“Perspective. That’s it?”
“Yep. “ She pulled the purse strings tight on her poke. “Why, Jesse Sutherlin, ask yourself why.”
***
An hour later, Jesse found his way to the Barker cabin. He knew Serena would still be at work, but he hoped Jake might be home. He guessed that the Lebruns and all those loyal to them would be okay with him roaming into their territory. He wouldn’t be stabbed, knifed, or bludgeoned today. Funny thing, it had not always been this way, no matter what his kin said. He remembered being ten or eleven and all the kids caroused around together, Lebrun and McAdoo alike. The parents didn’t exactly approve, but didn’t stop them. When you’re young, you don’t know how to hate. You learn that later from grownups. He pulled up a memory of a gangly legged Serena with her skirt tucked up and running like the wind across old man Billingsley’s pasture. She could beat any boy her size and most of the bigger kids as well. The Billingsleys had to sell the pasture off when the old man came down with consumption and couldn’t work anymore. Jake would have been just a tadpole back then.
“Hello, Jesse. Are you lost?”
“Jake. You keep sneaking up on me. It’ll get you killed someday, sure. Okay, I come over to see if you and me could have a talk. Are you up for that?”
“Sure, but maybe not here out in the open. How about you come on inside and we’ll have a pull or two on a jug and you can tell me what you want.”
“I can do that.”
They spent the next several hours speculating on what could have prompted someone to do all the things that happened. Jake kept throwing the jug on his shoulder and pulling a swig. After a while his words started to slur and Jesse never got an answer to how it came to be that Jake ended up on the horse with a rope around his neck that night. It was a question that had bothered him since Wesley McAdoo raised it to him on Sunday.
About the time Serena came home from the sawmill, Jake had dropped off. Serena, on the other hand, was her usual sharp-as-a-tack self. Jesse told her about Granny Parkins and what she’d said. Serena listened and nodded her head.
“It’s true, Jesse. I reckon that’s what has got everyone so off center when it comes to you. Some of the boys over here, like poor dead Albert, had the same problem. They were changed by the war and folks couldn’t understand.”
“No, not just the war. That is a big part of it, for sure. And it’s living in different places where they got different ideas and such. I had to get off this mountain to make a friend with a name like Chiparelli, or Hagström, with two little dots over the O, or a feller who could have been a Chinaman, for all I knew. They all talked different and, by damn, they said it was me that talked funny. You see what I mean? Then you tack on the war. Anybody who says they went to war and didn’t come out different is a liar, or he never went.”
***
It had turned dark by the time Jesse found his way back home. His mother waved him over to the table where she’d laid out a plate for him. Somewhere she’d got hold of a pork chop and added a boiled yam and poke greens. It had been a while since he’d eaten this good. He did not ask where the meat came from. His Ma had her ways. It was something that came with being a mountain woman. They all seemed to have the gift to tap into a little magic every once in a while. No man with any sense ever questioned it.
After he’d eaten, he took his coffee mug, the Norfolk and Western one, and wandered into the bedroom. Abel hadn’t moved, as far as he could make out.
“How is he?”
“Addie looked up from her perch on the side of the bed.
“I think I might have seen his eyes flutter a bit. Maybe.” A tear ran down her cheek.
“He’s going to be alright, ain’t he, Jesse? I can’t stand the thought of losing another one.”
“I ain’t dead. What other one?”
“Before you was born, we had us a baby. He died sudden like in his crib. We called him Billy, but he never lived long enough to answer to it.”
“I didn’t know. You never said.”
“You’re right, Jesse, I never said because it still hurts my heart, just thinking on it and it didn’t help you none to know. And now, it’s Abel.”
“Ma. Sutherlins is tough people, right? He’s going to be just dandy, you’ll see. Hey, who’s everybody says has got the hardest heads on the mountain? Sutherlins, that’s who. He’ll be up and making a nuisance of himself any minute now.”
“You go on now.”
“It’s true, Ma, and—”
“You don’t need to perk me up, Jesse. I wasn’t born yesterday. He’s in the Lord’s hands now. If it’s his time to go to his maker, well, he’ll go. If it ain’t, he’ll come around in his own good time. You, on ’tother hand, need to get to work on who done this. I am tired of saying it. You got to put a stop to this.”
“Yessum, I am working on it, for sure.”
Chapter Thirty
The next morning Jesse woke before sunup. He lit a lantern and found his way out into the chill predawn air to the privy. When he came back in, he found his mother sitting in her rocker by the stove, still as a stone. He guessed she’d not slept all night.
“Abel seems the same, Ma. He’s sleeping peaceable enough.” Addie lifted her hand an inch or two in reply, but remained silent.
“Can I fix you something? I’ll brew us up a pot.”
Jesse put the pot on to boil and measured out a large spoonful of already ground coffee. When the water began to boil he dropped in the coffee and pulled the pot to one side. Back when times were better he’d have added an egg, but not now, not yet. If everything settled down and the job at the mill didn’t go away, then he’d see about buying some chickens, It’d be nice to have some laying hens again, but not just now. He put a frypan on the stovetop. He stirred up the coals, which had been banked for the night and added several sticks of wood. They flared and the stove seemed to come to life. Next he sliced a rasher or two from the side of bacon hanging in the corner and put in to fry. He found a pan of cake pone and cut chunks off. He smeared bacon grease on them and placed them on a cracked plate for himself and his mother.
“Thankee, Jesse. You’re a good son.”
Jesse nodded. They ate in silence. Sunlight crept in under the door sill which reminded him that he needed to tack a slat across the bottom to keep the cold out. Winter was coming.
“Ma, supposing we are going about this all backwards.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know, exactly, but so far what I’ve been doing ain’t come to anything. Here’s what I got to thinking about late last night. Do you remember all the fuss back years ago about the feuding over in West Virginia and Kentucky, them Hatfields and McCoys?”
“I do, maybe not so much, though.”
“Well, I met this man on the boat going to France. One day we both of us had got us a leave and somehow I ended up sitting with him in the little eating place they called a café, which is how they say coffee, too, which is a mystery to me. I guess it must be because that’s one of the things they sell. Mostly wine as near as I can figure, though. Anyway, when he found out I was from the hills, he got real chatty. He said his Pa worked in the newspaper business. He said all that fussing that was wrote about the feuding over there was mostly made up by folks that had never even set foot out there in the hills in West Virginia and Kentucky. They made most of it up based on a telegram some Jasper sent them and not that many. He said they padded the story up a lot to sell papers, but the whole thing was really all about putting in a railroad along that river and that meant grabbing land. He said he guessed the Peabody Coal Company was mostly responsible for the ruckus. They saw money under the ground out there and aimed to take it.”
“Well, I can’t say much about that. Seems like one dam-
yankee or another is always poking their fingers in the doings of us folk when there’s money to be had. Same as when we had
Reconstruction. I guess that there program has just never ended. What’s your point?”
“I ain’t sure I have one, only…Suppose all this trouble isn’t what it seems or what somebody wants it to seem. Like the Hatfields and McCoys. If you got yourself a feud going on, don’t it stand to reason that the best way to cover up a murder would be to stir up the feud some, get everybody helloing around about who they hate and what they’re going to do to settle the score?”
“I ain’t following you.”
“What I am wondering about is, suppose all this, the shooting of Solomon, killing Albert Lebrun, and Abel in a bad way, has nothing at all to do with us or the Lebruns. I wonder if we are chasing our tail like a flea-bit dog.”
***
Jesse knew he needed to stay on the mountain and keep trying to untangle the mess he’d made of things, but at the same time he thought that he might do better if he put some distance between it and himself for an hour or two. He needed to take a long look, gain perspective.
Once he’d settled Abel and tidied up, he dressed and drove his Ford T model to Floyd. Miss Primrose said Lawyer Bradford was not available and that in future, Jesse should call or write ahead of time and schedule an appointment. Jesse said that might pose a problem because telephones were in short supply up on the mountain and writing a letter assumed skills that might not be been available just now. He’d turned on his heel and had reached the door when Bradford came out of his office.
“Is that you, Jesse Sutherlin? Come on in. I might have some news for you. Miss Primrose, this here is Jesse Sutherlin. He is a client and a business partner. He doesn’t need an appointment. You ring him in when he comes by when I’m here.”
Miss Primrose sniffed and focused her attention on a stack of what Jesse supposed were, probably lawsuits, or contracts, or the other things that occupied a lawyer’s time. He took a seat and waited as Bradford lifted one stack of papers and then another, from the right side of his desk to the left.
“It’s in here somewhere,” he said and moved another pile this time left to right. “Ah, here it is. This is a judgment I managed to squeeze from Judge Watkins to declare the land abandoned and the trust separated from the title. So, we are now officially in business.”
“That didn’t take too long. I didn’t think you could get her done so quick.”
“Well, normally, I couldn’t, but the judge has an Achilles’ heel, you could say.”
“Sorry, what?”
“It refers to a vulnerable spot. It comes from The Iliad, you remember?”
Jesse did not remember. He allowed as how that was where “it’s Greek to me” must have come from and said so. Bradford slapped his knee.
“By Godfrey, you’re the real goods, Jesse. I don’t know half a dozen men who are willing to confess they don’t know something. You stay that way. It’ll keep you out of trouble in the long run. Good Lord, an honest man.”
“Nope. A Buffalo Mountain man. With a few notable exceptions, we’re mostly all like that.”
“Which explains why you are a doomed race, Jesse.”
“Doomed? How are we doomed?”
“The world isn’t ready for honesty just now. Since they hung Jesus on a tree, honesty is a hard commodity to come by.”
“I don’t understand, why not?”
“Because, Jesse Sutherlin, mountain man, most folks are afraid if they really practice what they preach, they’d end up by being nailed up there with Him. Nobody is looking for that kind of hurt anymore.”
“That doesn’t make sense, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“No, you are correct, it does not, but there it is. So, the good judge has a weakness, his Achilles’ heel, like I said, is for real sour mash bourbon whiskey and I happen to have access to a stash of pre-Prohibition hooch, the real Magee, with a label and everything. A bottle of it and my request was expedited, you could say.”
“He took a bribe?”
“Shhhh…Never use that word in a lawyer’s presence. It could have serious and decidedly adverse effects on the health of the hearer. Let’s just say it was merely a gift to thank the judge for the kind thoughts he wrote to me on his last Christmas card.”
“He sent you Christmas card?”
“He might have. Who’s to say he didn’t? Now, as soon as the thing clears, I will scoot down to the courthouse and get us a piece of land which has, as you report, some very fine marketable trees on it.”
Chapter Thirty-one
By mid-afternoon the sun had managed to burn off any fog that might have lingered in the dells and the wind subsided to a gentle breeze. If he didn’t know better, Jesse would have sworn it was June or late May, not early autumn. He parked the Ford next to his cabin, checked in on Abel—no change there—and set off to find Sam Knox. He still wanted to know what Jake Barker had been up to on the west side of the mountain that ended up with him being ambushed by Anse McAdoo and his friends. He knew Anse would never tell him, but Sam might. Sam wasn’t the smartest hound in the pack and because of that Jesse guessed he would be a mite more open to answering a few questions than any of the others. He had better be.
He knocked on the Knoxes’ door. Weezy Knox answered. She gave Jesse a hard look. He guessed Sam had given his Ma an edited version of what had happened that night.
“Afternoon, Miz Knox, I was wondering if you could tell me where I might find Sam.”
“He ain’t here and even if he was, I surely wouldn’t tell you, Jesse Sutherlin.”
“No, Ma’am. Why is that?”
“He said you was the one who cuffed him about ’tother night.”
“That is true. I did do that. Did he tell you that I did it because he happened to be holding the reins of a horse that had a man sitting on it whose hands were tied up and who had a noose around his neck ready to be hanged? Him and his friends were fixing to lynch a feller from over on the other side of the mountain. Did he happen to mention that?”
“I don’t believe you.”
“No, I expect you don’t. If I was his Ma, I wouldn’t want to think that it would be possible for my boy, either. Trouble is, that’s what he done. I don’t know if he would have gone through with it, of course. I hope not, but at the time, I couldn’t take a chance. When he wouldn’t let go of the bridle when I asked him to, I had to give him a swat. I don’t believe it hurt any more that the Saturday licking his Pa generally deals out, do you?”
Louise Knox stared at Jesse for a spell, turned, and before she shut the door said, “He’s down in the meadow plowing. That’s where he’s supposed to be, anyway. If he ain’t there, your guess is as good as mine. His Pa needs to put a leash on that boy ’fore he turns out bad as his cousin Anse.”
Jesse did not find Sam in the meadow, although the Knoxes’ mule was there grazing in the grass which had turned fall yellow. Behind the mule he could just make out a single bit plow tipped over on its side which it was dragging along as it moved from one clump of grass to the next. Jesse walked the perimeter of the field and finally found Sam sleeping under a red cedar tree. He had his arm curled around what Jesse took to be a half-empty jug. Its corn cob stopper had fallen out and lay on the grass beside it while the hooch dripped on Sam’s sleeve.
It’s one thing to need a pull on a jug first thing in the morning to oil your joints and get you moving in the right direction, but nobody but a two-dollar dunce took a jug out to work the fields. Sam seemed set on turning himself into a drunkard like Shakey Jim Crothers who, everybody knew, would be dead before his fortieth birthday. The word on the mountain was if the booze didn’t do him in, Miz Crothers would.
Jesse kicked the soles of Sam’s boots.
“Wake up, Cousin. I need you to answer a few questions.”
Sam’s eyes popped open and he glared at Jesse. “And if I don’t answer them the way you want, are you going to break my wrist, like you done to
Anse?”
“Well, I tell the truth, I hadn’t given it much thought, but now you mention it, maybe I will consider doing just that, for sure. It all depends on you, Sam. Are you going to answer my question or not?”
Sam scrambled unsteadily to his feet. “What the hell do you want to know?”
Even standing two feet away, Jesse could smell the booze on Sam’s breath. He took a step back. “This ain’t going to be hard, Sam. You get your brains in working order for a minute and tell me how it was you all came across Jake Barker the night you near turned yourselves into murderers?”
“He were a Lebrun. There ain’t no law against hanging them.”
“Now that there is about the stupidest thing I heard all week. Why would you say that?”
“Anse said that Big Tom told him so.”
“And you believed him? Or maybe you just wanted to, even though you knew in your heart it’d be a lie big as a hay barn. Come on, Sam, I know you ain’t no college professor but you ain’t entirely stupid, either.”
“Anse said—”
“Just now I do not want to hear what that polecat said. His understanding of the law, the life, and the world, is as muddy as a pig’s belly. All I want to know is how you all came to find Jake Baker in the first place.”
Sam’s face turned a bright red. Jesse guessed he was calculating his chances to duke it out or run away. Finally, he realized neither of those were even a remote possibility and he seemed to deflate.
“It were lucky, you know? It just happened. We were fixing to go get us a Lebrun ’cause Anse said they shot Solomon. So anyway, we had a pull or two on Anse’s jug and—”
“Way more’n two, I think. You all was pretty likkered up when I come across you.”
“Maybe. You want to hear this or do you want to play preacher?”
“Go on. I’m listening.”
“We were fixing to go find us one, like I said, and here he comes riding that old broke-down horse of his and carrying an empty jug. He might have had some other gear, you know, like he might have been working on his own still and come over to our side by mistake. We didn’t ask. We jumped him and had him hog-tied and a noose around his neck in, like, a minute. Then, ’fore we could finish, you came along and set him loose. Why’d you do that?”
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