Copper Kettle

by Frederick Ramsay

  “Turn around, go back.”

  “Jesse, wake up. Abel didn’t come home last night.”

  “We’re all going to die.”

  “Sure enough, but not today. Wake up, you hear me?”

  Jesse bolted upright. “Ma?”

  “You’ve been having another bad dream, son. The war is over and you’re home safe now, thank the Lord. Now, listen to me, Abel ain’t here.”

  “Abel?”

  “Come on, boy, wake up. Your brother didn’t come home for his supper. He didn’t come home at all. I left him a plate, figuring he’d be out carousing with his friends, but every time in the past he done that, he’d get home, eat late, and drop off to bed. His bed ain’t been slept in, Jesse. Where’s he at?”

  Jesse knuckled the sleep out of his eyes. He shook his head and tried to get his bearings. Abel missing? War is over? Right, he knew that. Abel not home. Where was Abel?

  “When did you see him last, Ma?”

  “About an hour before you came back from wherever it was you went yesterday…Floyd. Abel promised to top off the wood pile. When I heard the chopping, I thought it must be him, but it were you.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “No. Wait, let me think. Seems like I remember somebody, can’t remember who, stopped by and had a quick chat with him. Anse, maybe. No, not him. Well, I don’t rightly know, one of them good-for-nothing boys, maybe your Uncle Bob’s boy. I can’t hardly tell them apart anymore. Well, whoever it was stopped by for a minute and they had some words and Abel up and dashed off like his pants was on fire.”

  “He didn’t say where he was going?”

  “Let me think. He maybe went off looking for you. He said it had to do with the fight you got yourself into with that Lebrun boy.”

  “You’re just telling me this now?”

  “Well, don’t go getting all uppity with me. I figured he found you and that was that. His forgetting to cut firewood wasn’t anything new. Staying out late wasn’t either. Not coming home, that was.”

  Jesse rolled out of bed and pulled on his clothes. “I reckon I’ll run up to Big Tom’s and tell him. Abel’s probably sleeping it off somewhere with his knuckle-headed friends. If he’s not, we’ll put together a search and scour the woods. Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”

  Jesse said the words, but somehow, deep down, he didn’t believe them. Abel, unlike most of his contemporaries, did not take to drink. He’d have his morning nip and a quick snort now and again, but that was it. He always said it made his head ache, that he got the hangover before he got the drunk. Wherever he was, sleeping it off with his cousins would be the last thing to consider. Still, Ma needed to stay calm. She’d suffered through the war worrying about whether he’d come home from the war alive, broken, or in a box. Now she had Abel to worry her.

  Addie had poured him a steaming mug of chicory-laced coffee and laid out some cold pone and bacon.

  “You eat that. It ain’t much, but if you’re going out in the cold, you’ll need something between your ribs. There’s a jug on the shelf, too.”

  Jesse wolfed down the corn pone and bacon. He took a swig from the jug, made a face, and topped it off with coffee. “That there wasn’t grandpa’s whiskey. Where’d you get it, anyway?”

  “Well, if you must know, your Pa set up a little still before he went off to Norfolk. He made one batch ’fore he died and that’s what’s left. I don’t believe he had a future in the moonshine business. Son, money was tight and he was willing to try anything, rest his soul.”

  Jesse gave his mother a grin. “Tell you the truth, I’ve tasted worse. Not lately, though. Some of that stuff the Frenchies sold us as brandy would curl your toes. It tasted like they cut it with iodine or something.”

  Jesse opened the door and realized that it had turned bitter cold. Some of the chill would burn off when the sun rose up a bit, but in the early dawn dark, he knew what the coming winter would likely be. He turned on his heel and retrieved his Army greatcoat. Time to stop thinking about France and dead friends and get on with living. That assumed Abel was still among them. He had his doubts about that.

  ***

  Big Tom sopped up the last of his beans with a piece of cornbread, no mean feat. Unless you got more egg in it than cornmeal, it’d crumble into mush once it hit the gravy.

  “Tell me what you just said and take it slow, this time.”

  “Abel didn’t come home last night. Ma thinks, well she hopes, that he’s sleeping it off with some of his cousins, but I don’t think that’s so. We got to find him, Grandpa.”

  “You said your Ma thought some boy, one of us, met with him first and then he went off looking for you?”

  “Ma thinks so. She didn’t know for sure who the boy was, but thought it might be one of them that hangs around with Anse.”

  Big Tom brushed the crumbs from his beard and stared at a chip in the enameled blue-and-white tin cup on the table in front of him for a minute. Then he twisted in his chair and yelled at a closed door to his right.

  “Anse, you get out here this minute.”

  The door opened and a sleepy Anse McAdoo, clad in long johns and with a blanket draped over his shoulders, stepped out.

  “Anse is living with you now, Grandpa?”

  “Just for a week or two. With Solomon dead, I need help with the still and, to tell the God’s own truth, his Ma could use the rest. Ain’t that right, Anse? Your cutting up day and night like to drive your poor old Ma to a full moon loony. So, did any of your blockheaded friends stop by the Sutherlins’ and talk to Abel yesterday?”

  Anse kept his eyes on the floor. Big Tom, they said, was the only person who could shut Anse McAdoo down with a look. If he shouted at him he turned into suet.

  “Um…not that I can say. I was working with you most of yesterday, right? I ain’t seen much of any of them lately.”

  “Well you get dressed, grab a bite, and then go round to all of them boys’ houses and ask if Abel is staying there. Jesse, you and me will check out a few places soon’s it gets light enough to see. If we don’t turn up the boy, we’ll set up a search and you’d better pray we don’t find a Lebrun mixed up in this.”

  “Grandpa, I know how you all like to think that the folks on the east side of the mountain are to blame for everything from the Crucifixion to the war in France, but this time, how about let’s just wait and see?”

  “Yeah, yeah, and when it turns out I’m right? What do you plan to do about that?”

  “Pinch myself ’cause I’m likely dead.”

  “There is some days, Jesse, I wonder where your head got to over there in Europe. Maybe you are the one with shell shock and Solomon ended up as the normal one, after all.”

  “You ain’t alone there.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  By first light, all of the homes where Abel might be staying had been queried. No Abel. Big Tom called in four men and divided the northwest area of the mountain into six sectors. Each man was to select a central point and then walk concentric circles around that point, increasing the distance from it by ten yards or so at each circuit. Only the northern and southernmost would not be double searched as the focal points of all of them were close enough that the outermost ambit of each touched on the next searcher’s starting point. Jesse had the point farthest to the south. They agreed that if anyone found anything, they would fire three shots: one, pause, and then two together. If Abel had not turned up in any of the six, they would shift south and begin the process all over again. What they would do if it appeared they needed to search the east side of the mountain was not discussed, although some dark looks were exchanged which suggested that it could be a problem requiring more well-armed searchers. Jesse could only shake his head.

  Before taking up his point, he drove to the sawmill. R.G. seemed surprised to see him.

  “I thought I
told you to take a few days off.”

  “Yes, sir, you did. I’m not here to work. I came to ask you and Serena if my brother, Abel, happened to come by here yesterday.”

  Serena had not taken her eyes off Jesse from the moment he entered. “My, my, Jesse Sutherlin, still standing. I thought by now you’d be out on the mountain fighting John Henry or maybe bleeding to death.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but that’ll have to wait. Right now, I am looking for my brother who has gone missing. Was he here yesterday?”

  “Yes. He stopped by. He seemed to be in a hurry. He said he had to find you, that he had an important message for you or something.”

  “He didn’t say what the message was about?”

  “Not to me.”

  “Nor me,” R.G. added.

  “Damnation, what has that lunkhead got himself into now?”

  Jesse left the mill and drove back up the mountain, parked, and began his search. His point, the pivot for his circular swing, was the Spring House. Jesse wondered at that. It seemed like this chunk of mountain had way too much to do with him lately. Was he being given a sign? He didn’t truly believe in Divine Intervention, well, not in the puny matters of ordinary folks, anyway, but the Spring House just seemed to figure in too much in the flow of things over the last week to be a complete coincidence. He paced off ten yards to the east, turned left, and began his first counter-clockwise orbit around the Spring House. When he’d completed it, he paced off another ten yards farther east and walked the woods again.

  On his fifth circuit, he could see Ogden Knox in the distance. Knox had started earlier, while Jesse was at the mill, and was further along in his search. Jesse kept moving, his eyes darting first right then left, walking and probing the underbrush. The turn brought him to the creek the locals called Catfish because if you were desperate for something to eat, you could almost always catch you one of them with not much more than a worm for bait. He paused and then decided it might be useful to search its banks. It ran southeast before it turned west. All of the creeks, streams, and rivers in Floyd County flowed west, their waters ultimately joining the Mississippi River. He’d need to take care moving eastward, if only temporarily, or he might find himself in Lebrun territory. Well, what of it? Nobody was about to do anything to him anytime soon. At least not until he and John Henry had done their best to gut one another. Until that happened, there would be a ceasefire on the mountain of sorts. Crazy way to make peace.

  He’d gone something less than a hundred yards, had found nothing, and turned to retrace his steps when he heard a rustling in the underbrush. His hand dropped to grip the little Colt he’d the foresight to put in his pocket. Jake Barker stepped out in the open.

  “Holy cow, Jake, you like to get yourself shot dead, sneaking around like that.”

  “Jesse. I ain’t aware of any sneaking. Hey, I’ve been looking for you all over the place. You weren’t to home. Your Ma wasn’t exactly polite, by the way. Serena said you went to the mill and left, but didn’t say where to. I’d about given up and was on my way home when I heard folks crashing around in the woods and came to see if it was you, and here you are. What are you doing this far away from your house?”

  “My brother, Abel, is missing. A bunch of us are searching for him. You didn’t happen to run across him in your travels, did you?”

  “Nope, sorry.”

  “Well, I wandered down this creek thinking I might find a footprint or something. I was just heading back. Why were you searching for me?”

  “I came to warn you. When you meet with John Henry later today, you won’t be alone. Every able-bodied Lebrun and some that ain’t, but hanker after them, will be lurking in the woods. Watching John Henry, you could say, making sure you don’t do anything dirty. I told them you’d be last person in the county to cheat, but they weren’t the convinced. The betting is that John Henry will beat you fair and square, but if that ain’t the case, they plan to make sure you’re dead anyway. Don’t fight him, Jesse. You can’t win even if you do.”

  “Lord have mercy. There’s no end to this foolishness, is there? Well, here’s a little something to take back to them. Unless I miss my guess, the other half of the woods will be chock full of McAdoos, too. That means win or lose, all kinds of hell is coming to the mountain unless somebody or something happens along to stop it.”

  Jake’s shoulders slumped. “You should have let those boys string me up when you had the chance. That way I don’t have to be a part of all this stupid.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “No, probably not, but there’s days when I wonder.”

  “Exactly. So, here’s the rest of what I want you to take back to your side of the mountain. There won’t be a fight today or tomorrow. It will have to wait ’til Saturday. I need to settle what happened to Abel first. It’s about family and I reckon you all can understand that. Also, I won’t be at the Spring House or in the woods. You tell John Henry that if he wants to fight me, he should go clear up to the summit. There ain’t no trees up there that amount to much, no hiding places for friends and relations, if you follow me. There’s a meadow-like stretch of land that runs down the south side for maybe twenty yards or so and it flattens out near a little stream. This time of year it won’t have much water in it. It’ll be mostly mud. Anyway, that’s where I will meet him. If he still wants a fight, it’ll have to be there and nowhere else. Then tell the Lebruns and their kin that they are welcome to tag along, but no hunkering down in the bushes. Stand out in the open like grown men. I will tell the McAdoos to do the same. Everything and everyone out in the open. No tomfoolery. You got all that?”

  “I got it. Jesse, why don’t you just take Serena’s advice and skedaddle?”

  “Because, Jake, it would solve my problem, but nobody else’s. Sooner or later, this crazy way we live has got to stop. I leave, what’s to stop the next gang of idiots from stringing you up for no other reason than you being from the wrong side of the mountain?”

  “Nothing, I guess. Okay, Saturday, meadow on the south side just down from the top of the mountain.”

  “Where it levels out. Saturday, noon.”

  “Noon, Saturday, right. Serena won’t be happy.”

  “Well, that’s no surprise. Not much I do pleases her, nowadays.”

  “You got the wrong end of the stick there, Jesse.” Jake turned and walked away into the trees.

  Wrong end of the stick?

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Jesse retraced his steps to back to the point where he’d moved off his course. He’d taken a step toward the north when he heard the gunshots—one, pause, and two more in quick succession. Someone had found something. Abel? He rushed in the direction of the sound. He glimpsed Hoke Billingsley way off to his right.

  “Over here.”

  Jesse and four others converged on a bluff which hung over a creek. Abel lay on his back at the bottom, his head on the bank. Water washed over the rest of him. Jesse slid down the bank. Abel was ice cold. Was he dead or was lying in the water all night the reason? Jesse prayed it was the water. He sure seemed deathly pale.

  “Is he alive?” Big Tom yelled.

  Jesse felt for a pulse. He couldn’t be sure. He leaned over Abel and tried to listen for a breath. It was possible he heard a sigh. He felt Abel’s neck the way he’d seen medical orderlies in France do. There was a faint throbbing.

  “I think so.”

  Jesse rolled Abel very gently to one side. He saw the knife wound in his left shoulder and the bloody gash on the back of his head.

  “He’s been stabbed and he’s got a helluva wound on his head. He must have hit it on a rock when he fell down the bluff.”

  “Jesse, there ain’t no rocks on that fall except the river rocks he’s lying on and his head didn’t make it to the water.”

  It was true. The slope was clay mixed in with a few
bits of flint none of which were large enough to have caused the gash on the back of Abel’s head. Jesse could see the path Abel’s body took on its trip down. It started about halfway up from the bottom. He guessed that meant Abel had been shoved after he’d been stabbed and hit with a rock or stick.

  “Look around and see if you see a rock of length of tree branch with maybe some blood on it up there.”

  “You think someone hit him? Why stab and hit? If he had, wouldn’t he have chucked the rock in the creek?”

  “Maybe. Come on down here and help me bring him up.”

  Hoke held up a rock. “I reckon this is the one.”

  They managed to rig a rough stretcher with saplings cut into six-foot lengths and coats buttoned and stretched across them. Getting Abel up the incline turned out to be more of a struggle than they had thought.

  “Your brother needs to trim a few pounds, Jesse.”

  “We’ll have a chat about that, Hoke, but you understand, it might be awhile ’fore I do.”

  They managed to work the stretcher up the slope and between the six of them taking turns, carry Abel home.

  Granny Parkins was sent for and she arrived carrying the poke which contained the items she called her “Fixins.” No one really knew what lurked in its depths but whatever it or they were, the poultices and tisanes concocted from them were considered miraculous. Doctor Barney, the local quack would have none of it, of course. But if you needed a bone set, a fever reduced, suffered the worst effects of most diseases, or needed a baby delivered, Granny Parkins got the call. If she weren’t available, well, then you called Doc Barney and heaven help you.

  “This boy has a lump on his head that has caused him to lose his senses. ’Course you know that already. I can patch him up. I can stitch up the cut in his back, which ain’t that bad, but whether he ever comes back from where he’s at, only time will tell. Now you all get out of here and let me work. Addie Sutherlin, you boil up some water and put these cloth bandages in it. When they been cooked proper, you wring them out and bring them to me. Be careful you don’t scald your hands. I don’t need two hurt folks to work on, you hear me?”