Raintree County

by Ross Lockridge

  —About fifteen, twenty minutes, Cash Carney said, consulting his watch. Bride and best man haven’t showed up yet.

  People were still driving up and entering the church. Niles Foster, small, quick-eyed, with bright black hair, got out of a buggy and walked briskly up to the yard. He had a folded newspaper in his hand.

  —Hello, Niles, Grampa Peters said. What’s the latest on the hangin’?

  —We’re just waiting around for the news, Niles said. I’ve got out several special editions already, and I’m all set up and waiting for the dispatch.

  —Reckon anything can save him? a man said.

  —You can’t tell, T. D. said. They may relent at the last minute, or the Governor pardon him. Of course there’s talk too of his being rescued.

  —Not a chance, Cash Carney said. They want that man’s life. They won’t be satisfied till they crack his neck.

  Several more buggies stopped close to the church.

  —Quite a power of folks here for your weddin’, son, Grampa Peters said. It won’t be long now until . . .

  TIME OF EXECUTION BRINGS WILD EXCITEMENT

  (Epic Fragment from the Free Enquirer)

  Many people are coming from all over the country to this little Southern town. The excitement is beyond all comprehension. This correspondent has found it impossible to get a private room in a hotel. A remarkably stout gallows has been constructed especially for the occasion a little way out of town. To this spot hundreds of people gather as if unable to take their eyes off a spot soon to be the scene of an event whose consequences may be fraught with a somber significance in the time to come. As for the several reports that an attempt will be made to rescue Old Brown, this correspondent has been unable to verify any of them or to find anybody who has the slightest information as to any agent whereby such a rescue could be effected. Nevertheless the reports persist and have reached fantastic dimensions. Some say the Negroes are plotting to revolt and to bring off their would-be redeemer. Others say that an Army of Abolitionists will materialize from the crowd surrounding the scaffold. But there is nothing to indicate that such a move is seriously contemplated in any quarter or that, if it is, there is any possibility of its success. John Brown is a doomed man and no one seems to be any more clearly aware of it than he. He does not talk or act like a man who expects or even desires to . . .

  —Live and let live, I say, said Grampa Peters. We’ll git along with the South if we just hang enough of these nigger-lovin’ abolitionists.

  —I’d best go in and see if everything’s all right, T. D. said. Anyway, it went off good in rehearsal.

  —Right smart of you to marry your own boy off, T. D. That’s a sure way to keep ’em respectable.

  Grampa Peters wheezed, belched, and shook Johnny by the shoulder. T. D. walked off toward the church, plucking nervously at his mustache.

  —Now don’t be skeered, boy, Grampa Peters said. Women is all alike after you git ’em untied. This is the wust part of it right now. What gits you is the waitin’. Now I like to see a . . .

  PRISONER CALM AS LAST HOUR APPROACHES

  (Epic Fragment from the Free Enquirer)

  As the time of execution nears, the prisoner’s calm resignation is the admiration even of his gaolers. Still weakened by the wounds received in his audacious undertaking, he is constantly busy talking with visitors and writing letters to friends. There is no reason to suppose that the dignity and calm which he has so far exhibited will desert him on the scaffold. He is reported to have said to one of his visitors: ‘I am far better now to die than to live.’ As for the preparations for the execution proper, much thought has been given to such questions as . . .

  —What do you want done with the body? intoned a deep, familiar voice.

  It was Garwood Jones, coming up the bank, sleek and radiant, chewing a fat cigar, thumbs hooked in a flowered vest.

  —When does the crucifixion start? he said. When do we nail the Hope of Raintree County to the cross?

  —Twenty-five minutes, Cash said. Anyway, we got the best man now.

  —Floral tributes, Garwood said, may be left at the sidedoor of the funeral home. What’s the matter with you, John? You aren’t talking much. Whassa trouble, boy? Nervous?

  —Leave ’im save his strength, Grampa Peters said. He’ll need it. I recollect muh own weddin’ night. I reckon it won’t hurt to tell it, bein’ as how they’s only men present, though the woman’d be fit to be tied if she knowed it.

  —Go on, Grampa, a man said. I heard it a hundred times anyway.

  —Well, sir, Grampa Peters said, there I was a-stampin’ and a-pawin’ and a-roustin’ and a-rootin’ fer that there cerrymony to be over. I was gittin’ so wolfy about the head and shoulders, they had to nearly put me in a salt barl to keep me from spilin’. Young and strong—say, I was a prize bull in them days, boys, and don’t you fergit it.

  —Still pretty good, ain’t you, Grampa? one of the men said.

  WILL HE TALK?

  (Epic Fragment from the Free Enquirer)

  It is noised around through the town that Brown will make a speech on the scaffold. It is reported, also, that he has prepared a last will and testament and has given directions for the disposal of his body. He spent the last few hours writing and praying, leaving this last message to his friends:

  ’I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land: will never be purged away: but with Blood. I had as I now think: vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be . . .’

  —Done left me so etarnally exorsted, Grampa Peters said, that when the boys arrived around two o’clock in the mornin’ to give us a chivaree, I could hardly lift muh shotgun. Wellsirree, they come right up on the front porch a muh cabin—we sot up housekeepin’ over on Bar Creek—and they hollers, Come out a there, Jack Peters, before we pull ye out. Out I come with a shotgun on muh arm. Clear out a here, boys, sez I, do you want to keep all yer parts. I no sooner stuck my head out a the door than somebuddy jumped me from the side and grabbed muh gun. They got me down and tore off what little I had on, and damn if they didn’t ride me on a rail right down to the Crick and in I went. Next thing, here they come and brang the woman down and throwed her in too, leavin’ her nightgown on out of special respeck to the sex. When we got out a there, somebuddy had sot fire to the woods behind the house, and smashed all the winders a the cabin. The boys was drunk and hogwild, and I didn’t know if I was goin’ to git out a there alive. Weilsirree——

  Grampa Peters stopped to pant and light a cigar.

  —In the old days, a man said, it was barely wuth a man’s life to git married. Still, I heerd of a boy got married last summer, he was so bad hurt in the chivaree he couldn’t do his dooty as a husband for three weeks. Reckon they don’t aim to do nothin’ like that to you, John.

  —We mean to deliver him intact, Garwood said. Besides we won’t have a chance. They’re catching a train right after dinner.

  He put his arm over Johnny’s back and winked at Cash. Johnny could smell whiskey.

  —What’s keeping Susanna? Cash Carney said, consulting his watch.

  —Well, I don’t want to be responsible for any wild rumors, Garwood said. It’s just something I heard.

  —What’s that?

  —They say she ran off with another fellow, Garwood said.

  —Now don’t be nervous, boy, Grampa Peters said. They’s lots wuss things ahead of you than gittin’ married.

  Zeke Shawnessy came out of the church and walked over to the group at the wagon.

  —Women are in a fearful fuss in there, he said. No use you goin’ in yet, John. Place all stuffed with flowers in pots.

  A surrey drove up from the direction of Freehaven and stopped. Two Negro girls got out. Susanna stepped down from the back seat. She had a black hooded mantle drawn so close around her head and body that one could see only her face and the train of her gown, which the two Negro girls carried into the church. Small girls gawked, squealed, cl
apped their hands trying to get a glimpse of the bridal gown but without success.

  —Goddernit, there they go, Grampa Peters said, gittin’ the bride so all fixed up a man cain’t hardly tell what he’s gittin’.

  —Is there any advice you’d like to have, sprout? Garwood said. Matrimonial matters openly discussed. Highly important to both sexes.

  —Maybe you better take him along, John, Cash said.

  —At your disposal, son, Garwood said. Perhaps a little demonstration on the new missus by an expert might not be amiss.

  —You better hang out your shingle, Cash said.

  —Skillful deflorations at small charge to the client, Garwood said. Our work is guaranteed unconditionally. If entire satisfaction is not had, we will repeat at no extra charge. We are available at any time. Please do not hesitate to call us in. Anything for a friend.

  —Garwood, you’re drunk, Cash said.

  —By the way, maybe the boy here would like a little slug of this himself. It might help him through.

  Johnny shook his head as Garwood pulled a large flat bottle from his hip pocket.

  —All right, said a woman’s voice from the door of the church. Bring him in.

  —He’s all ready, Garwood said, for . . .

  THE LAST RIDE

  (Epic Fragment from the Free Enquirer)

  The streets of Charles Town were lined with hundreds of people as they took John Brown to the place of execution. Few people said anything, and it was impossible to tell by the silent faces, intently watching the old man, what the sentiment of the crowd was. Brown rode in a cart, sitting on his own coffin. As they drew out of the town and into the open country, approaching the place of execution, he looked about him and said, ‘This is a beautiful country.’ The procession finally stopped. . . .

  At the church door, several women crowded around Johnny and Garwood whispering instructions, fixing flowers in buttonholes.

  —Any last words, Garwood said, folding his hands preacherwise and rolling his eyes, will be appreciated. Some little message that might help others to avoid the same fate.

  When Johnny stepped inside the church, the preliminary strains of nuptial music were wheezing from the footpumped organ down-front. The groom and the best man went along a side aisle, picking their way through the crowd. Johnny had never seen the church so packed: the benches were filled; the side aisles were jammed with people standing; more people were coming all the time and, being unable to get in, were waiting before the church to see the bridal couple come out. Faces of small boys kept goggling through the windows.

  Johnny stood at T. D.’s left with Garwood, waiting for the bride to appear. Since her arrival, Susanna had been closeted with her two attendants in a little cloakroom off the entry hall. It was she who had planned the wedding and directed the rehearsal.

  —I want Uncle Garwood to be best man, she had said, and I want to walk down the middle aisle all by myself.

  The wait was a long one. The white light of the church made Johnny’s eyes smart. He let his gaze wander nervously over the crowd. The women looked peculiarly intent. Their eyes were beady; they licked their lips, leering expectantly.

  Suddenly he realized that this ceremony was not really for him. It was for Raintree County. The Perfessor’s comments on marriage in a recent letter came to his mind. To this ancient human usage, Raintree County conformed with a peculiar ferocity. All these women had come here to reassert their subtle dominion over the conscience of the County. They had come in their great gowns and petticoats and fussy hats to reaffirm the County’s most sacred institution, the Family. The mystic rite of marriage, in which Johnny Shawnessy seemed to himself hardly more than a stage-prop, was a guarantee that the Family would survive triumphant and that everything which tended to undermine its dominion would be put down.

  In the beginning, God had said, Let there be the Family, and there was the Family. But God had also said, Let the Family be brought forth in sorrow, for the crime of lustful love. And even today in Raintree County, it must not be admitted that life was conceived in an act of pleasure. To admit that might endanger the existence of the Family. The County sanctified procreation, but not the procreative act. The Christian religion, which ordained the Family and guaranteed its preservation, had been founded by the virgin birth of an immaculate conception. Thus, deep in the County’s culture was the belief that all sexual congress was a crime, and those who were permitted to indulge that pleasant and necessary crime must be implacably reminded of its consequences, perquisites, and responsibilities.

  Let the girl that is now become a woman no longer flaunt her young body before the eyes of the young men. Let her no longer make herself too beautiful, too alluring. Unsex her, and let her get quickly to the production of children. Let her now become a mother, symbol of the home.

  Let the young man who enters into this pact no longer look with longing on the form of beauty. Now he will have one brief, reluctant morning. He will have one long farewell.

  Yet the old pagan frenzy was still there and not to be concealed. The County gathered for this mystic rite to gratify an ancient craving. It forbade the nuptial embrace before the nuptials, but as soon as they were consummated the embrace became mandatory and unavoidable. Half the women in the church were now permitted to remember how they had themselves been victims of a legal rape on the marriage night.

  All these faces that Johnny now saw, these leering, gleaming, happy faces, reflected the intense human curiosity in the mystic rite of love. They replaced a more ancient assemblage in which the community actively took part in the joining of lovers.

  In Raintree County, we are civilized. Let there be no more of the laying on of hands and the sacrificial rupture of the hymen by the priest, attired in the habit of a god with great bird beak or costume woven of corn. Let the lusty males of the tribe, themselves initiates, not assist in this violation, one after another, while the cheated groom beholds the ritual defloration of his beloved. In Raintree County, we are civilized and refined, and though there may be a little rough fun after the ceremony, we do not permit ourselves to run amuck.

  So they all sat and waited with Johnny for the entrance of the bride-to-be, albeit in this instance the County didn’t look with entire favor on the proceedings because the bride was an out-of-county girl. The nuptial embrace, in which the whole congregation was assisting in fancy, was not quite so intimately communal as if it had been Nell Gaither or someone like that. Besides there was a rumor that the ceremony wasn’t the only part of the marital adventure which the lovers had rehearsed in advance.

  The organ went on wailing and squeeching, and Garwood and Johnny began to shift from foot to foot.

  —Goddammit, Garwood said under his breath, what’s keeping her?

  Just then there was a disturbance in the crowded entryway. The organist took a quick look and plowed through a series of painful discords into the opening strains of the wedding march. The congregation unashamedly craned heads around and stretched necks to see.

  A gasp went through the crowded little church of Danwebster.

  Susanna was coming through the back door and down the aisle. Her glistening coarse black hair fell in waves down her back. But the real sensation was her dress. The skirt was enormously emphasized, a circular bell of cloth and froth, whitely wound on bone and wire. Out of this shot cleanly the supple stalk of Susanna’s waist, sheathed in white satin that flowed plastically on the lithe contours of her flesh, just catching the soft points of her shoulders and barely containing the abundance of her nodding breasts. Exposed for all to see was a faint scar extending from her throat in a curious curve to the left breast.

  —Dearly beloved, T. D. said in a far, foggy voice, smiling sweetly and rocking so far back on his heels that Johnny was afraid he would fall down, we are gathered together . . .

  ON THE SCAFFOLD

  (Epic Fragment from the Free Enquirer)

  The condemned man mounted the scaffold with little assistance from his attend
ants. He did not make any speech. He did not delay his executioners. But the swinging off was unaccountably delayed for many minutes while troops of the Virginia militia paraded ostentatiously in the open space before the scaffold. During this time Brown maintained a stoical calm. Then the deathcap was fitted over his head, and the rope was placed around his neck. He stood on the greased trap. His time had come. The State of Virginia was about to close its case against John Brown. A man stood with hatchet raised ready to cut . . .

  —That cord ought to hold good, Grampa Peters said. Your patied it good.

  Standing inside the churchdoor with Susanna, Johnny stuck his finger into his high collar, which was much too tight. While he shook hands with Grampa Peters, Garwood Jones, heading a line of grinning young men, kissed the bride with prolonged zest. As the other young men came off the kissing line, Garwood gave each one a snort from his bottle, meanwhile shouting exhortation and encouragement.

  —Get a good long one, Bob. John won’t mind.

  —Don’t let go yet, Ezry. There’s plenty more where that came from.

  —O.K., Slim, that’s enough. After all, you’re not her uncle.

  Garwood went around and got another kiss on the strength of his avuncular relationship.

  —After all, I am the best man, he said, and everyone applauded and laughed because everyone in Raintree County considered Garwood Jones a wonderful guy.

  There was a big dinner afterwards at the Shawnessy home for relatives and friends. The bride and groom were given seats of honor where they sat blushing in bridal costume and hardly eating. Around them, a great many hungry people gobbled the fat of the County—huge plates of fried chicken, platters full of steaming mashed potatoes, gobs of butter, pots of greasy vegetables, slabs of pie. Johnny had never seen so much eating before except at funerals. Dozens of people he had never met or only vaguely remembered came up, wrung his hand, hit him on the back, claimed relationship with him, and introduced squads of frecklefaced, mat-haired children, as if to impress him with the implications of the thing that he had done. In this wreak and wrangle of faces, voices, laughter, food, handshaking, backslapping, kissing, crying, and singing, Johnny felt that he and his bride were in danger of being swamped. It seemed he had not simply married an alien girl with black hair and a scar on her breast, but the whole of Raintree County.