Jack and Bertha sat under a stand of chestnut trees that leaned far out over the water. Mud turtles lay in a row along the roots. Bertha gazed at the water and Jack was relieved that she seemed content to sit quietly with him, watching the leaves fall into the water and the sky over the mountain grow purple with the coming evening. Jack’s car sat in the field of red clover and fescue behind them, the engine ticking in the heat. Jack wanted to take them someplace in Rocky Mount or Roanoke but Bertha suggested they sit by the branch of Blackwater Creek that ran through a stretch of the Minnix farm.
Right about where you parked the car? Bertha said. When I was a girl my sister and I once planted twenty pounds of corn in that spot. Daddy said we could go swimming when we were done planting the corn. So we planted it.
Guess you didn’t get away with it, Jack said.
Until fall we did. Anyway, we got to go swimming. A day a lot like this.
Jack eyed her calves, ensconced in her knee-high socks, tucked into her riding britches, a slightly rumpled white blouse damp with sweat. Her low brown shoes were soft and worn through with creases.
You want to go swimmin’ now? he asked.
I don’t think so.
He’d hoped he’d make her blush. Instead she regarded the water thoughtfully.
You go to church regular, Jack?
Wouldn’t say regular.
What sort?
My mother used to take us to Snow Creek Baptist when I was young. I guess I haven’t been back in a while.
Jack pulled at the tufts of johnson grass that bordered the creek, making a small pile by his knee.
That must have been hard on you, Bertha said.
What?
Your mother.
Oh, Jack said. Yeah.
Along with your sisters.
Jack eyed the notch cut into the mountain for the new power lines that stretched through the northern part of the county. Fireflies blinking in the woods along the creek bank and above a keyhole in the dark-blue sky. Jack had a brief memory of his sisters, their bodies stretched out on the floor side by side. His mother, her face covered with a quilt. Emmy sitting on the floor in the kitchen crying, her face slick with tears, her mouth stretched into a gaping howl.
What other kinds of instruments can you play? Jack asked
Oh, I can play just about anything with strings. Mostly mandolin, fiddle, banjolin. Played on a piano a few times too, at the Ruritan club in Roanoke.
Thought Dunkards believed you shouldn’t play music, Jack said.
Bertha smiled to herself.
Not everyone. Some folks don’t like it. But Daddy lets us play. Most in my family play something. When we were growing up my grandfather gave us all instruments. After a while my sisters stopped playin’, so I just started playing all their instruments too. You like music?
Shoot. Yeah, I do.
When Bertha laughed Jack saw a flash and realized then that she rarely showed her teeth. Her eyeteeth top and bottom bore down into sharp points, cantilevered slightly toward the center.
Play anything? Bertha asked.
Naw, Jack said, we never had anything like that. I probably wouldn’t have played them if we had. I prefer listening, dancing. My brother Forrest has a radio and he can pick up the shows out of Wheeling and other places. I’m goin’ to get myself one soon.
You like our church service? Bertha said.
Sure.
Didn’t seem like it.
Well, it’s a funny thing, Jack said. It was the music. It sounded nice at first. Not like regular Baptist church singing, but still nice, the way the voices…well, you know. Then it kinda changed up on me. I could hear each person there singing, one at a time. Like I could separate them.
I think I know what you mean, Bertha said. I hear that sometimes too. When I’m playing, usually. I can pick out what everyone is playing.
I was drunk, you know, Jack said.
I know it, she said. It don’t change nothin’. You still heard what you heard. I hear music in my head even when there isn’t any. Do you?
I guess so, Jack said.
They were quiet for a while as the night came on; the low moan of the creek on the bank, the rising swell of crickets building from the thickets of chigger weed. He started to think of his brothers, the dying crop in the field. While his father could absorb the loss with his income from the store, Howard could not. Forrest would have to agree to make larger runs, but now Jack found himself thinking he would rather things remained the way they were. The images of that night at the Deshazo house rose up in his mind, the gruesome spectacle of Howard, the shattered man’s face, the way Forrest moved with such languid ease. That sound from the attic like the movement of rusty stars.
I quit drinking, Jack said. I won’t touch another drop.
Really?
At your church that night, Jack said. Like I was saying, the music was sounding…real good. Like nothing I heard before. But then it changed again. It seemed like—like the roof was coming off, like the air above my head was being…torn. Like thunder there in the church. Just kept getting louder.
Must have been that liquor, don’t you think?
Maybe, Jack said. But I don’t know. I’d been drunk before plenty and never had that problem. But the worst was when I started seeing things. Like your grandfather? When the preachers came toward me? He had…a sword coming outta his mouth. That’s when I ran.
A sword?
After a few moments Bertha let out a weary laugh.
That’s like…some kind of vision.
Maybe I was crazy, Jack said. Maybe I am crazy. Wait a second, I got something for you.
Jack hustled over to the car and returned with a large wrapped package.
I didn’t know exactly what size an’ all, Jack said, but they said they’d alter ’em however you want.
The package was covered with gold tissue paper. Bertha picked at the string around the package.
Jack, she said, I don’t think this is a good thing.
Jus’ open it.
Inside there were three dresses made of silk and satin, one with a fur trim, a purse covered with beaded scrollwork, two long embroidered scarves, and a set of silk handkerchiefs. She held each up and then placed them back on the tissue paper. The dresses were brilliant splashes of color against the parched ground, long and finely made. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
Don’t you like them?
It don’t matter if I like them, she said. I can’t take these things.
The money don’t matter, Jack said. I got plenty and these didn’t make a dent in what I got.
Bertha sat back and crossed her arms.
Put them away, she said. Please wrap them back up. Please!
Jack clumsily gathered the things and balled them in the paper and retied the string.
Just wanted to give you something nice, he said. What’s the problem?
Bertha wiped her face with fingers, composing herself.
Just where do you think, she said, I would wear something like that?
I dunno.
You think I could go back home wearing all that…those things?
Don’t you like them?
It don’t matter if I like them, Jack, I got no place to wear them, okay?
The creek water was now black, stretching around the bend and into a dark tunnel of trees like an open mouth. Jack felt the wide space of the field at his back. He looked at his grass-stained fingers.
I’ll take you somewhere, Jack said. I’ll take you somewhere that clothes like that are what you wear every day.
What makes you think, Bertha said, that I want that?
Bertha gazed up at the darkening sky. A milky band of stars stretched over the creek and the mountain. Hell, Jack thought, now what?
They were quiet for some time. Jack could feel the presence of the woman lying next to him in the johnson grass like a giant star in the ground. He felt suddenly naked and he shivered despite the evening heat. No taking it back now, he thou
ght.
You hear some music right now? Bertha asked.
Sure.
How’s it sound?
Oh, it sounds all right, Jack said.
Chapter 22
1935
THE BONDURANT GENERAL STORE in Snow Creek sat in a deep valley along Route 22, the road rising on either side several hundred feet up Turkeycock Mountain. The small gathering of old men around the stove directed Sherwood Anderson to the springhouse across the road to find Granville Bondurant. It was April, and the stove empty, but Anderson had noticed that regardless of the season the stove always served as the focal point, the fulcrum around which men gathered and levered their talk. The whitewashed shack was shaded with a leaning stand of black willows and sugar maples with fresh spring buds coming to full leaf. A cloud of ladybugs swarmed around the side eaves of the springhouse and the air cooled noticeably as Anderson approached the door. Inside, the floor and lower walls were mossy and glistening like a subterranean grotto, and Granville was filling a metal pail with springwater that shot from the tap with great velocity. Before Anderson could say anything Granville seemed to sense him and turned.
Help yo’self to some if you like.
He cinched down the valve, his bucket nearly full, and setting it down took up a dipper and had himself a drink.
Thanks, I will.
Anderson drank from the dipper, first surprised at how cold, then how sweet it was. It was unlike any water he had ever tasted, crisp, almost tart, with a slight citrus aftertaste, and he drank off the rest of the dipper. Granville eyed him as he handed the dipper back.
That’s amazing water, Anderson said.
Never had Snow Creek water before, have ye?
I’ve never had anything like that. The name’s Sherwood Anderson.
Granville Bondurant. Please to meet ye.
Granville leisurely drew him another dipperful.
Where you headed?
Nowhere, really, Anderson said. All the water in Snow Creek like this?
Some better than others. This one is particular.
Lot of pressure in that aquifer, Anderson said.
Going now for more than sixty years.
Granville shuffled to the doorway as Anderson relished another drink.
You see them mountains? Granville said. Almost pure limestone. Like this rock here.
He gestured to a shelf of blue limestone that protruded from the earth under a willow.
That’s what does it. Filtered through all that limestone. This one here is free and open to all.
Anderson figured he would take his chances.
That’s why, Anderson said, they grow them big around here, huh?
Yep. Good horses, strong cattle.
Tastes like some water I had in Kentucky a few times. Suppose that’s why it’s so popular with shiners, eh?
Granville squinted at him.
Suppose. Where you from?
Marion.
Huh. Long way to travel. Well, come on to th’ store an’ sit a spell.
They left the springhouse, Granville toting the pail of silvery water.
Mr. Bondurant, I was wondering if I could ask you a couple questions ’bout your boys?
Granville stopped walking and the two men stood by the side of the road and Anderson figured this was a sign of some kind of consent.
About December of 1930, Anderson said. When your boys were shot out by Maggodee Creek.
I caint tell you nothin’, Granville said, that you don’t already know.
Maybe, Anderson said. I’m just curious about the events that led up to that incident. The papers aren’t clear. And what happened after. It seems like the charges against the deputy who did the shooting, Charley Rakes, they were dropped pretty quick.
Yep.
Can you tell me why that is? Just trying to understand the story.
Granville set the pail of water down. Out of the cool shade of the springhouse the sun was punishing. A car crested the hill from the north and came coasting down, rattling by the two men. Granville raised a hand in greeting, the driver lifting his fingers off the wheel. They watched the car whine up the hill.
Look, Mr. Anderson, Granville said, why don’t you get to it.
Sorry?
Yer point of conversation.
I’m not trying to stir up trouble, sir, Anderson said, I’m just interested in the story.
You a federal?
No.
Granville digested this information without the slightest glimmer of a reaction.
People round here, he said, tend to mind their own.
I’ve noticed that, Anderson said. I’m just trying to understand how a couple of boys end up on a bridge in the dead of winter with three cars of liquor, and why a deputy would shoot them down in cold blood.
Times were hard, Granville said. Most folks didn’t have much.
I know.
My boys’ lives is they own.
I understand that.
Granville’s face seemed to indicate the matter closed, but he remained there by the side of the road, the pail of water at his feet. Was the fact that his sons were infamous, bootleggers, criminals a source of sorrow for him? People didn’t seem to have much problem with illegal liquor in Franklin, and many seemed to associate it with almost a civic duty; it made one a good citizen, a “real” Franklin County resident.
Some folks, Granville said, they say that making whiskey gets in your blood. It gets its hooks in you and won’t let go.
He shrugged his shoulders and dusted his hands off on his dungarees.
My boys was raised right, as best as I was able. They lost their mother and two sisters in the epidemic back in ’19.
I’m sorry to hear that, Anderson said.
Went hard on them, ’specially my youngest boy.
That’d be Jack?
Granville turned to him and gave him the gypsy stare, searching Anderson’s face.
You have a good day, Mr. Anderson. Come by for a drink anytime.
WHEN HE RETURNED from Snow Creek that afternoon Anderson wandered through the streets of Rocky Mount, letting the pad and scrape of his feet lull him into insensibility. A flyer in a shop window along Orchard Avenue caught his eye: Rally Tonight: The Virginia Anti-Communist League. It reminded him, for the first time in some months, of the Bonus Marches, the crackdowns, the Union Square Riot of 1930. He wondered if the people of Franklin, the Bondurant boys and all the denizens of Snow Creek, had known or cared of such things. Did he give a damn himself? Years back in New York the leaders of the Communist Party asked to meet with Anderson, and he went. They admonished him for the open letter he wrote to President Hoover, published in The Nation. In the letter he said that they both came from the same background and that he understood Hoover’s plight. The corruption of power, the influence of the yes-men and the minions who steered noble inclinations astray. The Communists said it would only arouse sympathy for Hoover.
Why yes, Anderson said, that was my very intention, to illustrate the destructive influences that surrounded the president, the forces that were growing in America.
Only money, they said. That is the scourge and he is part of the problem. They tried to scold him but by then Anderson didn’t care. I was expressing my point of view, he said, not yours.
He was done with the Communists and their talk. Anderson thought of his days in Harlem with Bertrand Russell, the great pacifist living the life of reason, the elegant spokesman for the oppressed. One evening in a club two Negresses had been placed at their table by their hosts. They were both quite handsome and clearly had money and an elevated social upbringing. Anderson talked with one through most of dinner and later he danced with both of them. He remembered the musical laugh and the soft, dark eyes, their languid way of handling a remark. It was a pleasant evening and Anderson felt refreshed and youthful. Afterward Russell accosted him in the street, gripping him by the elbow, his shaggy eyebrows wagging. He was upset about the dancing with the Negro women.
&n
bsp; It isn’t done, old chap, he said, it just isn’t done.
This from a man who thought that children ought to be raised by the state.
Old Lord Russell.
Anderson awoke from his plodding reverie to find the sidewalks full of people. He was working up Orchard Avenue against a tide of people that surged forward, dozens of men and women of varying ages. The density was shocking, as it seemed that most of Franklin County remained sparsely populated. Was there a gathering? There was nothing hard in the glances of the crowd, and they acknowledged Anderson as he edged past, their grinning faces, the hang of their shoulders. No, the faces of these people were lit with the light of happiness. They were just enjoying the afternoon. Where were they going? Where was he going? In the crowd Anderson felt as though everyone else was enjoying the day, feeling a part of life, while he was merely trying to navigate through it. Why did it always seem this way?
When Anderson reached East Court Street he saw the source: the Coca-Cola bottling plant. The afternoon whistle had blown and the shift was departing, happy to be done with their day of work, Anderson thought, returning to their homes. Were they dulled with work, with the strain and repetition, their minds milled down to the nub? Poor White was a failure in the end, but watching the people Anderson felt that he had said something in that book that was as true as anything he had ever written. If they could just turn their minds to study, to intellectual application…but why? Why, when such a glorious afternoon lay spread before you, your work done and forgotten?
The Wettest County in the World Page 20
