No Matter How Much You Promise

by Edgardo Vega

  She was silent a while and then, as she stroked his chest, she said that perhaps they ought not to see each other for a while. And then she shook her head and said she would go crazy without him, but that it was probably best. She said that her husband was abusive and had even struck her, calling her a “damn squaw.” So they went on seeing each other until at some point he had to simply pick up and go.

  25. Exiles

  Lying in bed with Charlotte Randall, after having made love to her numerous times, Buck Sanderson asked why her husband had called her a squaw. As he lay watching her, sated now but still feeling love for her, Charlotte told him that as white as she was, her great-grandmother had been an Indian woman, a young Cherokee girl by the name of Lydia Spike. Lydia had chosen to remain behind in Tennessee when the tribe was moving west up from Chickamauga on the Tennessee border with Alabama. Feeling proprietary, Buck protested that her husband’s abuse of Charlotte was not correct and said he had no right calling her a squaw.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m not the least bit ashamed of having Cherokee blood,” she said. “Lydia Spike, my grandmother’s mother, was a courageous woman who loved her husband. She wasn’t your ordinary-type young woman,” Charlotte added, sitting up on the bed, her face flushed from lovemaking, a silk stole over her shoulders and her eyes bright and trusting. She went on, telling him that Lydia Spike had gone across the border to Alabama with her husband, who was a doctor, and that in the 1820s and thirties she worked with George Guess—whose Cherokee name was Sequoyah—the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, helping him with the proofreading of the Cherokee Phoenix, a newspaper written and printed in the Cherokee language. “Eventually, they sent the Cherokees and other tribes west to Oklahoma.” She went on to explain how the Cherokee, Choctaw, Cree, Chickasaw, and Creek were forced west through the Indian Removal Act of 1830 because gold was found in the area. “My grandmother always talked about her mother, Lydia, and how much she missed her younger brother, Carson Spike, who went west with the other Cherokee and from whom she never heard again. He was only a boy, so there’s no telling if he survived the trip. Nunna daul Tsuny,” Charlotte said, so that it sounded like “none a doll sunny,” which made little sense but still saddened him.

  “What did you say?” he asked.

  “The path where the people cried,” she said, breathing deeply.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s what our people call the route that brought the Cherokee to Oklahoma,” she said. “‘The trail of tears,’ in English. In the dead of winter the Cherokee were escorted by the U.S. Cavalry away from their homes. Barefoot, without their possessions or warm clothing they were put on wagons to travel west. About four thousand Cherokee died on the way to the Oklahoma Territory, including Quatie, the wife of Chief John Ross, who gave her coat to a sick child.”

  Charlotte was silent and then said that perhaps they ought to stop seeing each other.

  “We have to think about it, Harley,” she said. “We surely do.”

  He reached across and almost violently held her to him, his heart suddenly beating too fast, like the time he was walking in the woods looking for game in the trees and all of a sudden, no more than fifteen feet ahead, there was a bear sniffing the ground. He had backed away silently, aware that he was downwind from the animal. When he was some distance away he stopped to take aim, but he couldn’t see the bear and quit hunting for the day.

  “Maybe we can go somewhere,” he said, after she settled into his arms.

  “No, he’ll find us and make everything worse.”

  “What am I going to do?” said Buck, knowing that the moment he was away from her his body would start yearning to be with her again.

  “You won’t have any trouble finding girlfriends,” she said. “Treat them like you treated me and you’ll never want for company.”

  “It ain’t gonna be the same,” he said.

  “No, I’m sure it won’t,” she said. “It certainly won’t be for me. You are quite the young man, Harley Sanderson. Yes, you are.”

  There were a few more times with Charlotte, when they made love all evening and then he walked home in the quiet darkness of the town, his mind lost in the wonder of the experience with her, his heart clean and pure and his body relaxed and strong. Then one day after work Bobby Tyrell caught up to him. He smiled at Bobby and said he hadn’t forgotten about the dance the upcoming Saturday.

  “It ain’t that I wanna talk to you about, Buck,” Bobby said.

  “What, then?” he said, looking puzzled. “What’s wrong?”

  “I think you better get outta town, Buck,” Bobby said.

  “What’s got into you, Bobby? Get outta town? What for? Somebody after me?”

  “You’re damn right there is. And the people Parker Randall’s gonna send after you don’t talk nothing but shotgun. Mean boys that shoot and don’t ask questions until you’re dead.”

  “You ain’t joshing, are you?”

  “You’re damn right I ain’t joshing. I ain’t saying I’m for or against what you’ve been doing, but damn near everybody in Claymore knows you been going at it with Parker Randall’s wife. Can’t say that I blame you, but it’s sure gonna cost you if you don’t get your butt gone.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right,” he said.

  “There’s a freight train that stops over in Kenyon to get water about midnight. That’s about five miles west. Going north.”

  “Don’t wanna go north.”

  “Maybe you oughta go on back home to the hills.”

  “Can’t do that, either.”

  “Then what you gonna do?”

  “Take my chances on the river, I reckon.”

  “The Mississippi’s more than thirty miles from here.”

  “I can walk that.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I will, Bobby. Thank you much. Say so long to the boys and tell them I’ll send word from Memphis.”

  “Good luck, bub,” Bobby Tyrell said and turned to go.

  Although he had appeared cool, Buck’s insides were burning with fear and his tongue was dry. He hurried through town, his senses suddenly tuned to everything about him. He didn’t know whether the temperature had dropped or it was fear that was making him feel cold. He walked rapidly, each shadow making him alert to upcoming danger. He thought of going through the alleys to the rooming house but decided to cut through the middle of town. If they decided to come at him, let them do so in the open, where he had a chance to fight.

  He recalled being nine years old and his father facing down some men who had been passing through. They were at the general store and the men got out of an old jalopy. They were dressed in suits and laced-up boots. One of them tipped his newsboy cap back and wanted directions. He had a strange way of speaking that his father later said was a Chicago-gangster accent. They had approached his father and called him “Mr. Hillbilly.” Cradling his shotgun in his arms, his father had looked them in the eye, spit a big stream of tobacco juice in front of their feet, and said, “Let’s go, Buck.” He turned his back on them and walked out of the store. One of the men hollered, “Hey,” but his father kept walking. Yankee fools, his father said as they walked down the street. Thinking about it made Buck Sanderson smile and he knew he’d know what to do if it came to that.

  Once inside the rooming house, he announced to Mrs. Cooper that he was leaving, went directly to his room, threw his belongings into the canvas bag, retrieved his banjo from beneath his bed, and counted his money. Nearly eighty dollars, which by all rights he ought to bring home first but now couldn’t. He was sure his mother would understand. He put on a sweater, his Mackinaw, and then his long black raincoat. He undid his belt buckle, pulled out his belt, and ran it through the strap of the sheath of his Bowie knife, then placed in its sheath the razor-sharp knife his father used to skin game with and which he had given to him before going to jail. “In case some son of a bitch takes a dislike to you. Go for his neck right away. Anywhere below the jaw’
s fine.” He hoped he wouldn’t have to use the knife, but he better keep it handy just in case. When he came down, Mrs. Cooper was waiting for him with some food wrapped in paper and tied with string.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Cooper,” he said, smiling at the kindly old woman.

  “Don’t mention it,” she said. “You’re all paid up and you got one more meal coming.”

  “I’d sure appreciate it if you only told my folks that I left. Tell them I went to Memphis.”

  “What folks do ain’t none of my business. How you gonna get there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You think you can get yourself to Ridgely?”

  “I reckon I can.”

  She wrote quickly on a piece of paper and gave it to him.

  “That’s my nephew’s name. He’s the postmaster. Just give him the note and tell him where you want to go. He knows people and maybe you can get on a boat going down to Memphis.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you very much,” he said and was gone back out into the night.

  In spite of the warning that people would be coming after him, he wanted to go by Charlotte Randall’s house; but Ridgely was the other way, and he began walking, leaving the town behind and keeping to the wooded area beside the road. When he had walked for nearly two hours, climbing a couple of hills so that down below the few lights still left on in Claymore seemed like little specks, he stopped and found himself a place in the woods, hoping that he was close enough to town so that animals wouldn’t disturb him. It was too cold for bears. He built a small fire, and, wrapped in his long raincoat, he fell asleep quickly. Three hours later he woke up to rustling in the woods. His heart beating rapidly, his hand was immediately on his knife, pulling it out as he sprang to his feet. In the fading light of the fire he saw a pair of eyes glittering in the dark, but they were too low to be a bobcat. He felt around on the ground until he found a rock and flung it at the eyes and heard the yelping of a fox as it scurried away. He tried falling asleep again but sleep wouldn’t come. He got up and began walking west again, taking the road now and enjoying the cold night, the starlit sky wondrous, but more so the prospect of his journey. His heart now soared, and, being alone in the dark, he sang about the fox, smiling to himself and hoping he hadn’t hurt the animal too badly. People were crazy to expect animals to behave any way but how they were. Foxes behaved like foxes and geese like geese. Only humans could change a little bit of who they were, and not much at that. He sang loudly into the night, knowing no one could hear him.

  The fox went out on a chilly night,

  Prayed to the moon to give him light

  For he’d many a mile to go that night

  Before he reached the town-o, town-o, town-o,

  Before he reached the town-o.

  He walked all night, eating the biscuits and ham Mrs. Cooper had packed for him, wondering what Memphis would be like and what kind of music it was that the blacks played there. Uncle Will said he’d heard some of it down in New Orleans and just couldn’t stop tapping his foot. “Just a different rhythm, that’s all. Can’t explain it.” He slept in the woods the following night, after the sun went down. He awoke in the cold of night and began walking. When the first light began to appear behind him he was nearly outside of Ridgely. From the hill above the town he could see the Mississippi River stretching in the distance, wide and dark at this time of morning. His feet hurt, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what awaited him.

  Once in Ridgely he found a diner, paid fifteen cents for a breakfast of eggs and grits and a big slab of bacon, biscuits, and hot coffee with plenty of milk and sugar, got directions to the post office, where he handed Mrs. Cooper’s nephew the note. The nephew, Elmore, said he should make his way to the river and see Tom Clampitt over at the dock. Clampitt could get him on a tug pulling barges on the way to Memphis. And to tell him Elmore Cooper sent him. He did as he was bid, and by mid-morning he had located Clampitt.

  At four o’clock in the afternoon Buck was on a tug heading downriver, working on the deck and fitting in quite nicely. After supper one of the other deckhands pulled out a harmonica and began playing. Buck listened for a while, then opened his banjo case, tuned the instrument, and picked a few quick runs. He and the harmonica player did some tunes, and then he sang for an hour or so. “Lady Margaret and Sweet William,” “Go Tell Aunt Rhody,” “The Fox,” “Barbara Allen” and about a dozen more tunes. And then Paxton, the boss, said they all ought to turn in because when they reached Boiling on the Arkansas side they’d have to load bales of cotton.

  When he asked where he should sleep, Paxton pointed to the deck, saying he had no room for him in the quarters below. He found a place to sleep at the stern of the tug. While he was getting comfortable, a night-black Negro man came over, introduced himself as Charlie Boone and sat on a crate. Boone said he’d enjoyed his playing and offered him tobacco for a smoke. He asked him where he was heading.

  “Memphis, I guess,” he said.

  “Why Memphis? You looking for work?”

  “I guess so, but I’m going for the music.”

  “Beale Street? That’s where they got the blues. Is that what you’re looking for?”

  “Blues?”

  “That’s right. That’s the music. But be careful on Beale Street. You got a knife?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, just show it to ’em and if they keep coming, gut them. You understand what I’m saying to you? Black or white. Just gut their sorry ass.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, good night to you,” Boone said. “I gots to go up front and heave the lead for the cap’n.” And off he went. A few minutes later Buck heard the sounding rope hit the water and Boone calling out the depths as they moved out into the channel. Quarter less twain … seven … He thought of Charlotte alone in her bedroom. What would happen to her? She was one beautiful woman. Mark twain, he heard Boone shout. Maybe he’d come back to Claymore sometime and see her. That’s what he’d do. After he established himself, he’d come back and get her. Quarter twain … Maybe she’d be gone. She was so sweet. He’d make lots of money in Memphis and buy her a house and they’d just make love and eventually marry … No bottom …

  At supper the next day, after they’d loaded the cotton at Bolling, he asked Boone what he’d been saying the previous night. Boone laughed and showed him the rope with the lead pipe filled with chain and lead.

  “See this here piece of leather? That’s six feet deep. When I gots that in my hand as I’m lowering the rope I calls out ‘Quarter less twain six feet.’ Piece split in two is mark twain. That’s twelve feet. And so on till we hit twenty-four feet and I tell the cap’n, no bottom. All night long till we dock.”

  “When do you sleep?”

  “In the daytime.”

  Boone was the first Negro he’d had a conversation with and he liked him immediately. Once he reached Memphis he encountered others. He had no idea where the notion came from but he felt a strong kinship with their lifestyle and plight. Whether it was because he was from the hills and had always felt apart from the townspeople or whether it was the pride with which black people lived in spite of the prejudice from most whites, he liked them. Eventually, he decided this affinity with blacks must be due to the music; the music and the fact that he took to the rhythms as if born to them.

  In the morning the captain of the barge, Bill Rodham, said he’d heard him play and if he wanted he’d talk to his nephew, who played on a big paddlewheeler downriver and had a band and maybe he could play with them, seeing their banjo player had passed away and he didn’t know if they’d found a new one, but if they hadn’t he was sure his nephew, Trout, would be mighty glad to hear him play, and who knows? When they got to Memphis the paddlewheeler was docked a few blocks up and, as soon as the cargo was unloaded, Captain Rodham took him over to his nephew, a big redheaded man with freckles. Clearly a happy-go-lucky sort of fellow, Trout greeted his uncle in style, and once he saw Buck Sanderson and his banjo cas
e, he said he’d be right back and went inside a stateroom and came back with his cornet, then introduced himself and asked him if he played New Orleans style. Buck said he didn’t rightly know if he did or not. Within an hour or so he was picking up everything there was to know, and Trout Rodham just shook his head and said, “You got the job.”

  He played for a time with Trout Rodham’s band, got to see New Orleans, and fell in love with a Creole girl who reminded him of Charlotte Randall. He didn’t learn that the girl was only fifteen years old until it was too late and he nearly got killed by her father, a consumptive Frenchman with pretty bad aim.

  Eventually he made it to Memphis and found work on the docks. By then he was pretty well schooled in the New Orleans style and blues, so that when he finally got to Beale Street he could sit in most any night after the clubs closed and the musicians were sitting around unwinding and trying out new things at places like Pee Wee’s or Bramwell’s. That’s how he met Butterworth and the two of them eventually convinced each other they ought to give New York a try.

  He smiled and relit his pipe, recalling Alfred Butterworth as a skinny little kid walking around with his clarinet, looking lost and hungry. Time went so fast, he thought, watching the clouds and the failing light of day.

  The next day when Vidamía and Horty came over they kissed him and hugged him and made a fuss about him, telling him he looked so strong and handsome.

  “Grandpa, everybody says Daddy won’t be able to play because of his right hand,” Vidamía said, “but I met someone who says he could. What do you think?”

  “Well, that remains to be seen, darling,” Buck Sanderson said. “I’ve heard of people with afflictions who made up their minds and played. A few years back there was a young fella by the name of Horace Parlan. Mind you, he didn’t have fingers missing, but if I remember correctly he suffered from polio as a child and his right hand wasn’t as strong as it could be and he developed a kind of left-hand technique that sounded pretty good. Even recorded and played around New York, I heard. A fine pianist.”