Benton's Row

by Frank Yerby

  “I can understand that,” Sarah said. “All right, I’ll have Luella boil them.”

  After they had bathed, they sat in the kitchen, and Sarah listened while Oren told the story. She noticed that Wade kept squirming while he told it.

  “It were like this,” Oren said. “Them Yankees under Genr’l Banks came up from Bayou Teche and took Alexandria. Then they sat around for nigh on to three weeks, fussing among themselves, till our ol’ Dick Taylor—there was a genr’l, ma’am!—got all the reinforcements he needed: them Germans from Texas under Colonel Buchell—dear Lord how they loved to cut! Kept their sabres after every other cavalry regiment in our army had give ‘em up for pistols—and all them Cajun and Creole Louisiana French folks under Alfred Mouton, whose pa used to be Governor. Then there was that cowboy regiment from Texas under Prince Polignac—a real prince, ma’am—his folks was the Bourbons, the royal house of France, but he come over here to fight for us. And he was one first-class fighting man. . . .”

  Wade stared at Oren in real admiration. Now he knew why his unwanted companion had spent so many hours in prison poring over those old newspapers—going to any length to get them, begging them off the guards, imploring the Confederate women visitors who came to cheer up the poor devils locked up on Ship Island to bring them to him. He had needed a frame in which to set himself, a substantial background upon which to base his future; and he had it now, all of it. The ill-starred Red River campaign was to be his frame of reference, the bulwark of his defence when men asked, as they would, “And you, Mister Bascomb, what did you do in the war?”

  “Anyhow,” he went on, “them Yanks come up towards Natchitoches, marching along the banks, alongside of them thirteen gunboats and thirty transports they was steaming up the river, and just barely gitting across them there shallows above Alexandria. Bet there wasn’t more than a inch of water between their bottoms and the rocks.”

  “I know,” Sarah said, “I saw them.”

  “Did you now, ma’am? Fearful sight, wasn’t it? Anyhow, ol’ Dick sent us in at Mansfield, and we whupped them Yankees good and proper. Next day, at Pleasant Hill, it was their turn. Fought us off right smart-like. But they’d seen the handwriting on the wall. Went a-steaming back to Grand Ecore, and then down to the shallows.

  “But the river had done fell a foot or more. And we had ‘em! Believe me, ma’am, what with them gunboats and transports bottled up north of the shallows, we could of cut the Yankee army into pieces, and captured their whole blamed fleet, wasn’t for Genr’l Kirby Smith being such a damn fool!”

  “Mind your language, Oren,” Wade growled.

  “I’m most humbly sorry, ma’am,” Oren said, “but he was. Took all Genr’l Taylor’s men, ‘cepting a few, and sent ‘em chasing after that Yankee Genr’l Steele on the Saline. That was when it happened. Genr’l Taylor sent a few of us”—he grinned at Wade as he uttered this barefaced and monstrous lie, he whose very uniform, in all probability, had been stripped in ghoulish secrecy from the dead body of a man honourably fallen in defence of the land which he, and those like him, had only preyed upon—“out to scout, and the Yankees cut us up. Couldn’t even git back with the news of how that there Yankee engineer, Lieutenant-Colonel Joe Bailey of Wisconsin, was using blamed near the whole Federal army to build the finest set-up of wing-dams, cribs, and chutes I ever did see. He was one smart engineer, that Yankee. Right away I could see what he aimed to do—make the whole river flow through a li’l’ gate just wider than a gunboat, forcing all that there water through so’s you could of sailed a ocean-going Baltimore clipper through, let alone a gunboat.

  “After we couldn’t git back, Genr’l Taylor sent your son, ma’am, out to search for us with a few cavalry scouts. I was lost—been separated from my regiment nigh on to four days. Yankees ever’ which a where, building them dams. Then Mister Benton come crashing through the underbrush, jumping that sorrel right over Briar Creek, and a-sounding the prettiest rebel yell these old ears ever did hear.”

  “I don’t think I made a sound,” Wade said sullenly.

  “ ‘Deed you did! Felt my back hair stand straight up. Then them Yankees was all around him and his boys, shooting. They had Enflelds, and our boys didn’t have nothing but Colt pistols; but they gave a good account of themselves, ma’am. Must of kilt nigh on to a hundred Yanks afore . . .” Sarah let his voice fade out of her conscious hearing. She was remembering the rest of it, the time before, the terrible, shameful time that contradicted every word he was saying.

  It hadn’t been so bad before the Conscription Act. But by the time it was passed, Wade was already eighteen and liable for service. He had hidden for a while behind the provision exempting the owners of twenty or more slaves from service, on the intelligent assumption that the large slave-owner was more valuable to the Confederacy producing supplies for the army than fighting in the ranks.

  But all the yeomen farmers and poor whites had set up the cry of “A rich man’s war, and a poor man’s fight!” until that provision had been repealed. And since his stepfather, Randy McGregor, had already gone to war, and there was no other doctor in the parish, he could not, as hundreds of other Southern cowards had already done, buy a certificate of physical unfitness from a venial physician—not that Randy would have countenanced such a thing in the first place.

  Then he had tried to hire a substitute, which the law also permitted. But the parish was already bled white of its younger men of all classes, and he hadn’t been able to find one. His keen fear of ridicule prevented him from suddenly becoming an evangelist, and thus escaping service on religious grounds; but he actually tried that other favourite device of Southern draft-dodgers: he bought a supply of snake-oil, roots, powders and quack nostrums and set up shop as an apothecary. Being laughed out of that profession, he opened a school; for teachers, too, were listed among the exempt classes. But the widows of men already dead on the field of honour, and the mothers of younger children whose brothers, uncles, fathers were already engaging the Yankee on the far-flung fronts, were understandably reluctant to entrust their offspring to his care. He never had even one pupil.

  The women of the parish came to call on Sarah. They sat around her in a circle, chanting, “Why doesn’t your son go to war? Why doesn’t your son go to war?” until she fled weeping from their presence.

  That night, Wade ran away from the plantation. He hid out in the woods two weeks before the cold and the wet and his abiding horror of snakes drove him home again. When he got back, he found Mary Ann there.

  “Wade,” she said quietly, “I’ll never marry a man who won’t do his duty by his country.”

  And Wade Benton, trembling all over, his usually pink face as white as death, had gone down to headquarters and enlisted. Three weeks later he went A.W.O.L. in New Orleans, and spent two hundred dollars on Babette Dupré, who was by then number-one girl at Big Gertie’s. They had dragged him back and put him in the guard-house. But Randy, home on leave, intervened for him and got him out. After that he became a model conscientious soldier. Then, a year later, came the news of his heroic death.

  Sarah had found it hard to believe. There’s some mistake, she thought; they got somebody else mixed up with Wade. But now, hearing it from an eye-witness, she had to believe it.

  “Yessir, they kept right on fighting till wasn’t a man of ‘em left. Wade was shot in the leg, a-sitting there on his hoss, milling about and a-crying and a-cussing and fighting like a wildcat-devil. Then the Yanks shot the horse from under him, and he was throwed so hard it knocked him cold. Rest of them boys, warn’t more’n five or six left by then, kept on shooting till they was out of ammunition, and after that they chucked their pistols at the Yankees, and stood there chucking rocks and sticks till the Feds charged in and bayoneted them. What saved Wade was the hoss. He was part the way under him, and them Yanks thought he was crushed. But they was in so much of a hurry with them dams and such-like to git the gunboats across the shallows that they couldn’t take time out even for
a burial detail. So they left them there, and I come out of the woods and found that Wade was alive. Nursed him for four days. On the fifth a Yankee patrol caught us, and they put us in one of them transports—went through that there flood-gate with feet to spare—and took us down to N’Awleans.”

  Oren grinned wryly.

  “That’s how come we spent the rest of the war in jail,” he said. “Got to be fast friends there—me’n’ Mister Benton. He promised me a job up here when we got out. Sure hope you don’t object, ma’am—’cause I ain’t got no folks, nor nowheres to go.”

  Sarah looked at him steadily.

  He’s a conniving skunk, and a scheming polecat, she thought. He’d use anybody comes his way. But with poor Jim Rudgers gone—and he was good to Wade. . . .

  She stood up.

  “No,” she said, “no objections at all.”

  “Heard anything from Randy?” Wade said.

  Sarah’s grey eyes softened. There was a glow in them.

  “He came out of it alive and unhurt, thank God,” she said. “Should be home any day now.”

  “I’m glad,” Wade said, and he meant it. His stepfather had been good to him. In the few months they had had together before and after Sumter, Wade had had more fatherly companionship from Randy than his own father had given him in all his life.

  Sarah stood there, looking at him quizzically.

  “Aren’t you,” she said, “even going to ask after Mary Ann?’’

  Wade gulped, and glanced quickly at Oren.

  “Yes,” he got out, “how is she, Ma?”

  “Just fine. Prettier than ever. A mite thin, though—like everybody these days. Reckon nobody’s had enough to eat.”

  “That’s sure Lord the truth!” Oren said.

  “She brought every one of your letters over here and read them to me,” Sarah said. “When they told her you were dead, she took to her bed for a week. I went to see her. She swore she’d never marry anyone else.”

  “Fine girl,” Oren said.

  “A mite foolish” Sarah said flatly. “She didn’t know Wade that well. What she was grieving over was the idea of him she had sort of fixed up for herself in her mind. But all girls do that in war-time. I understand that. And she is a sweet little creature; I couldn’t ask for a nicer daughter-in-law. If I was you, Wade, I’d go over to see her today.”

  “Yes’m,” Wade said, “I’m going, right now.”

  Riding over to the Ransoms’ on a tired old mule—all the horses having been seized at one time or another by both the armies—one nagging fear clung like a burr to Wade consciousness: Lord God, he prayed, hope she never found out about Babette.

  The thing he referred to, the very pit and nadir of his personal humiliation, was his New Orleans debacle, when, on pretence of renewed interest in him, Babette Dupré had encouraged him to spend every cent he had and all he could borrow, and then very thoroughly revenged herself upon him for his part in her father’s death by refusing him, in her new professional capacity, the very favours for which he had—at least by the current market values along Gallatin Street in the ‘sixties—very amply paid her.

  But he couldn’t turn back now. He rode on, comforting himself with the thought that only his stepfather knew that story, and Randy wasn’t the sort of man to go about talking.

  It was James Ransom who saw him first. Wade’s route up to the house led him through the south section of the Ransom farm, and Jim Ransom was there ploughing, with Mary Ann scattering the seed behind him, all the negroes having fled in the wake of the Yankee armies.

  Jim Ransom let out a whoop.

  “Lord God!” he cried, “if it ain’t Wade Benton! Mary Ann, it’s Wade! Bless my soul, boy Bless my living soul but I’m mighty glad to see you! They told us—”

  Wade slid down from the mule and hobbled forward, his hand outstretched.

  “I know,” he said; “they told you I was dead. They were about half-way right, Mister Ransom.”

  Jim Ransom took his hand and shook it fiercely.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes, boy,” he chuckled, “and no mistake! Why, this here filly has been grieving her heart out. Won’t eat, can’t sleep—been such a pest I started to give her to the Yankees for counterband.”

  Mary Ann had come up to them now. She stood there, staring at Wade, and her plain, sweet face was white under the freckles.

  “You’ve been hurt,” she whispered; “you’ve been bad hurt!” Then, very softly, she started to cry.

  “Go on, boy,” Jim Ransom laughed, “give her a buss! Don’t stand on ceremony. Don’t you know nothing about wimmin? They always bust out a-crying when they’re plumb, downright happy.”

  Wade smiled and drew the girl to him. Then he kissed her, very gently.

  “Call that a kiss?” Jim Ransom hooted. “Hell, boy, we done better than that when I was young! Come on up to the house. Jane’s going to be right smart surprised. Reckon we can rustle up another plate of vittles, can’t we, Mary Ann? This here young ‘un look like he ain’t had enough to eat in a coon’s age.”

  “No, thank you, sir,” Wade said quickly. “Ma fixed me a bite before I come over. I’ll come up to the house, though. I want to pay my respects to Miz Jane.”

  “That the truth, boy?” Jim said, trying to keep the relief out of his voice. “You really had your grub?”

  “Yessir,” Wade smiled. “Ma laid down the law—told me folks don’t go dropping in ‘round meal-times these days. Hard enough to scrape up enough for the family, let alone outsiders.”

  “But you’re family, now, Wade,” Mary Anne said. “You don’t have to go home real soon, do you, hon? I’ve got a million things I want to ask you.”

  “And I got just one thing to ask you,” Wade said, “and I don’t need but one little word to ask it with: When?”

  Mary Jane’s face was the colour of a sunset.

  “Oh, Wade!” she breathed. Then she looked at her uncle.

  Jim Ransom frowned thoughtfully.

  “I tell you, boy,” he said, “that’s going to require a mite of thinking. It ain’t that I’ve got any objections—far from it. Be happy to see this poor little orphan hitched up with a fine, upstanding young man like you. But there’s problems. Your ma’s been running that big place of yourn without a man to help her. Done pretty good, too; I tell you—”

  “Thank you, sir,” Wade said.

  “You young ‘uns listen to me. Love is fine. But there’s a thing called money what’s mighty helpful when it comes to smoothing out hardships. Now, I ain’t got none. And neither, my boy, have you. What we both got is the chance to make some. How ‘bout you love-birds waiting till after we both gets in a crop? Be cash on hand then. Have a nice splicing: veil and white dress and a big whoop-te-do afterwards—cake and stuff. That’s how I’d like to see it done.”

  “Sir,” Wade said, “don’t you have any bales laid by? Ma has. Right smart, too. And the way prices are going up—why, Mister Ransom, the whole blamed world is starved for cotton!’’

  “Yep,” Jim Ransom said, “I sure Lord have. Got me between five and ten thousand dollars’ worth, hid out in shacks I built in the woods. Your ma’s is hid good, too. I talked her into hiding it. That’s why we both got it and the Yankees ain’t. But, Lord God, Wade, now ain’t the time to bring it out!”

  “Why not, sir?” Wade said.

  Jim Ransom spread his work-gnarled hands and counted off the reasons on his fingers. “Number one: the Government done put a tax of twenty-five per cent of its value on all cotton raised by slave-labour—and what cotton ain’t? Number two: revenue tax of two’n’ a half cents per pound on all cotton raised by anybody, loyal to the United States or not. Number three: a shipping fee of four cents per pound for the privilege of sending it to market—that don’t include what rates you pay to ship it, boy—that means you got to pay ‘em for turning it loose! Number four—and this here is the real hitch, boy: they confiscate all cotton sold to the Confederacy, paid to the C.S.A. as t
ithes or taxes, set aside for such payment, or pledged to our late, lamented Government as a loan, or in any way fixed up to give aid and comfort to Jeff Davis and his boys.”

  “Lord God!” Wade whispered, “that means—”

  “Damn near all the cotton there is—specially since it’s them who decides whether or not your bales come under that heading. And with the stuff selling for close to a dollar a pound, how much you think them Yankee thieves is going to let go on the open market, and how much is they going to confiscate?”

  Wade groaned.

  “That’s why we got to wait on a crop. That there cotton will be raised by paid labour, though where in hell-fire we going to get the money to pay the niggers with, or how we going to git them lazy black bastards back to work even if we do pay ‘em, is a couple of other questions.”

  Wade turned to Mary Ann.

  “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a long wait, honeybunch,” he said.

  “I won’t wait!” Mary Ann burst out. “Wasn’t so bad when I thought you were dead. But you’re alive now, and crippled up like that you need me to take care of you. Besides, folks ought to have their children while they’re young, so—”

  “Mary Ann!” Jim Ransom said. He was genuinely shocked.

  “Sorry, Uncle,” Mary Ann said; “but I love him. I’ll make my veil out of old lace curtains if I have to, and we can eat that cake on our golden wedding anniversary with our grandchildren helping us enjoy it!”

  “Let’s go talk to your auntie,” Wade said. “Maybe between us all we can figure out something.”

  But they couldn’t. Neither they nor Sarah, with whom the young couple discussed the problem the next night, when Wade brought Mary Ann home for supper.

  Oren Bascomb sat there listening to all the talk, a smile lighting his dark, sardonic face. He pushed back his chair and stood up.

  “You young folks plan that there wedding for Sunday, two weeks from now,” he said, “and leave the rest to me. That gives me two whole weeks. In that there two weeks I’m going to git your cotton sold, ma’am, have your niggers back on the place and hard at work, round up some draft animals, and git most of the repairs done. Wade’ll have to help me. Sorry, sir, but you got to give up your sparking for two whole weeks. You’ll forgive me, Miss Mary Ann? After all, you’ll have him all to yourself after that.”