Raintree County

by Ross Lockridge

  —Who is it? said a hoarse man’s voice.

  —A friend, Madame, the Perfessor said. On the recommendation of one of your regular clients, Madame.

  —Who’s that? said the hoarse voice.

  —A Mr. Perkins, the Perfessor said.

  —We try to keep a respectable house here, the hoarse voice said argumentatively.

  —Of course, Madame, the Perfessor said. One hears only good things of your establishment.

  —Course it’s pretty hard under the circumstances——

  —One does not expect perfection, Madame, the Perfessor said, laughing jovially. One merely wants a little relaxation and a place to chat among congenial spirits.

  —Flash Perkins sent you? the voice said.

  —I believe they call him that, the Perfessor said. You know him?

  —Yeah, I know the big lug, the voice said. He owes three dollars. Come on in.

  —Thank you, thank you, Madame, the Perfessor said.

  He and Johnny walked into an ill-lighted hallway, in which an elderly woman with powdered pouches under her eyes and a slack, painted mouth was waiting for them. Her eyes were hostile and suspicious.

  —This one too? she said, in her man’s voice.

  —Another friend of Perkins, the Perfessor said. An excellent young man.

  —The place is full now.

  —We only want some drinks, the Perfessor said.

  They followed the proprietress to another door and into the main downstairs room. Drawn blinds made the place dark. It was full of smoke and badly lighted by oil lamps, but Johnny could see that it was furnished with plank tables and crude benches. There was a door leading into a kitchen. Three or four ugly young women sat at the tables, and the other half a hundred occupants of the room were soldiers. A woman and a soldier got up from a near-by table and went through a door at the far end of the room. Heavy boots banged on stairs. The planks overhead shook unmysteriously. Johnny and the Perfessor took the empty chairs.

  Johnny looked around but didn’t see Flash. An aged waitress brought drinks, and the Perfessor insisted on paying. He tossed off his drink, but Johnny didn’t touch his.

  —Ouch! said the Perfessor. Now, John, tell me about yourself.

  Johnny began to tell, in more detail than his infrequent letters had made possible, what had happened to him since the night when he had last seen the Perfessor’s blackwinged form spring from darkness to the passing train.

  —Well, John, the Perfessor said after they had talked a while, I should have known you’d go and do all these damfool things. I had hoped that with my shining example before you, you would escape the Philistine snares of Raintree County. That was quite a fuss I stirred up, wasn’t it?

  —I felt sorry for you and the Reverend’s wife, Johnny said. It looked like a real passion to me and——

  —By the way, what was her name? the Perfessor said.

  Later Johnny and the Perfessor talked mostly of the War.

  —What’s the War in the East like? Johnny said.

  To him the War in the East was still the storybook War in a mythical Theatre of Operations between two capitals.

  —Gettysburg was a beautiful battle, the Perfessor said. Three days of dramatic corpsemaking and a real chance for Meade to end the War. But he muffed it, and since then he and Mars Robert have been blowing kisses at each other across impregnable positions. My boy, war is the same everywhere. A great stink in the nostrils of God.

  He looked around the room.

  —Perhaps the whores are a trifle better looking on the Eastern front. What was Chickamauga like?

  Johnny tried to give him some idea of the battle, but all he could tell him was his own confused picture of the fighting.

  —You poor boy! the Perfessor said. For this you left Raintree County.

  —What’s going to happen anyway, Professor? Where are we heading?

  The Perfessor began to drink directly out of his bottle.

  —I just report the news, he said.

  —Here we are—getting ready to fight on the same ground where we fought two months ago and got whipped.

  —And while you boys kill and cuss on the battlefields, and squitter and whore in the camps, back home a lot of bastards and bounty-jumpers are marrying all the beautiful women and wallowing in gravy. But who are we to question the ways of the Eternal?

  Someone was arguing about cardhands in the measured syllables of drunkenness. A woman giggled and squeaked weakly in the alcoholic mist. A song started near-by to the accompaniment of a clattering, tuneless piano. A woman stood up, one hand sentimentally supporting her flabby left breast, and sang one of the War’s most popular songs.

  —Dearest love, do you remember,

  When we last did meet,

  How you told me that you loved me,

  Kneeling at my feet?

  O, how proud you stood before me,

  In your suit of blue,

  When you vowed to me and country

  Ever to be true.

  The room stank of sweat, spilled whiskey, powdered flesh, cheap perfume, a jakes.

  —Weeping, sad and lonely,

  Hopes and fears how vain!

  Yet praying, when this cruel war is over,

  Praying that we meet again.

  The Perfessor sucked moodily at his bottle.

  —By the way, he said, I just came from Gettysburg on my way over here. They had a patriotic ceremony there on the 19th to commemorate the establishment of a great National Cemetery. The President was there and spoke. I talked with him.

  —What did he say?

  The Perfessor smiled, remembering something.

  —He told a little story and said we would win the War. The story was a damn good one. I picked up a paper in Cincinnati.

  He pulled a rolled newspaper from his pocket and tossed it on the table.

  —I haven’t seen a newspaper for two months, Johnny said. He unrolled the paper and started reading:

  THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG

  The President arose and delivered the following short address. . . .

  —By the way, the Perfessor said, standing up, I’ve got an appointment with Grant in ten minutes. The press will be admitted to the august presence for a while. Want to go along?

  Johnny put the newspaper in his coatpocket and left with the Perfessor. They walked to a house where Grant was in conference with his generals. There was tremendous activity around the house as couriers came and went. Several generals entered while Johnny was watching. He heard famous names whispered by bystanders. After about twenty minutes, the Perfessor came out.

  —Let’s stay a minute, he said. The General’s leaving.

  In a few minutes, several officers came out of the house. General Ulysses S. Grant was a medium-sized man in a sloppy uniform. He had a black beard, fair skin, pale blue eyes. He looked like a commissary man or an engineer. He had a cigar in his mouth.

  A spontaneous cheer went up from the crowd.

  —Hurrah for old Ulyss!

  —You just give the word, General, and we’ll whup ’em.

  General Grant got on a horse and rode away. He looked like someone who was going off for a day’s work at the office.

  —The Hero of Vicksburg, the Perfessor said, as he and Johnny walked away, was in an uncommunicative mood. He said he hoped to give the Rebels some trouble and had no objection to my sticking around to see the fuss. He smokes foul cigars, drinks his whiskey straight, and graduated twenty-first in a class of thirty-nine at West Point. There is no subtlety in the man and very little syntax. In peace time, he would make a bad grocer. In fact, he failed farming and business before the War and got cashiered from the Army once. Nevertheless, he’s a good general and perhaps a great one. Of such stuff are the heroes of the Republic fashioned. Let’s get back to the shanty.

  —Do you think we’ll fight soon?

  —The General declined to say. But it’s no great secret that Sherman is on the other side of the ri
ver with maybe twenty thousand men waiting to cross. Anyone can see that Grant is making a concentration. The way we understand it in the East, this damn, dull, whiskey-drinking brute of a general lacks the finesse of our Eastern prima donnas, and when he gets his army concentrated, he can only think of one thing to do with it. Wham! He fights.

  It was dark out when Johnny and the Perfessor got back to the shanty and found empty seats at a table in the corner. Johnny opened the newspaper and went on reading the President’s Address.

  . . . a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to . . .

  —Meet the girls! said a loud and happy voice.

  Flash Perkins smote Johnny and the Perfessor simultaneously between the shoulderblades. The Perfessor’s hat fell on the table.

  —This one’s yours, Jack, Flash said. Doris, this is Jack Shawnessy, the smartest son-of-a——

  —Please, Johnny said, rising and looking helplessly at the Perfessor, I was supposed to be back at camp an hour ago, and——

  —Sit down, boy! Flash said. Drinks on me. I’m already lit to the roof and rarin’ to go. Hell, I aim to have me a time tonight!

  He pushed Johnny down. Doris, a skinny woman who snarled when she spoke, sat down on the table beside him, swinging her legs.

  —Honey, she snarled, you’re the best-lookin’ sojer I seen since I left Louisville. I din’t think they made your kind no more.

  —Look, Johnny said resolutely. I was reading this paper. Have a drink on me, Doris. Then I have to leave. Honest, I’m sorry, but I’m carrying the regimental mail, and also I have a girl back home. Besides——

  —Take it easy, honey, Doris snarled. Nobody’s goin’ to bite yuh.

  I don’t mind if I have that drink, though. Go on and read your paper, honey.

  Johnny stubbornly put the paper up and tried to go on reading. He could hardly see the words.

  . . . dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense . . .

  Flash upset a glass; his girl, who was tall, rawboned, and drunk, giggled. The Perfessor was reciting verse.

  —Is this the face that launched a thousand ships

  And burnt the titless towers of Ilium.

  Sweet Hesper, make me unconscious with a kiss!

  —You are crazy, Hesper said, but I like you. You’re kinder cute and diffrunt.

  The Perfessor fitted his thin, hawklike face and beard snugly between Hesper’s bosoms.

  —I salute the Army of the Cumberland, he said. I salute the Commissary Department of the Army of the Cumberland. I salute the Quartermaster of the Commissary Department of the Army of the Cumberland—for provisioning us with these excellent pillows whereon to rest our battle-wearied brows.

  This was so good that even Johnny had to laugh.

  —Ain’t he a scream! Hesper giggled, as Johnny put the paper up again.

  . . . we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember . . .

  —Come on, girls! Flash said. I feel like dancin’. Tell Flo to thump that ole pile a wire and ivory over there, and le’s have a little dance.

  —Come on, honey, Doris snarled, fluttering a hand over the newspaper. Let’s dance little.

  —You haven’t had your drink yet, Johnny said. Better have your drink.

  The Perfessor smiled sympathetically and recited,

  —Virginei volucrum vultus foedissima ventris.

  —He cain’t even talk plain now, Hesper said, giggling. He’s so drunk.

  —Same old war, the Perfessor said, on both fronts.

  . . . what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great . . .

  —Jerusalem! Flash Perkins yelled. I feel a jig a-kickin’ in my limbs.

  Without warning, he upset the table. His forehead was tight with ridges. He clumped his great shoes on the floor. Someone was hitting the piano, and a space was cleared in the middle of the floor. Flash Perkins began to call the figures.

  —Ladies and gennulmen, start tew dance.

  Jist watch me a-jiggin’ in muh bran-new pants.

  The crowd roared approval. The square dance started. The rough soldier forms jostled and jumped on the wide boards. The young faces glowed with sweat in the yellow glare of the lamps. The dancers looked bigger than natural size, as they clumped their club-shaped shoes on the floor, flapped their huge, ill-fitted blue coats. Flash Perkins was cutting in and out like a great rhythmical bull, yelling above the racket:

  —I got a gal, her name is Jane.

  We’re headin’ for Memphis on the midnight train.

  O, I got a gal in Kalamazoo.

  You jist oughta see the things she kin dew!

  . . . task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve . . .

  —Come on, Jack! Flash yelled, whirling out of the crowd and grabbing Johnny by the arm. Git into the dance, boy! Grab yerself some fun!

  Johnny rolled the paper and stood up. As the dance went on, he backed uncertainly toward the door.

  —If you got a gal that’s a mite tew fat,

  You kin melt her down with a dance like that!

  But if you got a gal that’s a mite tew thin,

  You won’t have a dern thing left but skin!

  But if you got a gal——

  A table upset at the far side of the room, glasses splintered, a girl screamed. There was a confused shoving and shouting. A tangle of struggling bodies burst apart. Flash Perkins stood in the middle.

  —Come on, you bastards! Come on and fight! I kin lick any man in this whole goddam Army! Come on, you sons-a——

  It seemed to Johnny that everyone on that side of the hall accepted the challenge. Flash was buried under a hail of blows and bodies. Johnny shoved the newspaper into his pocket and started trying to get through the crowd to Flash.

  The room became a vortex of faces and fists. Someone smashed the lights. Someone shoved Johnny. He fell sprawling. Something flew over his head. A window smashed, scattering glass outdoors. Johnny groped for a table to get under. He found himself grappling with a woman on the floor. She screamed. Johnny stood up. Something hit him smash on the side of the head. He lurched blindly, hunting for an exit. Over the noise, he could hear Flash Perkins’ jubilant and terrific profanity.

  —Tryin’ to hit me, huh! Well, goddamn you, where I come from——

  A door opened somewhere and a gush of cold air came in. The crowd quieted down. There was a crisp young officer standing at the door swinging a lamp. Soldiers with bayonets fixed stood behind him.

  —Report to your units at once, he said. Any soldier not answering to regimental rollcall one hour from now will stand court martial for desertion.

  The door slammed. Someone turned a lamp up on the beshambled room. The soldiers looked at one another dully.

  —Must mean we’re gonna fight tomorra.

  —Le’s git out a here.

  Johnny found the Perfessor in a corner sitting in Hesper’s lap. She was applying a handkerchief to an eggshaped lump on the Perfessor’s forehead.

  —Poor darlin’, she cooed. He hurt hisself.

  —Well, Professor, Johnny said, are you enjoying yourself?

  The Perfessor put his pince-nez glasses back on his nose, looked around, and recited:

  —A poet could not but be gay

  In such a jocund company!

  �
��You better come with me, Johnny said. Flash and I have to get back to camp.

  —Run along, boys, the Perfessor said, looking intently at Hesper’s bosom. Remember—the soldier only has to be at his post, but the correspondent has to cover the whole damn war. See you in Richmond, John.

  As he left, Johnny could hear the Perfessor’s high voice reciting,

  —And oft when on my couch I lie . . .

  Back at the camp, General Jake Jackson spoke to the brigade.

  —We’ll fight tomorrow, he said. Let every man get his arms in readiness. Here’s your chance, boys, to avenge Chickamauga. Get a good night’s sleep.

  Johnny lay on his cot, listening to Flash Perkins in the adjoining cot.

  —Yes, sir! Flash was saying, I mean to kill me a whole wagonload a Rebs tomorra. Cuss it, I’m a-gittin fed up with this here war. I simply cain’t unnerstan’ anybody fightin’ agin the United States of Amerikee. Who the hell do they think they are anyhow? Ownin’ slaves when respectable folks pays for their hire. Not that I want to fight no war for no dinge—let the niggers take keer a themselves. But I cain’t unnerstan’ them a-firin’ on the Flag, can you, Jack? What I wanna know is . . .

  Johnny mumbled something. He envied Flash the simplicity of his concepts. It was perhaps good to take life as you found it, bare your teeth, and laugh like hell. It was perhaps good to have no doubts.

  Johnny thought of the coming battle and of his unexpected reunion with the Perfessor. Then he thought of Raintree County lying beneath these sharp, autumnal stars. In his coat he had letters from his father, mother, and Nell. They all said to take care of himself and come back home as soon as he could. The words in these letters cared about him. He thought of the way his name looked in Nell’s highly personal handwriting. My darling Johnny, I take my pen in hand and seat myself to . . .

  When he had read those letters, he had felt like the Hero of Raintree County for certain, the darling boy precious and irreplaceable. But now he was only one of thousands of boys, waiting in darkness for a day of battle. These thousands of young men slept a little time and went back home in vague dreams remembering. But on the morrow they would get up, recalling duty. The General would have a plan. The President would be waiting for news of the Battle. The folks at home would pray for victory and the safety of loved ones. The Flag must be avenged and the Constitution upheld. On the morrow, then, he must be brave, as he hadn’t been before, and distinguish himself in the fighting.