A Peach For Big Jim

by Lisa Belmont

  April 1860 Talk of war grows every day. South Carolina will surely fight to preserve our way of life. I only pray that if war comes, it will be over swiftly.

  May 1860 Briscoe keeps to himself of late. He tells me he fears for the South. I haven’t been able to trouble myself with the matter since I’ve been sick with fever. The doctor came and treated me twice, but it has yet to break.

  June 1860 Briscoe has kept his distance from my bedside for a fortnight. I called for Ruth this evening, lying on my bed until the candle guttered. I finally went downstairs, the smell of whiskey reeking from the parlor. The wayward glow of a candle drew me in and I found my husband and Ruth by the fire.

  The girl was trembling. “Mas’r,” she said. “Mistress upstairs. Don’t you want to be with mistress?”

  “Shhh,” he told her.

  Her bare skin glistened in the firelight. I pushed the door open so that it creaked and Briscoe met my gaze. A moment of utter silence before he moved from the hearth and tossed on his breeches. In a moment so matter-of-fact as to astonish, he grabbed his overcoat and left out the parlor door while Ruth huddled against the hearth. I summoned the overseer and told him to whip her. He dragged her to the post in the stable yard and gave her twenty lashes.

  November, 1860 Ruth is with child. Her stomach protrudes like a melon. She will not divulge the father, but I know it to be my husband. I know Briscoe has had his way with her more than once.

  March, 1861 Ruth’s bastard is born. She has named her Martha. As soon as possible, I will sell them both.

  I closed the diary, listening to the katydids. Lord, Briscoe Mason wasn’t at all what Pa thought he was. No, sir. He was a scoundrel, through and through. Pa would like to die if he knew that. But, Lord, I sure as heck wasn’t gonna tell him.

  Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

  C.S. Lewis

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I wanted to see Big Jim so bad and tell him about my family’s scandals. I figured it might bring us closer together or at least give us something to talk about. The next morning, I went to Widow Jones’ hoping I’d see Hattie Mae and that she’d tell me Big Jim wanted to see me.

  Puddingtate was working out front on the garden shed. It was a little white cottage with painted flower boxes. He was putting pine tar on the roof to keep it good and sealed for winter.

  “Widow Jones is up at the main house, Miss Chloe,” he said, wiping his brow.

  It was unseasonably warm, and Widow Jones was on the veranda sipping lemonade. I ain’t said boo to her since the lynch mob came the other night. More than anything, I was afraid she was gonna tell me to get off her property – that no daughter of Tucker Ray Mason’s was welcome at Whitehall. But I could tell Puddingtate was watching me, so I forced myself to walk ahead anyway.

  Widow Jones patted the chair beside her when I got to the veranda.

  “Miss Chloe, why don’t you come sit with me?”

  I’d never walked up steps so slow before. Widow Jones poured me a glass of lemonade, and I sat down in the rocking chair next to hers. I felt real guilty, yet I kept thinking about what Pa said. If we were back a hundred years, we’d be sipping iced tea at Rosehill.

  “Ma’am,” I said, ashamed to look in her eyes. “I’m sorry about what happened the other night. It wasn’t right for that mob to come to Whitehall.”

  I think she knew what I meant. It wasn’t right for Pa to come to Whitehall.

  “Chloe,” she said. “Do you know your momma and I go way back? We’ve been friends for a long time. I was so happy when she had herself a little girl that I sent her a crib specially made from Charleston. A hand-painted one with singing bluebirds.”

  “Yessum,” I said. “I remember. It was a real pretty crib.”

  My gaze instinctively went to the little white cross at the edge of the property where her child was buried.

  “Your momma’s been a real good friend to me, Chloe,” she said, her violet-blue eyes dancing over me, so I’d know it was true.

  “Yessum.”

  “Your pa though, he’s something else. House still ain’t in order.”

  A wave of shame swept over me as Samson, her new foreman, removed his hat and held it to his chest. He walked up the steps, his dark skin glistening in the sun. I couldn’t help but wonder how many folks had walked up these very steps. I didn’t know for sure, but it was fair to say Samson was the first black foreman that Whitehall had ever seen.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said. “Anything else you want me to do before starting on the gate?”

  “Hattie Mae could use some help barbecuing over the fire pit. After that I want to see that gate up. It hasn’t been down since The Civil War.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, putting on his straw hat.

  He stepped from the veranda, and I marveled at his straight back.

  Widow Jones got to rocking real slow and said, “Do you know, Chloe, that I wanted your pa to be the foreman at Whitehall?”

  “You did?”

  “Course now, it woulda paid more than the mill.”

  Lord, didn’t I know it? Anything woulda paid more than the mill.

  “But your pa didn’t want to take the job.”

  “He didn’t?”

  “No,” she said, rocking real slow.

  “Why didn’t he want to work at Whitehall?”

  “There’s one thing about your pa that I really admire, Chloe. He’s loyal. Loyal as all get-out.”

  I stopped rocking and looked at her, waiting for her to say it.

  “It was because of Joss. He wanted the job, and when I turned him down, your pa said he couldn’t take the position. ‘Wouldn’t be fair to Joss,’ he said.”

  I clutched the arms of the rocker, trying to absorb the shock of what she’d said. Our family had gone without for years. We lived penny to penny, barely scraping by. I had to stick cardboard in my shoes and shine them with a banana peel just so the kids wouldn’t make fun. Momma would stay up late, cutting fabric and sewing her own clothes. And yet, all this time Pa coulda been at Whitehall, overseeing Widow Jones’ property and making a good wage.

  I looked down the drive and pictured the angry mob. Widow Jones patted my hand, and I think she was trying to tell me not to worry. I tried not to. I tried not to think about how much I hated Joss Bleekman.

  The windows were open and the drapes got to fluttering. I knew Widow Jones was trying to air everything out. I felt the same way. Like I needed a good airing out.

  I took a long, slow gulp of lemonade and listened to them birds chirping in the sweet gums. A couple gardeners were pruning the shrubs and Puddingtate was rattling around on his ladder. Didn’t seem like a mob could’ve hardly been here the other night.

  “You think that mob will be back?” I asked.

  “No, Chloe. They won’t be back,” Widow Jones said, taking the little bottle of pills prescribed by Dr. Fontaine. She opened the cap and popped a few of them white pills in her mouth, swallowing them down real good with her lemonade.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “You know how the Good Book says, ‘Smite the shepherd and the flock will scatter?’”

  “Yessum.”

  “Well,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “I’ve got something that’ll smite Joss all right.”

  I’d never heard Widow Jones talk like that before. I looked down the oak-lined drive and wondered what she knew that could shake up Joss. Lord, she must’ve trusted me good to say something like that. Especially knowing I lived with Pa. If he heard her talking like that, Lord, he’d get to raising Cain something awful.

  She poured me another glass of lemonade and we sat there, watching a few crimson leaves fall from a maple. I wished I could shed the past so easily, let go of everything that got to clinging to me, and yet, part of me didn’t want to let it go.

  “Widow Jones,” I said. “Did you know Mo
ses’ wife, Ruth, was sold to Rosehill Plantation?”

  “Rosehill,” she said, with a far-off look in her eyes. “Didn’t that once belong to your great-granddaddy?”

  “Yessum, Briscoe Mason. He fought valiantly at the Battle of Manassas,” I said, sounding like Pa.

  “Why, of course. Rosehill used to be owned by your kinfolk.”

  “Yessum, and Ruth was sold there.”

  “Ruth’s daughter, Martha, came to Whitehall when Carlton was a boy,” Widow Jones said. “She was a real nice woman. Cared for him real good and cooked for us when we first got married. Best buttermilk fried chicken this side of Georgia.”

  “Better n’ Hattie Mae’s?”

  “No, I wouldn’t say that. They used the same recipe though. You see, Martha was Hattie Mae’s mother.”

  I took a big gulp of lemonade and tried to keep from spitting it out. Lord, Briscoe Mason’s bastard child was Hattie Mae’s momma. If that don’t beat all.

  Dolly Mason’s diary was a bigger secret than I thought. If I really thought about it, not only was Hattie Mae descended from Briscoe Mason but so was Big Jim. He was my kinfolk, same as Caleb.

  I liked to died thinking what Pa would do if he found out.

  A gentleman accepts the responsibility of his actions and bears the burden of their consequences.

  William Faulkner

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I went to the tree fort every day, hoping I’d see Big Jim. I couldn’t wait to tell him we were related. I didn’t know if he’d get a kick out of that or want to hide away in his little river shack some more. Seemed like nothing I was doing made any difference anyway.

  Most days I’d just sit there, letting the sunlight stream through the window until it went down in a blaze of glory. I’d take my satchel full of books and climb down the rope ladder, feeling like a part of me was missing.

  Hattie Mae told me there was no way in “you know what” that she’d tell Big Jim to come see me.

  “It ain’t worth it. Ain’t nothing worth what he’s been through.”

  I started to believe her. I started thinking there was no way that Big Jim would ever come back to the tree fort.

  On a rainy morning, we had a special delivery from a courier. The young man stood on our front stoop and tipped his wool cap.

  “From Charles Kensington, Esquire, sir,” the young man said.

  He was holding a letter and stole a quick glimpse inside our shotgun house. A pink flush warmed my cheeks as he glanced at my nightgown. Course, it wasn’t even eight o’ clock. What kind of person would bring a letter this early on a Saturday morning?

  Pa took the letter and shut the door without even a thank you. I’d never seen him study something so hard before. His hand got to shaking real bad, and he looked at Momma. He handed her the letter, and she read it.

  “Any and all trespassers on Mrs. Carlton Jones’ property located on Ashley River Road will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The below named, Tucker Ray Mason, will face criminal charges if he neglects to follow the ordinances under Charleston County law.”

  The letter had an official seal and everything.

  Pa wiped his forehead and took the jug of moonshine out of the liquor cabinet. He looped his finger around the handle and took a good swig.

  “Here’s to you, Blackie Sullivan,” he belched.

  Widow Jones owned half the land in the county. For all I knew, Pa might be hauled off to jail. According to the letter, Pa wasn’t allowed to step foot on her property whether it was down by the swamp, the bogs, or the marshes. Pa and Caleb did most of their hunting on her property, and for years she hadn’t minded, but coming to Whitehall the other night was apparently the last straw.

  Pa took a swig of moonshine and I knew he and Joss would both be fit to be tied if they kept getting letters from Widow Jones’ attorney. They liked to think they owned Mills Hollow. Forget about Widow Jones owning most of the land. She was a woman for Pete’s sake and sure as heck wasn’t no woman gonna tell either of them what to do.

  Momma took the bottle from Pa and said, “You’d best stay away from Big Jim. Anything happens to that boy and there’s gonna be trouble.”

  That was the part I was the most excited about, but it liked to give Pa a fit. He grabbed his gun and went out the door, ready to shoot the first coon he could find.

  I cannot be awake for nothing looks to me as it did before, or else I am awake for the first time.

  Walt Whitman

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Fall had always been my favorite time of year. Momma would make stew from the oysters down at the May River, and we’d cook sweet potato pone to go along with it. I’d go around collecting leaves and pinecones. Sometimes acorns from under them big oaks. Momma and I’d tuck them in grapevine wreaths, adding berries here and there. Pa would stack the firewood by the hearth and Momma would make hot apple cider. Caleb would smoke the white-tailed deer he’d shot and we’d have venison for a month. Yessir, there wasn’t nothing like fall. Only this year, I couldn’t get excited about any of it. I missed Big Jim.

  All the kids in Mills Hollow were talking about Halloween. Joss and Alma Bleekman were having a party and it seemed like the whole town was going. Momma said she’d make me a costume, but I never got worked up about anything enough to tell her what to make.

  “What you mopin’ ‘round for?” Caleb asked one afternoon while he was standing in the middle of the living room getting fitted for his General Lee costume.

  Momma had some extra scraps of gray fabric and she was using them to make Caleb’s costume. He had a Confederate patch on his felt hat and looked downright regal. I think the main reason he wanted Momma to make him a good costume, though, was to impress Emma Kate.

  “I ain’t mopin’,” I said, knowing it didn’t sound too convincing.

  “Ain’t you gonna be nothing for Halloween?”

  “I can make you something real quick,” Momma offered. “I heard Margaret Wilcox is going as Maid Marian. What about something like that?”

  “Maid Marian?” Caleb laughed. “Robin Hood’s sweetheart?”

  “I don’t want to be going like Margaret Wilcox. She’ll have a tiara and a long dress and look real good.”

  Just cuz her pa owned the little country store Margaret thought she was better than everybody else.

  “Well, thanks a lot,” Momma said, pinning up Caleb. “I can work a needle as good as anyone.”

  “I’m sorry, Momma. I don’t mean nothing by it. It’s just that she has all kinds of fabric from Uncle Hickory’s store and all we’ve got are some old clothes we’d have to patch together.”

  “You’re just sore cuz you know I’m going to win the costume contest,” Caleb said, prouder than an old rooster as he tied a red sash around his waist.

  “Am not,” I said, sitting on the floor with Rufus.

  He was lying there like he’d just come back from a hunt, his tongue lolling on the floor like he was dreaming about treeing a coon. He’d get all riled up tomorrow night though when them trick-or-treaters came to the house.

  I got to wondering if Big Jim was going trick-or-treating. Them river shacks were all lined up in a row. He could go house to house in no time. Probably get some Sugar Daddy pops and some saltwater taffy. Or maybe even some Slo Pokes and Necco Wafers.

  I scratched Rufus behind the ears and got up, telling Momma I’d think of a costume in the morning.

  Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils.

  But if God be for you, who can be against you?

  John Wesley

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Have you decided yet?” Caleb asked first thing over biscuits and jam.

  I sat down at the table and Pa went on about Widow Jones and the NO TRESPASSING sign she’d put up.

  “She’ll have my hide if I so much as sneeze on Carlton Jones’ land.”

  Pa still thought of Whitehall as Carlto
n Jones' plantation, even though he'd been dead over ten years.

  “Decided what?” I said.

  “About your costume?”

  “I dunno,” I told Caleb, as I sponged up some butter with my biscuit.

  I wasn’t in much of a mood to think about it. Pa wasn’t any help either. He liked to have a fit saying it was discrimination that he couldn’t visit his wife at Whitehall when every nigger in town got to stay as an honored guest. And what was that snooty lawyer from Charleston going to do when all them trick-or-treaters came to her house? Charge them with trespassing?

  “You gotta be something,” Caleb said, as Pa went outside, slamming the door.

  Momma just ignored him, passing me some raspberry jam.

  “Maybe I’ll put on an old sheet and go as a ghost.”

  “A ghost?” Caleb said, his eyes getting real big. “Hey, I know, Chloe. You can be the ghost of Foxhole Swamp. You can come out at midnight and fly around the swamp. Maybe scare a few people and even eat a possum like Big Jim.”

  “Caleb,” Momma said. “Enough of that talk.”

  “Aw, shucks, Momma. Chloe knows I’m just kidding.”

  He took a second helping of biscuits and told Momma she’d probably need to let out the britches for his costume.

  I’d never thought of my brother as truly mean before, but that’s exactly what I saw as he ate them biscuits. Jam got to drizzling down his chin something awful, and I excused myself from the table.

  For the rest of the day, I couldn’t help thinking about Big Jim and our tree fort. I hoped nobody’d throw eggs at it or toss toilet paper around the branches. Sometimes the kids got to playing awful pranks and you’d find gates unhinged or windows broken. That was the last thing I wanted to happen, to see the tree fort hanging from them branches like it was ready to collapse.

  When night fell, I put on my ghost costume, which seemed about right cuz all I wanted to do was disappear. It was one of Momma’s old sheets with two holes for my eyes.