Benton's Row

by Frank Yerby

  “I was a soldier, ma’am,” the general said, “serving my country just like your husband served his. I wasn’t fighting to free the black man. As far as I was concerned, you could have kept him in slavery for ever. It’s all he’s fit for, anyhow. What I wanted was simple: that we should remain one great nation, instead of dividing into two weak ones, forever hostile, and both inevitably falling prey to England or France or Spain. Whatever your reasons, what you people down here wanted to do was suicide—for both of us.”

  “You’re right, General,” Randy said.

  “Of course I am!” General Rafflin thundered. “But, ma’am, I want it clearly understood that I neither support nor condone the follies of Radical Republicanism. I’m no hypocrite. It astonishes me to hear people crying for rights and privileges for the negro down here that we don’t grant him up North. Look at the facts: in fourteen Northern States, not counting the slave-holding States like Kentucky and Maryland, which did not secede, negroes are not allowed to vote at all. In New York, at first, they could only vote if they had a certain amount of property, a provision which did not apply to whites. And since ‘sixty-nine, the blacks have not been allowed to vote at all in that State. In only five States of the Union is the negro allowed to vote freely. We don’t receive him in our homes, fraternise with him, marry him or anything else. A nigger, ma’am, begging your pardon in advance for the strong language, is damned well a nigger up North. Then what is it that makes him so different down here in the hands of the same men who killed him in car-load lots in the New York City draft riots during the war?”

  “What you’re saying, General,” Clint said quietly, “is merely that inhumanity and barbarity have no geographical limits. If you expect men to fight and die, as black troops have in every war this country has ever engaged in, if you expect men to uphold even the elementary duties of citizenship, you’ve got to give them all its rights, including the ballot. It’s a strange way of reasoning to compound wrongs by geography and expect them to add up into rights. They won’t. And the murderous swine who burned that negro orphanage in New York City with twenty-three coloured children in it don’t improve the smell of their brethren in New Orleans in 1866, Bossier, St. Landry, and St. Bernard in 1868, nor any of the other places in the South which have made negro-killing a favourite outdoor sport. Perhaps I’m obtuse, but I fail to see the justification, if any, in what you’re saying.”

  “Lord Jesus!” Wade got out, his voice shrill, womanish; “Pa would never have permitted such talk in his house; and, by heavens, neither will I, Clint! I don’t care who killed how many niggers, nor where. Kill ‘em all, I say! Kill every black son of a bitch ever born—or you’ll end up seeing the day when one of them can marry your sister!”

  Clint looked at his half-brother steadily.

  “So,” he smiled, “what’s wrong with that, Wade? I rather think that would be my sister’s affair, if she wanted to. Don’t you, Stormy?”

  Stormy smiled wickedly. Any situation permitting her to torment Wade was a pure, unalloyed delight to her.

  “Yes, Clint,” she drawled, “I do. I’ve seen some mighty fine-looking big buck niggers, Wade—all man, brother mine. But you wouldn’t understand that, would you?”

  “Lord Jesus!” Wade shrieked.

  “This,” Stormy said, “is a bore. I think I’ll take a ride around the old place. It’s been years since I’ve seen it. Mister Bascomb, would you be so kind as to show me around?”

  “De-lighted!” Oren grinned. “Excuse us, folks!”

  Sarah stared at her daughter, a frown creasing her forehead. Then it cleared. Let her go, she thought, all she’s going to do here is cause trouble.

  “Kill ‘em all!” Stone piped from the floor where he had been playing with his gifts. “Kill sonsabitches!”

  “Kill sonsabitches!” Nat echoed.

  Sarah stood up, wrath in her grey eyes.

  “You see!” she said. “Now I’m purely going to lay down the law! The next person, man or woman, who brings up niggers, politics, or religion can be excused, with my blessing. And that includes you, General, much as I respect your years, and appreciate how good you’ve been to my daughter. So there!”

  “You’re right, Mother Sarah,” Clint said, “I freely apologise.”

  “And I, ma’am,” General Rafflin said. “A social gathering is hardly the place for such a discussion.”

  “I beg your pardon, Ma,” Wade growled.

  “Good!” Sarah said. “Now, Mary Ann, how about that ice-cream and cake?”

  “Right away, Mother Sarah,” Mary Ann said, and stood up.

  Clint looked at her. Then, at that moment, his eyes were naked.

  “Can I help you, Mary Ann?” he said.

  Mary Ann hesitated, glancing at Jane.

  “Go right ahead, Clint,” Jane said; “don’t mind me.”

  Sarah stared at the girl suddenly. Of them all, only she had caught the edge in Jane Henderson’s voice.

  “Oh, I can manage,” Mary Ann said.

  “Why, Mary Ann,” Wade sneered, “where are your manners? You don’t mean that you’re going to deny your—friend—the chance for a little private chat?”

  Mary Ann’s brown eyes blazed.

  “Of course not!” she snapped. “Come along, Clint!”

  Clinton got up and followed her.

  In the kitchen a negro youth ground away at the ice-cream churn, while Luella added the final touches to the frosting of the cake.

  “Ready, Lu?” Mary Ann demanded.

  “ ‘Bout ten minutes mo’, ma’am. You go back with yo’ guests. I call you soon as hit’s done.”

  Mary Ann turned to Clint.

  “Let’s take a walk, Clint,” she said; “I don’t want to go back in there now.”

  “All right,” Clint said; “but I don’t like this, Mary Ann. The way Wade spoke, you’d think . . .”

  “And Jane,” Mary Ann said bitterly. “Come on outside, Clint.”

  They walked in the orchard behind the house. Mary Ann did not speak at all.

  “What’s the matter with him?” Clint said irritably. “What have I ever done to him? He never misses a chance to say something unpleasant.”

  He stopped talking, seeing her standing there, the sunlight flooding through the peach trees, lighting her auburn hair, her brown eyes, and glittering through the great tears, hot and bright and sudden, on her face.

  “Don’t you know, Clint?” she whispered. “He does. And you’re a mighty heap smarter than he is.”

  Clint stood there. There was an interval of no-time, everything alive, everything moving coming to a dead halt: the blue flies fixed in mid-air; the jays’ mouths frozen ludicrously open, but no sound emerging; the breeze itself that had stirred the peach trees miraculously still, a no-time in which nothing moved or breathed or spoke.

  Then Clint broke it.

  “Yes,” he said, his voice very deep, and far off, and sad, “I know.”

  They stood there, like that, looking at each other. They did not so much as touch hands, or fuse mouth to anguished mouth. They stood, under the peach trees, and were silent.

  “We’d best be going back now,” Mary Ann said.

  “Right!” Clint muttered, and in that single word compounded all there is of death and hell.

  First in the morning, before it was light, Stormy awoke. She looked about the room, then at the bony form of Oren Bascomb, sleeping peacefully at her side. She yawned luxuriously.

  Damn! she thought; I meant to get back to the house before midnight. Well, this has done it—no help for it now.

  She got up quickly and started to dress. But, quietly as she moved, Oren woke up and grinned at her.

  “About that cotton-seed oil factory,” he said; “you really think . . . ?”

  “Forget it, lover,” Stormy laughed. “Why should you break your neck making money for Wade when you can have it all for yourself? You come down to New Orleans in two weeks. By then I’ll have it all fixed: a job�
��no, a position—in the lottery company. Inside two years you’ll be a millionaire. Folks are always going to gamble; that’s one sure thing; surer even than death and taxes.”

  He lay there on his side like an elongated scarecrow, staring at her.

  “How,” he said, “do I know you’ll keep your word, honeybunch?”

  Stormy came over to him. Then she bent down and kissed him hard.

  “You’re worried about that,” she said, “after last night? Lover boy, in order to keep my hot little hands on you, I’d get you ten jobs!”

  “Well,” Oren grinned complacently, “wimmenfolks always allowed I was right pert good.”

  “You, lover,” Stormy said, “are the best—absolutely the best in the world.”

  She kissed him once more, very thoroughly. Then she straightened up, smiling.

  “ ‘Bye now,” she said. “Be seeing you—in New Orleans.”

  She had no fear of waking General Rafflin. The old man slept hard and late. But the thing she feared most was exactly what happened to her: Sarah met her in the doorway.

  “Before you open your mouth to say it,” her mother said, “I’ll admit I ain’t got no right to blame you. It’s in your blood—from both sides, Tom’s and mine. But right or no, I’m still mistress of this plantation, and I don’t aim to have no shooting or killings on it no more. So I’m telling you, Stormy, get off my place. Get off and don’t never come back. And I hope I never see you again as long as I live!”

  Stormy smiled at her.

  “You got guts, ain’t you, Ma?” she said. “All right, have it your own way. Now will you please, ma’am, step aside and let me get some sleep? Lord God, but I’m dead!”

  It was almost exactly one year after the birthday party, in the spring of 1873, that Clinton Dupré belatedly announced his forthcoming nuptials. He made the announcement in the Benton’s Row Gazette, his own newspaper, setting the day for a Sunday some weeks from the date of that issue. And that same evening Wade Benton came home from the store and tossed a copy of the newspaper into his wife’s lap without a word.

  Mary Ann sat very still for a long time after she had read it. Then she got up very quietly and went in to supper with her husband. She ate very little. Neither of them talked. After supper, with the help of Luella, she bathed the twins and put them to bed.

  She heard Wade in the bedroom, busy with his regalia; when he came out, he was clad in the flowing white robes of the Knights of the White Camellia, and carried his ghostly helmet under his arm.

  She stared at him, but she did not speak.

  “See you in the morning,” he said, and was gone.

  Mary Ann did not answer him. She waited very quietly until he had ridden away, then she bathed and dressed herself with some care. Then she went across the yard until she came to the big gates. She stood beside them, looking down the road. She stood there, almost without moving, for two hours. At last, she turned and started back towards the house.

  In the three-room flat above his newspaper offices Clinton Dupré sat before his desk, staring at the announcement he had put in the paper.

  I’ve done it now, he thought. Couldn’t put Jane off any longer. No reason to. She’s lovely, and sweet, and fine. I have no excuse. My father died like a dog, in shame and dishonour, because he could never let other men’s women alone. Well, I’ve maintained my honour—whatever that is. I haven’t been near Mary Ann in a year. Something to be proud of, I guess—but I am not proud.

  He took a long pull at the bottle of bourbon that stood on the desk. It was nearly empty. He had been drinking since early that afternoon.

  Not proud, he thought darkly, savagely, in the hot whisky haze. What is the price of pride, and the measure of honour? What are they worth? Count the knots twisted in my guts, add up the splintered slivers of glass I drag into my lungs with every breath I draw. Plumb the depths of this hunger that devours all other hungers so that I have not finished a simple meal in a year. Lay by the heels this thief of time, this killer-brigand who has murdered sleep and stolen all my nights. How many dawns have I sat here and watched come up out of the river? How many miles have I walked by night with only the wind and the proud, unspeaking ghosts of my honour for company? Honour, honour, honour—what’s honour to me, or I to honour, that I should weep for her?

  He got up and strode about the room, weaving a little now, feeling the tears, hot and salt and unashamed, upon his face.

  “And so I leave you, Mary,” he murmured, “leave you bound to a swine, a man without courage or pride or decency or—honour. That word again! ‘Dear God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself master of infinite space, were it not—’ for my honour!”

  He threw back his head and laughed loudly, savagely. Then all the laughter died within him. He stood there, unmoving, his arms outflung, bound upon the invisible cross upon which his love, his pride, his honour had crucified him, until the titanic fury inside of him tore him free, and he whirled, his hands tugging at the door, swinging it open furiously; and took the stairs four at a time, running, going down.

  Mary Ann had almost reached the house when she heard the hoof-beats. She stopped still, waited. He burst through the gate, a cloud of white dust rolling behind him, drifting down the wind. He jerked the horse to a halt, sawing savagely at the bit. Then he was out of the saddle, running towards her. And quietly and simply and finally, she held out her arms to him.

  “I knew you’d come, Clint,” she said. “God, yes—I knew you’d come!”

  6

  WADE stood there, tapping the page of the newspaper with the end of his riding-crop.

  “Know anything about this?” he growled.

  Mary Ann looked at him.

  “If you’ll stop hitting the paper long enough for me to read it,” she said, “I’ll tell you.”

  Wade took away the crop.

  “The discussion which took place yesterday afternoon between Mister Ashton Henderson and your editor was settled amicably and to the satisfaction of both parties,” she read. “This discussion, which was of a private nature, did not warrant any of the excitement it seems to have caused. The editor regrets to have been, even by error, involved in anything which allegedly threatened the peace and tranquillity of Benton’s Row. He wishes to take this means to assure his friends, and all other citizens of good will, that such an event will never occur again. To those who bear him ill will he can only state, with sincere sorrow, that they can have as much trouble as they want, as often as they ask for it.” It was signed, “Clinton Dupré, Editor.”

  Mary Ann looked up.

  “How,” she said evenly, “do you expect me to know anything about this, since not a word of it makes any sense?”

  “It makes sense, all right,” Wade said. “Clint rode out to the Hendersons’ and broke his engagement with Jane. When Ash came home, he found her in hysterics. Seems your name was mentioned—at least by her.”

  “Then she has a dirty mind,” Mary Ann said. “Go on.”

  “So Ash went gunning for Clint. He went to Tim’s first and had himself quite a few. Tim saw the gun in his belt, and anyhow everybody could see he was wrought up. Tim refused to serve him any more. Asked him kindly-like to give up his gun, saying he wasn’t in no state to tote one.”

  “So?” Mary Ann said.

  “Ash allowed he’d damned well tote a gun if he wanted to, and what’s more he aimed to let a little daylight into a trifling skunk who’d been playing fast and loose with his sister. Somebody got the idea of sending for Martha Bevins—you know, the girl what Ash has been courting. But by then it was too late—Ash had gone. More than fifty men followed him out of Tim’s. Every step he took, the parade grew. When I come along, there was more than a hundred milling around in front of the newspaper office.”

  “Then what happened?” Mary Ann said.

  “Ash went upstairs. We waited—maybe ten minutes. Then he come down again and pushed his way through the crowd. Everybody waited some more, till Clint o
pened a window and said: ‘You can go home now. I’m in a perfect state of health. Next time, don’t send a boy to do a man’s job.’ Then he shut the window again.”

  Mary Ann stared at her husband.

  “You said my name was mentioned,” she said.

  “When I started back for the store,” Wade said, “I found Martha Bevins in front of Tim’s. Being a decent girl, she couldn’t go in. She asked me kindly to go get Ash out of there. I went in and got him. He didn’t give me no trouble until I got him out on the pavement. He just stood there a-crying and a-cussing. Then he looked me up and down and spat almost on my feet. ‘Mister Mayor,’ he said. ‘Fine mayor what can’t even take care of his own wife!’

  “So?” Mary Ann said.

  “So I asked him what he meant. He said: ‘Your wife’s the cause of this.’ I asked him who says so. ‘Jane,’ he told me, ‘and believe me, she knows!’ ”

  “Still say she’s got a dirty mind,” Mary Ann said flatly. “Lord God, Wade, what did happen in that office?”

  “Nobody knows ‘cepting Clint and Ash. And ain’t neither one of them a-saying. But what I want to know is how deep you’re mixed up in all this?”

  Mary Ann looked at him. Then, very slowly, she smiled.

  “That,” she said calmly, “is one thing you’ll never know, hero. Your supper’s ready. If you want to eat, you’d better go get it.”

  He stood there a long time, looking at her.

  “If I thought—” he growled.

  “But you don’t think,” she said. “Do you, hero? ‘Cause if you did, you might have to do something about it. Cheaper not to think so, Wade—or you might find yourself coming up against a man—and that would likely bring on one of your fits. Mustn’t get excited, you know.”

  “God damn it, Mary Ann, I—”

  “Your food is getting cold,” Mary Ann said.

  That night she heard again the shuffle and limp of his step as he came down the hall, the tap of his cane. She had left the door open a little, and she saw, as he paused before the door, the white of his regalia. Then he went on down the hall and out of the door.