Raintree County

by Ross Lockridge

  Professor Stiles sniffed.

  —Do they do this sort of thing often? Now if they only had a jungle tom-tom or an Indian war-drum and shrieked at the tops of their——

  At that moment, the darkness erupted with a shout of voices singing:

  —Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. . . .

  Involuntarily, the four older people and the many children in the yard drew closer together.

  —Well, Mr. Shawnessy said, I must say——

  —Glory, Glory, Halleluiah!

  Esther’s heart beat hard. A feeling of helplessness came over her, as she waited for this impersonal force to unmask itself and reveal its purpose.

  Whatever the purpose was, she felt certain now that it was sinister. Feeling lonely and helpless, she walked over to her husband and placed her hand on his arm. Worst of all was the suspense of waiting. If there were only something that she could do to break the spell, some heroic decision that she could repeat, then all might be well. But as it was, she had to stand here, frightened to the foundations of her being by these trampling feet, shouting voices, swung beams of light. She had to go on waiting here in this garden like someone discovered in the commission of a crime, a guilty woman, shrinking from a sword of flame. She had to go on waiting, waiting,

  July 4—1878

  WAITING FOR PA TO COME HOME FROM FREEHAVEN,

  she went hypnotically through the last details of packing her things. She had a trunk to pack and a small suitcase that she intended to carry. Fernie helped her with the packing, sniffling and blowing her nose from time to time. Esther didn’t cry at all.

  It was a hot day. When she went over to the window to look out, she saw the yard, the spattered barnlot, fields of corn with limp arms. The taut feeling in her stomach went up into her throat.

  Pa had gone into Freehaven at nine o’clock in the morning. He had said that he would be back around four in the afternoon with the tickets for their trip. They were going to drive by a roundabout way to Three Mile Junction, where they could take the train without notice and escape detection. Most of the people would be in Freehaven for the Fourth of July Celebration. Once on the train, the whole thing would be out of Esther’s hands. She and Pa would go on out West, and she would try to forget Mr. Shawnessy.

  Several female relatives were vigilantly supervising the last arrangements. They came around and talked with Esther, telling her how sensible she was to do this thing for her old pa. They hardly let her out of their sight, except when she went upstairs.

  As the hours dragged on, she stood for minutes at a time before the window looking at the road and the fields. But nothing happened. The earth gave no sign, except to grow hotter and brighter. She looked out so long that the fields began to have a kind of white radiance. The earth swam in heat, faintly in motion.

  She couldn’t imagine what was the matter with her. She felt no sorrow, no joy, no languor, no excitement. She had only this taut feeling of waiting.

  Nevertheless, she knew that when Pa’s buggy appeared on the road from the direction of Freehaven, rolling swiftly up as she had seen it do hundreds of times, the black horse crisply trotting, the wheels blurred with speed, the polished frame bouncing under Pa’s weight, she knew that then she would have a dark moment of farewell, and she didn’t really know what she would do at that moment.

  But she had made her decision. She had said that she would go. It was Pa’s will that she go, and in this crucial hour of her life Pa’s will must be her own will. Only thus could she save from death those whom she loved.

  She had voluntarily made a solemn promise. Esther couldn’t remember ever breaking that kind of promise.

  She kept looking at the familiar rooms, and from time to time she went to the window again. This was the house in which she had spent her life. This was the earth where she was born. The things about her now were the oldest things in the world. In the stillness of these ancient things, she moved restlessly. This world, Pa’s world, closed in on her, taking added weight from the heat and stillness of the day. She felt that if she stopped moving for a moment, the walls of her self would be crushed, and she would stop breathing.

  At three o’clock in the afternoon she went upstairs to dress. The white dress she took down from a closet was one that she had worn nearly a year ago, twice in one memorable week—and not at all since. She had rowed through the hot brilliance of a summer afternoon and had plunged through a swamp to find someone whom now she would perhaps never see again. There were faint green stains in the cloth that no amount of water would wash out.

  It was her most beautiful dress, and this was her most significant day.

  Slowly she put on the dress at the mirror of what had been her mother’s room. Slowly she bound up her dark hair, winding it and pinning it back to show her ears, one of which bore a disfiguring scar in the lobe. She had no ornament on and didn’t powder her face, which looked back at her from the mirror familiar-strange—brilliant dark eyes, lips red and smooth, finely formed straight nose, high cheekbones.

  Once long ago, she had been taunted with Indian descent. She had flung back a terrible word, which even now she was ashamed to remember. Pa had risen in a towering rage. She had fled to the windgrove not far away and had heard the whip laid to her sister Sarah.

  She had not quite finished her packing. Lying in the bottom drawer of her dresser were some souvenirs she had saved to the last. She opened the drawer and took out a packet of letters tied with a blue ribbon. She carefully wrapped them in a silk handkerchief and placed them among the things in her personal suitcase. There were some photographs, including a large one recently taken of the Root family, sitting on the front lawn before the house. She and Pa were together in the middle of the picture almost as if above and apart from the others.

  There was another picture that she had hidden very carefully for years. At the bottom of it were the words

  Stony Creek School

  1866

  She found her own small face in the front row, turned a little to one side and looking across the fields with a brooding expression. The picture was yellowed, yet remarkably clear. She could see the ribbon knots in her pigtails and the creases in her dress. Mr. Shawnessy stood at the right-hand side of the picture, arms folded, eyes half-shut because of the sun. That part of the picture hadn’t been properly exposed, and with the fading caused by time, his form looked half-dissolved in light. His figure had a golden, wondrous look, while her own in the middle of the picture was dark, precise, and actual. She noticed also that the school door was open so that the light dimly illumined the hall. She had gone running one day in spring out of that door and had climbed through the bars and had run down through the woods to be the first to meet Mr. Shawnessy.

  She put this picture carefully into the suitcase.

  She went to the window and looked out. It must be close to four o’clock. She looked across the fields in the direction of the Foster Farm. She hadn’t taken the path to Ivy’s for months now, but she knew just how it went.

  The path to Ivy’s went through the back gate and through the barnyard, and out through the orchard, and along beside the cornfield for two hundred yards. Then the path sloped off to the left and down the hill to a stile crossing over into the pasture woods. It went on through the woods for several hundred yards and down past the little spring that rose under the roots of the old dead tree to flow off in a winding stream northeast. The quick way was to cross the stream if it was low, but, if not, to go around. Then there was a short walk through the woods, gently rising until suddenly the path came out into a field back of the Foster house.

  She had made this walk several times in the past year to meet Mr. Shawnessy at Ivy’s. Sometimes he had come out a way to meet her.

  Now, she looked toward the wood, where the path entered the trees. The wood was still. She could see deeper than usual into it because of the immense light.

  She walked into the hall and to her old bedroom where she could look
out and see the road. There was no one on it as far as she could see. She went back to her packing.

  Now she lifted some other things from the drawer. Among them was a certificate which testified that Esther Root had passed the Teachers’ Examination with a satisfactory mark and was adjudged competent to instruct in the Public Schools of Raintree County. It was dated June, 1876, and it bore the examiner’s signature in a bold, flowing hand. John Wickliff Shawnessy.

  She remembered an afternoon in the New Court House, the masculine, exciting odor, the brave, terrific tower. Suddenly, she wondered if she would ever see it again. With a wild excitement, she imagined it now, in the middle of Freehaven. The flag would be bright on its pole at the top of the tower; the clockfaces would look in four directions telling the time of day.

  The time of day. The time of day.

  The hands would be pointing to the hour.

  Pa would have read the clock and would have got into his buggy. Through this heatstricken earth of eternal things, he was driving steadily home, poised on the buggy seat, sometimes making his black whip uncoil and crack above the horse. He had never driven so fast before—of that she might be sure.

  Her hands trembled as she put the certificate in the suitcase. She was being compelled to make hasty decisions. The world was beginning to come apart. She had begun to forget where things belonged. She began to rake in the bottom of the drawer, taking things out and then putting them back again—and again senselessly taking them out—pictures, books, folders, lockets, wisps of hair tied in ribbons.

  She got up and looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was white, and she had to steady herself. Her head swam. She listened. No, it was not the drumming of a horse’s hooves, it was not the humming of wheels that she had heard.

  Or perhaps it was. She walked rapidly through the house to a front window.

  The road was empty.

  She ran back to her room and began to rake through the drawer again, as if she were looking for something important. But she couldn’t imagine what.

  Yesterday evening, at the risk of Pa’s terrible anger, Fernie—poor, frightened, heroic Fernie—had slipped out of the house and gone to Ivy’s to let Ivy know of the projected trip. No one was at home, and Fernie had left a note. Apart from that last message, Esther had had no way of letting Mr. Shawnessy know that she was leaving. Fernie, no fancy rhetorician, had written plain words:

  Ivy, Esther is leaving the County tomorrow with Pa. They are going West, and I don’t think he aims to ever bring her back.

  FERNIE

  Well, she had made up her mind to go, but she had desperately wanted to let Mr. Shawnessy know that she was going. She would go West all right, yes, she would go because God willed her to suffer for her great wrong love; she would go so that no one might die. But at least, before she went, she had reached out of her prison and had touched him with a word, a last sign, so that he would say to himself: Now she is going. Esther is no longer here.

  Over the fields toward Ivy’s the way was empty. The deep woods gave no sign. The air was still. The immense, triumphant afternoon, held hardly a moving thing. She remembered the look of the empty fields a few months ago when Pa had come to the trysting place with his gun. She had looked everywhere then for Mr. Shawnessy across the wide fields, fearing that he might come.

  She heard a rush of voices from downstairs and someone called,

  —Esther, are you about ready?

  —Yes, she said, her voice so small and hoarse that she had to repeat the word to be sure they heard her.

  Now there was no time to lose. She must hurry now, or she wouldn’t be ready when Pa came. She went to the drawer and, pulling it entirely out, emptied it onto the bed. Among the things lying there, she picked up a little advertising booklet. Impulsively, she opened it, remembering what it was. In the yellow brightness of her room the words swam up to her alive and blackly writhing like serpents in a place of sunwarmed waters:

  COME TO PARADISE LAKE

  Come to Paradise Lake, situated in the geometrical center of Raintree County. Summer tourists, fishermen, honeymooners, whoever is seeking . . .

  She put the booklet on top of her little suitcase and stood looking desperately about her.

  —Esther, the voices called from downstairs. Better come now.

  Esther! Esther! Esther! Esther!

  Come to Lake Paradise in the very center of Raintree County.

  She stood, her body stricken with waves of feeling rising from the sunbright afternoon beyond her bedroom window. She was panting, and in her anguish she bent over and leaned her whole body across the open suitcase and onto the bed. She had not realized until then that she was gasping and sobbing.

  There was a noise downstairs, far off, in the nether regions of herself, in the old life, in the world that walled her in as if forever. There were people calling her. There were excited voices.

  She listened. Something was burning at her ears, an intolerable piercing sound. She listened.

  There was a steady thunder of hooves not far away. Under this noise was a persistent, vicious hum of wheels.

  She sat up suddenly and gave a little cry. She pushed down the lid of the suitcase and latched it and picked the suitcase up. She ran out of the door, looking wildly around. There was no one upstairs. She looked down the back stair. It was empty. She ran down and into the kitchen. It was empty. Everyone was at the front of the house, watching for Pa’s arrival. She ran out of the back door and down the walk, pushed open the gate, ran into the barnyard. From long habit, she turned, swung the gate to, and latched it. She paused with her hand on the gate.

  Come to Lake Paradise, little darkhaired child. Come to Lake Paradise, where long ago, but o, so long, so long, so long ago . . .

  She heard the noise of a buggy slowing and stopping in front of the house. But all she could see was the back of the white farmhouse, the not-very-well-kept yard, the weeds along the fence, a few chickens scratching, the back door open, the pump beside the window. All she could see was the most familiar image of her life.

  She turned away and began to run.

  She could hardly see where she was going: the green earth was drenched with waves of water flashing and brightening in the sunlight. She heard a hoarse, gasping sound. It was her own voice, sobbing and saying,

  —Good-by, Pa. Good-by, Pa. Good-by, Pa.

  She ran through the orchard and beside the cornfield. After a while her right arm ached terribly, and her chest felt as though it would burst. The earth beside the cornfield was soft, and she kept slipping and stumbling. She fell full length and soiled her going-away dress. She was up immediately, thinking that she heard voices behind her. She ran down the path sloping to the left and went over the stile. Her dress caught on a snag and tore away a wide gash of cloth which clung accusingly on the fence.

  She was sure that they were after her. Still she clung to her suitcase and went on, running through the woods. Though the stream was high from recent rains she plunged in and across, soaking herself to the thighs.

  Looking up now through the clean woods toward Ivy’s, far off she saw a tall man in a black suit striding along the path alone.

  She heard then a distinct sound of voices and footsteps far behind her in the afternoon. She didn’t look back, but ran forward crying out in a loud voice,

  —Mr. Shawnessy! Mr. Shawnessy! Mr. Shawnessy!

  She listened, and above the terrible elation of her heart,

  SHE HEARD VERY CLEARLY THE SOUND

  OF HIS VOICE

  CALLING

  HER NAME was being called in the garden.

  In the cool of the evening, when a thin dew gathered on the grass and the air was still, and it was summer at the end of a long day, and the light had been long gone from the sky, and the crickets chirped, and the grass was tingling cool on her bare feet, and there were dark corners of a lawn, and the night bugs beat themselves to death on the window panes, and darkness was full of distant and vague tumults, she would a
lmost remember. She would listen then for the voices deep inside her, the voices from long ago that said,

  —Eva! Eva!

  They were calling for her and coming to find her, and she was in the attitude of one listening in beautiful and dark woodlands, and waiting for them to come.

  This was a memory then of the very first of the Evas, the dawn Eva. Sometimes in the afternoon, when she had been sleeping and awoke to hear a sound of flies buzzing at the window panes, she would almost remember that Eva. It was the lost Eva, the one who had lived in a summer that had no beginning nor any ending, beyond time and memory, beyond and above all the books—most legendary and lost of Evas!

  Now she was in the round room at the top of the brick tower looking down at the other children playing. It was Maribell’s playroom, and here Eva could imagine that she was a princess in a lonely tower looking down on strange tumults in a legendary world.

  Leaning on the window ledge, secure in her tower, she was remembering the pantomimic scenes that had flickered across the stage of the garden a half-hour before, just after she had first come up to the tower.

  It had begun with the torches that had flared up suddenly in the town and moved toward Mrs. Brown’s. There had been a burst of song, and the torchbearers had stopped in front of the flungback iron gates of Mrs. Brown’s yard.

  At first, Eva had wanted to run down, but she could see so well from her place that she remained listening and watching, fearful that it might all be over before she entered the scene.

  The leader of the marchers had been the Reverend Lloyd G. Jarvey. There were about fifty men and women in a column, most of whom appeared to be strangors, while on the fringes of the torchbearers little knots of townspeople hovered.

  Preacher Jarvey had walked straight up to the open gates and had stood between them. Eva had seen the torchlight reflected on his glasses. The Preacher had shouted something in his deep voice, and Eva’s father had walked down to the gate. The Preacher had shaken his finger in her father’s face, and as he did so, there was a low grumbling among the men in the crowd. Three or four rough-looking strangers had come up pushing a tub of steaming stuff on a wheelbarrow. The torches had burned smokily, flaring and sputtering.