Jacob's Ladder: A Story of Virginia During the War

by Donald McCaig

  Samuel Gatewood’s guests’ servants were celebrating with their fellows. At the end of the lane, one of Andrew Seig’s field hands was inspecting the hog slow-roasting over a bed of coals. He kept his hands folded behind his back, ostentatiously resisting temptation. Aunt Opal visited from cabin to cabin. Franky and Dinah Williams perched on the seat of a worn-out dump rake. Though all the cabins had wooden floors, only Jack the Driver’s cabin, at the head of the lane, boasted a modest front porch, where Uncle Agamemnon sat rocking. Uncle Agamemnon claimed to be a hundred years old and maybe he was, because he remembered Africa and could talk to you in its language.

  Jesse Burns said, “How you gettin’ on, Uncle? I’m Jesse, Maggie’s husband.”

  The old man was dark skin over skeleton. His tiny black eyes sparked. “Come up and sit, son.”

  “Thank you, Uncle.”

  In his twenty-sixth year, Jesse Burns was muscled like a bull calf, veins and sinew prominent, each in right proportion. It graveled some white men the way Jesse stood as though he had an absolute right to take up the space he took, to breathe the air he breathed.

  When he was twelve years old, Jesse was already doing a man’s work. By eighteen some SunRise sports wagered that Jesse could outpull a light drafter and would have put the matter to the test had not Uther Botkin forbade it. The irises of Jesse’s large eyes were light tan, and though he neither dipped snuff nor touched liquor, the whites were yellowish.

  Uncle Agamemnon occupied the Quarters’ sole rocker, which had adorned the Gatewoods’ porch until it wore out. Mended, it sufficed to hold one frail old man who didn’t weigh as much as his years. Jesse sat on the crackerbox beside him.

  “You seek something of me,” the old man said. “The name of something, nkisi, to help you.”

  Jesse lowered his head. “Yes, Uncle,” he said. Jesse had been taught by rationalist Uther Botkin, and asking this old conjure man for help shamed him. Two women waited, out of earshot, in the street with letters they had brought for Jesse to read. Jesse spoke softly. “Uncle . . . can you help me? My woman, Maggie, she will not come to my bed.”

  The old man’s toothless smile. “Grow old, you will no longer want her,” he suggested. “Can’t you wait?” After a pause, the old man relented. “Bring me red flannel and four new needles and I will make you a charm.” Loudly, and with audible satisfaction, the old man called to the waiting women, “What do you want? Why have you come? To read white man’s marks?” He snorted and spat and rather grandly drew a feed sack over his shoulders and closed his eyes.

  While the old man dozed, people brought Jesse their letters. “Dear Ellie, I am still at this place . . .” “Darling husband, I have not heard from you in such a spell. Are you still with Gatewoods?” “My dearest, we have been so long separated that today I jump over the broomstick with Dell a woman on this plantation. She is carrying my child. She is a hard worker. She is plain-featured, and a good Christian.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jesse said.

  “What you got to be sorry about?” The woman snatched her letter back.

  When bid, Jesse replied in his florid hand, on cheap paper which could be folded to serve as its own envelope.

  Children ran hooting and hollering between the cabins.

  Jack the Driver gave a gaily painted tin box to Rufus. “You let the young’uns fire these off, but Rufus, have a care.”

  Rufus dipped into the box for a string of ladycrackers and flipped it into the hog fire, where it exploded coals and soot into the air, to the children’s delight and the hog cook’s indignation.

  “I’d like to talk with you, Jesse,” Jack the Driver said.

  Jesse patted the porch where his letter writers sat, but Jack shook his head no. “Inside,” he said. He called, “Franky, you bring us some of that tea you got brewin’.”

  More ladycrackers chittered as Jack ushered Jesse into the cabin. It contained a straw pallet against the back wall, rolled up so you could sit on it, a chifforobe (doors missing) beside the sprung thirty-gallon cask which served as a table, and two handmade wooden stools, legs guyed by rawhide. The wool jacket hanging in the chifforobe was Jack’s now, but had been Catesby Byrd’s. Jack took a stool and waited until Jesse took the other.

  Franky presented battered teacups as if they were finest china. “These mine. Don’t you bust them now.”

  After each man took a suitably cautious sip, Franky left.

  Jack the Driver said, “I ain’t never had no young buck who worked better’n you or mooned around so much neither. What’s the matter with you, boy?”

  “I expect you know.”

  Jack did, but didn’t intend to have that knowledge thrown up to him. “Master Duncan comin’ home today.”

  “I wish to hell he’d stayed away.”

  “Don’t you go blaspheming, boy. Ain’t no blaspheming in my house.”

  Jesse stared into his handleless teacup.

  After a time, Jack the Driver began, “I come here with Maggie when she come to this place. She weren’t nothin’ but a pickaninny then. The Mitchells in Warm Springs was where we was before. Me and her and Auntie Opal. I sleep in the horse barn with the bridles and saddles. Maggie’s mamma sleep in the big house, which is how she gets into trouble.”

  “What trouble?”

  “Trouble with the master. For a colored gal, worst trouble there is!”

  The tea was mostly hot water, but Jesse took another respectful sip.

  “You see that hog out there?” Jack said.

  “Fine hog, mighty fine hog.”

  “And we got deer hams for tomorrow which Master Gatewood and Master Byrd hunted on the mountain. Great big ol’ deer hams!”

  Jack was making Jesse nervous. When people beat around the bush, usually they want you to do something that doesn’t make good sense.

  Jack smacked his lips over his tea. “How many drivers you know don’t carry no bullwhip?” he asked. “That’s ’cause Master Gatewood don’t care for no whip. Been two years, more, since the bullwhip come out at Stratford.”

  “I never had no man lay a whip on me. I don’t know how I’d take it,” Jesse said.

  “Then you one lucky nigger,” Jack said. “You want more tea to drink?”

  Jesse stood up. “Thank you for your kindness, Mr. Jack. People outside waitin’ on me.”

  “Sit down, boy. I ain’t done.” Jack wiped his lips on the back of his hand. “You see this sock? Knit by Miss Abigail her ownself. Look at these nubbins on the outside—outside—so they don’t rasp at my feet. And you know what I find in the toe of this here sock? A silver dollar! The master he just give it to me.”

  “What was you wantin’ from me?”

  “That you keep yourself from bein’ foolish. That you don’t lose the chance you has here. Colored woman not like white woman. Colored woman got no choice who she take up with.”

  “Maggie’s my woman. We jump the broomstick together.”

  “But you ain’t happy and she ain’t neither. Why you don’t take up with some other woman? That Franky gal ripe as a new peach.”

  When Jesse went blank, Jack realized that Jesse’s face was just as big as the rest of him.

  “Maggie’ll come to care for me bye ’n’ bye,” Jesse said carefully. “I’m good to her all the time. Baby Jacob, he’s not mine but he will be. Your daddy’s whoever decides to be your daddy, not the fellow sowed the seed. Hell, I never knew . . .”

  “Don’t allow no cursin’ in this house.”

  “I never did know who my daddy was. Old Uther’s been as much daddy as I have, and he’s white. I’ll be Jacob’s daddy one day. Don’t tell me about that Franky gal. I don’t want to lie with her. I lie down with Maggie when she’s willin’.”

  “Don’t you go spoilin’ things. Ain’t been no servant sold from Strat-ford Plantation since I been here. Master got work for all of us—more work ’n he got hands to do it. Time Master Duncan comes into his own, I be like Uncle Agamemnon on the porch, rockin’ an
d snorin’. I gonna die right here on Stratford Plantation. Uncle Agamemnon don’t work no more, but he get a shirt every year, same as me, and he eat hog meat, same as me, and some of the womens they cut it up small for him.”

  “Stratford’s a fine place to be a nigger, all right. Mr. Jack, you’re a fair driver, and you set me a task, I do it. But me and Maggie, we are man and wife, and the Bible says that no man comes betwixt us.” He stood. “I believe I got more letters to write. Maggie be along directly. She’s restin’ with the baby.”

  Jesse marched outside. “How many of you want somethin’ writ? I don’t do love letters. You want love letters, you got to ask somebody else.”

  Later that afternoon, from the head of his dining table, Samuel Gatewood inspected his guests with eyes softened by his own excellent eggnog. This was what it meant for a man, by dint of his labors, to have created a competency. So many nights he had lain awake worrying: would the railroad be satisfied with his sleepers, would the crops come, might he and his son reconcile?

  Samuel Gatewood felt like a mariner who’d charted a course through perilous seas and brought his boat, almost, into safe harbor. Stratford Plantation was prosperous, and necessary improvements would occupy him until his dying day. His family, white and black, hummed with contentment. His only daughter, Leona, was safely married. Although upon his arrival today Duncan had seemed sullen, he had obeyed Samuel’s summons to come home for Christmas. Surely Samuel could take that as a favorable omen. Surely Duncan could be persuaded of his own best interests. Samuel was willing to forgive everything. The gift he’d ordered for his son had arrived at the Millboro depot just last week, just in time!

  Soft winter light cast its benison on kinfolk and friends. Samuel Gatewood swallowed the lump in his throat and tapped a spoon against his glass. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I’ve never heard a nobler toast than George Washington’s: ‘Our friends!’ ”

  “Our friends!”

  “Samuel, our friends!”

  His son got to his feet. Duncan said, “And I offer a second toast. Ladies, gentlemen—to South Carolina, the world’s newest and bravest independent nation. May Virginia soon follow her lead!”

  Andrew Seig and two other men stood. After glancing at Samuel Gatewood, Catesby remained seated.

  The hand with which Duncan offered his glass tremored.

  Deliberately, Samuel Gatewood rose. “My son’s new fervor for politics distinguishes him.” He lifted his glass. “To our friends and kinfolk in South Carolina. Let us pray they have made a wise decision.”

  “And so say all of us.” Andrew Seig gulped his brandy.

  “Hurrah for our dear hostess, my mother-in-law, Abigail Gatewood,” Catesby cried. “Now where is that scoundrel Pompey?”

  With prodigious ceremony, Pompey ferried a roast of beef from the sideboard, and conversation resumed while his master carved.

  As swiftly as Pompey removed a dish from the sideboard to the table, other servants replaced it. A roast goose nestled between a brace of ducks, the smoked ham had hung in Gatewood’s meathouse since the year of Cox’s snow; there was a venison tenderloin baked in red wine and juniper berries, scotch eggs, a lamb fricassee, and two pork pies. There were white potatoes, sweet potatoes, dilled cucumbers, an apple-and-carrot casserole, baked squash, pumpkin soup, diced turnips in butter, winter spinach, and cress gathered just that morning from Strait Creek spring. There was light bread and cornbread and biscuits. There were pies: apple, mince, pumpkin, buttermilk, pecan. And there were more cakes than pies! Ten of the best beeswax candles were pickets of light down the dining table, and each piece of Grandmother Gatewood’s silver shone like a new sun.

  During Christmas mouth, the valley plantations paid calls. Stratford visited Warwick Christmas Eve, and Samuel Gatewood was the first across the door lintel at Hidden Valley (that front door kept bolted to hold good luck in until the Gatewoods’ arrival) on New Year’s. But Christmas Day was reserved for family, white and black, unto the fourth cousin once removed and the lonely spinster aunt who must have been related to Cousin Edward but nobody remembered exactly how.

  Stratford’s dining table had been increased by six leaves, so that Mistress Abigail Gatewood, seated at the foot, had her back scant inches from the front window, and Samuel Gatewood, at the head, was pressed against the china closet, which would have made serving impossible had not every last piece of silver been exhausted from its drawers, every plate previously laid out. The door through which the servants brought dishes from the kitchen house swung open and closed, open and closed.

  Catesby Byrd sat at Samuel Gatewood’s right hand. Duncan, in uniform—white trousers, dark gray jacket, black stock at his throat—was farther down the table. To Duncan’s left was Aunt Sadie, who, having lost hearing at the advanced age of eighty-one, had abandoned speech as well, and hovered over her plate of soft vegetables as if only her strictest attention would prevent their flight. Duncan turned to his other partner. “You’ll be Alexander Kirkpatrick. Congratulations on your marriage, sir. Sallie’s a fine girl. I’ve known her all my life.”

  “Ah yes, young Gatewood. Your attire, sir. Do we fear military alarms?”

  “This rig?” Duncan grinned. “This was to show Father his money wasn’t altogether wasted. Likely to be plenty boys in uniform before long. Boys at the Institute expect Mississippi and Alabama to secede before the year is out.”

  Kirkpatrick lifted a slice of beef, inspected it, replaced it to pare away a scrap of fat. “You favor secession, sir?”

  “I figure we came into this union voluntarily and we can come out of it should we choose to.” He took a roll. “You’re a professor, I hear.”

  “I am not presently employed. As you may know, your father had our modest home built. Since I have no practical skills, I am grateful.” Kirkpatrick speared a roasted potato.

  “You’re educated! Just the sort of man we need in Virginia. Why, old Tom Jefferson thought so high of education . . .”

  “I am acquainted with Mr. Jefferson’s views. My father-in-law is his devotee.”

  Heedlessly, young Duncan rushed on. “There are civilians who teach at the Institute. Old Gummy Stewart, he teaches French and German; he’s never fought a war. And Washington College down the road, there aren’t any soldiers at that school. That was Father’s college. Why, I bet he’d recommend you. Father’s fond of Sallie. So are we all. If you were to come to Lexington, I’ll bet you could find a position.”

  “I have not found that Virginians, as a people, appreciate a superior education. Not only do they shun it themselves but they reproach their children should the poor creatures incline toward acquiring one. They disdain those who, like myself, have taken the trouble to complete a course of studies. Virginius Rusticus prefers unlettered traditions to knowledge.”

  Duncan put down his fork, and a cool smile fastened to his mouth. “You are my father’s guest, sir,” he said.

  Across the table, Elmo Hevener and Andrew Seig were arguing the merits of a horse the latter had at stud. Seig had bred Duncan’s Gypsy, and Duncan turned to their congenial conversation.

  Roast followed roast, and then the Christmas pastries were succeeded by a plum pudding. Dusk smote at the windows, helpless to dim the cheer inside. Mistress Abigail’s cheeks bloomed, and she wouldn’t have traded places with any of her Tidewater kinfolk; no, not with any fine lady in the Commonwealth. She and Mrs. Hevener debated the proper amount of sherry to flavor a Christmas cake (Mistress Abigail: two gills; Mrs. Hevener: a Methodist pint).

  Duncan Gatewood had no more than two glasses of wine. His father, Samuel, had drunk more than his accustomed portion. Afterward everyone agreed about that.

  Long shadows darkened Stratford’s fields when the gentlemen stepped onto the porch. Andrew Seig saluted the season with both barrels of his shotgun. Honest Uther Botkin piped a cheer and contributed a shot from a pistol which had begun life as half of a dueling set but had fallen on hard times.

  Samuel Ga
tewood balanced a mahogany box on the porch rail before extracting a square-framed blue-black revolver from the box’s velvet interior.

  Smoothly he aimed, and BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM and the thump of each ball striking the white oak fell hard on the heels of its discharge.

  “This is one of Mr. Colt’s Hartford pistols.” Gatewood’s soft words filled the aching silence after his fusillade. From the Quarters (which had gone still) came a single bitter yell.

  “What a splendid, terrible instrument,” Uther Botkin exclaimed. “What a century we have made.”

  Samuel Gatewood latched the case before presenting it to his son. “May you never require this weapon. But if you do, may you use it in defense of home, family, honor . . .” Samuel groped for more graceful words but failed to find them. “. . . and Virginia’s hallowed traditions,” he concluded.

  Duncan also did the best he could. “Thank you, sir. Few cadets possess anything so fine.”

  Another whoop from the Quarters rang off the mountain.

  “The attachment between a Christian father and his son must outweigh every other,” Samuel Gatewood said.

  Catesby Byrd frowned.

  Samuel paid him no heed. Turning to his guests, he said, “Gentlemen, though I discourage strong spirits amongst my servants, in my experience denying spirits entirely is more disruptive than a modest holiday issue. Now we must broach their holiday cask. Duncan, you will accompany me.”

  “Sir?”

  “Come.”

  In the Quarters, children were tossing inflated pig bladders hoarded all year for this occasion.

  In swap for his letter writing, Jesse had a one-pound sack of best ground cornmeal, a pair of handmade suspender tabs, and a woman’s promise to mend any shirt he might need mended. Maggie sat beside him on the porch, chin in her hand. The dress she’d fashioned from Miss Abigail’s drapes dragged in the dirt, but she paid no mind. Baby Jacob lay flat in her lap, washed, swaddled, and wrapped against the cold. “You takin’ the Botkins home after?”