Peter Abrahams - Last of the Dixie Heroes

“What do you think they used it for?”

“Who?” said Sonny Junior.

“Roy Singleton Hill. I know he came up here.”

Sonny stared at him. “You’re gettin’ one of them psychic feelings?”

“He talks about it.”

“Uh-oh,” said Sonny. “You’re startin’ to scare me.”

“There’s nothing psychic about this,” Roy said, but even as he did, he recollected that crying sound he’d heard just before he opened the leather-bound chest for the first time. He took the diary from his pocket, stepped outside, opened it so Sonny could see.

Sonny ran his eyes down the page, his lips moving once or twice. “A fuckin’ illiterate,” he said. He turned the page; half of it flaked away, drifted down like a leaf.

“Easy,” said Roy.

Sonny’s gaze came up in a measured way, settled on Roy. “What’s that, cuz?”

“It’s old, Sonny. Delicate.”

“Don’t trust me with it, Roy?” Sonny handed back the diary.

Roy didn’t take it. “What’s up, Sonny?” he said.

“Don’t trust me because you’re thinking I screwed you out of your inheritance,” said Sonny.

“What are you talking about?”

“What am I talking about?” A bee darted down between them; Sonny smacked it out of the air with the back of his free hand. “Uncle Roy’s goddamn place and you thinking I jewed you out of it, is what.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“It’s not what you think?”

“It’s not what I think, but I meant don’t say ‘jewed.’ “

“Not keeping up with you there, Roy.”

“You didn’t screw me out of the place, leave it at that,” Roy said.

“He did it all on his own.”

“I believe you.”

“I went in there with the bottle and those Cheetos. Forgot the briefs, did I mention that? Right away he was poppin’ off with all this negative shit about you.”

“Such as?”

“I already told you. About you never being much of a son to him, what with the naming of little Rhett and all. I didn’t say a word, Roy, I swear-just kept my mouth shut and handed over the bottle when he was good and done.”

“Thanks,” Roy said.

“So you’re not pissed?”

“I got my inheritance,” Roy said.

Sonny Junior gave him a long look. “You mean that in some kind of deep way, right?”

Roy smiled, held up his hand. They had one of those arm-wrestling handshakes.

“You’re deep, Roy, that’s what I’m realizin’,” said Sonny Junior when they were still locked in it.

“That’s a first,” said Roy.

The sun shone suddenly through a rocky space where a window had once been, lighting up a complex spiderweb, first making it visible, then making it gold. “Only thing on God’s earth that spooks me,” said Sonny Junior.

“Spiders?”

“I ain’t going in there.”

They sat under a blossoming apple tree beside the Mountain House, their backs to the trunk, and checked out the diary.

“He was our what, again?” said Sonny Junior.

“Great-great-grandfather.”

“Meaning my ma and Uncle Roy’s father’s father?”

“One more.”

Sonny laughed. “What a pain in the ass.” He ran his eyes over a page or two. “All’s he talks about is the rain. And the thunder.”

“Thunder’s his horse.” Roy turned the pages. He came to 18 September 1863.

“Can’t even read that,” Sonny said.

“ ‘Zeke done cut me with the razor.’ I think that’s razor,” Roy said. “ ‘No time for larning him different. We found Yankees at Reed’s Bridge, showed ’em by God.’ “

“What’s that all about?” said Sonny.

“Reed’s Bridge is the start of the battle of Chickamauga, where he took a battery by himself.”

“How do you know that?”

“The next day, I think it was.” Roy read the next day’s entry. “ ‘In the woods all day and hot. No water.’ “ He scanned the next few lines, looking for words like battery or cannons. Got me three mebbe for. One of em spoken wen I lent don but I coont here cownt of noyz. Took his Water offn im. Bad bad thirst all day.

“Anything about the battery?” Sonny Junior said.

“I’m not sure.”

He read on: 20 sep fitin on Lafayet rd. Thunder all cuvrd in Blod but warnt hisn. Yankees runin and Forest angry as Hell. no Water.

“I don’t get any of it,” said Sonny Junior.

“Forrest was their commander. He wanted to pursue the Yankees after Chickamauga but Bragg ruled against it. We ended up losing Chattanooga. That gave Sherman control of the railroads, setting up the march to the sea.”

Sonny Junior turned to him in surprise. “How do you know?”

“I’ve been spending time with a regiment.”

“What regiment?”

“Roy Singleton Hill’s regiment-the Seventh Tennessee Cavalry.”

Pause. “Like in your imagination or something?”

“It’s a re-formed unit for reenactors.”

“Play fighting kind of shit?”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“Or just plain drinking, like that buddy of yours?”

Roy closed the diary.

“I piss you off, Roy?”

Roy stood up, looked down at Sonny. “Ever think how things would be if we’d won?”

“If we’d won what?”

“The war. What do you think we’ve been talking about?”

“The Civil War?”

Roy’s voice rose a little. “What other war is there for us?”

Sonny Junior gave him that surprised look again. Roy was a bit surprised too. “You are deep, Roy. What’s a thinker like you doin’ in a family like this?”

Roy almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of that label. Sonny held up his hand. Roy took it, pulled him to his feet, felt Sonny Junior’s strength. Sonny must have bumped the tree a little standing up, because the next moment a cloud of blossoms drifted down, wafting around them, nestling in Sonny’s long hair, and in Roy’s, still close to Globax length.

“We’re like a couple of goddamn flower children,” Sonny said.

“That’s a good one,” said Roy.

Sonny Junior flicked the blossoms out of his hair as though they were gnats. “I reckon I get what you’re driving at,” he said. He waved his hand over the view of the seven states, or two, or whatever it was. “This would still be ours, right?”

Not what Roy had meant.

Sonny Junior took him to a bar halfway between Ducktown and Roy’s father’s old place. There were a couple of pickups and motorcycles outside; inside, a jukebox, a knotty pine bar, the men leaning on it looking like they could be friends with Sonny, and two women at a round table with wooden kegs for chairs.

Roy and Sonny went to the bar. “Two beers, two Old Grand-Dads,” said Sonny. “On ice, Roy?”

“Sure.”

They stood at the bar, drinking Old Grand-Dad and beer. One or two of the men at the bar glanced at Sonny; they knew him, all right, but maybe not as friends.

“Got anything to eat?” Sonny said.

“Cheetos,” said the bartender.

“Cheetos, Roy?” said Sonny.

“Not for me.”

Sonny got himself a pack of Cheetos. He was chewing on a handful, orange powder dusting his lips, when one of the women came up behind them.

“Where you been keeping yourself, Sonny?”

Roy and Sonny turned to her. She wore a halter top revealing the upper half of a tattoo that promised to swell into something elaborate farther down.

“Where you can’t find me,” Sonny told her.

“That’s not very nice, Sonny,” she said.

“Don’t know what got into me,” said Sonny, washing down the Cheetos with beer. The woman was no longer paying attention: her eyes were on Roy.

“Gonna introduce me to your friend?” she said.

“No one’s stoppin’ you doin’ it yourself,” said Sonny.