Bottomland: Based on the Murder of Rosa Mary Dean in Franklin, Tennessee

by Trey Holt

  “I’ve been trying for years to figure out how all this mess worked together. Randomness, A Planned Nature of Things and Basic Human Frailty. This godforsaken battle in Franklin, the war in general where so many suffered for such a strange and pathetic idea. I think it’s what I was tryin’to get at this last summer when I talked about faith from the top of that car and from the tomato table.”

  I didn’t bother to tell him that it was technically still summer, for about another week. That those days only seemed like they had been a season ago.

  “Do you remember that day when I was talking about being, allowing what we really are, not what we want to be or what other people expect us to be, to shine through like sunlight? And how that was faith? Not so much believing some dogma…or whatever they call it…but believing that there is some direction in this blind river of life?”

  Again, I didn’t remember the words…but recalled the overall concept, which meant little to me at the time, seventeen, going on eighteen. Downstairs, I could hear someone rustling and assumed it was Lucky, home early from a crap shoot, stumbling around with his whiskey bottle, forlorn because he again had lost five dollars and had to come home to us. I heard the princess’s whiney voice, like fingernails on a chalkboard. Imagined my mother scurrying around, trying to do anything for them that she could to garner their favor. For the moment, I was glad I was upstairs with my crazyass uncle.

  His eyes saddened for a brief moment, lost the tension at their edges.“I think I understand it after Christine…after our time together.”

  Images of the last time I was with Sharon, ran through my head, my groin. I told myself that I understood love. Knew exactly what he meant.

  He craned his neck and checked as far down the stairwell as he could see. I had agreed with him the day before when he’d mentioned that Lucky had seemed“hyper vigilant”in watching him, making sure he stayed in the house, in his own yard.

  “Things happen,”he said.“That’s just the way it is. I guess some are meant to and some aren’t…Randomness and The Planned Nature of Things. But now I know it’s hard to tell one from the other most of the time. And I’ve begun to believe that maybe it’s not that important to tell one from the other. Some at the time, like the Battle of Franklin, seem as though they might be the most horrific tragedy ever besetting humanity, and others, like me meeting her, seem as though they might be salvation. And yet the time that has come after them has proven them both very different. Something abhorrent proved to be a major factor in the salvation of thousands and thousands of people and something that seemed so good was somehow malformed into that into which it became.”

  I was nodding with the rhythm of his words, not their content. His question caught me off guard, made me review in my mind what he had said.

  “Have you seen her?” he asked.

  “Sharon?”

  “No. Christine?”

  “No,”I lied, omitting the times I’d seen her in the yard, waved to her.

  “And then,”he said,“what you have to consider after that is: What will become from what has happened, from the results produced? There just isn’t a clear answer until time makes it clear…and then the next segment of the same thing, time, might serve only to muddy the waters once more.”

  “Take the battle of Nashville, for instance,”he said.“Efim…do you remember him?”

  It was hard to forget the short, heavyset Russian man who did nude calisthenics in front of the window in his room. I nodded.

  “One day he came back to the hospital after he’d had a pass. You know, you could get a pass if anyone from your family would come get you and take you anywhere. Anyway, he came back from his pass one day and his wife had taken him down Franklin Pike and he saw one of the signs and that strange statue that commemorate the Battle of Nashville off Franklin Pike. At suppertime that night, he came to my room and asked me what I knew about it. He said ever since he’d been liberated at the end of World War II, he was interested in how one thing related to another…how one small piece combined with another to make the greater hole. I know you may think that those sound like my words…but they were his. Really, I think, he just wanted anybody to talk to pass the time of day. It gets pretty damn lonesome in there. Have I ever told you about the Battle of Nashville?” he asked.

  I wanted to lie, to tell him, yes, he had. But I wanted another one of his cigarettes, too. He handed me one when he took his out of the pack. Lit both of them with the match he struck then he rose and opened the window a little more, stretching to see into the darkness of the cool September night. Unsated, he sat on his bed again.

  “Hood was going to try to take Nashville by a counter-charge. He was going to try to make Thomas attack him…had dug himself in halfway back to Brentwood. Like in Franklin on November 30th, Hood knew that the attack was coming. At 2 a.m. on December 15th, he sent a message to General Chalmers, warning that the attack was likely to fall on him in a few hours. Ever since Hood’s arrival south of Nashville after the Battle of Franklin, Lincoln and Grant had been urging Thomas to attack him immediately, thinking they should have been more offensive in Franklin. Every horse in Nashville and the surrounding areas was gathered: carriage horses, work horses, plow horses…even the performing horses of a circus that had gotten stranded in Nashville. Telegrams were sent back and forth between Thomas and Grant. On December 6th, Grant sent Thomas a straightforward command that he must attack. Thomas replied that he would…but then on the 8th, sent another telegram, apologizing that he had not been able to concentrate his troops or get their transportation in order. That very evening, a freezing rain covered the countryside, making attack nearly impossible.

  “On the 11th, Grant telegraphed Thomas directly, saying,“If you delay attack longer, the mortifying spectacle will be witnessed of a Rebel army moving for the Ohio, and you will be forced to act, accepting such weather as you find…Delay no longer...’Thomas replied,‘The whole country is covered with a perfect sheet of ice and sleet…As soon as we have a thaw, I will attack Hood.’On the morning for the 14th, two weeks after the travesty at Franklin, there was a rise in temperature, the ground began to thaw…and Thomas wired Grant:‘The ice having melted away today, the enemy will be attacked tomorrow morning.’But Grant had already started for Nashville that day.”

  “At 4 a.m. on December 15th, the blare of reveille bugles was heard all along the Federal lines under a heavy blanket of fog that hung over the city. The first movements were on the left, by General J.B. Steedmans men. Shortly thereafter, Schofield’s men took their battle positions. Soon after, General Cruft’s men were put in their positions. And so on and so on. The way the troops were placed, they almost had provided a continuing defensive line around the city, at the same time relieving the fifty-five thousand men who were moving to attack.”

  For the moment, he smiled at me like he was aware he had spared me many generals’names, many details my face obviously reflected I had no interest in hearing. He cleared his throat and snuffed out his cigarette, listened for Lucky again and then continued.

  “One of the many thousands of Nashvillians who watched the battle from a hilltop, described the initial movement of the troops like this:‘Far as the eye could reach, the lines and masses of blue, over which the nation’s emblem flaunted proudly’that it was easy to imagine the coming victory.’Sparing you all the details, because I saw you yawnin’, I’ll just tell ya what Thomas telegraphed Halleck that evenin’. He said,‘I shall attack the enemy again tomorrow, if he stands to fight...and if he retreats during the night, I will pursue him. As soon as Grant heard the news, he sent a telegram saying that‘I was just on my way to Nashville, but I shall go no farther. Do not give the enemy rest until he is entirely destroyed.’The next mornin’, Lincoln telegraphed‘the nation’s thanks,’and added,‘You made a magnificent beginning. A grand consummation is within your easy reach. Do not let it slip.’

  “The 16th brought‘one of the fiercest conflicts that ever took place in the civil war.
’The contagion of defeat had taken the Confederates over and they retreated in wild disorder and confusion. Wilson’s troops gave chase to them and chased them south through the falling darkness and freezing rain. Finally, the Confederates realized no retreat was going to save them, so they gathered and stood and fought as the Federals charged, thousands against hundreds. Wilson would later describe at as a scene of sheer‘pandemonium,’saying that the Rebels stood their ground bravely but were overrun at every turn and stand.”

  Once more, and the last time that night, Percy stopped his talking and listened for what I guessed was Lucky. He knew, I believe, as did I, that Lucky wanted no more to do with him than he did with Lucky. Percy made his way to the top of the steps and peered down the dimly lit well until the door that led into the corner of the kitchen stopped his view. He shook his head as if there were no one there, and returned to the window where he took up his watch once more while he spoke.

  “Hood’s official report of the battle was about like his report about Franklin,”he said.“He wrote it from Tupelo on January 9th the following year. No matter, he had to know in his heart the bitter truth. His invasion of Tennessee, the last real aggressive action by the Confederate States of America, had ended a disastrous failure. His army taking the Ohio would remain only a dream. The Confederate flag wouldn’t be seen in Cincinnati or Chicago. It was there, at Franklin and Nashville, that he had risked everything…and lost. One of the two great armies of the Confederacy had been overthrown…and its cause lost, too.”

  “The next ten days were a grave hardship for both armies. Marching and fighting, they took almost a running battle from Nashville to the Tennessee River. The temperature remained below freezing and almost every day brought freezing rain, sleet and snow. Hood’s army ate parched corn and corn pone and only a few had blankets or overcoats they had picked up on the battlefield. Many didn’t have hats, but it was the scarceness of shoes that presented the most severe problem, their feet leaving bloody footprints over the frozen wagon ruts.”

  I waited for him to finish the story, to give some ending other than he had. But he did not. He simply laid back on the bed and folded his hands behind his head. Every so often, as my eyes batted with sleep, I would stretch myself to see if he was still awake. Each time I looked, he was smoking a cigarette, staring at the ceiling, like he had done so many nights before.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The second kickoff return was in the late minutes of the third quarter, the lights of the stadium cutting through the mist starting to gather in the air. I knew that if I cradled the ball in my hands, I’d be able to take it the length of the field. Beyond the cheers of the crowd and the hushed silence that comes over them the split-second the ball first touches your hands then your chest, I could hear Nedler’s voice. I could hear Lucky’s. I could see my mother’s eyes as she sat across the kitchen table, trying to follow Lucky’s voice as he wove the story about what he believed had happened. Both on Tuesday and then again, on Thursday. How I was surprised at what Lucky had said, about both days, how he had divulged so much more information than usual. I wondered at what he didn’t say, what was offered in the spaces between the sentences he spoke, the events he described and the deal he had once again worked with everyone involved. Percy had even been present with us at dinner the previous Monday, while Lucky read the Review Appeal aloud again, another article about me, not all positive this time.

  “It seems like they could’a come up with a better title than that for the damn thing,”said Lucky. He sneered across the table at nobody in particular and flicked the first ashes of his after-supper cigarette on his plate, the food half-eaten.

  “Daddy, I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,”said Jean.

  I made a face and mimed the words at Percy, at which he laughed silently.

  “I saw that,”she said.

  “He’s sorry,”Percy said.“He should be nicer.”

  “We all should be nicer,”I commented.“The world’d be a better place.”

  “They wrote a nice article about him last week,”my mother said, always one to find a shred of positive if it was there.“It even talked about how nice it was he’d been working all these years.”

  “Goddamned Fred Creason—“

  “Daddy—”Jean interjected.

  “Well, if anybody is, he is,”said Lucky.“He’s badmouthed everybody in this town at some point.”

  As far as I knew, what Lucky said about Fred Creason was true. But, as far as I was concerned, it didn’t seem that either article had been that different to me. The second one, I thought, had probably been more honest and somewhat of a reaction to how I had played when we played our neighbors, the Franklin Rebels.

  As we had done the week before against the Spring Hill Cougars, we had started slow, falling behind in the first half only to recover closer to halftime. I would have assumed it should have been the apex of my career: the phantom, unidentified scouts in the stands at every game, Lucky and even Mama and Jean there as we played our most bitter rival. Even Sharon had taken off from work that night and sat somewhere on the Franklin side with her brother, Bobby the Bootlegger. Nevertheless, it was tied 3-3 at halftime, and even Nedler and Fester didn’t eat our asses, but simply sat quiet, huddled in the corner droning to each other. Even Van and Collins were quiet; Johnny Nance, our anemic, blonde quarterback was the only one still smiling, like he almost enjoyed the fact the offense had become like his iron count.

  Although we were able to squeak out a win against them as Van caught a pass early in the fourth quarter for the only touchdown in the game, overall it was a dismal performance, one in which Fester and Nedler only told us after the game that we’d played at about fifty percent capacity. And perhaps this was the primary reason I disliked football more than I cared about it: the hero quickly becomes the goat.

  “More Heart than Speed,”Fred Creason had described it in the title to the article he wrote about the game.“Henry Hall represents the Battle Ground Academy Wildcats in more ways than one,”he had begun the article.“If you’ve been around at all this year, you know that he is the premiere offensive player on the team, but it’s easy to miss, in the excitement of watching him play, that this team is driven more by will than raw talent. That was never more clear than this past Friday night as the Wildcats visited the Franklin Rebels’field, just down Columbia Pike.

  “During this game three days ago, both of these components inherent in Hall and the team were glaringly evident as they fought the almost completely powerless Franklin High School offense to a 3-3 tie at half time. Most people attending the game, I assume, thought as I, that we would see a different Battle Ground in the second half, the one projected as having a good possibility of going to the State Championship. But the same team returned to the field in the same state as they’d left it. The coaches seemed removed, both Nedler and his defensive coordinator, Langley, and this spirit had seemed to spread across the ranks of the team, as they were able to muster only one touchdown to secure a 10-6 win over Franklin.”

  Fred Creason had generously and eventually woven the story back to me, revisiting some of the things he’d said the week before, but now identifying the fact that he thought I was basically folding under the pressure of becoming well known, being“scouted.”

  “He appeared as if his short legs just couldn’t produce the speed to make a turn at the corner,”he commented,“which serves to remind us that not many players who are 5'8”ever make it further than high school. If he can’t turn corners with his speed and then elude players with the same gift, he certainly is not going to bowl them over with his power. And speaking of“bowl,”I must still question if the Wildcats as a whole can combine their talent in such a way that an appearance in the Clinic Bowl for the state championship is in their future. Perhaps we’ll see evidence one way or another as they square off against the Hoenwald Loghaulers next week.”

  Even with the weight of everything else the following week, I have to admit that it wasn
’t difficult to eclipse the forty-seven yards I’d gained the week before. The game against those big Germans, as Van described them, proved to be one of the few nights of my life when, at least for awhile, I existed on another plane. Even though people had told me I was good, I had been, for the most part until that night, unable to conceive it. I had been the short kid all my life, the skinny kid, the paper boy who had lived in the shadow of Ronnie Langford in more ways than I could count. But on this night, I was the star I had read about, emerging for all to see. The ball in my hand even felt as if it were almost electric. The vision with which I executed my moves felt as if it were as broad as the field. Every hole, big or small it seemed, was not only within my sight but within the reach of my legs as they moved toward it without thought, but only with the memory my muscles had gained in the dozens of games and hundreds of practices I’d been through.

  As I made the cut that freed me and was able to sidestep the last player before the sideline came within view, I heard all the typical sounds: the grunts and exhalations of the kickoff team players meeting their temporary ends as my blockers laid them low with textbook hits. I heard the trampling of feet as they approached and ran with me and then the sound of people as they hit the ground and slid on the grass of the field, damp with the dew of the early evening. From the stands and sidelines, I could hear the voices yelling, could almost separate their tenor, know who was who. Lucky. Nedler. Fester. My mother, had she been there. But she was not. She was home waiting for him, above all others, past all others. Her loyalty to my father obviously stretched itself to include his crazyass brother. Perhaps Lucky had really thought he would come back there, would return with his things the same way he had the last time he had brought him home from Central State, I do not know.