The Coffin Quilt

by Ann Rinaldi

  "Can you sneak out to the well and get some?" They were standing not three feet from each other, but yelling through the smoke, because Pa was firing out and the men outside were firing in. Alifair already had her coat on over her nightgown. Smoke and flames were coming up through the floorboards now.

  "By God," Calvin yelled. "They've put more torches under the house!"

  "I'm goin' out now," Alifair said. She grabbed up a bucket.

  "They'll shoot you," Pa yelled. I thought he hadn't been listening, but he had.

  "It's either that or they shoot us all," Alifair told him. "Anyways, even they aren't low-down enough to shoot a woman fetching water to save her house!" And then she was gone, through the smoke, out the back door, and into the yard.

  "Alifair!" Adelaide screamed, and tried to follow her. "Don't go, please!"

  "Grab your sister," Pa yelled, "and shut her up! Get outa this room and see to Ma."

  I took a-hold of Adelaide, who was screaming like a painter cat. I dragged her out of the kitchen. There was a sight of smoke in it now. I didn't know how Pa and Calvin were able to breathe, excepting that they were firing out of open windows. Every once in a while one of the shots from outside the house would thud against the walls. The sounds were soft thuds but horrible. Under my bare feet I felt broken glass. I tripped over something wooden, near fell, and righted myself. The world seemed to be gone howling mad all around me.

  Then of a sudden the fearsome noise outside stopped. A man's voice yelled, "Halt there! Who goes? Ranel? Have ye come out? Stop firing, boys."

  And Alifair's voice in return. "It's me, Alifair. Is that you, Cap Hatfield?"

  "It's me."

  "Well, I come out for some water because my kitchen is burning. My kitchen, Cap Hatfield. And to me it's sacred. In all this fracas, did we ever come and burn your kitchen?"

  I couldn't hear his reply. Adelaide was blubbering in my ear. "Hush!" I shook her.

  "If you don't go back inna house, Alifair, I'm a-goin' to have to shoot you," came the voice that had allowed he was Cap.

  "You? Shoot me?" And Alifair laughed. "We went to school together, Cap. I know you're big and bad now, but not big and bad enough to shoot a woman, are ye?"

  Silence, except for the crackling of flames where the fire hadn't yet been dampened. Terrible silence. Then a shot, ringing and certain in the cold. Then Alifair's voice, strong no more, but begging. "Dear God. Sweet Jesus." Growing weaker and weaker, then nothing.

  Adelaide broke loose from me and made for the door. Calvin yelled, "Damned varmints! They shot Alifair!" Pa yelled and made for the door then, too, but Calvin held him back. "She's on the ground, Pa. She ain't movin'. She's dead. Go out there, and you're next. I need you in here, Pa. Or they'll kill us all!"

  "Hold on to your sister!" Pa shoved Adelaide at me. He looked like some demented god as he turned again to the window and recommenced firing. Then Adelaide broke from me and ran to the hall and stood screaming, "Ma, Ma! They shot Alifair!"

  But Ma was already coming down the steps, her long hair around her shoulders, her boney hands groping the walls. "My Alifair? They shot her? Let me through!"

  Nobody could stop her. When Pa tried, she seized up a piece of broken glass and threatened him with it. And with Isaiah. "And I stay at my post through all the watches of the night!" Then she went out into the night.

  "Cover her," Calvin told Pa.

  I could see Ma leaning over Adelaide and glaring up at a masked somebody who stood over her. His eyes reflected the firelight, glowed like Yeller Thing. "Get back inside, old hag."

  Ma stood up and raised her fist. "I will encamp like David amongst you. I will encircle you with outposts and set up siege works against you. Prostrate you shall speak from the earth!"

  I recollect thinking how right brave Ma was. And how I could never be.

  Then the man raised his gun and swung it back, and I yelled, "No, no!" I lunged, and then it was Adelaide holding me back as the gun cut the cold night air and hit Ma, again and again.

  Calvin charged out the door next into the yawning dark and raced to the corncrib, making it there somehow, then raised Trixie to take aim and was cut down by a ringing shot.

  "No, no!" I was yelling it then, and Adelaide was holding me. Pa was bellowing for Adelaide to take me into the woods, to go out the back window. I stumbled along after Adelaide, followed her out the window like I was in a dream, feeling colder and stiller than Ma and Calvin and Alifair, colder and stiller than the freezing night air that filled up my lungs, then seeped forever into my heart.

  Chapter Thirty–Two

  JANUARY l888

  ME AND ADELAIDE made for the woods. In the midnight cold, bare of feet, we found our way, huddling and shivering together, to my old playhouse, where I found a tattered quilt to wrap us in. From there we could see our house burning, flames reaching into the night sky, smoke billowing. And against the firelit night, men dashing about, staining the earth with their shadows.

  We waited, shivered, sobbed, and prayed while night owls hooted and all around us the stark trees shielded us as their own, though I'm sure they didn't want us as their own, tainted as we were. I'm sure they'd just as lief we left the quiet solitude they offered and went back into the howling world of madness as we had made it to be.

  ***

  BY FIRST LIGHT the men were gone. Our house was a charred ruin with only the chimney still standing like a question mark against the lead sky. Pa came out of the hog pen, where he'd stayed the night, and ran for Floyd, who sent for Jim and Sam. They took Calvin and Alifair and covered them decentlike against the prying eyes of others who came to see. They took Ma up in a wagon. She was more dead than alive and with no sense about her whatsoever, which was a blessing of the Lord. Then they found me and Adelaide and carried us in blankets to a home that no longer was. Then we went with Ma to the Cline house, where Roseanna waited.

  They said I kept babbling about how I had to go into the house and get the leftover Brunswick stew or we'd starve. I don't recollect that. I haven't made Brunswick stew since. Likely I'll never make it again.

  ***

  WHEN THEY LAID Calvin and Alifair to rest in graves next to Pharmer, Tolbert, Bud, and Bill, I wasn't there. I was in Aunt Martha Cline's house, petting her cat and sitting in a corner with a comforter around me. Shadows and voices came and went all around me. When a loud noise happened, I jumped.

  They say I was off my feed for a week. That I wouldn't let Roseanna near me, that Aunt Martha had to spoon broth into my mouth. That Dr. Grey had come and gone, and said I might never talk again. Or I might speak in tongues at supper. He couldn't rightly say.

  I didn't speak in tongues at supper, but after about a week I started talking to the cat. They let me be. I knew that Ma was upstairs in a room, pure give out, and might be she wouldn't live. Reverend Thompson came. Trinvilla and Will came. Pa came. Even Mr. Cuzlin came with books for me. I seized on the books and started reading. About other worlds and other peoples who had terrible heartache, who sweated blood for their dreams and cried in pain for their loves, and whose lives were all better than mine.

  Adelaide wasn't with us. She went right to Aunt Cory's to stay. To go on with her granny work like nothing had happened. They say it was her way of not speaking, or talking only to a cat, or losing herself in books. They say when I started to speak again I said I had to do the chores. I kept wandering out in the cold to milk Aunt Martha's cows. That when they tried to stop me, I cried and allowed how Alifair would hold my head under the pump if I didn't get those cows milked right quick.

  I recollect none of it at all.

  All the newspapers said the attack on our house was the worst yet in the history of Kentucky. That not even the Indians who had once lived here and slaughtered settlers had done as bad as was done to us.

  I do own that I recollect two things that happened in that time.

  Pa came to Aunt Martha's and told Roseanna, who was nursing Ma, that it was all her fault. He didn'
t hold forth. He said it real quietlike. But I heard. "If'n you hadn't run off with Johnse," he told her, "none of it would've happened."

  And I mind that once Ro came to where I was sitting with the cat in my lap and knelt on the floor in front of me. "I'm so sorry, Fanny," she said. "Oh, I'm so sorry."

  I was talking by then, though not much. I petted the cat's head and looked at my sister. "Well now," I said, "you can just go and put Alifair's and Calvin's coffins in the middle of that quilt of yourn, can't you?"

  She didn't know what all to say to that, of course. She just put her head down and sobbed. Then she stopped and looked at me again. "Isn't there anything I can do to make you forgive me?" she asked.

  Until that minute I couldn't think of a thing. But then I did. "There is something."

  "Yes, baby, anything."

  "I'd admire for you to leave me alone." Never did I reckon I would say such. Never did I mean it so much, either.

  Chapter Thirty–Three

  SPRING 1888

  I CAME BACK to being myself, of course. Or whatever of myself I could still find. I had to. Our family didn't hold with self-pity, everybody had their duties and was expected to do their best soon's they felt middling well. I helped Aunt Martha a bit around the house. I visited with Ma. Pa was away most all the time with posses he formed. The county judge himself, Mr. Tobias Wagnor, went to Frankfort to get arms for Pa and his men. I don't know where they kept them, but not in our new house in Pikevdle that we moved into that spring. Ma wouldn't countenance it, she said.

  "No guns in this house. I won't have it, Ranel. If'n I ever see a Winchester or even a Colt pistol, I'll get a smotherin' fit, for sure."

  Ma got smothering fits all the time now.

  While we were at Aunt Martha Cline's, Ro nursed Ma. I know it to be true that it was only Ro's nursing that brought Ma around again. You have to give the Devil his due.

  Come right down to it, it wasn't nary a one of Adelaide's remedies, though she tried half a dozen. Not even Alifair's faith-healing group, who came one day and prayed over Ma and anointed her with oil. And acted like they expected her to get up and start dancing to fiddle music at supper. She didn't. And they went away disappointed, leaving Ma in tears with only Ro to comfort her, because at that time I was still talking only to the cat.

  But my sister Ro brought Ma back with her care and soft words. Seems like she never left Ma's side in the month after the attack. By spring Ma was able to get off her couch and wobble around with a cane a little. But she was all crooked, like a bent tree. She couldn't hold her head straight. Had to turn her whole body to look you in the face. But she still praised Jesus every chance she got.

  In April we moved into the Pikeville house and Ro came along with us. Nobody asked her and nobody told her she couldn't. We just all knew Ma couldn't do without her. So she came. But we still didn't talk much, me and Ro. We exchanged sentences is what we did.

  "Did Ma eat any of her supper?" she'd ask.

  I'd answer no. Then she'd ask when Pa was expected home. Or would I go to the store for her. And I'd answer. But we didn't speak to each other, only at each other. I guess we both just knew there was nothing more to say.

  All that summer Pa, his men, and my brothers raided West Virginia and brought back men who'd attacked our house that night. On one of these trips they brought in Ellison Mounts.

  ***

  I HATED THE house in Pikeville from the minute we moved in. It was a small dwelling, not like our place on Blackberry Creek. The only good part was the river out back. I'd go down there of a summer afternoon, read, and watch fishermen go by in small boats. They came regular-like and after a while would wave at me. I'd wave back. There was one man who wore a wool hat, even in the middle of summer. Another brought his small grandson along. Still another had his small black dog in the boat with him. I'd conjure up lives for them, families, homes.

  Someone said that creek found its way to West Virginny. I worried some that Hatfields would learn where we lived now and come by boat to attack us. But it didn't happen, and so I stopped worrying. In September I wanted to go back to school, but it was too far so Mr. Cuzlin came once a week to tutor me. He wouldn't take any money for it, either. All he wanted, he said, was for me to study, serious-like, on the idea of going to normal school and becoming a teacher.

  I looked forward to his visits more than I like to lay claim to. But I couldn't bring my mind around to thinking on becoming a teacher. In my head there was no future for any of us at all.

  Chapter Thirty–Four

  FALL 1889

  THE REASON I know that Ellison Mounts didn't kill my sister Alifair is more than because I heard Cap Hatfield talking with her that night just afore she was shot. It's because Reverend Thompson told me.

  It was September. Pa was on another raid. Aunt Martha Cline had come to the little house in Pikeville to visit Ma, like she did every so often. I was in the parlor, studying. My sister Ro was upstairs in bed. She'd been sickly for the last month and nobody knew what ailed her. But while the bright blue skies of fall and the flaming colors beckoned outside, inside Ro roamed the house in her nightdress, not talking, not eating, just telling us all to leave her be, and getting thinner and thinner. Adelaide, who came home once a month like our sheep used to do, had doused her with remedies a week ago. Nothing helped.

  I'd finished packing. I was going to Saylorsville to visit Trinvilla and Will. They'd built a new house there last summer. It was Aunt Martha's idea that I go. I needed to get out of the house, she said. She and Ma were in the kitchen talking.

  "I just can't stop Ranel," Ma was saying. "His mind is set on all this killing."

  "Then don't stop him," Aunt Martha Cline said. "He's got no more homeplace, no more crops. He's got only his kin to revenge. It's proper for him to bring the Hatfields to justice, Sarah."

  "How can it be proper to kill?"

  Aunt Martha Cline's voice rose. "You preached prayer instead of action to your husband for so long, Sarah! You'd still have all your children if you hadn't. And now you've got Roseanna failing."

  "Roseanna's grieving 'cause she heard Nancy is to wed Frank Phillips. She's grieving for that scoundrel Johnse," Ma said. "All she needs is a tonic."

  Aunt Martha made a scoffing sound. "You live in your own world, Sarah. You always did."

  ***

  I SUPPOSE REVEREND Thompson was kin to me, being father-in-law to my sister. I just couldn't think of a reverend as kin. I had trouble sitting at table with him, watching him eat and talk of everyday things. But it never bothered Trinvilla at all. It was part and parcel of how she'd changed since that day of her wedding, I suppose. She was a full woman at twenty-one, with notions from living in Baltimore, with her own house spread around her, a baby in a cradle, and a lawyer husband. She headed up committees in her father-in-law's church. I'd lost her again before I'd found her. Snobbish, she was. It was the only word I could put to how she acted. Confused as I was, I had to find meaning where I could.

  "How's Roseanna?" Reverend Thompson asked when there was a lull in conversation.

  "Middling," I answered. "Ma can't put a finger on what's ailing her."

  He smiled. "I spoke to Johnse just yesterday."

  I gaped, waiting. Something was coming, I was sure of it.

  "I minister to folk on both sides of the river, Fanny. You must remember that. I take pride that both Hatfields and McCoys trust me. I like to think I've quenched some fires on both sides and kindled some understanding."

  "Yes sir." He was rooting around it like a hound dog. All that talk of quenching and kindling fires. I looked at my sister. Under the soft light of the kerosene lamps, she glowed. Whatever he was getting at she knew about it. Imagine, I thought. Being privy to what a reverend was thinking!

  "Johnse is worried about Roseanna," he said. "He heard she was took sick. And he asked after your ma, too."

  I bridled. "He's got more nerve than a Yankee at a Southern camp meeting," I said. "After they raided our
house that night."

  "Now, now, Fanny," the reverend said soothingly. "Johnse wasn't there that night. I can vouch for that. You think he'd be part of that lulling and maiming? He still loves Roseanna."

  Before I could give my opinion on that bit of hogwash, he went on.

  "Jim Vance attacked your ma. Johnse's brother Cap shot Alifair."

  "Then why have they got Ellison Mounts in prison for it?"

  "Because," he answered softly, "Cap promised Mounts five hundred dollars, a rifle, and a saddle, if he'd take the blame. Promised he'd spring him from jail before they hanged him."

  I stared at the man in disbelief. Then at my sister and Will. Trinvilla smiled in a way that made me want to smack her the way I did when she tattled on me to Alifair. "It's true," she said.

  "What's it all got to do with me?" I asked.

  "In the spirit of Godly forgiveness and forbearance that I myself preach and your sister and brother-in-law practice in this home," the reverend said, "I have a letter to Ro from Johnse. I'd like for you to deliver it to her."

  I felt a blinding light behind my eyes. My head hurt. My food turned to sawdust in my mouth. "Aunt Martha Cline was just this day telling Ma how foolish she was with all her forgiveness and praying," I said. "And how, if she'd let Pa go after the Hatfields sooner, my brothers and Alifair might still be alive."

  Nobody said anything for a minute. Trinvilla made a to-do about pouring coffee. I suppose she learned how to pour real fancylike from all those ladies' meetings she went to in church. She was getting notions, that's what her problem was. Thought she was too good for us anymore.

  "What does Johnse want from Ro?" I asked the preacher.

  "Just to see her. As I said, he's heard she's failing."

  "He loves her still, Fanny," Trinvilla put in.

  I scowled. "I suppose there's no sense in asking why you care, when you always hated Ro."

  Her snide was like a knife. It was kindly but bespoke things between them that I was too young to understand. "We were all children back then, Fanny," she said. "We're all grown now."