Raintree County

by Ross Lockridge

  Nell filled his glass, and when Garwood tossed it off to confirm the statement just made, she filled it up again.

  A little later Garwood was standing and trying to make a speech, though the Savoy-Rialto was beginning to be very noisy, with a number of officers on furlough singing regimental songs.

  —Garwood’s pretty tight, isn’t he? Johnny said.

  —Terrible, Nell said, thoughtfully, as she refilled Garwood’s empty glass. I’ve never seen him this way before.

  —I don’t think he can stand much more, Johnny said. Do you think we can get him home?

  It was around twelve o’clock that Nell and Johnny helped Garwood up the steps and out into the street where they hailed a carriage. Garwood peeled a greenback from his roll and told the driver he was hired for the night.

  —I feel like riding, he said. O, night, o, stars! Nothing’s too good for our boy John.

  Five minutes later, he was out cold. Johnny and the carriage driver deposited Garwood at his bachelor’s quarters, where a young lawyer received the body with equanimity.

  —Just put it over there, boys. Never saw Garwood so pied before. You know, he really doesn’t drink much. Too golderned ambitious.

  When Johnny and Nell were alone in the carriage, they didn’t say much for a while.

  —I guess you—you intend to marry Garwood, Johnny said.

  —He keeps asking me, Nell said. But I don’t know——

  They put their heads back on the seat of the carriage and let the wind stream over them as they rode on rivers of the night toward the place where the gaslamps came together.

  —I wish you weren’t going off to the War, Johnny.

  —Going off to the War seems to be one of the nicest things I’ve ever done, Johnny said.

  —Maybe they’ll put you in camp around here, Nell said, at Shanks or somewhere.

  —Would you like that?

  —Yes, I would, Johnny, Nell said gravely.

  Her hair had been blown down by the wind, and she raised her arms to lift it and put it back. As they passed a gaslamp, her eyes glowed greenly and then darkly. She took a pin from her mouth. He put his arms around her little waist and felt how gently her face swayed toward him. Her bare arms circled his neck and pulled his face down to hers.

  Desire. Desire was of the river and the pale flesh that moved in a green pool of the river. Desire.

  He had come back to Raintree County sooner than he had expected, had come back briefly to his older memory of it, had become again the poet and possessor of its beauty. The river ran, a sinuous green, swelling and swelling between treebordered banks to heatblurred horizons. He would climb up again with a slow stroking of oars to the summit of that serpent water, glide upward in the swooning heat, upward to where the river joined the lake, to where with a slow anguish the strong waters found their way through marsh and shallow, tarn and tangling swamp into the tepid pool of Paradise, in the very center of Raintree County. Oft was I weary when I toiled with thee.

  Desire! He would know desire, noontide young desire beside the river. O, he would dig his hands into the tingling earth of the twin mounds. He would breathe grass and warm earth in the sunshine, clover and cut hay and dandelions. He would rise and run through cloverstubble toward the third mound, the flowering one a little way off. His cheeks would be raked with a thousand tingling tips of shaken hair beside the river.

  He would return to Lake Paradise. Somewhere here the tawny tree was standing, bright pollen fell at noontime by the river.

  He would also be the runner through a public place, the stringbreaker, applauded by thousands. He would not stop but keep right on until he reached the place of secret waters, thrust to the very quick of life, his form softly flayed and flung by the vines and the beautiful flowers, the tall tough weeds and the odorous grasses in the place where the Raintree grows.

  Make way, make way for the Hero of Raintree County! Make way for the young god with sunlight in his hair! He has humbled himself and performed great labors, he has been chastened, he has starved and wanted food—shall he not have at last the golden apples? Make way for the Hero of Raintree County!

  Johnny and Nell held on to each other as if they were afraid something was about to separate them forever, and even when he handed her down from the carriage in front of the little white house on Pennsylvania Avenue, they couldn’t say good night.

  —Do you think your aunt will mind your being out so late, Nell?

  —Aunt loves Garwood, Nell said. I’ll tell her it was Garwood that had me out late.

  —This is pretty hard on Garwood, Johnny said. Not that he doesn’t deserve it.

  —He said the evening was on him, Nell said. Poor Garwood.

  —Tell me one thing, Johnny said. Are you going to go on saying no to him?

  —Yes, I will, Johnny. For a while.

  —You understand, Nell, my marriage still stands in the eyes of the law. There isn’t anything that can be done about it, even if Susanna is hundreds of miles away from here, and I never see her again. She’s started back to her family already, you know. We managed to get a passage for her through the lines. It was her own wish. It’s all a closed book, but I can’t forget having read it.

  —I understand, Johnny.

  They walked silently arm in arm to the back of the house. When he started to kiss her good-by, she clung to him.

  —I don’t want to let you go, Johnny, she said. I’m afraid.

  —So am I.

  —Where are you going tonight?

  —I don’t know. I haven’t a room yet.

  —I hate to let you go. I’m afraid something will happen to you.

  —Nothing will happen to me, dear.

  —Johnny, I love you so much. Why don’t you come in with me for a while? If Aunt isn’t awake, we can slip in. I have my own place up the back stair.

  It seemed to Johnny Shawnessy, standing in the July dark, that life had decided to be good to him again. It was time to be affirmative and forget conventions. Let the wounded republic of war and moral obligation reclaim him on the morrow: tonight he would lose himself in the sweet republic of love. He would have a reluctant, last good night, a long farewell.

  They slipped around to the back of the house, and Nell went up on the back porch stealthily and pushed open the door.

  Aunt was up. She turned up a huge lamp, and Johnny could see a wattled, proper face peering out into the night. Nell gave a sharp gasp, and then said,

  —O, dear, Aunt, I’m so glad you’re up. Just a minute, and I’ll tell Mr. Shawnessy. We’ve been working late at the Commission to get off a rush order of bandages. Garwood was busy and had his friend Mr. Shawnessy bring me safe home. Aunt Hepzibah, Mr. Shawnessy.

  —Good evening, Ma’am, Johnny said. Pleased to meet you.

  —Good morning, young man, Aunt Hepzibah said.

  —I’ll be right in, Aunt, Nell said. Mr. Shawnessy, I think you have my purse.

  She stepped down off the porch, while Aunt retired.

  —I’m sorry, Johnny. Isn’t that bad luck! But you’ll call on me again, won’t you?

  —Sure. Of course, the Army gets me today.

  —You’ll get a leave or something, Nell said. And the War can’t last forever. Especially now that we’ve found each other again, Johnny.

  Johnny didn’t get Under the Raintree that night; yet he had the most intense possession of a person he had ever known. He walked for ten minutes before he remembered that he didn’t have a place to stay for the night. A memory of the afternoon came punctually back to him, and he hunted up the Greer House.

  It was a dive.

  Inside, the clerk was sound asleep on a couch, and the lobby was empty. Johnny found Flash Perkins’ name and room number in the register. He walked up to the second floor and knocked on a door. He could hear voices and laughter in the room.

  After a significant pause, the door opened, and Flash Perkins stuck his face out. He had on his big Western hat and from what Johnny could s
ee, nothing else.

  —Jumpin’ Jehosaphat! Flash said. Jack Shawnessy!

  He looked perplexed for a moment, his eyes childlike and troubled. Then the fierce smile came back, and the skin on his forehead ridged up.

  —Listen, I got a dame in here.

  —O, Johnny said. Excuse me, I——

  —Shucks, no bother at all! Flash said. She’s a good sport. Mabel, meet my old friend, Jack Shawnessy, same place I come from, one a the smartest son-of-a——

  —Don’t bother, Johnny said quickly. I just came to tell you I’ve got a place to stay for the night and I’ll see you tomorrow, so long.

  As Johnny walked down the hall, he heard Flash Perkins yelling after him,

  —Hey, come on back, pardner! Have a little drink with Mabel and I. Cuss it, it’s our last day, ain’t it, before we sojer! Hell, I figger we’re entitled to . . .

  A SOLDIER’S FAREWELL

  (Epic Fragment from the Free Enquirer)

  It is a heart-warming and spine-tingling sight to see, this leavetaking of young men for the unpredictable hazards of war. The most pulchritudinous damsels of the community attired in their Sunday best come down to the station to see them off. And many manly young brows receive the chaste kiss of parting, the tribute due

  TO THOSE WHO ARE ABANDONING

  ALL THAT THEY

  HOLD

  —DEAR me, whispered the Perfessor, the General goes right on acting as if he were in the middle of a Civil War battle.

  The banquet was over, and the General was addressing the crowd. He stood like a boxer, left foot forward, right shoulder back. His words came in short hard bursts, as though he were barking commands or trying to shout above cannon. His pauses were decisive and rhythmical, but often without conformity to the grammatical pattern of his sentences.

  —I am reminded—he was saying, looking at my old—comrades of the Grand—Army of the Republic——

  Applause came from the two hundred people who had been eating at the banquet tables. As the sound of the clapping roared and subsided, the General kept his chin high, his martial eye fixed on a distant point. His right hand crept to his coat and slipped two inches inside.

  —I am reminded of—the great effort necessary—to form and fashion—the noble instrument—with which in her hour of peril—the Republic was saved. In these days of peace—it is hard to conceive—the monstrous labors—by which this country was preserved one Nation—indissoluble—with Freedom—and Justice for All!

  The General thrust his hand unashamedly all the way into his coat and waited for the applause to die.

  Then did you fight in that old war to preserve the Union? Were you a soldier and . . .

  —Brave men are not—moulded in battle only. The fashioning of a soldier—is a long and costly—and strenuous process. We had to take men—from every walk of life—shopkeepers, farmboys—teachers, students, factory workers—and hammer them into shape. In the sanguinary glories of combat—we are likely to forget—the long hours of drill—the frequent sickness—the prolonged watches—the rough comradeship and complete democracy—of the training period. Perhaps we even complained a little——

  Laughter began at the Veterans’ Table and ran lightly over the swaying faces in the schoolhouse yard.

  —But somehow there emerged—from this period—the survivors—the strong of heart—the sound of limb—the men who fought—for freedom and the flag—from Shiloh to Savannah!

  Applause in the schoolhouse yard was a brief beating of hands in the immensity of the plain through which the National Road pierced thinly, its progress marked by telegraph lines that distantly touched the earth.

  —Those hours of camp were not—without their memories of fun—and boisterous comradeship—and in the alembic of time—even the dark—shines with a kind of brightness—as we—veterans now of the greatest armed—force ever assembled on—the face of the earth—the lone survivors of—those scenes, remember . . .

  Tents beside the river, and faces of soldiers on green plains beside the river. Remember.

  Faces of dead men, you are gone like light words or the forms of flowers, you that were once young in the harsh day beside the river.

  Faces of comrades, faces of tenters, I remember your mobile and changing expressions. For you I shall build a private monument of recollection. For you the greatest shaft ever erected by mankind! For you great wreaths of stone and the stone mouths of cannon and petrifactions of beauty!

  Say, did you fight in that Great War for the Preservation of——Did you know such a one named——Did you camp by the river called——Did you know so and so who is——

  I remember swimmers in rivers, bodies of young men stripped of names, bathing in the webbed waters of the Republic. I remember beauty, corruption, death beside the river. I will strike a tableau that never appeared on stone. I will wind the river through it, and there shall stand upon it a city of tents that is gone forever, the little city of a homely name.

  You shall have your poet and your sculptor of forms, you lost young men, whose names I remember. You shall not any one die. You shall be stone, and the tides of the Republic will flow forever past the base of your shaft.

  Tell me then, did you—fight in that Great—War for the Saving of—the American Republic and—do you remember

  Summer—1863

  WHAT FACES HE SAW IN THE CAMPS, WHAT HOURS HE SPENT MARCHING AND DRILLING,

  what names he heard, what jokes he laughed at, what hours and hours he lay at night on a hard cot wishing, what letters he wrote and received, what endless talk he listened to of home, girls, food, politics, news—all this was recorded in the diary of his memory, day by day, during the summer that he trained for the fighting. All this was part of the gray debris of the War as he knew it, all this was part of the process by which confusion became a kind of form, by which the Republic made men into soldiers. During this time he became almost as nameless as when he crept out on the savage side of Lake Paradise and sought desire Under the Raintree, flaying it down with a branch of golden pollen. By that other namelessness he had lost Raintree County for a time, but by this namelessness, he became more fully than ever before a creature of the County, or of that vast extension of it—the Republic. The clothing that he wore was the badge of his alliance to the County, as surely as nakedness was the badge of his alliance to the earth. In his soldier suit he acknowledged oneness with the Republic and with his comrades. He lost himself in them as they in him. He lived for them and was in some measure indistinguishable from them. A whole republic of Raintree Counties had bequeathed these integers to the sum of the Army. And though there was a part of him that remained deeply rooted in the old life, he was amazed by how quickly he blended into the colorless, inchoate mass of the Army. Only so could a soldier be soldier and survive. Only so could the Republic be served. For a time he ceased to be critical of the beliefs that he had set himself to defend. He became naïve, acquiescent; he was content for a while to be the instrument of an idea, instead of its engenderer.

  And yet it was an intensely individual experience that he had in the Army. It was somehow all conducted in the purest Johnny Shawnessy tradition. And if he had been obliged to choose from his memories of the training period one to be graven into stone, as worthy to survive from all the others, it would have been a casual and rather unsoldierly experience that he had about three weeks after he began his training.

  That day five tentmates had been set to digging holes in the ground at the far side of Camp Shanks. Several hundred yards distant were buildings and tents, an orderly pattern lying beside the river outside Indianapolis. In the heat of the August afternoon, he could see the first lowlying houses of the city, farmhouses on an entering road, and trees along the river. Through the trees, the cold green water shone.

  For three weeks he had been living in the camp, eating, working, drilling. He and the other soldiers walked in long rows together with poles on their shoulders and moved their hands, heads, feet all together a
t barked commands. They wore suits that were all alike, got up and went to bed all at the same time, touched their stiffened hands to their foreheads in the same way. Everything was punctual and precise. There was a way to do everything. But today this rigorous pattern of life was clearly ephemeral, like the brown tents and wooden barracks that would some day vanish, giving the earth here back to itself. For that matter, the distant city had a temporary look. Only the land looked permanent, and the river flowing among the trees.

  —Cuss it! Flash Perkins said. You even have to crap by the book. I don’t know about the rest of you bastards, but I’m fed up with the Army. Right now, I’d sure like a souse in that river.

  The soldiers stopped working and looked at the river. Besides Johnny, there were three other men, tentmates. Thomas Conwell was a calm, thinfaced boy from an upstate farm. Nate Franklin was a husky, beardless boy from a farm close to the Ohio River. Jesse Gardner was a city-bred boy from Indianapolis, where he had been a bankclerk and an exemplary member of the Methodist Church. Like the majority of trainees, they were all three under eighteen. Johnny felt old by comparison, and Flash Perkins, who was twenty-seven, was referred to sometimes as Pappy and the Old Guy.

  Jesse Gardner was having a hard time. At first he had endured the vulgarity of camplife in shocked silence. Then he had begun to object to the rough fun and strident nakedness with which he was surrounded. Soon, he was called ‘Mamma’s Boy’ and ‘Sister Jessica’ by camp wits like Flash Perkins. During the last week, he had gone silent again and had eaten little. He kept hanging around Johnny, who was the only person to befriend him. The night before, Johnny had heard Jesse crying in his cot.

  Flash Perkins had been having as hard a time becoming a soldier, but for different reasons. While Jesse was prompt in accepting discipline, Flash was incapable of taking orders. He had spent hours in the guardhouse. He talked in ranks, wore his uniform in improper ways, and played crude practical jokes, preferring officers as victims. Whenever he obeyed an order or accepted discipline of any kind, he had an insulting grin on his face. He would take any kind of punishment rather than wipe off the grin or curb his tongue. He had upset three officers on a latrine, had set fire to the commanding officer’s bed, and had had a woman named Velma in his tent. At night, he woke up the whole camp by imitating screech owls, loons, crows, cows. He had left signs in the latrines reflecting on the ancestral purity and moral character of the commanding officer.