Southern Son

by Victoria Wilcox

  “I don’t see what’s so amazin’ about a horse runnin’ on four legs,” the postmaster commented. “Seems like the natural way.”

  “It’s not the runnin’,” John Henry tried to explain. “It’s the horse havin’ all four feet off the ground at once, flyin’ more than runnin’. And more than that, this man’s got photographs that show it happenin’—a picture that moves. I reckon I’d like to see that!”

  “I’d rather see that horse that can fly,” the postmaster said, missing the point entirely, and proving once again that Valdosta was a small world unto itself. But to John Henry, the story only reminded him of the exciting world beyond Lowndes County. In Valdosta there wasn’t any kind of photographer at all, especially not one who could make moving pictures.

  “You got a letter here,” the postmaster said, interrupting his reading.

  “I do?” he asked, putting the paper down. “From Jonesboro?” He’d been waiting a week or more for a letter from Mattie after writing her of his return to Georgia. But so far, no letter had arrived, and he was beginning to wonder if she were ill. Surely, there could be no other reason for her lack of correspondence.

  “Not Jonesboro,” the postmaster replied, handing him the ivory envelope. “Another one of them letters from St. Louis, looks like. Been forwarded here by a A. J. Fuches. Looks like it’s from that lady again, judgin’ by the handwritin’.” He smiled knowingly as he handed the letter across the counter to John Henry. “Looks like you got yourself a lady friend out west.”

  John Henry made no comment as he reached for the letter. It was just another in an embarrassing barrage of correspondence from Kate Fisher. She’d written him a half-dozen times already, the letters arriving almost as soon as he got back to Valdosta. Every letter was the same, her words filled with angry emotion. How could he have left her without even saying goodbye? Hadn’t their time together meant anything to him? Surely, he must have cared for her, the way he led her on . . .

  He never answered the letters. Writing back would have meant joining in her emotion, and he had no intention of ever going that way again. And though he had indeed had some feeling for her—how could he not, with all her fire and passion?—the whole affair had left him with a bad taste in his mouth. When he thought of Kate Fisher, he remembered how courting her had almost lost him whatever was left of his inheritance. So the letters from Kate came and were read, and then burned in the fireplace.

  But he couldn’t burn the memory of her. And though the memory of their time together was distasteful to him, it also seemed to symbolize the freedom he had lost. He’d been a grown man in Philadelphia and even more so in St. Louis. Here in Valdosta he felt like a child once more, Henry Holliday’s boy come home again to stay.

  When Mattie’s letters finally arrived, they only made matters worse. The reason her correspondence had been delayed, she explained, was that she was no longer living in Jonesboro, having moved up to Atlanta where she was living in their Uncle John’s home and working as a teacher at a private school. The move had been necessitated by her father’s continued ill-health, as he’d left his clerking position at Tidwell and Holliday and had gone back home to recuperate. So the responsibility of supporting the family fell to Mattie as the oldest child. But she’d been fortunate in being offered a good position in Atlanta where schoolteachers were paid more than at the High School back home in Jonesboro. She’d even be able to keep working when the school year ended in June, as many of her students’ parents had asked her to stay on as a summer tutor.

  Her letter would have seemed like good news, if only John Henry had been free to move to Atlanta himself. But trapped as he was in Valdosta, her letter only made him feel all the more restless. And it didn’t ease his mind any when she went on and on about how kind Uncle John’s family had been in helping her get settled there—especially dear Cousin Robert. For it was Robert who had first suggested that she move to Atlanta, and Robert who had arranged for the teaching positions. Why, without Robert, she wrote, she wouldn’t have known what to do with herself in Atlanta. The way she talked about him, Robert was a regular knight-in-shining armor, and John Henry began to wonder if Cousin Robert was being more than just accommodating. What if Robert had feelings for Mattie, too, and she were beginning to feel the same for him? But as long as John Henry was stuck at home, there was nothing he could do but worry about it.

  He had another worry right there at home as people were beginning to talk about all the mail he received—not the few letters from his cousin, but the undiminished flood of correspondence from the lady in St. Louis. Word was beginning to go around town that he did indeed have a lady friend out west—talk that he didn’t want getting back to Mattie somehow. Spending time with a woman like Kate Fisher while on a visit to St. Louis was one thing. Bringing the story of the scandalous actress back to conservative Georgia was another entirely. So to throw off the speculation, he decided to follow Rachel’s advice, after all, and stop by the Morgans’ home to pay a visit on his old school-friend, Thea.

  But word traveled faster than thought, it seemed, and by the time he arrived, hat in hand and hair neatly pomaded into place, the whole Morgan family was standing on the front porch waiting for him. There were a few neighbors outside as well, as though the whole end of Troupe Street had heard that a circus was coming, and had stepped outside so as not to miss the parade. That was life in Valdosta, he thought irritably as he opened the gate and walked toward the waiting family—everybody knew everybody else’s business, so nothing was ever a surprise.

  But Thea did seem surprised, or the blush of her cheeks made her seem that way, anyhow.

  “’Afternoon, Mrs. Morgan,” John Henry said, nodding to Thea’s mother.

  “’Afternoon, John Henry,” the widow replied. Though she was still in mourning, her black widow’s weeds had been traded for less dour purple and gray. Thea, he noticed, was out of mourning entirely, and wearing a pink dress that almost matched the color of the blush in her cheeks. Unfortunately, the pretty dress didn’t disguise the fact that she was still as thin and pale-eyed as ever. And for a fleeting moment he had a memory of Kate Fisher, and how she’d filled every thread of the wine-satin gown she’d worn at the Planter’s Hotel . . .

  “And how are your folks?” Mrs. Morgan asked, as though she didn’t see or hear of them every day.

  “Just fine, Ma’am,” he replied. But though local etiquette required that he say something more, commenting perhaps on his father’s business or his stepmother’s garden, he let his comments end there. He had no interest in discussing his father or Rachel, or in satisfying Mrs. Morgan’s curiosity. He’d only come up here, after all, to calm the talk around town.

  “Well then,” Mrs. Morgan said, as though they were finishing a conversation that had never really begun, “I’ll be going in now. Thea, you stay out here and entertain Dr. Holliday.” And with that she turned back into the house, the rest of the family following obediently.

  “Yes, Mother,” Thea said, the blush rising even higher in her cheeks.

  John Henry gave a quick bow as the older woman departed, then turned a bland smile to her daughter. “You’re lookin’ well, Thea.”

  “Why, thank you,” she said, blushing again as though he’d made more than the prescribed polite remark. “You’re lookin’ well, too, John Henry.”

  Her reply didn’t leave any room for further conversation, and for a few moments they stood together silently.

  “Looks like it’s gonna be a rainy summer,” he said at last, nodding toward the horizon where the hazy sky was turning dark with clouds.

  “Yes, I reckon it does,” she replied. “Be good for the crops, though.”

  And with that the conversation ceased again, and he had to think hard to find something more to say.

  “Do you see any of our old school friends much?” he asked, though he already knew the answer. Albert Pendleton was gone off to Augusta to continue his education. Constantia Bessant was married already, but not to Sa
m Griffin who had been so sweet on her. Constantia had married a newcomer by the last name of Crewe, and was already mother to a baby boy. And Sam himself, John Henry’s pal from those younger days, had gone off to Charleston and never written home. The other boys, the Vigilantes, had scattered to the winds after their release from the military prison in Savannah. It was good that John Henry already knew all that, because Thea, with her timid voice, gave him precious little news.

  “No, I don’t see much of anyone. Mother keeps me busy here at home, most days.” And again the conversation ended, as she looked up at him with adoring, expectant eyes as though waiting for him to say something momentous.

  “So how are those teeth doin’?” he asked at last, the only important thing he could think to say. “Any trouble since I filled them?”

  And as if embarrassed by the mention of the dental work, she put her hand to her face and said in an even quieter voice.

  “No,” she said. “They’re just fine now, thank you.”

  And the conversation died again and they stood in uncomfortable silence. For a girl who was supposedly sweet on him, Thea had mighty little to say to him. And again, he had a flash of memory: Kate laughing and taunting him with her worldly conversation. Then another memory flooded past thoughts of Kate—Mattie, brown-eyes staring deep into his, soft words soothing his restless soul . . .

  He looked down at Thea Morgan and couldn’t remember for the life of him why he’d bothered to walk all the way out there to see her. Sweet on him or not, she was still as uninteresting to him as she’d been back in school. At least then she’d held the fleeting promise of a first kiss. Once that was accomplished, he’d lost any more interest.

  “Well, I reckon I’ll be goin’ now,” he said abruptly. “Give my regards to your family.”

  Thea looked flustered and glanced toward the front door as if someone might be listening to her from there. “Wouldn’t you like to stay to supper?” she asked. “I’m sure Mother wouldn’t mind . . .”

  “Not today,” he said, putting on his hat and heading for the gate.

  “Then maybe some other time?” she asked hopefully.

  He stopped for a moment and looked back at her, all dressed up to wait for his visit, her blushing face showing how happy she was to have him there. There was something pathetic about how a woman could be so set on a man who returned as little interest as he did.

  “Sure, maybe some other time,” he replied, making the blush spread all the way into her pale hair.

  His mother would have been ashamed at how easily he lied.

  It had been too long since he’d been to see her, since before he’d left for dental school, but visiting her was always too painful. The stillness of her resting place and the quiet shadows of the overhanging trees only reminded him of how empty his life was without her. And even now, nearly six years since her passing, there was still a hole in his heart that had never seemed to mend. Yet suddenly he was hungry to see her gravesite again, to be close somehow to the mother he had lost.

  Sunset Hill Cemetery had hardly any hill to it at all, as Valdosta was built on the sandy flatlands between two rivers: Alapaha River to the east, Withlacoochee River to the west, and nothing but piney woods in between. Still, the name of the cemetery was only partly figurative. While sunset seemed an appropriate name for a place where the light of mortality passed into the darkness of death, the mounds of fresh made graves did give a hilly aspect to the burying ground. One day, perhaps, the mounds would be covered by grass and ringed with flower bushes and greenery. But for now, Sunset Hill was just a dirt graveyard, one plot after another holding the remains of the first settlers of Valdosta.

  His mother’s grave was near the center of the cemetery, and as he came close upon it, his mouth opened in astonishment. He’d been expecting the site to be unkempt, forgotten as his mother was seemingly forgotten by everyone but her still-grieving son. But instead of mounded dirt or scattered rocks as covered the other graves, Alice Jane’s grave was covered with flowers. Someone had made the plot into a flower garden, ringed with smooth river stones, and marked with a freshly-cleaned headstone and footstone.

  “Well, I’ll be . . .” he said aloud, as if anyone there could hear him.

  He stood staring in amazement a moment, then took off his hat and bent to his knees at the foot of the grave.

  “Ma . . .” he said, “I’ve been gone away awhile . . .”

  She knew that, of course, looking down on him from her certain place in heaven. For if anyone deserved a seat with the angels, keeping watch over the world below, his mother surely did. In his memory of her she’d always been an angel, too ill for most of his life to reprimand or raise a harsh voice. Most of their quiet conversations had centered around God and his mysterious ways. Most of their time together had been spent in study of the holy word or prayers at her bedside. And though those times had seemed constraining to him as a child, they seemed now like sacred hours spent in the company of one too good for the earth.

  “Too good for my father,” he said, speaking out loud again. “Oh, Ma! If you only knew!”

  And though, of course, she had to know that her beloved husband had brushed her memory aside to marry his young mistress, John Henry couldn’t bring himself to say the words.

  “Well, she’s nothin’ like you, anyhow, nothin’ at all! And she won’t ever take your place, not with me. I’ll always be your boy, Ma. I’ll always be Alice Jane McKey’s son . . .”

  And that was when he realized that her tombstone was missing something elemental: her maiden name had not been carved into the stone. The inscription read only: Alice Jane Holliday ~ September 16, 1866. And to his mind, that seemed a disloyalty almost as great as Henry’s hasty marriage to Rachel Martin. For Alice Jane had always been proud of her heritage, eldest daughter of William Land McKey, the master of Indian Creek Plantation. It was her McKey heritage, after all, that made John Henry as much of an aristocrat as upcountry Georgia could claim. It was her McKey inheritance, brought to her marriage as dowry, that had made Henry Holliday a landed gentleman. And now her McKey name was as good as gone.

  “Except for Uncle Tom,” John Henry said aloud, “and Uncle James, and Uncle Will . . .”

  And all at once he knew what he would do. South of Valdosta, just over the Florida line in Hamilton Country, was his McKey uncles’ place, Banner Plantation. He’d only been there once, on a brief visit after his mother’s death, but suddenly he had a yearning to be there again. Maybe there, in the midst of his mother’s people, he’d feel her close again. Maybe there he’d find some peace from the pain of living in Rachel and Henry Holliday’s house.

  He stood and brushed the cemetery dirt from his trousers, still holding his hat in his hand. “I’m goin’ to see your kin, Ma. I’m goin to see the folks who still love you like I do.” He didn’t stop to wonder who had planted all those flowers on her grave.

  But going wasn’t as easy as simply deciding to go. His weekdays were obligated to Dr. Frink; his weekends were obligated to helping out with his father’s businesses. Henry still had the profitable carriage and buggy business in town, and had brought in a stock of furniture to be sold at Zeigler’s Hall as well, and both shops needed tending on Saturdays when the county folk came into Valdosta to do their shopping. Then on Sundays, John Henry was expected to help out with the nursery farm his father had started on the family land out at Cat Creek. Where Henry had failed as a cotton planter, he was having some success as a horticulturist and seller of Scuppernong grape rootlets, pecan tree seedlings, and McCartney rose cuttings.

  But even with all the work that needed to be done on the farm, it was still only proper that John Henry be excused to pay a call on his mother’s folks after having been gone away so long. And because it was the proper thing to do, Henry let him have a few days off to make the visit. So on a hot June morning, John Henry saddled one of his father’s horses and rode off for the forty-mile journey into Hamilton County, Florida. There was no train to
take—that part of the country was still so remote, even the rails of the Valdosta-Florida Line ran away from it. But John Henry didn’t mind the ride. He’d walk all the way to Banner Plantation, if he had to, just to get out of Valdosta.

  There wasn’t much of anything to mark the change from south Georgia to north Florida. It was all pretty much the same terrain: sandy soil and scraggly piney woods, brackish ponds, palmettos with their trunks bare to a crown of fan shaped leaves. And off to the east, the Suwannee River flowing slowly through the tangles of the Okefenokee Swamp. Nor were there any real towns along the way where he could stop for some refreshment in the summer heat. Even Belleville, the closest post office to the McKey place, was hardly more than a mail drop, with no hotel or general store where he could buy a drink. So by the time he found his way to Banner Plantation, he was breathless from the heat and drenched with sweat right through his cotton shirt and woolen riding vest.

  “You look like you’ve been through it, boy,” Tom McKey said as he opened his front door to find his nephew standing on the doorstep. “Rough ride down from Valdosta?”

  “Rough enough. I feel like I’ve been eatin’ bugs all the way. The gnats are bad this time of year.”

  “The gnats are always bad down here. You get used to ridin’ with your mouth closed. Good to have you. Plan on stayin’ long?”

  “Only a couple of days. I just needed some time away . . .”

  Tom nodded as if he understood without hearing any more. John Henry was family, after all. It was Southern tradition that he was free to visit whenever he liked and stay as long as he liked with few questions asked.

  “Well, this place is about as away as you can get,” Tom said. “I’m surprised you found us, all alone.”

  “I asked around,” John Henry said as he led his horse to the barn out back of the main house—calling it a plantation house would have been too grand. Even with nine hundred acres in cultivation, Banner Plantation was still just a struggling farm, with a farm house and outhouse the only buildings between the dirt road and the barn. But it looked like paradise to John Henry, since there would be a bed and a washbasin inside and a pitcher of cool water from the well.