Chapter 13
It is a hard thing to
try and sleep against a background of haunting memories, in our paradox world
where exhaustion may sometimes only exhaust, without sapping consciousness.
Both Uriah and Iris tossed and turned restlessly on their respective beds
through that night – though Uriah had to make do with a couple of old horse
blankets and a straw-filled pallet where Iris slept under a feather comforter
on a mattress packed tight with horsehair. Perhaps each thought of the other in
their sleeping, but perhaps both of them were too much bound up in their own
travails.
Eulalia woke Uriah the
following morning by banging a metal ladle on a pan outside his door just after
half past five. ‘C’mon, Massa Hitt. Miz Evelyn sez yo’ gotta eat good, ‘fore
you go out, and I’se gotta rightly bowl of griddle cake makin’s jes’ waitin’
fer yo.’
Uriah emerged into the
thin dawn light and stretched. He was scowling at being roused, for he knew he
must ride out to the farm again to give his father proper Christian burial, and
feared secretly that he might find himself face to face again with his
mother. But he was also hungry. He
drenched himself quickly at a pump in the Kingmans’ yard, shaking water from
his head and shoulders like a dog shaking itself after swimming, and fastened
his overalls. It was turning chilly, these fall dawns, and he needed something
comforting to start his day. Iris would have suited him better, for bodily
warmth on waking, and food on his plate. But he would content himself in his
eating, in the knowledge that he would have his wife back with him soon.
He eyed Eulalia a little
askance as he stepped into the Kingmans’ kitchen, for he was not sure how he
should be with a nigra woman feeding him. But Eulalia only beamed, pointing to
a place laid at the kitchen table, with a blue and white china plate already
set high with a steaming stack of griddle cakes, a small crock of syrup next to
it alongside a tin mug filled with strong black coffee, and a big dish of fresh
butter. ‘There yo’ go, massa. Yo’ want to give thenks to the Lord thet made yo’
fust, or yo’ want a big cut of ham?’
Uriah was already sat,
and eating. He was a godfearing man, but he had never called down the Lord on
his eating, because praying tended to make food grow cold. He nodded as Eulalia
held a big carving knife over a side of ham. ‘I’ll tek kindly to thet.’
He was surprised to hear
himself speak, because folk in the holler had never had any dealings with
colored people, regarding them with suspicion and distrust, and precious few
ever came to Coates. But a good cook knows the way to a man’s heart.
Eulalia cut him a hefty
slice, and began to busy herself making a second stack of griddle cakes. She
had never come across a man, colored or white, who would pass up her
breakfasts, whether they might be ordinary food in the regular way, or fancy
cooking like the Kingmans ate, like oatmeal porridge and milk and honey, or
omelettes with yellow dry land fish mushrooms shaped like hearing trumpets in
them. She had a dish in her larder waiting for Miss Evelyn’s breakfast, and
Miss Eveleyn had been most particular about their cooking, wanting them first
fried lightly in butter, just to sweat them out a bit, and then cooked in an
omelette that stayed a little runny at the center. Why, Lord, people back in
her childhood days down in Alabama would never have touched such things,
considering them mighty poisonous, and even folks up here in the hills would
only look at them when they had been fried to a crisp in bacon grease. Yet here
she had heard with her own two black ears Miss Evelyn tell her that such things
fetched almighty high prices on the Coast. She took a deep breath as she lifted
her cast iron skillet from the wood stove. Folks could be mighty strange in
their ways.
She waited for Uriah to
finish, and then swept the second stack deftly onto his plate, and watched him
smack his lips. There is something in the assuagement of hunger that makes a
man mellow up a deal, and he beamed up at her. ‘Yo’ doin’ fine.’
Eulalia might have
blushed, had she been younger. ‘Aw, shucks.’ She pushed his compliment away.
‘Miz Evelyn told me to feed you up good, and I’se doin’ ma best.’
Evelyn entered the
kitchen as she was speaking, and Eulalia beamed at her proudly. ‘See, ma’am,
I’se fillin’ him up.’
Evelyn looked at Uriah
eating, though his jaws were moving a little more slowly now than when he had
started, and smiled. ‘I can see that you are.’ She pulled a chair out from the
table to sit facing him, and Eulalia watched approvingly. She could see that
Franny’s mother was a woman who knew just the right way to handle people. Some
might have remained standing, or expected a man to stand to them, but Miss
Evelyn just got on plain and simple with what she was planning to do.
‘Uriah, Mr. Kingman will
be ready for you, just as soon as you have had a moment with your wife.’ Evelyn
spoke slowly, watching to see how Uriah would take her words. She judged him
headstrong and stubborn, the kind of man who could be wrong-footed with a tone,
or an inflection, let alone a wrong word, and she wanted everything to run
smoothly.
Uriah swallowed hard. He
had been eating, and it had been a pleasure, but now he was being summoned back
into a different world. He shook his head as Eulalia held her skillet up
enquiringly, though he knew he was mightily tempted, for there is something in
a man who has known short commons in his lifetime that makes him want to fill
himself even beyond fulfilment, just in case his next meal may be some time coming.
But he knew that he had filled himself fuller than the stuffing in a big old
turkey tom come Thanksgiving. ‘I’m done now, ma’am.’
‘I’ll tell Mr. Kingman
that you’ll be ready to ride out in a minute.’ Evelyn got to her feet. ‘I think
you can go up to Iris now.’
Uriah climbed the
Kingmans’ stairs reluctantly. He still did not hold with his wife being kept
away from him, and he was sure that sleeping in a fancy bed would put bad ideas
in her head. But he was now too full now to be tempted by lust. He knew that
being sent away would deprive him of those moments that a man can rightly
expect of his wife, and that seemed an injustice to him. But the world is not
always just.
He pushed the door to Iris’
room open, and stopped short. Two girls in white dresses and pinafores laced
with matching blue ribbons were seated on the far side of the bed watching
Iris, who had her arm around a third small girl, pointing to a page in a book.
‘That says Alice met a White Rabbit, with
gloves and a hat on, and cute little britches.’ Ellen Kingman stopped short,
and all three Kingman girls looked up in alarm.
Uriah scowled. These
children were taking Iris down a wrong path.
Iris pushed Ellen gently
away. ‘You must go and have breakfast now. Your parents will be waiting for
you.’
Uriah waited for the
three children to leave the room. He sensed that somehow Iris had already begun
to change, speaking more precisely, using words such as ‘breakfast’ and
‘parents’. He did not like the way things were progressing, not one little bit.
‘Yo’ gonna be up here
long, wife?’
Iris winced as she
turned towards him. She was still uncomfortable, and her breasts were painful,
though Doctor Carter had given her some oil of camphor to rub into them, and
Eulalia had helped bind them tightly to slow her lactating. She had also woken
in tears at the memory of her loss, and thought Uriah might have given some
thought to that.
‘Doctor Carter’s coming
up, later in the day. He stitched me up some.’ She began to cry a little again in her effort not to mention
what happened.
Uriah looked down at her
awkwardly. He had seen Iris cry, in the early days of their marriage, after he
had whipped her, and her tears had then been a mark of his superior strength,
and her yielding. But now he did not know what to do.
‘Oh, husband, I did so
want to give you a son.’ Now Iris was sobbing openly. ‘I wanted thet so bad,
and he was taken from me. Jes’ give me time to mend, an’ we’ll raise a whole
family.’
Uriah swallowed hard. He
had never before known the feeling that was in him, and he did not know how to
deal with it. He stepped up to the bed, and laid his hand on Iris’ shoulder,
and then turned away, back to the door. ‘I must go and bid goodbye to ma Paw.’
His words stumbled out of him, and with them he was gone.
The four men rode up to
the Hitt farm through the dawn mist, and it was a time of reckoning. Evered had
already arranged Floyd Conover’s funeral with Brother Ezekiel Hicks, the new
minister sent out from Gallatin to tend the Lord’s flock at Coates, and he
imagined Brother Hicks would call up a storm over Zack Benton’s coffin as well
– it is not often that a new servant to the Lord can appeal twice in a day for
contributions, and contributions come in very handy, even if they only call in
a dime at a time.
They rode slowly up to
the Hitts’ cabin, with Uriah in the lead. But there was no sign of life, and no
sound. Uriah dismounted by his father’s grave, and the three other men slid
from their saddles. There was a chill in the fall air, as though ice had been
around, though it was too early for freezing.
Macdonald walked to
where the earth had been turned, and pulled his Bible from his coat pocket. It
was a well-thumbed book, used much in his work of burying, baptizing, and
marrying, and he knew its meaningful pages pretty much by heart.
‘The Lord is my
shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures…’ He began
to read the words of the twenty-third psalm. Kingman and Evered listened
neutrally. They were performing a duty they felt incumbent on them. Uriah
seemed lost in a reverie.
The Methodist clergyman
read through his service in measured tones, and then began to intone the Lord’s
Prayer. Kingman and Evered muttered the words with him, whilst Uriah looked
around, as though expecting his mother to appear. Then it was all over, and the
four of them were riding back to Coates. Four silent men, each bound up in his
own thoughts.
Uriah followed David
Kingman and Turner Evered as they reached the railroad depot, and the three men
dismounted. Pastor Macdonald had already broken away. ‘We’d better fit you
out.’ Kingman spoke briskly. Half an hour later Uriah was the proud owner of
two new pairs of fireman’s overalls, a pair of new boots with steel tips inside
the toes, two pairs of woolen socks, a fireman’s soft peaked cap, and a brand
new lunch pail.
Kingman and Evered both
beamed at him. ‘You’ll find the engineer and the incoming crew waiting down by
the train.’ Kingman pointed to where a big locomotive was steaming and hissing
at the head of a couple of boxcars, a string of lumber flatbeds, and a lone
passenger carriage tacked on at the rear. Men were already busy hauling timber
onto the flatbeds, using a primitive steam-driven crane. ‘Mr. Evered will take
you down.’
Uriah bridled. ‘I kin
shovel coal as good as the nex’ man, sir.’
Evered clapped him on
the shoulder. ‘I guess you can, son. But these engineers can be mighty
particular people. He’ll expect me to vouch for you, and he’ll want to know that
you can do a good steady sweep, moving coal from the tender into the firebox.
You have to keep it flowing smoothly.’
Uriah followed him. He
believed himself as good as any man in using his muscles, but he recognized the
rightness of expertise. He would shovel coal from Coates to Baltimore, and
become a fireman of renown, and then, in the fullness of time, he would come to
rank as an engineer, driving trains across America.
Whilst Kingman and
Evered were inducting Uriah, Ezekiel Hicks, the new Baptist pastor in Coates,
was making preparations for two funerals after riding in from Gallatin the
previous day in an elderly wagon piled high with his belongings, two small
children who feared him quite a deal, and a worn-down wife. Hicks was a short,
fiery man with ginger hair, yellow eyes like a cat, and a large opinion of
himself. Coates was his first congregation all to himself in the ministry,
after some time helping out over the Kentucky line, and a spell before that
riding the circuit, and he intended to make himself known and his views felt.
He had already heard talk of witchcraft in the town, and unmentionable rites on
outlying farms, and he planned a root and branch cleansing.
‘I’ll get these people
to fear the Lord, by heck I will.’ He was talking to his wife Martha after
breakfasting with Judith Conover, for the Hicks had been promised the Conover
home behind the chapel, and Judith was already packed to leave, bound with her
teenage son for a married sister in Ohio. ‘I’ll raise up the Good Book, and smite
the powers of darkness, and Satan will back off from this place.’
Martha nodded silently.
She was always of a piece with her husband’s opinions, for she had long since
learned that taking any other view led inexorably to slaps, and sometimes even
punches – it was said that Hicks had fought as a prizefighter in his youth,
before seeing the light.
‘We’ll hev some good
fighting hymns for the service, mebbe Onwards Christian Soldiers to open. We
need to drum up some spirit.’ Hicks spoke dreamily, already assembling thoughts
for the peroration he planned to deliver over Floyd Conover’s coffin. ‘Then
I’ll tell them how Brother Conover has gone to knock on the Gate of Heaven, and
will surely be admitted, not like some of the folk hereabouts, who will find
the angels barring their path because of the evil things they have done. Then
I’ll throw some hell fire at them, and mebbe yell a bit about the evil things
thet live in the minds of some local folks, and call down the wrath of the Lord
on those who transgress his path by practicing wicked, wicked deeds.’
His voice was now
rising, as he worked himself into the right way of interpreting divine
inspiration, and Judith Conover quickly cleared the remnants of breakfast from
the table, for she had seen Floyd fire himself up on numerous occasions for the
Lord during his lifetime, and he had invariably sent plates and cups flying in
his gathering fervor.
But Ezekiel had paused,
as though searching for his next step, and when he spoke next, his voice was
quiet. ‘I’ll summon them.’ His voice rose a tone. ‘I’ll call them.’ His voice
rose again, and he held his right arm outstretched above his head, pointing
towards heaven. ‘I’ll call them, and summon them, and bid them leave their evil
thoughts and practices behind, and come to Jesus.’ Now his voice was a shout.
‘Come to Jesus, brothers and sisters, come and be saved in the holy waters of
Jordan!’
Judith Conover and
Martha Hicks both stared at him wide-eyed. Faith, and perhaps a measure of
hubris at having his first congregation of his very own, had filled Ezekiel
with the spirit, and both women half expected to see parted tongues, as it were
of fire, dancing on his brow.
But Ezekiel was not
done, though his voice, now hoarse, had returned to near its normal level. ‘I will
call them, and summon them to open both their hearts and their pockets to the
Lord, and the Lord will carry the good fight forward.’
Martha got down from her
chair and knelt at the table, and Judith and her son, and the two small Hicks
children followed suit. Martha had seen husband Zeke preach on many occasions,
and sometimes she had been impressed. But she had never been as impressed as
now, and she knew in her admiration that Zeke’s first collection in Coates
would probably bring enough to keep them comfortable well through the winter.
For whilst the Lord may not always hear the prayers of the needy, his faithful
are always stirred by passion.
The service went every
bit as well as Ezekiel hoped. Coates came to the Baptist chapel in force, for
Ezekiel had spoken at length to Bob Thornton, the proprietor of the Commercial
Hotel, on his arrival, and Thornton had cleared his Assembly Room for a
collation to follow the service. The
good people of Coates knew that Thornton claimed to be acting for Jesus, and
would limit entrance to the faithful – though some whispered a little unkindly
that Thornton sought rather more to celebrate, than mourn, Conover’s death. It
was well known that Conover, in preaching on the two previous Sundays against
the evils of alcohol, and the even more wicked sins of the flesh, had been
referring in only slightly veiled terms to those who provided shelter for such
wickedness. It was widely supposed that Ezekiel Hicks in this new alliance
would always look elsewhere for his targets.
Collection plates passed
round, and the congregation felt a collective stir of pride, for they glimpsed
the gleam of gold amongst the silver coins, and some paper as well. Coates had
come to take the measure of its new shepherd, and was minded to follow Bob
Thornton’s lead in approving him, and decided to show its approval in the very
best way. Ezekiel preached, and his sermon roundly excelled his breakfast
practice run. Several members of the congregation began to weep and wail as he
began his exhortation to seek salvation, and soon there was a line of ten men
and women waiting to be called forward towards the Lord, and he counted himself
fortunate that he had asked Bob Thornton to fill an ornamental pond at the back
of the Commercial Hotel rather fuller than usual.
Ezekiel was a practical
man, as well as a fiery preacher. He pushed Zack Benton’s funeral through at
speed on the coat-tails of Brother Conover, for he knew that the good people of Coates considered Zack
Benton pretty much of a coward for killing Jedediah Hitt on his own farm at
first light – Saunders had sworn a long and very detailed description of the
killing before being taken off to Gallatin. This time the chapel’s collection
plates yielded comparatively little, and nobody stepped forward to answer his
call.
He launched off a few words to speed Benton on his way, and then the service was done. The congregation flocked out to the back of the Commercial Hotel to watch him immerse his new faithful, and then swept on into the hotel to partake of Bob Thornton’s cold ham and fresh biscuits and hot sweet milky tea, though some who were privy to his friendship were seen sipping at mugs of tea that were black, and not milky at all, and might have been thought to smell rather strong. Ezekiel noted with pride how Thornton had set out cakes baked by the congregation on a table to make an impressive display, and naturally let himself be prevailed on to sample a little of each and every one, for he was a man with a sweet tooth. He also noted how the good ladies made much of his wife Martha and his two children, and he knew in their admiration that he had found a new home.