Refuge

by Dot Jackson

  There was a rustle of that warm wind. I sat down on Rose’s stone, I felt like she had asked me. And I talked to them. I had never felt less lonely, or more loved. After so long a time I went back down, gathering deadfall on the way and started a stack on the back porch. And I sat down and picked the burrs out of my skirt, thinking. I was thinking about the first time I had come down from that cemetery, with a skirt full of burrs. I had to think stern thoughts to myself. For the sake of this place I was going to have to stay sane. The squire would not come riding anymore. But I sat there, and listened to the voices of the house, and the field and the woods, and there was no way I would believe that I would not see him again.

  There were earthly matters to think about. Somewhere I was going to have to sleep, and that before long. Rose had moved the beds upstairs. I went up and settled in the big front room—this one—on the morning side. The bed had been neatly made; when I lifted the covers they were stiff with age and dust. There were clean ones in the bureau drawer, with little yellow age-specks, and quilts folded and stacked in the wardrobe. I fixed the bed and flopped down to think some more. I thought I ought to go find a candle. I ought to go fill the wash-pitcher at the spout. I ought to wash myself and lay out my clothes so I could get up and get a start back down to the store, in the morning. I thought with half-closed eyes. I could faintly hear the narrows roaring, and the birds. I saw the clouds over the ridge turn pink and I floated off on ’em, dead to the world.

  When I cracked my eyes again the sky was getting light. I got up and went to the window to look. The deer were feeding down in the field, a good herd; it felt good not to be alone, the one quick creature, of sorts, among the dead. I figured at that point that I might be barely quick enough to get to town for groceries. Another morning without coffee and it would be all over. So I went down to the spout and cleaned up and trotted off, thinking of reasonable, temporal things like what I would need to survive and whether I could tote it seven miles mostly up. Flour. Coffee. Meal. Lard. Salt and sugar. Candles would be lighter than coal oil. Staples alone were going to weigh a ton. I would have to buy seed. Once a week I would have to make that trip. How wearying it was going to be to live here. How wonderful.

  Ollie Trotter’s I found was all done over. Nothing but feed and seed anymore. More’s the horror, somebody had painted it white. Ollie was not there, nor Mrs. Ollie. It was being run by grandchildren. I bought some seed beans and corn and some okra and tomato seed, just little bags; I would plant more later. Ollie’s did still have a dope box and a rack of crackers. I bought a dope and crackers and went back up the road a way, to the branch and sat on the bridge rail and swallowed them whole. I took off my shoes and sneaked down to the branch to wet my blisters. There was a new Piggly Wiggly over beyond the depot. I went over and shopped. I bought stuff by weight, not by what I liked a lot. When I came out there was a big black cloud coming up. The wind was gusting; I knew everything was going to get soaked. So I took up my sack and went to the hotel and rented a room. It had an iron bed and muslin curtains and a nice view of the hosiery mill. It was luxurious. I went down to the cafe and got a paper cup of coffee and a sandwich and brought it back and sat and wrote letters to Louise and the children and listened to the rain. I decided it might become a weekly event, coming to town and spending the night in the hotel. That night I went down to the dining room and felt kind of odd being alone but I ate everything they would bring me. I had seen nobody yet in town that I knew.

  There was an older lady waiting tables, though, that kept looking at me. Finally she stationed herself, hand on hip and said, “Are you not one of Mr. Steele’s people?” I said yes indeed. “Did you not come in here with him a time or two?” she said. I know one time, I said. “I remember when he used to come in with a bunch o’ men,” she said. “The courthouse bunch, you know. They’d set and eat and talk, all of a sudden he’d get tickled about somethin’ was said, and he’d th’ow back his head and laugh. Lord, that man would laugh. I loved to hear ’im. It was one dark day when he died…”

  Yes, mam, I said. It was.

  “Said it was over a womern,” said she, sort of wistfully. “Most things like that’ll generally be over a womern, or over likker. I never did know Mr. Steele to be bad to drink…Where you livin’ now? You been away.”

  “I been away,” I said, “but now I’m back home. I’m back up at the old Steele place. I had to come get groceries and couldn’t get back home without gettin’ wet.”

  “What you a-drivin’?” she said.

  “I’m a-walkin’,” I said.

  “They law! You a-walkin’ by yourself? Who’s up-pair with you?” “Nobody,” I said. “It’s only me.”

  She threw up her hands. “They law! In ’at ol booger-house? They law have mercy, honey!”

  When I got up I hugged her. I couldn’t say how much I thanked her that she remembered, kindly.

  I waited for the fog to lift a little the next morning; sometimes you know you can’t tell if it’s bad weather or not. But it was a pretty day and I took up my “budget,” as Nam would say, and started out. There were some croaker sacks out on Trotter’s trashpile. I took up one and put my provender inside and slung it over my shoulder. People talked about hoboes. Here I was one.

  Every day, then, it was work to do. I cleared a little garden with the scythe and then the shovel and the hoe, and planted seed. The next time to town I got some flower seeds too, and cleared in front and planted four-o’clocks and things. And a nice little thing happened. Just as I came to the fork in the road, a little brown dog came out of the bushes and started following me. It was like a little shadow; when I would look around it would be gone. It was afraid. But then there it would be again. I had some crackers in my pack, I laid a couple down and walked on, and directly I heard it coming along behind, going crunch-crunch-crunch. When I would stop to rest I’d lay down more. When I hit the steps at The Birches there it was right behind me, with its little tongue hanging out. It plopped down in the shade of a bush and stretched out its little sore feet. It had come to live. If it had been a party of a hundred, it would have been no better company.

  And then one day when I was in town I passed a sad mule tied to a post. Its head was hung down; it had bad spots where the harness had rubbed and the gnats were worrying its eyes. I was real tired of walking. I stood there scratching its ears till the man came out. “What’s she wuth to ye?” he said, all smiles.

  “What you need?” I said.

  “I need $28 to pay m’ taxes,” he said.

  “Lemme see ’er teeth,” I said. “I don’t ever want to chew for another mule.”

  He lifted a mule-lip with his thumb. “Lookahere,” he said, “Ain’t but eight yurr old. Lookit t’em pearls.”

  Eight yurr my foot I thought. Eight yurr three times over. But I bought her and draped my sack across her back and led her home. There was the warmth of life in the barn again. We would have to make corn, she and I, to sustain it. I had never plowed. It took me half a day to figure out the harness. I never did plow too good, I’ll have to say. But we put in a crop of field corn in June. And it made.

  It might have been lonely here at first, except that the summer just consumes you, if you are working to survive. Like something possessed I fought the brush with the scythe. Day by day, lick by lick, The Birches came out of the scrub. There was nobody to talk to, most of the time, of course. I talked to the dog. I talked a right smart to the mule; we were good friends. I talked to the trees and the birds and the bugs and the wind. I talked a lot to the house, and all the time to God. The house came out from under the dust. I bet I put a thousand spider webs outside with families in them. I felt worse pangs when I cleaned the pantry. All those jars of stuff Rose had canned to last till a spring she never saw. A few of ’em had blown and leaked. I carried all of it way out in the lot and dumped the stuff out. The garden was coming in, and the blackberries, and I needed the jars.

  There was plenty of everything and it was a blessing. O
n account of the war there was not plenty of anything, hardly, in the towns. If somebody came it was nice to put a big bait on the table. The day they came with Cole there were a dozen at supper here I guess. Oh, it was so sad. I had not heard of him in years; not since Ansel and Myrtle were run out by the dam. Well, I was on the porch with a lap full of beans when a soldier and another man, turned out it was an undertaker, came driving up in a jeep. Got out and looked sort of puzzled to see me sitting there. Took off their hats and came up.

  “We didn’t think this home was occupied,” the undertaker said. And the soldier said they had come to see about burying Cole Sutherland. Well, of course that started something up again. I started to cry. “Are you one of his people?” he said. I shook my head yes and no at the same time. They stood and looked uncomfortable. They wanted to find the cemetery. Cole died on a hospital ship coming back from the invasion of Sicily. He had asked to be buried by Rose. His parents understood. So we went up and saw where it would be. The ground was just white with daisies up there, right then. It was just lovely. And the next morning the gravediggers came. And that afternoon, it was the funeral. I had never met Cole’s parents, and his two sisters, but they stayed with me that night. Oh, it was sad. But there was a sweetness about it. That wistful, soulful sweetness that you felt and could no way describe.

  I heard from Hugh every week. There was always a letter from him; sometimes one from Pet or Louise or Mama. And then one week in the fall I went to town and there was no letter. I didn’t wait another week to go; it got to where I went nearly every day. I was in a panic. I was on my way down one morning, half hopeful there would be a letter and half petrified there would be one of those awful telegrams, like Cole’s people got. I would hurry the poor mule a little bit, and then I would slow her down. And I came to a place where I could see the road below, and there was a figure walking. It was somebody in a dark blue uniform, toting a duffle. Well, I jogged that mule in the sides with my heels and got her to honestly trot. And Hugh dropped his bag and came running. We met each other with the tears just streaming.

  “I’ve been scared to death,” I said, “it’s been so long since I heard a word. Don’t tell me you let the cow get lost again.” We went on back to the house and he stayed a week. He spent most of it chopping wood. Splitting stove wood. In between he walked the place, swinging away with the scythe. I had never been up to the lake. I couldn’t bear to face the grave of Caney Forks alone. So we walked up together. From the top of the ridge we saw it spread out below us, with its blue-green fingers reaching up every branch. We walked on down to see the dam. It rose up like a fan between the hills. The power plant was on the right, with towers full of big lines going every which way. Electric lights were there if we wanted them. We agreed we didn’t much care. They had built a new road on the east side that joined the highway, somewhere. We noticed trucks coming over it, moving along like ants. Our road stopped now at Boney Creek. The bridge was gone, there was just a big mound of dirt pushed up where the road used to be, across the creek. That was fine. We had gone far enough.

  I just wanted to put the Hogback between me and that humming, whining drone of death. We made tracks for home. At night we sat by the fire and talked. We talked about what he wanted to do, here, when the war was over and he was home. We could grow beef cattle, he said. We could raise lots of chickens. We would have a money crop of some kind. He would finish school and set up his doctor’s office in Red Bank.

  I wished, but I knew. You will find a nice girl, somewhere, I thought. She will want a more modern house; you will have to have a phone. Of course you might want this place; it would be nice to have a young woman and children take it over. I could build something little, a sensible distance away. I thought these things while he talked about others. I went with him to Red Bank, to the train. He was going back to Charleston to spend a day or two and then ship out again. It was deadly to see him go. I had to tell myself that it wouldn’t be long till he’d be back. But I carried that image of Cole’s casket, with the flag. I guess I was not rational about these things. There was a special loneliness about the place when he was gone. One thing, it was getting cool; the days were shorter and there was less work pressing to get done. I added to Hugh’s woodpile on the porch. The fall of the axe bounced across the cove. It was good; it was evidence of life and plans for living.

  And then, bless Pat, in just a few days company appeared again. Honeymooners. I had been given not a hint till Louise and Algernon Pinckney Templeton the elder were let out of a steaming old truck at the steps, suitcases in hand. I was dumbfounded. We hugged and kissed and danced each other ’round and ’round. They were the beamingest couple I ever saw. Her mother had been quite buffaloed, Louise reported; Miss Lilah could not fault Mr. Templeton because he was Somebody. Since Louise was now fifty-five years old, her children would be unlikely to come into the world with “heart trouble,” a horror Miss Lilah could never stress too strongly when Louise spoke to a man on the street.

  Louise had used some of the money Rev. Sydney Smith provided to get a good but firm-willed couple to tend to our joint responsibilities. It had gone beyond her capabilities, she said. Foots was staying soused. “I think Mama aids and abets that,” she said. “It’s the only way she can control him.” When they went home Louise would be the mistress of the Templeton house, one of the grandest places in Charleston. But they stayed here several days. Louise had only heard tales of how we lived, here. A.P. had no warning, but he was very jolly about it, he fell at once to cutting wood. He loved to fish and spent a lot of time at the river. And Louise seemed to be enchanted. The color that fall was just beautiful. The field was thick with asters and goldenrod. The Birches put on all its charm for her.

  We went up to the cemetery one afternoon and I told her about these people and I told her, as best I understood it, how it was we came up here, about the wreck and finding the house and that morning up on the hill when I found all my folks were dead. I told her a little bit about Ben Aaron. Or a little more than I had ever told her. I even told her how Rose and I stole the body. And as we started out and she closed the gate behind us, she had the most thoughtful look on her face. “There is something awfully—rare—about this place,” she said. “I feel it. Do you know what I am trying to say? Do you feel it too?”

  “I do. It is something very—rare; it is so rare,” I said, “that I know I must never leave it again. Oh, maybe for a day or a week. But I can never take my life away from here.” I would have been so glad for them to stay much longer than they could. The day before they had to go I rode to town to make a date for their truck-taxi to come back for them. And I went by the post office and picked up a letter from Pet. When I got home I was able to tell them that we were all going to be grandparents. Louise was going to be a great-aunt besides. Reminds me of the Steeles, I said. We were all delighted.

  After they were gone and I had time to think about it, I thought about being that baby’s granny. Hmph. Well, you are not Shirley Temple, lady, I said to myself. It made me get to work on baby clothes, on sacques and bonnets and little gowns and got right enthusiastic. The winter passed before the fire, a lot of it. The dog and I sat by the stove and talked about our baby. I would talk, and the dog would pretend to be interested, it would cock its head and raise one eyebrow and one ear.

  Hugh wrote in every letter to please be careful in the cold. He remembered about some old man who went out to feed his cows and fell and got snowed over and laid out there till spring. I remembered it too. I fed the mule good once a day and stayed inside in bad weather, as best I could. The hardest thing was getting to town. Or not getting to town, for weeks at a time. I worried about Pet. She had asked me to come stay with her when the baby was due. And I was going. They were still in Mississippi; Pinky was blessedly overlooked and worked at the same desk most of the way through the war. And I was worried about Hugh. No, it was more than that. I was sort of numb about it. I had too many eggs in that basket, out there on an aircraft carrie
r, somewhere at sea. It got much worse after I had this dream one night. It was the plainest dream, I was looking down the road and it was morning and here came Hugh, striding up out of the fog. He looked happy as a lark. Radiant.

  I expected that telegram. Every time I went to town I went in dread. It did not come, to me. It came to Charleston. Louise got it. She didn’t send it to me; she and A.P. came, as fast as they could.

  33.

  FACE TO FACE

  SOMETHING TO BE THANKFUL FOR: NATURE IS JUST ABOUT oblivious to human tragedy and gloom. The jonquils and the quinces bloomed that spring; the orchard bloomed for us through its moss and dead limbs and brambles. The lilacs budded. The birds sang to us by day and the little frogs by night.

  Everything else in my world changed. Hugh was gone; all that we had hoped for, looked forward to, went down on a ship hit by a torpedo, down to the bottom of the sea near the Marshall Islands. What could my boy be doing there, when our world dropped off beyond Shiloh?

  I was confused. Louise and A.P. tried to get me to go home with them; A.P. tried reason, and Louise cried. As it turned out none of us would see Charleston for a while. A couple of days after they got here, the telegraph woman made her way up with a message from Pinky that Pet was in labor, and they wanted me to come to Mississippi at once. I knew I was far too wobbly to go. I would be nothing but a liability. So, not knowing what else to do, Louise and A.P. left me; we had the telegraph lady send the old truck up to get them and that night they were on the train, going to help the children. The next morning the lady was back with another telegram; the baby was here and it was a little girl, named Sarah Natalie.