The Coffin Quilt

by Ann Rinaldi

  "No," I told him.

  "How can I live, Fanny, with Bud gone and it bein' my fault? No, I know what's best for old Bill. Come on now, don't you cry. You're so little and purty. You're the only sane McCoy. Come on now, let's go on down to the funeral. I'm gonna play my fiddle. 'Amazing Grace.' How you think that'll be on my fiddle?"

  I clutched his hand as we went downstairs. "It'll be fine," I said. "It'll be just wonderful."

  I was crying so I could scarce see and almost tripped going down. But Bill held on to me.

  Chapter Twenty–Six

  SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 1882

  BILL PLAYED "Amazing Grace" at the funeral. And it was right fine.

  Afterward, when people were eating all the food, I found Ro out in the yard near the herb garden.

  "Poor little Fanny," she said. "Lost Tolbert. Your favorite brother."

  "I heard you've got his coffin on your quilt. And Bud's and Pharmer's. Is Bill's there, too?"

  "Hush." She set her plate down and reached out to grab and hug me. "Hush, don't let Pa and Ma hear you about the quilt."

  I pulled away from her. "Pa said don't you ever put any McCoy names on it, Ro. Why'd you do it?"

  "You still don't understand about that quilt now, baby, do you? It's more than just a quilt. It's a family history, like a Bible. I wanted it for my little Sarah Elizabeth."

  "She's dead." I hadn't meant it to sound so cruel, so final, but I was angry.

  "I know," she said softly. "And now somehow because she is gone to the angels I want to finish it properlike. Because I started it for her."

  Something inside me, deep inside, something that was part of my bones made me know she was lying. It frightened me. Because I was seeing Ro, my beloved sister, in a different light for the first time. How could she have put our names on her quilt? The thought of it ate into me, disturbed something I didn't want disturbed, brought it out of the woods and made me face it down, like I'd faced Yeller Thing.

  My sister Ro was crazy. Crazy with grief over Sarah Elizabeth, teched in the head because Johnse had wed Nancy. Why hadn't anyone seen it? Because she'd been so good, nursing Alifair and all those others who'd come down sick?

  "Did you tell Bill that a person can will himself to die?" I asked.

  She nodded and sighed. "I've seen it, honey."

  "But why did you have to tell Bill?"

  "Why?" She gave that soft laugh of hers. And her voice! Oh, how it seeped into me, finding all my hurt places, just how it'd always done all my life. Her voice, so sweet, like dripping honey, had always made things all right with me. Had always put my fears to rest. Now that same voice was saying things I couldn't abide.

  "Honey, I tried to help Bill. Because I know how he feels. Because I want to die, too. I just wanted to help him, is all."

  "Stop it!" I stood up. "You're not going to die, Ro. And neither is Bill."

  She smiled up at me. "Of course not, honey. No more dying. We've had enough of that, haven't we?" Her voice, putting my fears to rest, soothed me. But in her eyes there was a look I ran from, a look that warned me of what was to come. So I ran from her. Just like I ran from Yeller Thing.

  ***

  "ISN'T YOUR BROTHER Calvin coming to school anymore, Fanny?"

  It was a day in October struck through with enough color for one of Ma's quilts. The sky was a perfect blue. I looked up from gathering my things to take my leave. "It's hunting season, Mr. Cuzlin."

  He smiled down at me. "Oh, I know that." He waved an arm around the schoolroom. "Even the seven-year-olds aren't here these days. You can hear the shots of the hunt from miles away. But Calvin hasn't been here once since school started this fall. Is he not coming back?"

  "He's never said. But I heard him say there's nothing more you can teach him. He wishes there was."

  "And Trinvilla?"

  "She's to wed the reverend's son in December. She's making ready."

  He nodded. "I'm sorry for all the trouble you folks have had. The Hatfields have been indicted here in Kentucky, you know. I've been following it in the newspapers."

  I nodded. Ever since the killings, newspapers had been filled with stories. About murder under the pawpaw trees. About bloody killings. Pa wouldn't allow them in the house. We kept them away from Ma. "But the Hatfields are in West Virginia," I said.

  I said no more. In our family you never spoke of troubles to anyone outside. I longed to tell Mr. Cuzlin, though, of how things were at home. How Bill had been tending the cows since Alifair's sickness and now Alifair made me do it, because Bill no longer did his chores. He wandered the woods. Not hunting, just wandering.

  Because Pa was afraid to let us girls go to and from school on our own, Bill was supposed to escort us. He did mornings, but by afternoon he seldom came. I'd have lied to Alifair and told her he did, but Adelaide would run right home and snitch on Bill. Then he'd be in trouble. I'd have to go and fetch him home for supper. Most times I'd find him at my brothers' graves.

  I wanted to tell Mr. Cuzlin how Pa and Ma argued all the time now about him wanting to lead raids into West Virginia to bring in the men who'd shot my brothers. How Pa kept organizing posses. The men would gather in our front yard, armed and ready. And then Ma would talk Pa out of it, and the men would have to go home.

  I wanted to tell how rumor had it that Johnse had taken part in the killings of my brothers. No, I couldn't tell any of this. "I have to go," I said. "I have chores at home."

  "Wait." He went across the room and fetched a book. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. "Calvin will like it," he said.

  I thanked him and went out into the October day. I wouldn't give the book to Calvin. But I couldn't tell Mr. Cuzlin that. Dickens was as far away from Calvin now as the man in the moon.

  Adelaide ran on ahead. She was closer than ever to Alifair since the boys' deaths. But others in our family were shifting allegiances. Now that Trinvilla was to wed, Alifair had pushed her away. Calvin and Floyd had joined forces, both angry at Ma for keeping Pa from hunting Hatfields. Floyd, never one to fight, was ready to fight now. My only friend was Bill, even though he was only half there in his head.

  We worried for him, wandering the woods, because Hatfields were crossing into Kentucky. Just last week my brother Sam and two of his friends were going to have a turn of corn ground at the mill at Dails Fork, when one of his friends was shot by Hatfields who'd crossed the Tug and come into our territory. That was as unheard of as black bears breaking into your larder.

  When I got home from school, Alifair was waiting at the back door, wiping her hands on her apron. "Where's Bill? He didn't come fetch you all again?"

  "You know already," I said. "Adelaide told you."

  "Don't get fresh. Give me your things, then get to the barn and get the cows milked. They're waiting. Then go fetch Bill. I saw him at the graveyard. What's this?" She peered at the book.

  "From Mr. Cuzlin. For Calvin."

  She tossed the book away. It landed in the kitchen garden. "Dickens? Is that man crazy? You know where Calvin is? With Pa and Jim, invading West Virginia. They brought back Tom Chambers today, one of the men who killed the boys. Does that sound like he needs Dickens?" She went into the house. I picked up the book and took it with me to the barn to milk the cows.

  It was coming on to dark when I went up the hill above the creekbed road. I heard the music before I got to the top. Bill was playing his fiddle softly. The sun still cast a faint light in the west. He was backlit by the fight, kneeling by the graves. I waited until he was finished playing.

  "You gotta come home, Bill."

  He looked at me. "Tolbert always liked 'How Great Thou Art.'"

  I nodded. "Supper, Bill. Come on home. Please?"

  He cradled his fiddle in his arms, looking around. "It's so purty up here."

  I walked up the hill farther and reached out my hand to him. I didn't want him getting notions about how purty a grave was. "Come on, Bill, venison stew for supper."

  He gave me his hand and
we went down the hill together.

  Chapter Twenty–Seven

  WINTER 1883

  YESTERDAY A FUNERAL and today a wedding. That's what I thought, watching Trinvilla stand in church beside Will Thompson while his father asked her, "Wilt thou take this man?"

  Yesterday the same people, standing in church blowing on their hands for the cold in spite of warmth from the old pot stove, had stood stamping their feet at the cemetery at the mouth of Peter Creek while Reverend Thompson prayed over another McCoy, ambushed by Hatfields, a distant kin.

  As Trinvilla answered yes, two men stood guard with long rifles outside the small church. Yesterday, McCoys were so armed at the cemetery it looked like they were expecting General Grant and his army. But with good reason.

  While Reverend Thompson had prayed over the casket, "Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord," we could see Hatfields gathered all in a row on horses across the Tug. Pa expected them to fire their high-powered Winchester rifles across the water at us any minute.

  After the funeral Reverend Thompson came over to Pa. "I'm a man of the Lord, Ranel. I have to stay out of this fight. If the Hatfields need me to bury any of their dead, I must do so."

  "It's all right," Pa had said. "Just pray over our dead and marry our children."

  It was two days into the new year when Trinvilla wed, cold as the inside of the Devil's ear. We tramped back to the house in the snow. And even though the men were all armed, there was a mood of merriment. Back at the house my brother Floyd broke out the rum. Bill, looking pale and thin, started his fiddle music. The parlor had been cleared of furniture for dancing. The kitchen was full of people and good smells. In the upstairs bedroom that Trinvilla shared with Adelaide and Alifair, I watched as Adelaide helped my sister pack her things.

  "Baltimore!" Adelaide said. "What I'd give to see Baltimore!"

  "It isn't as if we're staying at any fancy hotel," Trinvilla said. "We'll be guests at Will's aunt and uncle's home. But it is grand, I hear."

  "But think! You wed. And going away with a man!" Adelaide was starry-eyed.

  Trinvilla laughed. "I feel the fine lady in this dress Ma made. Do I look it?"

  "You look finer than anybody. They'll love you in Baltimore," Adelaide told her. "There, you're all packed. I've got to go downstairs and help Alifair with the food."

  Left alone with Trinvilla, I did not know what to say. I think she felt the same way. She sat down on her bed and smiled at me. "Adelaide won't marry," she said. "So you're next, Fanny."

  I shook my head no. "I'm only eleven."

  "Time to start making your Wedding-ring quilt, I had my eye on Will since I was ten."

  She was just sixteen. "You're so grown up, Trinvilla," I said.

  "How come you never call me Twinny, like the others?"

  I blushed. "We were never close. You were always on the side of Alifair."

  "I went along with her because I wasn't strong enough to say no. I saw how she treated you. I'm sorry for that, Fanny. But you stood up to her, always. I thought that was right fine."

  My eyes widened. "You did?"

  "Yes. Now listen. I'm going away. It's time to say some things. I don't know if we'll stay in Baltimore or if we'll come back here. But if we do, we'll move more inland. You know the governors of both states are telling people to move more inland, to get away from the fighting."

  I nodded yes.

  "Jim is thinking on it. And Calvin is trying to make Ma and Pa move. But they won't hear of it. Ma told Calvin the only way they'll get her out of this house is to carry her out. They like it, Fanny, all the fighting. Do you know what first drew me to Will Thompson? He's like his pa. He wants no part of it. Around here you have to be either for the Hatfields or the McCoys. You have to choose sides. Well, Will and I are staying out of it. I'm tired of it, Fanny, all the killing. When you cast an eye on a boy, be sure he's out of it. And when you wed, get away. Stay out of it, Fanny, do. Or it'll destroy you."

  I couldn't answer this outburst. Never did I expect it from quiet Trinvilla.

  "I love Ma and Pa," she said, "but they're crazy. This whole family is. You know how Alifair acted with me when I got betrothed to Will? Like I betrayed her! Wouldn't help with my Wedding-ring quilt, wouldn't listen to me about my plans. Imagine! She expected me to not wed. To stay home and do her bidding. Well, she's got Adelaide as her indentured servant, but not me. I aim to make a life of my own. And not stay around here and wait for the next shooting and go to the next funeral and see Bill mourning at the grave and Calvin waiting to run out on the next raid. And Roseanna looking like she should be in the grave."

  She stood up, smoothed her dress, and smiled. "Enough," she said. "If you ever get tired of it all, Fanny, you can come and five with us."

  "Thank you," I said. Then I kissed her. "I wish you well, Trinvilla. I do."

  She put her arm around me and we went downstairs. Afterward I stood at the window as they drove off in the buggy to Will's father's for overnight. I never even knew my sister, I thought. And now I've lost her.

  ***

  FOR A DAY or so I pondered what Trinvilla had said. I tried not to think of the feud. I didn't listen when Pa told how there was a five hundred thousand dollar price on Devil Anse's head. Or when Calvin told how he'd met two detectives in Pikeville who were set on capturing Hatfields. Or when Adelaide said how Nancy and Johnse had a baby boy. I tried to stay out of it.

  I tried to think about school. I was doing well in my sums, geography, history, and English. I was getting so good at milking the cows that I could read while I did it. Just lay a book open on my lap. I read the book intended for Calvin and lost myself in Mr. Dickens's England at Christmas.

  I told nobody about Roseanna's quilt having our names on it. Roseanna left us right after the wedding and went to stay with Tolbert's Mary, who was thinking of moving back to Louisville, where her parents lived.

  Winter closed in around us, bringing some heavy storms, so that we had all we could do just to care for the animals, clear the yard, and get back and forth to school.

  One night the first week in February, after it had snowed a fine needlelike snow all day, I came back into the house from milking the cows and Bill hadn't come home. It was nigh onto dark. Pa was tying a rope from the house to the barn to use for a guideline if more snow came. We had supper and nothing was said about Bill. After I'd helped Adelaide and Alifair clean up, I put some food in a pot, then started getting on my outside clothes.

  "Where do you think you're going?" Alifair demanded.

  "To take Bill some food. In case you haven't noticed, he hasn't come home."

  "You take off that coat. If you didn't spoil him so by bringing food up there, he might come home. You're not going out to slip into the ravine and nobody'll know it. Besides, he's probably warm and cozy in a corncrib someplace. He's not stupid, even though he makes like he is."

  But he wants to die, I thought. You don't understand.

  Pa came in the door then, his hair and beard covered with ice. "Your sister's right," he said. "Bill can take care of himself. Leave him be." His tone brooked no argument.

  "You're just doing it to be mean," I told Alifair.

  That night I was the last one to blow out the oil lamp in the kitchen and go up to bed. I waited and waited for BUI, torn between wanting to put on my coat and go fetch him and fear of what Pa would do if I went out and got lost in the snow.

  Bill, I thought, Bill, why don't you come home? Are you safe in a corncrib somewhere? Why wouldn't you ever take a gun with you like Pa and Calvin said, so you don't get ambushed?

  I went to bed. Under my quilts I listened to the howling wind, to the needlelike snow against the window. Once I thought I heard something outside and got up to look out.

  There it was. Eyes glowing, yellow-green. Moving through the snow like it was summer wheat. I sat up half the night trembling and finally went to sleep. At dawn the sun shone, sparkling on tree limbs and fence posts. After I milked the cows, I walked to Fl
oyd's. He came with me up the hill to the cemetery. From halfway there I saw the vultures in the naked trees overhead. Crows called. Everything echoed. Floyd told me to stay back, he'd go up. But I said no, I was coming, too.

  And there, at the graves, we found Bill. Frozen stiff with his fiddle in his hands. His eyelashes were crusted with snow, his face bluish white. Floyd had to carry me down the hill, I was so crazy with grief, then go back up with Calvin and a sled to fetch Bill down.

  Chapter Twenty–Eight

  SPRING l886

  "WHAT ARE YOU doing here, Fanny McCoy? Don't you go to school anymore?"

  I turned from the long white pine counter at the Pikeville General Store. Nancy McCoy. A baby in her arms and a knee-high at her skirts. "Hello, Nancy. Yes, I still go. But Ma's sending me to stay the night with Martha."

  "Oh, that's right. Your brother Jim moved his family to Saylorsville. Considerable smart of him. Keep his family safe." Her mouth quivered.

  I set down the goods I'd bought—some crackers, tallow candles, and coffee beans—and walked over to her. "You have a new baby."

  "Yes. This is Stella. She's four months old. Isn't she darlin'?"

  I took the baby up and admired it. But I was seeing Nancy. She was older, and it was downright eerie. Some of the old Nancy was still there in the face, but just when you glimpsed it, it was gone. The new Nancy was still pretty, but now there were lines around the mouth. And something shadowy in the eyes. "How is Johnse?" I handed the baby back.

  The mouth quivered again. "I'm a-leavin' him. Why else would I be in Kentucky?" The beautiful violet eyes brimmed with tears, and she hugged her baby close.

  "What happened, Nancy?"

  "What didn't happen? He's been drinkin'. When he's in his cups those Hatfields can get him to do anything. His people beat up my sister Mary and her mother-in-law, Mrs. Daniels, in a masked raid. Left 'em bleedin' and unconscious. Johnse's brother Cap was at the head of that. Mary's husband said so. I told Johnse I won't stay with him if his family hurts my family anymore. He promised they wouldn't Then they went and killed my brother Jeff."