Last of the Dixie Heroes

by Peter Abrahams

  But which one?

  Made sense to start with the nearest, didn’t it? Perfect sense. Roy went to the nearest trash barrel, pried off the round plastic top, checked inside. Empty cans of dog food, sections of the Journal-Constitution, crushed milk cartons; Roy pushed all that aside, dug down beneath kitchen-size white plastic bags-no sense looking inside those, no one would have packed the wedding album away like that-down and down to a level that was sticky and moist. Roy withdrew his hand: red, red, red. But not blood: one quick taste proved that. Ketchup. He caught a glimpse of bent paper plates, french fries, partial hamburgers, the meat coated in congealed white fat. Below the paper plates lay the promising white corner of something. Roy picked up the trash barrel, dumped it out. There was a little explosion, but that was just a passing car running over an empty economy-size bottle of Coke that was rolling around out there for some reason. The promising white corner? Must have been that Sharper Image catalog, now coming to pieces out in the street.

  Roy moved on to the next barrel. And wouldn’t you know it? Right on top, first thing he saw: the wedding album. He glanced around, saw that others had witnessed this little triumph, shook his head at the irony of it all, sharing a rueful moment with his neighbors, although he didn’t actually recognize anybody, before crossing the yard and climbing back in through the window.

  Roy looked through the wedding album. He didn’t see his ma anywhere. For a minute or two he reasoned along the lines of her camera shyness. Then he remembered something key: his ma had died a few months before the wedding. How had he forgotten a fact like that? He smashed the bottle of Old Grand-Dad against the wall. Luck was with him: he had another, although how that had come about wasn’t clear.

  No pictures of his ma, but plenty of Marcia, smiling from every page. Roy crumpled up some newspapers, tossed them in the fireplace, piled on some logs, or maybe not logs but pieces of broken furniture he happened to have lying around, built a roaring fire. He flipped the wedding album in on top. The flames crackled and rose higher. Roy watched it burn, felt the heat, thought: Atlanta.

  Not the time of year for fires, of course, made the room much too hot. Roy went down to the basement, much cooler there. Must have been the temperature change that did it, causing an air supply problem. Roy took the inhaler from his pocket, squeezed it into his mouth. Empty. Hadn’t he got some new ones? He sorted through drugstore memories, got nowhere, winged the empty inhaler across the room, not hard, just winging, but it hit one of the street-level windows. Smash. Tinkle.

  The basement had indoor-outdoor carpeting, the color of a putting green. Roy lay down on it for a rest. He started dreaming right away. He was at the top of the waterfall; Lee was down below on the rock, fishing with her hands the way she did. She leaped up suddenly with her catch, not a brown fish this time, but a brown human head. Then came a horrified little shout, and Roy woke up, covered in sweat.

  Something was digging into his leg. Another inhaler? He took it out. The cell phone.

  Almost before he knew it he was calling Lee.

  “I’m at home,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  Roy hadn’t worked out anything to say. “I wondered whether you’d like to come over.” Silence. “Or go out for coffee or something.”

  “Outside 1863?” Lee said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Seeing each other not in the context of 1863, is that what you mean?”

  “I guess so,” said Roy.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea right now,” Lee said.

  “Why not?”

  “I think you know.”

  “I don’t,” Roy said. He followed that with something that shamed him as he said it, something he would probably have never uttered if that dream hadn’t shaken him up: “I thought you loved me.”

  “I do.”

  Roy waited for her to elaborate. She said nothing. He waited. Was she waiting too? What for? He clicked off.

  The phone buzzed right away. She was going to clear this up. But it was Gordo, not Lee.

  “Hey, Roy, been trying to reach you. Did you know your home phone’s out of order?”

  “Must be some mistake.”

  “Roy? Are you all right?”

  “As rain.”

  “You don’t sound too good.”

  “Battery’s getting low.”

  Pause. “Guess where I’m calling from, Roy?”

  “Chickamauga.”

  “Why would I be there now? I’m at Sippens Isuzu.”

  “Trading in the Altima?”

  “No, Roy, although I might, sooner rather than later-be getting a good deal now. I’ve started on the service desk.”

  “You’re not making much sense, Gordo.”

  “The job I was telling you about-Earl’s hired me.”

  “He’s one lousy goddamned leader,” Roy said.

  “Are you kidding?” said Gordo. “Sippens Enterprises made an after-tax profit of three million dollars last year-Earl showed me the books.”

  “Who gives a shit?” said Roy. “I’m talking about in the field.”

  Pause. “You all right, Roy?”

  “What did I say the last time you asked?”

  “Right as rain, something of that nature.”

  “I’m saying it again.”

  Roy heard Gordo take a deep breath; maybe he was having air supply problems too. “The thing is, Roy, I have it on pretty good authority that if you gave Earl a call he might be amenable to doing something for you too.”

  “Lost me.”

  “Call Earl,” Gordo said. “He’ll give you a job on the service desk.”

  “And who would I be servicing?”

  “Who would you be servicing? I don’t get you, Roy. The customers, the ones who bring their cars in for- Roy? What’s that?”

  “What’s what?”

  “Sounds like it’s coming from your end.”

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “An alarm maybe.”

  Roy heard it now. He went upstairs. A high-pitched sound. Roy followed it into the living room, which was on fire.

  “Roy? Roy? Everything okay?”

  Or some other annoyance. Roy tossed the cell phone into the conflagration. Burn, he thought, burn until there’s nothing left but ashes, and out of the rubble would rise… what? Roy couldn’t find a good answer to that question. Then came a little vision from the future: Rhett’s face as he listened to the story of how the house he’d grown up in burned down.

  The next thing Roy knew he had the garden hose pulled in through the window and trained on the fire, nozzle turned to maximum pressure. That got the flames angry; they swelled up, assuming individual personalities. Roy got angry too. He strode in among them, attacking the most belligerent first, shooting them down with water until they all flickered and died away. Smoke boiled up, filled the room. Roy ripped out the smoke detectors to stop the hideous noise, closed all the doors and windows, went into the bathroom.

  He gulped water from the tap, splashed some on his face, glimpsed some disgusting loser on the shiny silver faucet. Could it be? Roy straightened, looked in the mirror, took in the shocking sight: a disgrace to the uniform, the heritage, the memory.

  Roy stripped off his smoky, filthy underwear, had a long hot shower, shaved, had another shower, longer and hotter, then dried himself, combed his hair, shook on some powder, checked the mirror again. Better, but a long way from right. He put on the uniform: much closer. The disgusting loser was gone; the face, so weird before, was hardening into something he could live with. Roy left the bathroom-already moving in that free and easy way he had in his uniform-and smelled smoke in the hall. The intellectual part of him knew it was all that remained of the fire, now out. The soul part, to use Lee’s expression, recognized the smoke of his personal Atlanta, burned to the ground. He’d smelled this fire ahead of time, up at the Mountain House. Roy stuck his finger in the little hole in the jacket, worried at the threads. What else had she said about t
he soul part? Unconquered, unoccupied, waiting.

  Someone was knocking at the door. Roy went to answer, preparing remarks about something left in the oven. He was feeling better now, better with every heartbeat.

  “Nothing to worry about,” he began as he opened the door.

  It was Curtis.

  Curtis in the early morning, or possibly early evening. Roy couldn’t help staring, staring at that suit, that tie, that shirt, all so perfect, like a princely costume from an exciting era he couldn’t quite place. Curtis was staring at him too. Roy straightened his kepi.

  “Maybe this isn’t a good time,” Curtis said.

  “For what?”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you, Roy.”

  “Phone problems,” Roy said. “Very bad.”

  “I couldn’t get you on email, either.”

  “Nope.”

  “Are you all right, Roy? Looks like you lost some weight.”

  “Fatty tissue,” Roy said. He was going to add something about fighting trim, but reconsidered.

  “I can’t help wondering about what you’re wearing,” Curtis said.

  “Mutual,” said Roy.

  “Can I come in?” Curtis said. “I’d like to talk.”

  Roy was on the point of saying no, citing oven problems, when he happened to notice all the trash on his lawn. It confused him. “Why not?” Roy said. “You’re a good talker.” He motioned Curtis inside.

  Curtis didn’t move. His eyelid fluttered, the way it sometimes did. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I always liked hearing you talk,” Roy said. It was true. Curtis made sense, and when he got rolling he sounded like a preacher. Roy wondered whether he knew “Milky White Way.”

  “A bit messy,” Roy said as Curtis followed him inside. “Lacking a woman’s touch.”

  “Everywhere’s like that nowadays,” Curtis said, “women or not.”

  Roy understood perfectly. “That’s a Yankee thing,” he said.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Nothing.”

  They sat down at the kitchen table. Curtis sniffed the air.

  “Overcooking problem,” Roy said.

  “The reason I wanted to talk to you,” Curtis said, “one of the reasons, is I got a report that you haven’t taken advantage of the career counseling program.”

  “You know about something like that?”

  “I make it my business to.”

  “That’s a kindness,” Roy said, adopting for the first time in his life one of his ma’s pet phrases. “But there’s no need to worry about me.”

  “You’ve landed on your feet, then?” Curtis said.

  “All set.”

  “What as, Roy, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  Roy sniffed the air. He too smelled smoke. “Be right back,” he said. He went down the hall, opened the living room doors, looked in. The smoke didn’t seem quite so thick now, but little fires flickered here and there, harmless. Roy stamped them out and went back to the kitchen. Curtis was looking through the diary of Roy Singleton Hill.

  Roy didn’t like that. Roy plural.

  “That’s the war diary of my ancestor, Roy Singleton Hill,” Roy said. “The writing is typical of the period.”

  “Probably better than mine,” Curtis said.

  “Yours?” Roy didn’t get that at all: Curtis was known for the quality of his memos.

  “My ancestors’ writing,” Curtis said. “They were… on the scene too.”

  “One of those facts of life,” Roy said.

  “Definitely.”

  They stared at each other across the table. Roy realized that if the conversation went a certain way they could come to blows. He knew himself now, knew the Roy inside: Curtis wouldn’t stand a chance. Too bad because Roy liked him, always had. But why was Curtis pushing him like this?

  “Are you a reenactor now, Roy?” Curtis’s eyelid fluttered. “Like Gordo?”

  “No.” He didn’t like the way Curtis said Gordo’s name.

  “There are slave reenactors.”

  “You mentioned that.”

  “Big contingent going up to Chattanooga for the Lookout Mountain event.”

  “And that,” said Roy. “You thinking of joining them?”

  “I hadn’t seen the necessity.”

  “What necessity?” Roy said.

  “Of making sure the blanks get filled in.” Curtis turned to the end of the diary. “Did you notice how the last page is torn out?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Did you do it, Roy?”

  “This is my inheritance,” Roy said. “Why would I damage it?”

  “Maybe you didn’t like what was written there,” Curtis said. “Have you read these final entries?”

  “Scanned them,” Roy said.

  “Scanned them?”

  “Looked them over.”

  Curtis nodded. “It’s history, a diary like this.”

  “A part of it.”

  “Living history-isn’t that what reenactors say they’re up to?”

  “Don’t know about that.”

  “Do you know about Fort Pillow?”

  “I’ve heard of it.”

  “What have you heard?”

  “What’s written in there. It was a Union fort on the Mississippi.”

  Curtis read: “ ‘Twelve April, 1864, Fort Pillow. Best day of this

  …’ “ Curtis struggled to make out a word. “ ‘… conflict so far. Forrest asks for unconditional’-I think that’s what it says-’surrender but they refuse.’ “ Curtis read that part in his normal, educated voice. But as he went on, he began sounding more and more like a dumb cracker. “ ‘And thems tauntin’ us from over the walls. So’s we charge down from the east and Thunder takes a ball in the neck. I got my finger on the blood vessel and keeps ridin’ until Thunder goes down. We comin’ in over the walls shootin’ and hollerin’. Now theys thinkin’ twicet bout not surrenderin’ but we has our orders from Forrest and they was to-’ “ Curtis looked up. “Which is where the diary ends.”

  “Correct.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “They took the fort. I don’t know the details.” Roy found himself gazing at Curtis’s dark hand on the last remaining page of the diary. “Do you?”

  “I’m not an expert,” Curtis said. He closed the book. “And I didn’t come to talk about this.”

  “You came about career counseling,” Roy said. “And I told you-I’m all set.”

  “There’s one other thing, some potential good news that I’m not really authorized to discuss.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “Concerning new developments at Globax.”

  Roy shrugged.

  “I understand your being bitter, Roy, but it won’t help to-”

  “I’m not bitter. Quite the opposite.”

  Curtis put the diary on the table. “The plan is to spin off a few of the less profitable divisions in the next few months, perhaps involving employee ownership, but you can’t breathe a word.”

  Spin-offs, Globax-these were nonsense words to Roy, scarcely words at all. “No problem,” he said. He just wanted Curtis to leave.

  Curtis was looking at him, as though trying to convey some message. Whatever it was didn’t arrive. He pushed the diary away.

  “Thanks for stopping by,” Roy said.

  Curtis rose. A moment for handshaking came and went. Roy walked Curtis to the door, Curtis sniffing a couple of times on the way. “Stay in touch,” Curtis said.

  “Bye,” said Roy. He noticed it was night again, or still.

  Roy went into the living room, stamped out the fires. After that, knowing he must be tired, he lay down on his bed, that bed made for two. He thought about calling Lee again, now that he was in uniform, but did not. He wasn’t going to beg, was all through with begging or anything close. Did Roy Singleton Hill beg? No. Roy Singleton Hill yelled that rebel yell, fired the Sharps carbine, used his finger to plug the bullet hole in
his horse while he rode on and on, attacking all the time.

  So he wouldn’t beg, or anything close. That would be a disgrace to the uniform. This basic understanding settled him down a bit, but failed to bring sleep, no matter how tired he must have been. He tried putting on “Milky White Way,” but the player in the bedroom wouldn’t work. None of the players were working; in fact, there was no electricity in general. Roy packed up his Confederate kit-gun, diary, canteen-went into the tiny backyard, lay down under the stars.

  Except there were no stars, and nothing that resembled the night sky in any way. The city made noises all around him, Yankee noises. The air above seethed with them. Plus those brown heads waited down below. Roy knew what Lee would say: They occupied your dreams.

  Roy got up. He went out to the street, put his Confederate things in the trunk of the Altima, drove away. A tiny flame burned in the rearview mirror. Later there were distant sirens. Roy didn’t have to listen to them or any other bothersome sounds. “Milky White Way” still worked fine in the car.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Roy came up through the high meadow, the Sharps carbine with death on the stock over one shoulder, word carved there by Roy Singleton Hill, and thus part of his inheritance, although the exact message was still unclear. Roy also wore the mule collar with everything he needed rolled up inside. From a long way off, but very clearly, his eyes working the way they worked when sighting through the V, he saw something new. Red background, blue bars, white stars: the flag now flew above the apple trees around the Mountain House.

  Wasn’t a flag a signal, a code? This flag spoke to him and he understood every syllable: Unconquered, unoccupied, waiting. The sight of it fluttering in the breeze puffed Roy up inside his uniform. He felt strong, stronger than on his strongest day and much stronger than normal men, his lungs powerful, bathing every cell in his body with oxygen, clean and pure. He breathed that unspoiled air, felt the lovely wildflowers brush against his legs. Tennessee wildflowers: no need to pick these flowers, to take possession of them-weren’t they already his in every way that counted? He’d been born not far from here, had owned this land, this very corner of Tennessee, now lost; lost in a narrow sense because of Bragg’s failure to pursue after Chickamauga, lost in a broader sense because of broader things he probably wasn’t smart enough to understand. Lost, no doubt about that, but here he was anyway, still in uniform, still armed, still marching toward that flag, that flag still flying.