Chase The Wild Pigeons

by John J. Gschwend

  Joe put the harmonica in his pocket and turned to Peter, leading the mule. “We got anything left to eat? This excitement makes me hungry.”

  “No. The bread we purchased at Bristol is gone.”

  “Well, we’ll just buy something at the next town.”

  Peter shook his head. “Money’s gone, too.”

  “Reckon we gave too much to Albert and Gus,” Joe said, digging in his pockets.

  Peter smiled and said, “The Lord will provide. The Bible says, For I was a hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye—“

  “Shut that up!” Joe turned on Peter and the mule reared. “I’m sick and tired of you and the Bible. Where the hell was your Lord when they beat the hell out of Albert? Where was God when your own mother was killed? What about my mother and sister? What about Uncle Wilbur?”

  “Now Joseph, you—”

  “No, Peter, you just don’t say anything else about the Bible.” Joe turned and ran up the road ahead of Peter. His chest was rising and falling with anger, but slowly he wished he hadn’t said it, not because he didn’t feel it, but he wished he hadn’t hurt Peter. Peter believed in God with all his might, but Joe had more doubts than a wagonload. Finally, he was feeling good, and Peter had to bring up the Bible and a god that had been absent too long. He looked back and saw Peter wiping tears. It tore at Joe’s heart.

  They were in front of a well-kept farm. The house was white and bordered with a whitewashed fence. The yard was neat and clean as was common before the war. There were even late flowers around the place like spilt paint. Joe saw no animals, but that wasn’t unusual being this close to a busy road. Soldiers and partisans had probably long ago swiped them.

  A dog barked. Joe spotted it by a smokehouse. It was a little dog—no danger from it.

  Someone was shoveling something in the doorway of the smokehouse. Joe walked over, and the dog ran to him and sniffed his legs. Joe rubbed him behind his ears, and they were immediately friends.

  “That’s it Itchy, protect Momma from the bad boy,” said an old woman leaning on the shovel. Her hair was in a tight bun, and her face was wrinkled as if it had been in bathwater much too long. She was stooped and had a large hump on her back like someone riding piggyback under her dress. She held the shovel with hands gnarled like an elbow bush. Joe stared at her distorted hands.

  “Hello, Ma’am,” Peter said. “We are sorry to intrude.”

  Joe caught himself staring. “Oh—a yes, Ma’am. We are hungry.”

  “Joseph!” Peter pushed Joe’s shoulder.

  “Well, Hun, you cut right to it, don’t ye?” The woman smiled and leaned the shovel against the smokehouse wall.

  “Sorry, Ma’am. I’m Joe, and this here is Peter.”

  She extended her crippled hand. “I’m Belle.”

  Joe looked at her hand as if what she had were contagious.

  “Take it, Hun. It won’t bite ye. It’s just rheumatism.”

  Joe took her hand. It was hard and calloused, felt like a twisted tree limb.

  “Don’t ye squeeze too hard.” She chuckled.

  She dropped Joe’s hand and looked at Peter. “Ain’t ye a fine looking darky, so well kept and all.”

  Peter extended his hand. She looked at it in surprise.

  “Never shook a stranger darky’s hand before. Things are changing so.” She took it.

  Peter pointed to the shovel. “Ma’am, maybe we could do some work in exchange for something to eat.”

  “Ye don’t talk in the fashion of a regular Negro.” She leaned the shovel toward Peter, and he took it. “You’uns ain’t from around here, are ye?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Joe said. “I’m from the Shenandoah Valley, and that’s where we’re headed.”

  “The Valley?” She wiped her knotty hand across her lips. “You’uns is a long ways from home.”

  Joe saw no point in keeping any secrets now. What could this old woman do? “We’ve come from Arkansas.”

  “Well, that is a fir piece to travel.” She nodded toward Peter. “This here your boy?”

  Joe looked at Peter. “He is a free man.”

  “There’s a good many of them now,” she said.

  Joe turned back to the woman. “No, Ma’am, he’s always been free.” Joe looked into the smokehouse. “What about Peter’s offer on the work?”

  “Ye boys is welcome to eat without working.” She looked at her cramped hands, then to Joe. “But I ain’t a gonna turn down no free labor.”

  “What were you doing here?” Peter asked.

  “Why I was scooping up salt offin the dirt; then I’s gonna bile it down for the salt.”

  “Getting salt off the dirt?” Joe said. “You mean you can’t get salt? Don’t your neighbors have salt?”

  “Boy, where have ye been? Times ain’t hard south of here?”

  Joe said nothing. Sure things were hard everywhere.

  “Why, ye can’t get salt around here, nor coffee, nor flour, nor such. Ye mean to tell me ye can get them things betwixt here and Arkansas?”

  Joe and Peter were on the move so much, he didn’t think much about it. The Yankees were at Helena, so there was plenty, and the Taylors had swapped cotton in Memphis with the Yankees for supplies. Now he was feeling guilty just for wanting to swap food for labor here in this depressed place. Why did Peter even ask?

  “Ma’am, we’ll scoop the salt for you for nothing and shove on,” Joe said.

  “Hun, I don’t think so. I said times is hard, but I still get by. I got some beans simmering now, and I got a mater or two. Ye two young men come around the back of the house when ye get me a bucket or two of dirt shoveled up. Just scoop the very top.”

  When she left for the house, Peter started scooping while Joe looked around the smokehouse.

  “Smells good in here, but ain’t even middlings left,” Joe said.

  “I reckon the soldiers took everything,” Peter said. “She’s just too close to the road.”

  “Things must be hard for her here,” Joe said.

  “Did you see her dress?” Peter asked as he dumped a shovelful into the bucket.

  “What about it?”

  “Homespun.”

  Joe didn’t understand.

  “Homespun,” Peter said as he leaned on the shovel. “Spinning wheel.”

  Joe looked toward the door. People hadn’t spun their own thread for years, except for the poorest of people maybe. This lady had a nice farm. At one time, she must have had a little money. Times really are hard now.

  ***

  Belle had set the food on a wooden table behind the house and had gone into the house for more. Between the house and table, a fire was tickling the bottom of a pot hanging from a trivet. An old oak shaded the table, and Peter could see from the arrangement of the table and the footpaths around it, many meals had been taken there. He imagined many days were spent around the table not only eating, but shelling beans or husking corn or just sitting and talking, as Mr. Charlie had done back in Mississippi.

  A rope hung by the trunk of the tree, and Joe grabbed it and scaled the oak like a squirrel. He threw his legs across a big limb. “Hey, Peter, you can see for miles from up here.”

  Peter arranged things on the table and waited for Belle to bring the rest. He thought about asking her if she needed help, but he knew some white people didn’t want Negroes in their house.

  He sat on a bench and looked around. He could still smell the chickens, though they were gone now. There was a small duck pond at the back of the yard, but the ducks were missing. He was sure the hen house was empty of eggs, and the pigpen was vacant, too.

  He spotted the garden and went to investigate. It was trampled and raped. It was a shame. He imagined a large family could sustain itself on such a garden.

  There were three small houses on the opposite side of the yard away from the animal pens. They were whitewashed and well kept—slave quarters, no doubt. Each one had a small garden bes
ide the porch, but they were empty, too. The small houses were fine slave houses as far as slave houses went.

  Down from them was the burnt ruins of a large building—the barn more than likely.

  “Peter, ye can come on out of that garden,” Belle called as she dipped beans from the pot. “The new garden is hidden.”

  She placed the beans on the table, and without looking up she said, “Joe, ye best come on down before you fall.”

  Joe slid down the rope. “How did you know I was up there?”

  “I had four boys,” she said as they all sat.

  She blessed the food and Peter admired the conviction in her voice. She didn’t just say it; she meant it.

  “Are you the only one here?” Joe asked with a mouthful of beans. “These beans are good.”

  “The only one.”

  “May I ask where are your servants?” Peter asked. “I see the quarters.”

  “Ye sure don’t talk like no darky I ever done seen.” She nibbled on a tomato slice, and Peter could see she was thinking. “Well, Peter, I tell ye; I want to say they ran off, but my heart won’t let me. About a year ago, I looked up and all four was gone. Uncle Bill and Aunt Mary had been with my husband forever, Fred and Jack, about ten years.”

  “Yeah, niggers have been known to run off like that,” Joe said, as he gave Itchy a couple of beans.

  Belle looked at Joe and raised her brow, but Joe didn’t notice. He was busy with his beans.

  She turned back to Peter. “I believed they’s happy to be here with us. I believed they loved us as we loved them.”

  “I’m sure, Mrs. Belle, they did,” Peter said.

  She picked up another tomato slice and looked at it. “Reckon we was wrong about slavery.” She looked at Peter. “Uncle Bill and Aunt Mary wanted their freedom so much they left the safety and care of the farm.”

  Peter wondered how she could have ever thought anyone wouldn’t want their freedom. How could someone be so detached from the truth? But he saw she was sincere and her heart appeared broken.

  “A coin has two sides, and from one side you can’t see the other even if you bend the coin,” Joe said, and then looked up from his beans to see the two staring at him. “A Mennonite preacher told me that—it seemed fitting.”

  Peter believed it was fitting, and a shame.

  Belle set the slice back in her plate. “Joe, you are wandering around with a Negro, so tell me; what do ye think about slavery?”

  Joe didn’t hesitate. “The long and short of it is: if there was no slavery, the Yankees wouldn’t have invaded the South, and a lot of Southerners wouldn’t be fighting for something they ain’t got no stake in. I wouldn’t own a slave if you gave him to me with a dollar in his pocket. They are more trouble than any gain. You can’t trust someone if they are bound to do something they don’t want to do.”

  “So, ye think slavery is wrong.”

  “I hold nothing against anybody, but, Ma’am, I wouldn’t want to be no slave. I reckon that sums up what I think about it.”

  Joe cut to the heart of it. Peter wouldn’t want to be a slave either, but the question of slavery was deeper, much deeper.

  ***

  Peter looked around the dimly lit parlor. The pine knots didn’t give off as much light as a good lamp, but the house didn’t smell like oil.

  The day had grown late, and she had asked the boys to stay the night after they helped her render the salt.

  “Peter, this is new to me, having a Negro stay in the house,” Belle said as she lit another pine knot.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Belle,” Joe said, watching the smoke corkscrew from the pine knot. “I house trained him personally.”

  Peter looked at Joe and shook his head. Belle laughed.

  Itchy curled up in front of the fireplace. Peter reckoned he loved the spot when there was a fire built in it, and that time wouldn’t be too far away as the nights grew cooler.

  Peter noticed a couple of shelves with daguerreotypes on them. “Your family?”

  “Yes, indeed.” She picked up one of the pictures, four Confederate soldiers. “These is my boys.”

  “Where are they?” Joe asked as he moved closer to see.

  “They’s killed, every one of them. Three killed at Manassas, and one killed at the Wilderness.”

  “I’m sorry,” Peter said. He knew how she felt.

  She picked up another picture. “This here was my Pat.”

  “He dead, too?” Joe asked.

  “Killed right here in front of the house about four months ago when they burned our barn.”

  “Yankees?” Peter asked.

  “I don’t know what they was—bushwhackers, I reckon. They’s gonna take our last milk cow, and Pat tried to stop them. They shot him down, and shot Itchy, too, but he ran under the house and later I patched him up. They throwed fire on the barn and the house. I put the fire out in the house, but lost the barn. I don’t understand why they throwed the fire.”

  “You have other family close?” Peter asked.

  “No. Pat came over from Ireland, and I came from below Knoxville. My family there moved to Mississippi or Alabama somewhere. We ain’t in touch no more.”

  Peter hurt for her. At least he had Joe. She had no one, nothing but a dog.

  “This war has been costly, ain’t it?” she said.

  “Nothing like it since biblical times,” Peter said.

  Joe piled up next to the dog and played his Hohner. Belle moved into her rocking chair behind the spinning wheel. She began humming, but soon was singing along with Joe’s playing.

  Peter sat on the sofa and enjoyed the music, and when Joe started with “Amazing Grace,” he joined in.

  The house was cozy to Peter. The little burning pine knots were just enough light for a warm glow with their little curly smokes. The place smelled of pine and cedar and smoked ham from the many years of living.

  Peter could close his eyes and see the family sitting around the room. He could see the fire burning in the fireplace and lamps lighting the parlor. He could see the family quietly reading or even enjoying a song together as they were doing now.

  A sinking came in his chest. Peter opened his eyes. As Belle sang, he realized she would never sing with her family again—not on earth, anyway. She was like Peter and Joe, victims of madness. It was a war, but it was madness. Who was not affected by it? Everyone in the South, and for all Peter knew, everyone in the North was touched, too.

  Peter’s eyes met Joe’s. Joe was looking into Peter’s mind as surely as he was looking through glass. Joe was playing as good as he ever had, but his eyes revealed he was thinking the same thing Peter was and not enjoying his music. Joe shook his head slowly. Peter understood.

  Belle’s eyes were closed, as she was lost in her singing. She was enjoying it—the company—the music—being close with friends, if not family.

  No, Peter would not say anything to arrest the moment. There will be time enough tomorrow to remember the war and goodbyes.

  Peter closed his eyes and remembered the Lord’s words: Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Yes, Peter thought. Tomorrow will take care of itself. He opened his eyes and saw Joe and Belle looking at each other as they played and sang. He moved to the floor beside Joe and Itchy and joined in.

  Chapter 2 1

  Joe sprang up in bed with a start. He collected himself—Itchy was barking and growling. Joe stumbled to the bedroom door, saw Belle and the dog looking out the backdoor. The moonlight sprayed through the window, and Joe spotted the old musket in her hand.

  Peter sat up in the other bed. “What is it?”

  “Something’s out there Itchy ain’t liking,” Joe pulled his pants on.

  “Don’t you go out there!”

  Joe ignored him and slipped out the bedroom door.

  “What do you reckon it is?” Joe asked as he moved beside Belle.

  “
Don’t know. I ain’t heard no horses, but that don’t mean nothing.”

  Belle went to the window. “Could be—”

  Joe cracked the door.

  “Don’t open the door!” Belle said.

  Itchy nosed the door open and shot into the night, barking.

  Belle jerked the door from Joe. “Itchy, fetch up here! Fetch up here now!”

  Joe felt responsible. He grabbed his tomahawk from his belt and pushed past Belle.

  “Joe, no!” Peter yelled from the bedroom door.

  “Don’t go out there!” Belle said.

  Joe ran around the coals of the fire and around the table to the oak. He shimmied up the rope. The moon was bright. Maybe he could see something from there.

  Itchy was barking at the henhouse, but Joe couldn’t see him. He heard Belle calling to him, then to the dog.

  Joe concentrated and soon had his night eyes. He made out the mule in the abandoned garden where Peter had tied him. He saw a possum on the table where they had eaten supper, but nothing else.

  Joe could tell by the hollow sound of the barking Itchy had went into the henhouse. The barking stopped. Only a muffled sound came from the henhouse.

  “Itchy!” Belle called from the door. “Itchy, ye come here!”

  Joe strained to see the henhouse. What happened to that dog he wondered. Maybe it was just another possum, maybe a snake. Joe couldn’t stand it. He had to know. It was no good sitting in the tree like a roosting chicken. He slid down the rope, and moved around to the side of the henhouse, holding the tomahawk at the ready.

  “Itchy!” Belle called again.

  Joe slipped to the henhouse door. He listened, heard muffled growling. That damn dog probably had a rat cornered. He rounded the door with his tomahawk ready to swing.

  Someone grabbed his hand and the tomahawk fell to the ground. A hand went around his mouth before he could make a sound. Suddenly he was in a bearhug and unable to move, smelled sweat and musk. He got one arm free and reached for his attacker. He grabbed hair—Negro hair.

  Joe couldn’t get free. It was as if he were in the grip of a giant snake. He tried to yell, but the stinking hand covered his face—he believed he would smother if he didn’t escape. He should have gone around to the back—damn it. If he could just wiggle loose, he could get to the tomahawk and this stinking darky would die. Where the hell is Peter when you need him?