Andersonville (109 page)

—Would the Secesh surgeons give whiskey to a Yank when they were going to go to slicing and chopping? Well, by God. He ought to ask the Yank about that.

—Boy, get yourself drunk fast. The dipper coming closer, someone holding the dipper, whiskey splashing and Coral swallowing and gagging, and the whiskey burnt like coal oil and it gagged him, and moths and other critters were going like fiends against the big bright lanterns hanging under the tent fly up above . . . surgeon said, Where’ll we go on this one, Luce? Articulating surface? Right above the nodule. Single flap or double flap? . . . Farther up. Single; he’s got the hide to spare . . .
ahhhh!
And that was his own first fierce scream, coming back to ruin his ears, coming back sometimes in the middle of the night to be echoed again by his own throat, to make the baby wake up and yell in sympathy, to make that rotten little Flory say, Aw, shut your trap and try to act like white folks, you.

—Long way off, Gettysburg place.

—Naz Stricker said that he lived not far away from there.

—But what about the whiskey? Hell no, you could bet on it. Good whiskey was too scarce all over the South; they’d not go to wasting it on some damn Yankee.

—But that was in Pennsylvania, where Stricker got shot, where he got captured. Well, they had plenty whiskey there—wagonloads of it. Stole it in that town yonder, name of Chambersburg—great big kind of warehouse chock full of it. They called it Monongahela or some such foreign name; said they could read it right off’n the barrel label.

—Ought to ask the Yank about that.

Coral Tebbs moved beneath a stunted magnolia tree which twitched its hard papery leaves next to the stoop. Zoral was playing beside the step, playing with a small dead chicken from which a mink had sucked the blood . . . minks got a chance’t of chickens nowadays. Coral had sat up two nights with a lantern, trying to intercept the enemy, but always he nodded and went to sleep . . . maybe minks were too smart for him. Zoral wore a jacket which the widow had hacked out of a Federal blanket, with the broad stripe showing, and he had a string tied around the chicken’s neck, and he was dragging the chick after him, making train noises. He paid no attention to his half-brother Coral, sometimes he paid no attention to anyone, sometimes not even to his mother. The Widow Tebbs insisted that Zoral had had brain fever when he was just a mite, and like to died of it. Coral regarded this disgusting baby and his disgusting sport with equal disgust, then went jigging up onto the stoop and into the house. His shotgun caught against the tilted post and nearly threw him backward; he cursed in loud fury, and awakened his mother in the bedroom where she slept (she had slept with Laurel when Laurel was at home, and Zoral occupied the foot of their bed) when she was not at The Crib.

What you do, Coral?

Nothing.

What you cussing about?

Nnnnn.

Where you been, Coral?

A-hunting.

What you get?

God damn bastard of a chicken hawk.

Oh, Coral. Such language as you use the while!

Well, look who’s a-talking! Maybe you got religion like old Grandad-Blow-His-Bottom-Out that you tolt me about?

No, I hain’t got no religion; but I like gentlemanly ways. When menfolks come to me to be entertained, I always ask them, if they be strangers, Will you please act like a gentleman and not cuss?

Well, I got that damn hawk, and I reckon he’s the one took so many of our fries.

Where you get him, Coral?

Swamp back of the hill.

Well, I reckon too that he’s the one, and I do thank you, sonny. You want to go purchase yourself a plug tobacco?

I still got some.

His mother was in the bedroom, and he could not see her, and suddenly for a special reason he was glad that there was no one else in that one room which served as dining room, kitchen, sitting room, and Coral’s bedroom. He dumped the bruised dead hawk upon the hearth and stood looking at it, and for some strange reason mirth came to him. Mirth came so seldom. Coral said loudly, God damn Yankee chicken hawk. He batted the hawk into the cold fireplace with his crutch.

—Like what they call a lodge.

—Freemasons?

—He guessed his daddy hadn’t been a Freemason, but he’d heard that his grandfather Tebbs was one.

—Jo Coppedge used to say, When I get growed I’m going to get to be a Mason, sure enough. You can go anywhere and do anything, and you got somebody to help you out. Take Yanks: Suppose you get yourself captured, and you say to a Yank— You give him that secret sign or utter them secret words. Then you got a friend for life.

—A lodge which only those who are shy a hand or a foot can belong to.

—Secret words?

—Secret sign? Tain’t so secret. Sign is: you got a leg that comes down, and suddenly there ain’t no foot on the end of it. Sign is: you got an arm that just ends short off. Like that damn Yankee Naz Stricker.

Even while he stood in contemplation of the disordered table and shelves, Coral heard his mother snoring in the next room. She snored like a man. The more finicky of her customers had complained about her snoring when sometimes the customer and the Widow Tebbs both fell asleep after their encounter, and then the customer was rudely awakened by the growling roar beside him. Coral had heard Captain Oxford Puckett laughing in The Crib. Hi, Mag, put the lid on it. You sound like a battery of brass Napoleons firing at will.

But now the hoarse throbbing from the next room spelled security for Coral’s endeavors. The wicked grin twitched on his thin bearded face. Wouldn’t Flory’s jaw fall off if he knew about this? Flory would plain fart. Opportunity to catch a Yankee—maybe to shoot him— Opportunity to get thirty dollars, even Secesh! It seemed to Coral that he was visiting a personal spite on Floral by the procedure which he planned. There was nothing in this world which he might enjoy more.

Well, toting the stuff was a problem. But soon his eye roved to his old army haversack, hanging on a peg beside the chimney. It was burdened with dust, soot, scraps of crumbled plaster accumulating during the months which had elapsed since the ministrations of Mrs. Dillard. A Yankee sack, a small one; he’d picked it up in 1863 in the woods near that place—what they call it? It was a hard word to say—Chan-cell-ors-ville. It said
U.S.
but half the belts and canteens and buckles and equipment in the Confederacy said
U.S.
Coral reached up, got the sack, opened it, expelled some mummified remains which turned out to be those of a mouse, and shook the sack vigorously. There.

Fried pork? Hell yes, there was a lot left on that platter. It was good; nice pink stripes in it, and fried just right, even though twas cold. Liberally Coral helped himself to the slabs. Black-eyed peas? Hell yes, a regular hopping John. The mass of peas in the huge brown bowl was studded generously with chunks of hog jowl. (Strangely as occurs, the Widow Tebbs, in her slatternly ways and in her slovenly ignorance, was an excellent cook. If one did not inquire too closely into sanitary conditions. When times were hard, times were hard. But times weren’t hard, at present, not for the widow. The menfolks liked a snack, many of them, afterward . . . they’d say, Missis, I could relish a plate of fried potatoes right now. Got any bacon handy? Maybe piece of pie, maybe cup of nice cold milk? I’ll pay extry.)

Coral found a torn Macon
Telegraph
and wrapped a mass of peas and hog jowl in that. Cold potatoes—sure enough. Chunk of pone—the Widow Tebbs’ pone was always crisp and well salted—when she had meal, when she had salt. Apple pie. Nearly half the pie left, and let Ma think that he’d eaten it all. I declare, she’d say. Coral, you going to eat me out of house and home.

Out in the yard Zoral said, Guh, guh, guh, and still he must be playing train, dragging that miserable chicken. Then a real train came grinding past, and smoke blew all the way to the Tebbs house, for the wind was rising. This week was unseasonably chilly, for March.

Knowledge of that wind posed a new problem for Coral. Loose boards on the roof rattled, it would be cold in the swamp tonight, it would be cold everywhere. Touch and consideration of the haversack brought his comrades back to him. He saw them, lounging in column; far long twisty roads, stones bulging out of clay to hurt you, blackened skillets fastened to the rifles, the spittle rolling in a hard hot ball when you spat into the dust.
Rye whiskey, rye whiskey, rye whiskey so free, you done kilt my Pappy, God damn you, try me.
He began humming as he moved with caution about the room, he was not humming loudly enough to awaken his mother. Which barrel? One over here: that was where she kept stuff. He grubbed around in the barrel, brought out a torn pair of drawers, some old skirts of Zoral’s, a gown which Laurel hadn’t taken with her. Here, by Jesus God. Union army coat to wear in the rain—one of those kind of oilcloth ones. Some visitor had left it in The Crib the year before; it had part of the cape missing, it wasn’t of too much account, but it would serve. And this here old quilt. Coral worked at the table, kneading quilt and raincoat into a familiar roll, passing the roll over his head and shoulder after he had donned the haversack, after he had tied the ends of the roll with raveling twine.

...Coral, she’d say some day, what went with that old green and white quilt?

Don’t know. Hain’t seen hide nor hair of it.

He found his old canteen, also
U.S.
, and filled it with milk.

Canteen, blanket roll, haversack.
Foooorward, ha
. Jo Coppedge, Bunny Teasley, Kyle Leftwich, Darius Voyles. Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, South Mountain, little place name of something or other where they camped one night and where Darius Voyles shot himself through the heart because he was careless with his gun and forgot to draw the charge.
Foooorward.

Once more Coral smiled his shameless smile. He recalled community gossip at Uncle Arch Yeoman’s.

—Yes, sir. Put you in jail.

—Worse’n that. Reckon they can hang you or shoot you.

—Says so in the lawbooks. Petey Rooks was a-telling me, and he can read, and he seen it plain in print. They call it giving aid and comfort to the enemy; and him who disobeys that law is liable to get himself hanged by the neck until dead. So Petey says.

So there was a law, was there? . . . Hang him? By God, he was a hero, kind of man senators and such talked about when they were speechifying. . . . He’d say, O.K. (Kind of speech he’d picked up when they was invading against the North: it meant, All right, Mister, that’s so, that’s true, that’s right with me, or something of that nature.) O.K. What you mean to do? Hack the other foot off’n me?

Nazareth Stricker. It
did
sound like Bible talk.

Coral, reared in a godless home, if he could have been said to have been reared, and if it could have been called a home— Coral knew naught of the Scriptures. Lot of the boys in the army were mighty Scripturalish. Preacher came around sometimes, a-praying . . . and then, they sang hymns too. Jo Coppedge came from a farm up in Bibb, and he said his old man was a deacon of the church. Jo knew right smart about Saviours and Apostles and Testaments and such. He said, Cory, I’d admire to open the portal for you and make you see the Light. If’n you should go to your doom, Godless and in sin as you dwell, you will suffer in Eternal Torment forever and a day.
Cepting you Believe on Me thou shalt not be Saved
.

Well, now, what about them Yanks? Reckon they Believe?

That hain’t the point, Cory.
Him that hearest on the Word and Believeth Not, and Accepteth Not, him also shall be Crucified alongside of Me.
Or something like that. What my Pap always says, and I reckon they don’t come no more Godlier than he.

Aw, Jo, go pound salt up your butt.

But that Nazareth was a— Was a— By God. That was it. Nazareth was one of those Apostles or Disciples that Jo Coppedge was always talking about when he got going on religion, dad fetch him.

And there was that boy name of Apostle, got killed— Where? Got killed someplace or other, when they were tearing down that rail fence in front of their lines, acting as skirmishers. Yank shot him with one of those fancy long-range rifles, maybe had a telescope on it. Apostle Epperson. That was his name.

...O long dead burnt dried pastures with no herds feeding, O long tall bristly woodlands with winds converging, O dead dark chilly swamp with wind seeming to lift and sustain itself amid higher dignified trees and not coming low enough to riffle the water in solid black pools.

—Hey.

—You still laying here on this log? Them catch-dogs come along, going to grab you sure.

—Hey. God damn Yank! You want some rations?

The voice repeated the word, the voice said dully, Rations, but the wild blue eyes did not open to glimmer at him.

Set up, dad blast you.

Naz Stricker twisted into a sitting position, his eyes opened and he glared about. The first thing he saw was the haversack beside him from which Coral fished a wad of soggy newspaper. The wet paper fell apart, peas and hog jowl splashed in a mass upon the mossy bark of the log. Naz Stricker gave a cry. His single hand came shaking forward, turning itself into a claw as it came. The glinting eyes touched Coral Tebbs’ face in disbelief and then lowered again.

Well, you said you’d eat anything!

The claw dipped into food, peas and grease were dripping, the claw reached the mouth, a gnarl came from shrunken depths of Stricker’s throat even while his jaws clacked together and he made sucking sounds.

Reckon all you damn Yankees eat just like hogs.

Stricker wept while he chewed. Tears drained down over his blackened cheeks, they could not wash the grime coated there, they licked over grime and kept sliding. He blubbered between his bites.

This here canteen’s got milk in it.

The Yankee wailed in disbelief. Milk?

I hain’t a-storying you.

Stricker tried to remove the cap from the canteen with his one hand. Oh, God, Fumble Buttons, cried Coral in annoyance. He took back the canteen, unscrewed the cap and let it dangle by its rusty chain. He pushed the flask forward and Stricker’s dried lips opened trustingly. Coral had a dim thought of a baby seeking its mother’s breast . . . he held the canteen, tilting it gradually as the weight lessened, and the Yankee’s dark thin neck twitched with contractions of swallowing.