let his gaze drift toward the barn a moment before resettling on the youth. “The Colonel got red hair, has he?”

  “You know the Colonel?” the youth asked.

  “Naw, just his sort,” the farmer answered. “You call him Colonel. Is he off to the war?”

  “Yes, suh.”

  “And he is a Colonel, I mean rank?”

  “Yes, suh,” the youth answered. “The Colonel got him up a whole regiment to take north with him.”

  “A whole regiment, you say.”

  “Yes, suh.”

  The white man spat and wiped a shirtsleeve across his mouth.

  “I done my damnedest to keep my boy from it,” he said. “There’s places up here conscripters would nary have found him, but he set out over to Tennessee anyway. You know the last thing I told him?”

  The fugitives waited.

  “I told him if he got in the thick of it, look for them what hid behind the lines with fancy uniforms and plumes in their hats. Them’s the ones to shoot, I said, cause it’s them sons of bitches started this thing. That boy could drop a squirrel at fifty yards. I hope he kilt a couple of them.”

  The older fugitive hesitated, then spoke.

  “He fight for Mr. Lincoln, do he?”

  “Not no more,” the farmer said.

  To the west, the land rose blue and jagged. The older fugitive let his eyes settle on the mountains before turning back to the farmer. The youth settled a boot toe into the grass, scuffed a small indentation. They waited as they had always waited for a white man, be it overseer, owner, now this farmer, to finish his say and dismiss them.

  “The Colonel,” the farmer asked, “he up in Virginia now?”

  “Yes, suh,” the older fugitive said, “least as I know.”

  “Up near Richmond,” the youth added. “That’s what the Miss’s cook heard.”

  The farmer nodded.

  “Black niggers to do his work and now white niggers to do his fighting,” he said.

  The sun was full overhead now. Sweat beads glistened on the white man’s brow but he did not raise a hand to wipe them away. The youth cleared his throat while staring at the scuff mark he’d made on the ground. The farmer looked only at the older fugitive now.

  “I need you to understand something and there’s nary a way to understand it without the telling,” the farmer said to the other man. “Them days after we got the word, I’d wake of the night and Dorcie wouldn’t be next to me. I’d find her sitting on the porch, just staring at the dark. Then one night I woke up and she wasn’t on the porch. I found her here in this barn.”

  The farmer paused, as if to allow some comment, but none came.

  “Me and Dorcie got three daughters alive and healthy and their young ones is too. You’d figure that would’ve been enough for her. You’d think it harder on a father to lose his onliest son, knowing there’d be never a one to carry on the family name after you ain’t around no more. But he was the youngest, and womenfolk near always make a fuss over a come-late baby.”

  “That rope there in the barn,” the farmer said, lifting a Barlow knife from his overall pocket. “I’ve left it dangling all these months ’cause I pondered it for my ownself, but every time I made ready to use it something stopped me.”

  The farmer nodded at a ball of twine by the stable door and tossed the knife to the older fugitive.

  “Cut off a piece of that twine nigh long as your arm.”

  The fugitive freed the blade from the elk-bone casing. He stepped into the barn’s deep shadow and cut
the twine. The farmer motioned with the flintlock.

  “Tie his hands behind his back.”

  The other man hesitated.

  “If you want to get to Tennessee,” the farmer said, “you got to do what I tell you.”

  “I don’t like none of this,” the youth muttered, but he did not resist as his companion wrapped the rope twice around his wrists and secured it with a knot.

  “Toss me my Barlow,” the farmer said.

  The older fugitive did, and the farmer slipped the knife into his front pocket.

  “All right then,” the farmer said, and nodded at the tote. “You got fire?”

  “Got flint,” the other man said.

  The farmer nodded and removed a thin piece of paper from his pocket.

  “Bible paper. It’s all I had.”

  The older fugitive took the proffered paper and unfolded it.

  “That X is us here,” the farmer said, and pointed at a mountain to the west. “Head cross this ridge and toward that mountain. You hit a trail just before it and head right. There comes a creek soon and you go up it till it peters out. Climb a bit more and you’ll see a valley. You made it then. ”

  “And him?” the man said of the youth.

  “Ain’t your concern.”

  “It kindly is,” the man said.

  “Go on now and you’ll be in Tennessee come nightfall.”

  The youth’s shoulders were shaking. He looked at his companion and then at the white man.

  “You got no cause to tie me up,” the youth said. “I ain’t gonna be no trouble. You tell him, Viticus.”

  “He’d not be much bother to take with me,” the older fugitive said. “I promised his momma I’d look after him.”

  “You make the same promise to his father?” the farmer said and let his eyes settle on the older fugitive’s shoulder. “From the looks of that scar, I’d notion you to be glad I’m doing it. I’d think every time you looked at that red hair of his you’d want to kill him yourself.”

  “I didn’t mean to hide from you,” the youth said, his breathing short and fast now. “I just seen that gun and got rabbity.”

  “Go on now,” the farmer told the older fugitive.

  Two hours later he came to the creek. The burlap tote hung over one shoulder and the lantern hung from the other. He began the climb. The angled ground was slick and he grabbed rhododendron branches to keep from tumbling back down.

  There was no shingle or handbill proclaiming he’d entered Tennessee, but when he crested the mountain and the valley lay before him, he saw a wooden building below, next to it a pole waving the flag of Lincoln. He stood there in the late-afternoon light, absorbing the valley’s expansiveness after days in the mountains. The land rippled out and appeared to reach all the way to where the sun and earth merged. He shifted the twine so it didn’t rub the ridge of scar. Something furrowed his brow a few moments. Then he moved on and did not look back.

  PART

  II

  A Servant of History

  A servant of history. Since accepting his employ with the English Folk Dance and Ballad Society, that was how Wilson thought of himself and, in truth, a rather daring servant. He was no university don mumbling Gradgrindian facts facts facts in a lecture hall’s chalky air, but a man venturing among the new world’s Calibans. On the ship that brought him from London, Wilson explained to fellow passengers how ballads lost to time in Britain might yet survive in America’s Appalachian Mountains. Several young ladies were suitably impressed and expressed concern for his safety. One male passenger, an uncouth Georgian, had acted more amused than impressed, noting that Wilson’s “duds” befit a dancing master more than an adventurer.

  After departing the train station and securing his belongings at the Blue Ridge Inn, Wilson walked Sylva’s main thoroughfare. The promise of the village’s bucolic name was not immediately evident. Cabins and tepees, cattle drives and saloons, were notably absent. Instead, actual houses, most prosperous looking, lined the village’s periphery. On the square itself, a marble statue commemorated the Great War. Shingles advertised a dentist, a doctor, and a lawyer, even a confectioner. The men he passed wore no holsters filled with “shooting irons,” the women no boots and breeches. Automobiles outnumbered horses. It had all been immensely disappointing. Until now.

  The old man was hitching his horse and wagon to a post as Wilson approached. He did not wear buckskin, but his long gray beard and tattered overalls, hobnailed boots, and straw hat bespoke a true rustic. The old man spurted a stream of tobacco juice as an initial greeting, then spoke in a brogue so thick Wilson asked twice for the words to be repeated. Wilson haltingly conveyed his employer’s purpose.

  “England,” the rustic said. “It’s war you hell from?”

  “Pardon?” Wilson asked, and the old man repeated himself.

  “Ah,” Wilson said. “Where do I hail from?”

  The rustic nodded.

  “Indeed, sir, I do come from England. As I say, I am in search of British ballads. Many of the old songs that have vanished in my country may yet be found here. But as a visitor to your region, I have little inkling who might possess them. The innkeeper suggested an older resident, such as yourself, might aid me.”

  Wilson paused, searching the hirsute face for a sign of interest, or even comprehension. He had been warned at the interview that the expedition would be challenging, especially for a young gentleman fresh out of university, one, though this was only implied, whose transcript reflected few scholarly aspirations. In truth, Wilson had been the Society’s third choice, employed only when the first decided to make his fortune in India and the second staggered out of a pub and into the path of a trolley.

  “Of course, aside from my gratitude, I have leave to pay a fair wage for assistance in locating such ballads.”

  The old man spat again.

  “How much?”

  “Three dollars a day.”

  “I’ll scratch you up some tunes for that,” the rustic answered, and nodded at the wagon, “but not cheer. We’ll have to hove it a ways.”

  “And when might we set out?” Wilson asked.

  “Come noon tomorrow. You baddin at the inn?”

  “Badding?”

  “Yes, baddin,” the old man said, “sleepin.”

  “I am.”

  “I’ll pick you up thar then,” the rustic said, and resumed hitching his horse.

  “May I ask your name, sir,” Wilson said. “Mine is James Wilson.”

  “I a go ba rafe,” the old man answered.

  They left Sylva at twelve the next day, Wilson’s valise settled in the wagon bed, he himself on the buckboard beside Iago Barafe. They passed handsome farms with fine houses, but as they ventured farther into the mountains, the dwellings became smaller, sometimes aslant and often unpainted. To Wilson’s delight, he saw his first cabin, then several more. They turned off the “pike,” as Barafe called it, and onto a wayfare of trampled weeds and dirt. As the elevation rose, the October air cooled. The mountains leaned closer and granite outcrops broke through stands of trees. The remoteness evoked an older era, and Wilson supposed that it was as much the landscape as the inhabitants that allowed Albion’s music to survive here.

  He thought again of his university dons, each monotoned lecture like a Lethean submerging from which he retained just enough to earn his degree. Now, however, he, James Wilson, would show them that history was more than their ossified blather. It was outside libraries and lecture halls and alive in the world, passed down one tongue to another by the humble folk. Why even his guide, obviously illiterate, had a name retained from Elizabethan drama.

  A red-and-black serpent slithered across the path, disappeared into a rocky crevice.

  “Poisonous, I assume,” Wilson said.

  “Naw,” Barafe answered, “nothin but a meek snake.”

  Soon after, they splashed across a brook.

  “We’re on McDawnell land now,” the older man said.

  “
McDowell?” Wilson asked.

  “I reckon you kin say it that way,” Barafe answered.

  “The family is from Scotland, I presume,” Wilson said, “but long ago.”

  “They been up here many a yar,” the old man said, “and it’s a passel of them. The ones we’re going to see, they got their great-granny yet alive. She’s nigh a century old but got a mind sharp as a new-hone axe. She’ll know yer tunes and anything else you want. But they can be a techy lot, if they taken a dislikin to you.”

  “If my being from England makes them uncomfortable,” Wilson proclaimed, “that is easily rectified. My father is indeed English and I have lived in England all my life, but my mother was born in Scotland.”

  Barafe nodded and shook the reins.

  “It ain’t far to the glen now,” he said.

  The wagon crested a last hill and Wilson saw not a dilapidated cabin but a white farmhouse with glass windows and a roof shiny as fresh-minted sterling. Yet within the seemingly modern dwelling, he reminded himself, a near centenarian awaited. A fallow field lay to the left of the house, and a barn on the right. Deeper in the glen, cattle and horses wandered an open pasture, their sides branded with an M.

  A man who looked to be in his fifties came out on the porch and watched them approach. He wore overalls and a chambray shirt but no sidearm.

  “That’s Luther,” Barafe said.

  “I presumed we might be greeted with a show of weaponry.”

  “They’d not do that less you given them particular cause,” Barafe answered. “They keep the old ways and we’re their guests.”

  When they were in the yard, Barafe secured the brake and they climbed off the buckboard and ascended the steps. The two rustics greeted each other familiarly, though their host addressed his elder as “Rafe.” Wilson stepped forward.

  “James Wilson,” he said, extending his hand.

  “Good to meet you, James,” the other replied. “Call me Luther.”

  Their host took Wilson’s valise and opened the door, then stood back so the guests might enter first and warm themselves in front of the corbelled hearth. The parlor slowly revealed itself. A carriage clock was on the mantel, beside it a row of books that included the expected family Bible but also a thick tome entitled Clans of Scotland. More of the room emerged. A framed daguerreotype of a white-bearded patriarch dominated one wall, on the opposite, a red-and-black tartan, its bottom edge singed. Two ladder-back chairs were on one side of the hearth and on the other a large Windsor chair plushly lined in red velvet.