Sharyn McCrumb - MacPherson's Lament

“Why not?” His tone suggested that I had just refused the Holy Grail.

“Because there aren’t that many rest areas between here and I-95,” I told him as I started out the door. “I think I’ve found your old ladies.”

GABRIEL HAWKS TRACED his forefinger along a line of type in the Richmond newspaper. His eyes weren’t what they used to be-and he never had been much on reading-but the name of his old friend had jumped out at him from the columns of gray words: Tom Bridgeford… state senator… appointed to the board of the newly established Home for Confederate Women in Danville. He tried to picture the lanky young sailor as a dignified old politician, but the image wouldn’t come. Even though his own mirror showed him an image of an arthritic old man of fifty-five, he couldn’t picture Tom any older than twenty-five, still chafing under the weight of authority and spoiling for a fight. If he was a senator now, and active in charitable works, he must have prospered.

Gabriel Hawks looked about the simple parlor of the farmhouse, with its sepia photograph of General Lee over the mantel and a homemade braided rug on the pine floor. He reckoned that he hadn’t done too well, as the world measured success, but by his own lights he’d had a good life. He had done a bit of wandering in Georgia in the aftermath of the war, and then he’d made his way back to Giles County and taken up farming again at the homeplace. The community was much the poorer, mostly because it had lost most of the boys he’d grown up with, but he was happy enough back in the sheltering mountains of the Blue Ridge. Shortly after his return he had married Mary Hadden, who, at sixteen, had been left widowed by the War. She had lived to see the beginning of the new century, but pneumonia had taken her during the first weeks of winter, and now Gabriel was alone again. There had been no children to keep him company in his old age, and keep the family land. He supposed he was free now, and about as old as he was likely to get. Surely he would soon be joining Mary in the sweet hereafter. Until then he could have his heart’s desire, if he wished it, or at least what there was of it that money could buy. What are you waiting for, Gabe? said a voice in his head. It sounded like young Tom’s voice, urging him on.

He stared into the fireplace and thought about those far-off days in Georgia when the world had about gone to hell around them. There he was, waving farewell to Tom Bridgeford and cantering off down a dusty road with a fortune in gold in a saddlebag. Bridgeford- State Senator Bridgeford- must have made it back with his, and from the sound of his prosperous life, he had put it to good use. Old Tom would probably laugh to learn that his old shipmate was still a poor mountain farmer in the Blue Ridge. “You could have made something of yourself, Hawks,” he’d say, if he knew. But Gabriel hadn’t wanted to try. He missed the farm and he was more than a little afraid that bushwhackers would get him if he tried to head home with the gold. And how would he explain the gold to the folks back in Giles without sounding like a vulture picking at the bones of the Confederacy? There was hardly a family in the valley that hadn’t lost someone to the cause. How could he profit from the sorrow and still look them in the eyes?

But he couldn’t give it back, either. He didn’t see that the new government would put it to good use. Likely as not, they’d try to hang him for having taken it in the first place. Besides, the day might come when he would need the money-to pay taxes or buy new livestock after a bitter winter, or for the children he thought would come. He’d wandered down to the coast with some notion of trying to work his way out of the country by ship, but that wouldn’t have been safe either. Not with a knapsack full of gold. Near Brunswick, he’d made his way to a little island that was mostly marshland and sand dunes, and there he had buried his gold bars. He marked the spot, fixing it in his mind with landmarks. He reasoned that he could always go back to get them if the need ever arose.

That had been thirty-six years ago. Many’s the time Hawks had toyed with the idea of going back for the gold. He dreamed of building a fine house for Mary or buying a new herd of dairy cows, but each time he thought of making the long journey south again, he always abandoned the project. His need was not great enough to offset the perils of the journey and the fear of discovery.

Now he was old, and Mary was sleeping under a headstone in the churchyard. It was too late in life for riches now. There was no place he wanted to go and nothing he wanted other than what he had. It seemed a shame, though, for the gold to be left in the sands of Georgia. It put him in mind of the parable about the servant who buried his talents and was scolded by the Master for not making use of them. He looked again at the newspaper article about the prosperous Senator Bridgeford. Tom was always the smart one; he had always known what they should do. Gabriel would write his old comrade and tell him where the gold was. Surely a man so prosperous and wise would know what best to do with it.

He pressed his face close to a sheet of writing paper and began to spell out the words: Dear Tom Bridgeford-I take pen in hand to write you this missive …

THE FASTEST WAY to Georgia is Interstate 95, which is an extremely boring road-a more or less straight line of asphalt running down the coastal plain, hemmed in by an endless stretch of pine barrens and sandy soil. There is nothing in the way of scenery to keep you alert unless your reading taste runs to garish billboards or lists of fast-food joints at forthcoming exit ramps. I figured that the drive from southeast Virginia to southeast Georgia would be six hours of unbroken monotony, but much as I dreaded it, I will admit that there are routes I am even more reluctant to travel, roads that are anything but boring. These roads are mostly north of Danville.

I have an old school friend who lives in western Maryland, and the drive up I-81 to her house is always an anxious journey for me. To get to Frederick, I must pass through the heartland of the War. First comes Lexington, where Stonewall Jackson taught artillery at Virginia Military Institute before he went forth in 1861 to practice it. An hour or so north is New Market, where the young boys of VMI still in their school uniforms went up against the Union Army and were butchered. Just seeing the road sign NEW MARKET makes me uneasy, and I picture schoolboys dying in the long grass of the valley. Farther up are exits for Charles Town, West Virginia, which means horse racing to most people nowadays, but to me, it conjures up an image of John Brown, waiting for the rope to be placed around his neck and predicting the coming war with his dying words. I-81 is a modern four-lane highway, but it follows the old route along the valley, where the armies traveled under Sheridan and Jackson, and I feel their presence, even over the roar of the eighteen-wheelers whizzing past me.