This is Adam (Lightwood History Collection Book 4)

by Brainard Cheney

  “Mr. Halley McGrew!” Mrs. Hightower said firmly.

  “Yessum,” Jerome agreed and now managed a quick grin, “He’s just twenty-three!’ He turned away and kicked at the grass with a shod foot. “And he ought to not have left it out here on the road with a key in the switch!”

  “On the road?” She began, but broke off. It had not been on the road, as she only too well appreciated: it had been left in front of her house, because Halley McGrew did not dream that her son would molest it! The very thought embarrassed her. “And how old are you, Jerome?” She said, with an ambiguous tonelessness.

  The Cranford boy glanced back at her suspiciously, saying “Hunh?” Then, he reacted to the high reserve on her face and he jerked his hands out of his pockets, adding confusedly, “Yessum, I mean! I-I’m twelve—be twelve next month.”

  Mrs. Hightower nodded. She thought as much: a year older than Marcellus and fully a head taller! And handsome, with his well-shaped head and good features, but already the look of a rowdy about him. And how could she keep Marcellus away from him? On what basis? They were all even members of the same church! She said with a slight tone of irony, “In any event, Jerome, I think that you had better run along home and tell your mother about this.” Dismissing him, she glanced toward her son. “Come along with me, Marcellus!” she said distractedly, deflected by the sudden thought of Edward Louthan’s letter in the pigeonhole in her secretary. She turned back toward the house. What better reason could she have for accepting Edward’s offer than to get Marse out of this place and to get him a father! She looked back at the stubby boy, who still remained standing at the edge of the road, staring at her from his small, deep-set eyes, the large round nostrils of his flat nose spreading apprehensively. She thought with astonishment, was it Marse, Marse who stood between her and Edward?

  8.

  THE SOUND OF THE AX seemed too deep into the swamp, when Adam heard it from the back field. It was a long way off, of course, and the wind might be toward the River to take it that way. But then, on the other hand, he knew that Hinshaw Slappy didn’t have any hardwood timber left to cut. The woodsman must be on Hightower land!

  Adam was chopping cotton, and he took a chew of tobacco, shouldered the hoe, and climbed over the fence on the side toward Slappy’s and moved into the bay along the dividing line. He hadn’t gone two hundred yards into the swamp before he could tell for sure. He thought, By damn, that itchy-fingered scamp just couldn’t wait a minute! But, of course, it wouldn’t be Hinshaw, himself, throwing that big chip. Hinshaw didn’t believe in sweating over an ax handle, and Adam was close enough now to tell that it wasn’t Slappy’s lick, anyhow.

  Adam circled a wide crab-apple thicket to his right and moved up behind a low-bush holly. He looked out around his cover to see a lean, long-armed, black man, swinging his blade into a high ash tree. The man was wearing, not overalls, but a ragged white shirt and black britches. Adam stared for a moment and then with a shrug, moved out from behind the holly, his hoe over his shoulder, sauntering toward the action at his deliberate upright gait.

  “That’s a p-powerful heavy ax you swinging there Brother Steele!” he called out good-humoredly. He advanced a step or two, as the axman delivered his blow and halted to look around. “When I heard that loud lick up the branch I didn’t expect to find y-you aholt of the hickory!”

  To a casual listener Adam’s voice would have sounded entirely amiable; but, judging from his reaction, Kiger Steele detected more in it—though to be sure, there could be additional reasons for his self-consciousness. After his first startled glance over his shoulder, he became studiedly deliberate in drawing his ax from the tree. And when he turned toward Adam, there was something vindictive in the care with which he rested the ax head on the ground with the blade up-tilted. Looking up from his tool, he said in his high-pitched voice—that seemed louder than was necessary—“You wouldn’t expect Kiger Steele to muffle his licks none?”

  Adam must have taken a couple of strides before he replied and his voice, in contrast, sounded sonorous. “I just didn’t know you for a w-woods sawyer.”

  The arrested axman’s momentum and pitch seemed to carry him on. “Kiger Steele’s a man of many ways and turns—you liable to run into him wherever a solid dollar kin be made!”

  Adam swung the hoe down from his shoulder and folded his hands on top of the handle. “Hit’s bin said that no sweat’s dishonest and I’m always glad to see ye.” He smiled in what seemed to be pure reminiscent pleasure. “Hit’s bin a long time since we took that d-drink together out’n your jug, in my buggy. And you wouldn’t think I enjoyed it the way I did, and me not returnin’ it in no way. It’s bin on my mind, but it look like I couldn’t come up with ye no wheres befo’.” Pausing, he unfolded his hands and hoed down a straggling fern or two in front of him. “I’d hoped to give you a mess of catfish, or carp, or maybe some scuppernong wine afore now.” He looked up sharply out of the corner of his eye, as his hoe came to rest.

  Kiger Steele’s mouth worked a couple of times without saying anything and he studied the blade of his ax. He turned the blade down and spoke noncommittally. “I bin movin’ about.”

  “T-timbering?”

  “Some.” Kiger began to seem more relaxed.

  Adam shook his head and canted it suavely to one side, thrusting out his hoe handle. As if it were an Elizabethan courtier’s staff. “I just hadn’t figured you for no woods sawyer—and you here, cuttin’ this ash by yourself!” He looked away and continued as if speaking a stage aside. “Mostly woods sawyers have a podner and use a c-crosscut saw these days.” He surveyed the tall tree the axman was working on. “But then with ash timber as fine as this, I reckon you don’t want-a share none of the profit!” Abruptly he looked Kiger in the eye. “By the way, Brother Steele, how you cuttin’ this ash?”

  Adam’s formal Brother Steele was a reminder of their mutual moral obligation in the Corinthian Lodge, and it may have been responsible now for Kiger’s drawing forth his sweat rag to mop his face, before he undertook to reply. But when he had mopped he still did not speak, but shook his head indecisively, restored the rag to his belt and, turning back to the tree, swung his ax into the cut. This, by the second lick, seemed to work up his resolution and his dander and he yelled over his shoulder, “I don’t reckon that’s any of your business, Atwell!”

  Adam took two steps nearer and continued, as if he had received an entirely amiable response, his voice only raised a little to be heard above the cutting, “Do you buy yo’ own stumpage, or work for the other feller?”

  Kiger tossed his head, halting, his ax in the tree, and again turning to Adam. His voice was challenging. “I works in various ways!” He added defiantly, “Ye ain’t got no timber ye want to sell me, is you?”

  Adam shook his head. “I ain’t got any timber for sale, myself, but if it aint’ too c-curious in me, who you buyin’ this ash ye’re cuttin’ here, from?” He eyed Kiger steadily, his mouth drawn as dry as pine dross.

  Kiger went on, hitting another sharp lick as he spoke, “I ain’t said I bought it!”

  “How’s that?” Adam called out and Kiger halted and looked around to repeat his insolence. “O-o-oh!” Adam soughed, lifting his face. And his jaw loosened and he took a swipe at his mustache. “I see—cuttin’ on s-shares! Who’d ye deal with?”

  Kiger barked, “I ain’t said I’uz cuttin’ on shares!”

  Adam cleared his throat. His voice when he spoke was still good-humored, but it had a carrying quality and he spoke without stuttering. “Kiger, as I said, I ain’t askin’ you out of curiosity.” He paused, trying to catch Kiger’s eye, “I don’t want to see you git in no trouble!”

  Swinging his ax to his shoulder, Kiger turned toward Adam, as if he were about to move on him. His face was twisted, his voice was high and hostile. “I ain’t called on you to look out for me! Who you think you gonna bully ‘round here, Atwell? I got this stumpage from Hinshaw Slappy, it’s his timber and I’d like to see you
stop me from cuttin’ it!”

  Adam moved toward Kiger as if Kiger did not have an ax on his shoulder—or anywhere else, speaking, as he moved, in the same even tone as before. “I ain’t goin’ to stop you from nothin’, Kiger. But the Court kin sho’ stop you from collectin’ a cent for your labor. And I’m here to tell you that it will! And I intend to take part in seein’ that hit do!” Adam squirted a stream of ambeer twenty degrees to the right of Kiger’s left foot. “More’n that: it may cost you a court fine.”

  Kiger raised the pitch of his noisy defiance, but he backed slowly away from Adam. “Atwell, you can’t bluff Kiger Steele!”

  Adam halted, a grin spreading his mustache upward. “T-that’s a curious thing, Kiger—a curious thing. I ain’t any mo’ bluffin’ you than a rattlesnake’s whistle.” He halted, as if to reflect and again chopped at a fern with his hoe. “Maybe you don’t know hit, but I look after the Hightower holdin’ for the Widow Hightower. And maybe you don’t know hit, but you kin prove it by the man you are cuttin’ this timber for—there’s a d’spute over a land line that lies on beyond you up there and accordin’ to what I know about it, you are below the Hightower line, a-cuttin’ the Hightower timber. Likely Mr. Slappy told you sumpin’ different, but that’s not going to take care of you in court.” He looked at Kiger kindly. “Hit don’t make no difference who’s right and who’s wrong, with these white people—who wins and who loses—you de nigger and you gointer lose, Kiger—if’n you git mixed up in it!”

  Kiger was impressed. He relaxed his grip on his ax, allowing it to turn, blade down over his shoulder, but he was not yet prepared to surrender. He backed toward the tree to get more distance. “Look here, Adam, I’m in the clear. I bought this stumpage on what Mr. Slappy said, for fair. I’m in the clear!”

  Adam, eyeing him sharply for the first time, spoke short to him. “Kiger, maybe you don’t think you’re a black man, hunh? Put up yo’ ax and come on!” He snapped the hoe up on his shoulder irritably. “We’re goin’ up to see Hinshaw Slappy. I’ll git it out of his mouth that you on d’sputed ground—I’ll do better’n that, if he fools ‘round about it!” He moved in close.

  Kiger shook Adam off, turning his back, to face the tree again, sliding his ax off his shoulder to the ground. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere with you, Adam! I ain’t goin’ nowhere!”

  Pausing, Adam laughed. His face and voice softened and he said gutturally, “I didn’t mean to be short with you, Kiger!” he moved nearer Kiger, still smiling, catching his eye. Adam’s twinkle, as they stood thus, firmed to an amiable insistence, then held the other man’s defensive gaze with demand, his strong eyes burning luminously. As Kiger’s glance faltered, Adam powerfully commanded him. “Come on!” he said, taking Kiger by the arm. . .

  But they had scarcely reached Slappy’s hog-killing grounds on the way to his house, when the sparkleberry bushes on the far side began to shake and Hinshaw himself came pushing his way through them and out into the clearing, holding his .22 rifle by the pistol grip.

  “Hey there, Mr. Slappy!” Adam called out cheerfully, “you done saved us a walk!” He led the way into the clearing from the opposite side, without saying anything more, but observing the lank, loose-faced white man alertly.

  “How’s that?’ Hinshaw said, his features tightening, as his gaze fixed on them. He eyed first one and then the other. “What you colored boys up to, anyhow?” he said, lowering the muzzle of his gun.

  Adam halted, smiling. Hinshaw Slappy was already prepared to write Kiger off his books! As he watched Kiger pass him to get nearer the white man, Adam wished he could be as confident as Slappy was that Kiger had deserted him. He said pleasantly and almost as if he were jesting, “I thought maybe you’d come to meet us, I thought maybe you’d sent Kiger down beyond the Mort Sumner line to cut that ash timber?”

  Kiger looked quickly at Slappy, lifting his big sharp depigmentized nose. He opened his mouth as if to speak, his gold teeth flashing, then he seemed to break in the middle almost as if he had received a blow, his long frame swaying limberly and he shifted his stance to take a look at Adam. “Atwell, here, talkin’ about some sort of line,” he said.

  Adam continued as if Kiger hadn’t spoken, eyeing Slappy. “Because he didn’t have no saw podner and it took so long, I got down there afore he got a tree down. Howsomever, we going to have to take out that un he ‘uz hackin’ on. Hit’ll make us hoe and ax handles enough for the next five year.”

  Kiger looked from one to the other suspiciously. “I reckon y’all kin stop me if you git together, like this, but I aims to git paid for my time! I aims to git paid!”

  “You don’t happen to be sayin’ that to me, do ye Kiger?” Adam said quizzically.

  Kiger, who had kept glancing about, at this point allowed his gaze to settle on Slappy.

  Adam was constrained to join him in this. “Did you send ‘im down there, Mr. Slappy?”

  Hinshaw’s mouth worked a couple of times, loosening his lips, then he lifted a sharpened glance to meet Adam’s. He said glumly, “Send him whur?”

  “Down below the Mort Sumner line!”

  Hinshaw shifted his stance and lowered his gaze and pushed over a large toadstool near his foot with the barrel of his rifle. He grunted.

  Kiger spoke up again. “Somebody’s goin’ to have to pay me!”

  “Down below the Mort Sumner line!” Adam repeated.

  Slappy’s face sagged into its dull ravaged look for a moment, then twisted tight with a desperate anger. “Look-a-here,” he said sharply, his voice quivering as he went on, “I don’t know whur you found ‘im”—indicating Kiger with a nod—“and I ain’t admittin’ to nothin’—no ash trees, no Mort Sumner line, no nothin’.” He glared at Adam. “But whut difference would it make to you if’n I did send him down in the swamp?”

  Adam raked his foot back and squirted a long stream of ambeer at the bushes left of Slappy, then he chuckled, shaking his head. “Sho’ not enough to make you mad about it, Mr. Slappy!” He had spoken with feeling, but he appeared remarkably controlled, looking about him interestedly and, after a moment, taking a step to chop down a stray weed in the clearing with his hoe. He turned again to Slappy. “The onliest thing is, I’m gointer have to report ‘bout this to Miz Hightower.” He spat and shouldered the hoe, observing mildly as he turned away, “Hit do look like you goin’ to make us have to call in the county surveyor to run out that swamp line ag’in!” He turned his back, without waiting for a reply and made his way again through the sparkleberry bushes. Before he had passed out of earshot, however, he could hear Slappy say, “Hell, Kiger, let’s git on up to the house!”

  Mrs. Hightower leaned over the mailbox on the back porch, inspecting the small red-cheeked yellow crab-apples that filled a two-bushel split-oak basket. She filled her lungs with the sharp odor of them. “They’re really fine this year!” she murmured to the basket.

  Adam, in the yard, looking at the hard little apples from the opposite side, said, “They’s better than usual and there’s plenty of ‘em. Ma and the chillum picked a lot of ‘em and wanted to send you some.”

  Straightening up, Mrs. Hightower said, “They sent so many! I hope they have some left for themselves?”

  Adam glanced up with a brief twinkle in his eye. “More’n they got sugar for, I reckon,” he said.

  “Anyhow, Adam, I am very glad to get them and thank your mother and the children for me, please. Those Old-Crumley field crab-apples make the best jelly of any I know about. The girls and I will have a jelly-making!” She started to move away, but turned back for an instant and, selecting one ruddy apple from the heap, carried it to her nostrils, then slipped it into the plaid pocket of her gray cotton dress. “There is something I think I ought to tell you about, Adam,” she said thoughtfully, as she, with the hand hidden in her pocket, wrapped the round fruit in her handkerchief.

  “You know so much about so many sides of it. And you know the source of the claim as well as any of us now living. I’d
like to know your opinion.”

  Adam had been moving as she moved along the porch and now they stood, respectively at the top and the bottom of the steps, at their appointed stations of which they were unconscious, to resume a morality play of which they believed themselves unaware. As she met Adam’s grave countenance, she added, in qualification, “It seems pretty incidental, I know, but it disturbs me. Mr. Littleton brought me this, this report, himself and in all seriousness. . . .Oswald Paley”—her voice lowered unconsciously at the mention of his name—“has been to him with this tale. He says that the original mineralogical plat made of the clay deposits—the surveying which you attended, you know—the supposed original plat, which we haven’t been able to find anywhere (nowhere in Mr. Hightower’s papers and you had never seen such a plat as Paley had turned up with a blueprint of) and which we only learn about through Oswald Paley, who now says it is at a Macon blueprint office! Paley says he believes it’s there. He says Mr. Hightower sent it there not long before he died.” Mrs. Hightower tightened her lips and, putting her hand in the pocket of her dress, walked back and forth across the landing, while Adam digested her news.

  Adam retrieved his broad-brimmed straw hat from the top of the milkbox where he had laid it, to fan himself with, for the morning was sultry and the chinaberry trees, with their deep shade, were as much a trap for the heat as a protection against the morning sun. “H-hit’s one of those things that might, or might not-er happened—who kin say for certain,” he said temperately. He fanned, turning his cheeks judiciously to the breeze. “Just thinkin’ about it, I don’t know that we need to know sho-nuff, whether the Colonel did that or not.”

  Mrs. Hightower looked at him quizzically, shrewdly, but she was not sure of his point and asked, “How’s that, Adam?”