by Tim Bryant
"The story goes that he went to an auction where they were selling the negroes off for the highest price, and he started buying 'em up. None of the white folks knew who he was, but he had a big stack of bills, and they were all real eager to get some of it. At the end of the day, he loaded up two wagons full, mostly women and children but some menfolk too, and carted them all off. Said he had a big place up north that he could put them all to good use.
"Now some people swore it never really happened like that, and the ones that believed it couldn't get together on where he was. Maybe it was New Orleans or maybe it was Baton Rouge. Maybe even somewhere in Mississippi. Momma always came down on the side that it was a true story, just like the painting in our living room was a true picture. I think she had it in her mind that Wash might have been one of those that ended up going north with the President. She said stranger things had happened.
"I would always say, stranger than a little old nigger from East Texas working for President Abraham Lincoln?
"He ain't working, Art, Momma would say. President Lincoln set all of them people free.
"I don't know if it's the truth, but I do know he set all of us free on a farm in the middle of Pattonia, so I guess anything is possible. I didn't bury Momma with the Lincoln picture, because it was the only thing in the house that reminded me of her. Everything else just reminded me that she wasn't around anymore."
Things were different at the Persimmon Grove fish fry. First of all, Art didn't show up until the sun had gone down and a fire had been built. It wasn't cold outside by any means, but it wasn't hot either, and so a fire was built so we could all see each other at least a little bit.
When he did show up, he was traveling with a rhythm section. A tall, lanky guy with a doghouse bass and a fat little man who made an old Ludwig bass drum with two tack head drums and a low boy cymbal sound like a million dollars. The two looked at each other the whole time, nodding their heads and smiling, Art playing across the top of them like a kid running through a funhouse. I couldn't be sure who was following who or who was chasing who.
For a long time, Art and his band played and the people danced. First only a few and then a few others. It was then that I discovered that if you walked out past the fire, into the shadows of the trees, a sizeable portion of the men were lined up and drinking alcohol out of jars, milk bottles, all sorts of containers. I decided I liked this side of the church a good deal better than the inside. They drank up enough courage to get their partners and dance, and those who had no partners danced alone next to the fire.
As the night wore on, the fire turned from a hot blue to a cool yellow, and the dancers slowly slinked away and either said their goodbyes and left for home or sat around under trees nodding at the players and then nodding off.
That was when the music turned itself down and Art began talking. He closed his eyes a good amount of the time, as if he was seeing the scenes play out in his mind as he spoke about them. I drew closer, so I could hear him better, but stayed close enough to the fire that I could see to write.
"I'll tell you what. When I inherited George Delafield's house in Pattonia, I didn't want anything to do with it. Not the house, not the carriage house, not even the outhouse. Zeus snuck by them on our way back home from the lawyer man in Nacogdoches, and I tried not to even look sideways.
"You could set your little ol' house sideways on its front porch, and still have room for the swing, Harmon said.
"What in hell am I going to do with a swing? I said.
"Well, you could sit yourself on it and wave at pretty white women when they come past, he said."
Not many people were paying close attention. It seemed like he was talking straight to me. I made sure he knew I was paying attention. I was afraid he would put a stop to it all and disappear again.
"Harmon said, so who was that white lady a-waving at you anyway?
"Her name is Collette Edwards, I said. She had a man friend who got blowed up, trying to dynamite tree stumps a few years ago.
Must have made her crazy, waving at a colored man in broad daylight like that, he said.
"Must have."
I had noticed that one man had taken off with his woman and left two bottles of some kind or other unopened on one of the four tables that stretched across the area between the church and the little cemetery to the south. I was just thirsty enough to grab one when it didn't seem that anyone was watching.
"Harmon tried to talk me into selling enough of Delafield's possessions to pay for someone to move the house down the road to where I lived. I didn't have any idea if there were any possessions of value to sell off, and, anyway, I reminded him that there was already a house on my property and that the big saddlebag house wouldn't fit on it even if there wasn't.
"I'm fine just the way I am, I said, but we have two weeks before the bank comes in. Why don't you go live in the house for a spell. It's got a sight more room than the seed store, and it might even have a big old feather bed or two.
"Harmon said more room wasn't on his list of needs either. Things went back to normal. So normal that I had almost put the whole experience out of my mind. It was several days later that I was on my way down to the old dock which, even in good times, had never been anything more than a clearing where the steamboats could lay down a plank and was now just a good place to sit and fish. I had a cane pole and a bucket of worms and an afternoon to kill. A perfectly good afternoon to kill.
"I had caught a couple of crappie and hadn't seen or heard anything else, except for birds and squirrels high over me in the pine trees.
"Catching anything?
Art leaned in toward his audience and brought up that low hillbilly voice. It almost seemed like an old friend turning up.
"I turned to find an older peckerwood in shirt sleeves and dress pants. He was swinging a hammer, but he didn't look much like a carpenter to me.
"Not much, I said. Not much.
"He come down the hill from the roadside, spraying gravel as he did. Scaring off the fish.
"Live around here? he said.
"I pointed west down the road and nodded. It was as much of an answer as I felt like divulging. He stopped no more than five feet from me, close enough that I could see the shine on his shoes. They weren't shoes for ambling around Pattonia. Let me say that. They definitely weren't Pattonia shoes.
"I'm posting legal notices, he said. The bank in Nacogdoches is taking over all of the old Delafield property out here.
"I pointed out Delafield's house, the chimney of which was barely visible through a field of pine saplings across the road. I considered mentioning the fact that it had been left to me but didn't particularly want to draw the conversation out any more than necessary.
"That's a part of the property, he said. It also includes the land back this way and here on this side of the roadway.
"He waved his hand around us.
"You mean you're taking the dock, I said.
"He scratched his head with the dull end of the hammer.
At this point, one of the guys who I thought was sleeping under one of the pine trees laughed really loud. Art repeated the line for him.
"The Delafields owned all of it, the man said. Owned it going back generations.
"I pulled up my line and splashed it against the surface of the water until the worm come free and swam away. I had plum lost all interest in fishing, yes sir."
"I had a dream one night, and, in the dream, the photograph they took that day on board the Kate came to life. Momma Jodora, me and Wash were back on the steamboat, and we were moving downstream. Now, I know you people know, in real life, the Angelina River is little more than spit and a raindrop in places. It was a little bigger back then, because they hadn't started damming it all up, but even then, it wasn't the kind of river you could imagine steamboats easily flying up and down.
"But in my dream, it had stretched out to flood level, blending into the trees on either side until it seemed the whole world was under wate
r, but only by an inch or two.
"I don't know exactly who was piloting the boat downriver, but I had the good sense to know— maybe I should say I had the bad sense to think— that everything was under control, and we all were bound for someplace much better. Momma was talking, and I don't know what she was saying, but I woke with her voice still in my ears. I looked outside my bedroom window, halfway expecting water where the ground should be. It was still dark, but I could smell the day coming. I got out of bed and dressed while coffee warmed on the stove.
"By the time I walked up to the seed store, Harmon was warming up a bowl of dandelion soup and cutting up a potato from a sack we'd bought on the way out of town. A sack of potatoes cost a dollar and would last until they went bad if we cut them up enough. I looked at Harmon sitting there with no undershirt. He looked as hollow and fragile as his guitar propped against an empty crate in the corner.
"Going anywhere this week? I said.
"He pulled the soup from the stove and splashed a little into a saucer. He held it up to his mouth with both hands and quietly blew across it.
"Don't reckon so, he said. Might go down to Lufkin, see what's happening there.
"There was a colored cafe called Bunk's there that held dances on the weekends. It was also a well-known cat house. Den of prostitution. Just as likely the reason for Harmon's curiosity. As much as I had a taste for fun, dancing and alcohol, I had no great taste for women. Never had since the day I was born. Most days, I called that a satisfaction."
One of the women called out in response to that comment. I didn't hear what she said, but there was disappointment in her voice.
"I told Harmon, I'm thinking about going down to the house today.
"It's to Harmon's credit that he didn't ask questions.
"Sounds good, he said. After I finish breakfast.
I think I had me some of that dandelion soup. I always did like dandelion soup. After that, we walked east into the morning sun. It was buzzing with a cool chill that took some of the color out of everything. Along the way, we counted five posters, hammered into trees and posts, warning that the bank was on its way. The bank was on its way. The bank was on its way. We pulled down each and every goddamn one of those things, wadded them into baseballs and pitched them into the river."
"Momma Jodora and my father were married after my father was purchased from a man who lived here in Persimmon Grove. Way I always heard it, momma met him at church and took a strong liking to him. So I guess it all happened right here. Mrs. Lucy knew my momma Jodora had a liking for him and wrangled old J.T. Conray into doing maybe the only good deed of his whole miserable goddamn life. They jumped the broomstick, and everything seemed happy enough until after the war. When we moved off the farm, Victor got what momma called an itchy foot. Couldn't stay in one place long. He wasn't around us much at all, and, when he was, he spent most of his time staring out the window and planning his next move.
"After Momma died, we didn't really see him anymore. He came to the funeral and said his goodbyes to momma and me both. Never heard another word from him, never knew where he went or what he was up to. Then, all of a sudden, my old mule Zeus showed up one day in 1915, 1916, hauling the same damn wagon he hauled me around in for the next several years. Only other time I ever inherited anything, and I didn't have clue one where he come from.
"Your name Artillery Conray? the man said.
"I told him no, it was Artillery Conray Patton. Most everybody called me Art Patton. He said it didn't seem likely there was anybody else in the vicinity with such a name, and this mule named Zeus was now legally Zeus Patton, property of Art.
"I still remember taking him to see George Delafield like it was yesterday morning. George was up on the roof of his general store, turning the sign around so it pointed back east, on account of having a new customer who lived down that way. First customer he'd had in two or three years, I'm pretty sure. General Store & Seed Store, the sign said. Then underneath that, smaller, Geo Delafield, Storekeeper. It was the finest sign in Patton Landing. You could see it for a good quarter mile.
"That's one fine looking animule you've got there, he said when he saw Zeus. Where'd ya find him?
"I said, He was just delivered to me
"You order him from Sears Roebuck?
"We sat out front of the store, and I went over everything that had just happened. George said he would wager that my long lost brother Wash had passed on and left me Zeus in his will. It was an idea that hadn't occurred to me, but it made sense. Wash probably would have called me Art Conray. He wouldn't have known to call me Art Patton.
"I decided it must be true. I wasn't sure I had much need for a mule, as it was just another hungry mouth to feed, but the idea that Wash had thought enough of me, all these years later, to leave me Zeus and the wagon made me strongly inclined to keep both of them."
"I had spent hours with George Delafield, playing, talking, eating eggs. He was always cooking eggs on the big stove there in the store. He traded in eggs, chickens. Said we couldn't turn them into money, so we had to eat them.
"Delafield was the only white man I had ever come across that didn't think he was better than a negro. He said it, and he acted it. He took in trade from negroes, ate their eggs just like he did the poor white folks who came into the store. This was a time when white folks would chain a negro boy to a tree and take turns shooting until there wasn't enough meat left for the chains to hold onto. I had seen that very thing happen with my own two eyes and so had he, so he was saying something to those kind of people just by talking to me.
"All the same, I had never stepped onto the porch of George's big house until me and Harmon walked up that day. That's right. I reached out and knocked on the door, and Harmon laughed at me.
"Think somebody's home? he said.
"Something in the back of my mind said there might be someone inside. Maybe some kinfolk of George's that I never knew about. Someone come to town expecting a warm welcome and didn't receive it or maybe come knowing George wasn't there anymore. I didn't want to surprise anybody. I didn't want anybody to surprise me.
"The banker had nailed one of his notices right to the front door, so I pulled it off and let it fall to the porch before I tried the knob. The house had big windows running all the way across the front, so the front room was well lit, the morning sun shining across the room and onto the wall. There were four big rooms in the house. The front room, which seemed bigger than my house just by itself, had a fireplace on the interior wall and furniture that reminded me of a hotel I'd walked by in town. The kitchen, right behind it, had a long table which would've held the entire populations of Patton Landing, Persimmon Grove and Marion's Ferry put together. I tried to picture George eating alone at one end of it.
"The bedroom was directly across from the kitchen, and in front of it, a room that must have once belonged to their daughter Lovey. A small bed against one wall balanced by a sewing machine and a great big old organ, like what you would see in a church. The floorboards were starting to heave a little under the weight.
"Look at this damn thing, Harmon said.
"I put my finger on a key and pushed. Nothing.
"Harmon said, You have to pump on it, and he pointed at the foot pedals.
"Like driving an automobile, I said.
"I was pretty sure I would never get the chance to drive an automobile. I sat down on the dusty bench in front of it and put my foot on the pedal."
"There was another reason I was sure that Zeus had come from Wash. I had had experience with one other mule in my life, and that had been the old mule named Blue Dick back on the Conray farm. J.T. Conray had purchased him off the same man who had sold him Victor, and I don't know which of the two was the most trouble. Blue Dick was the kickingest mule anybody had ever seen.
"Wash was told to teach me how to plow with Blue Dick, on account that I was small and couldn't pick enough cotton to be of any satisfaction. Wash was a good bit older than me and bigger, and he
knew how to handle him. I didn't know a damn thing about plowing or mules, but Wash convinced me that Blue Dick couldn't kick while he was plowing, and that all I had to do was walk along behind with the single-tree and keep it in line.
"Smelling mule farts is the worst of it, he said.
"I still remembered the smell of mule farts when Zeus showed up a jillion years later, but I also remembered how Blue Dick got me in the hottest water I'd ever been in. I had only managed two or three rows when Blue Dick decided he was ready to call it a day. I hawed just like I'd seen done a thousand times, just like Wash showed me, but old Blue Dick wasn't listening. He was having none of it, as my momma used to say. He decided right then and there, we was going back to barn. He head back to that barn, and he was going right through the beans. Tore 'em all to hell. Then he went through the corn. Tore it to all get out. My very first day with the mule, and I got lashed within an inch of my life for it. Momma said I got it first from Victor and then from J.T. Conray himself, because he thought Victor was going soft on me. Which he wasn't.
"I still have marks on my shoulders from that experience. I swore I would never get close to another mule if I could help it. Of course, a week or so later, I was back out in the field with Blue Dick, only this time, J.T. had one of the hands with me, to keep me in line. Not old Blue Dick. Me. That was the year that things started getting tough on the farm for me, and I think Wash felt bad about it.
"Don't blame it on Blue Dick, he said. Mules are just like people. They only treat you the way they're treated."
"After Wash got sold off, me and Blue Dick got to where we could tolerate each other okay. I think we both missed Wash the same. Blue Dick hung around the farm pretty much longer than anybody else. By the time the last of us had moved off, he was old and infirm. Couldn't half see. Couldn't hardly carry himself around, much less anything else. One of the men— maybe Victor— took him down to the pond and shot him, buried him where the ground was a little softer, so the buzzards couldn't get at him."
