Evan Hunter: The Chisholms: A novel of the journey West

“ ‘The way of a serpent upon the rock,’ ” Cooper said at once. “Proverbs 30.”

“Excellent, sir!” Hadley said. “ ‘For they cast down every man his rod...’ ”

“ ‘And they became serpents!’ ” Cooper said triumphantly, and looked at the open jaws of the snake and quickly added, “Exodus 8.”

“Exodus 7!” Hadley corrected.

“Exodus 7, just so, yes,” Cooper said. “Exodus 7.”

“It gets more difficult,” Hadley said, and brought the snake up level with Cooper’s face. “Look into them beady eyes, Your Worship. He’s waitin to bite you should you slip on the word. Now then, are you ready?”

“You know, do you not,” Cooper said, “that you are blaspheming in the house of—”

“ ‘For behold,’ ” Hadley said, “ ‘I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you,’ ” and thrust the snake forward and immediately pulled it back and said, “ The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat,’ ” and again the snake’s head came toward Cooper, who was about to say, “Jeremiah,” its jaws opening, its fangs slanting down — he swore he could see droplets of venom on them. Hadley was now quoting from Matthew, yes, the passage about “I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” The eyes of the snake glared at Cooper malevolently. He backed away, Hadley and the snake following, the snake seeming much more interested in what was happening now, possessed of a will of its own. Hadley shouted, “ ‘Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?’ ” and the snake hissed and rattled, and Cooper turned and ran from the pulpit and the platform, toward the door on the back wall of the church. He grasped for the knob, his hand slippery and wet as he tried to twist it, certain the snake and Hadley were behind him, equally certain the snake would bite him on the seat of his indignity. He somehow managed to open the door and flee. Behind him, he heard the congregation laughing. Hadley thrust the snake triumphantly into the gunny-sack and threw his head back and laughed, too.

Squire Bailey was wearing a coat of the finest blue cloth, a darker blue velvet on the lapels, opening in a V over a waistcoat of cream-colored cashmere. The collar of his linen shirt showed above the white-cascade necktie crossed over his chest and held in place with an amethyst stickpin. His trousers were full at the hips, narrow from knee to ankle, the instep cut to accommodate his highly polished boots. In his left hand he was holding a palm-leaf hat made on the island of Cuba. All in all, he looked the way his grandfather must have looked two generations back when the settlement was new and the term “squire” meant country gentleman and something more, a learned man of humor, intelligence, and charm.

He came down the church steps with a bull of a man named Jeremy Stokes, hired some three years back to oversee his sprawling plantation. Stokes had fought side by side with Andrew Jackson in the battle of New Orleans, or so it was rumored in the town, and the scar across the bridge of his nose had allegedly been put there by a British bayonet. He was decked out as splendidly as was his employer on this sunny April morning. Looking at them both as they sauntered down the church steps, Hadley could imagine them emerging from a fancy whorehouse after an hour or more of houghmagandy. Nor was the notion far-fetched; everyone in town knew that Horace Bailey’s single failing — or at least the one failing to which he openly admitted — was women. There were people in town who “Squired” him to death, bowing and scraping not in respect for his wisdom and wit, which were nonexistent, but only for the wealth he’d inherited along with his title. Hadley was not one of them.

“Good morning, Bailey,” he said.

“Good morning, Chisholm.”

Hadley took a small leather pouch from the pocket of his coat. “Here’s the ninety dollars,” he said, and jingled the coins in the pouch.

“What ninety dollars?” the squire said.

“For the wagon.”

“And what wagon is that?”

“The wagon you agreed to sell me,” Hadley said. “For the journey west.”

“I think I’d prefer keeping that wagon,” the squire said. “Mind you, I have no objections to you leaving these parts. I’m merely suggesting you do so in your own—”

“Bailey, let’s stop the horseshittin,” Hadley said. “You promised to Bell me your wagon, and I’m here to pay for it.”

“I recollect no such promise.”

“Now come on, Bailey, we talked about it last Wednesday night.”

“I recall no such conversation.”

“I rode over to the plantation, the wagon was tied to a post just this side of the barn. We agreed to ninety dollars for it. That was the price and here’s the ninety,” Hadley said, and lifted the pouch again, and again jingled the coins in it. “We’ve got a verbal contract, Bailey. We agreed on a—”

“I had a verbal contract with that young preacher Harlow Cooper, too. I promised him he’d find a God-fearing people in this town, and not the kind who’d come in the Lord’s house throwing snakes at a man. I reckon if one contract can be broken, then another can be broken just as easy. Wouldn’t you say so, Stokes?”

“I would say so, Squire.”

“In which case, good day, Chisholm.” Hadley stepped into the squire’s path, his choices multiplying like the fishes and the loaves. He could punch the squire in the nose and cause him to bleed all over his cream-colored waistcoat and fancy white tie. Or he could drag the man squealing and bawling down to the Clinch, where he would baptize him proper. Or he could...

“A contract is a contract,” he said simply.

“Go to law if you like,” the squire said, and Hadley stepped aside and allowed them both to pass.

The law he went to was the Bible.

And in the Bible, in Galatians, he found the words: “Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto.” The way Hadley looked at it, he’d made a covenant with Horace Bailey, and now the squire was trying to annul it. Not only was that unlawful in the manner of men, it was also in direct conflict with what was written in the Bible, which was the law of God Almighty.

The Bailey plantation was laid out so that the main house was on high ground overlooking the fields and the slave quarters to the north, the barns and stables to the south, more fields to the east. Behind the house, the ground sloped sharply to the river below; the land here was rock-strewn and scrubby, unfit for planting. But fish could be seined from the river for yet another crop, and in the wintertime ice could be cut from it and stored in one of the plantation’s three icehouses. The cotton hadn’t yet been planted; it was still a bit early. Next week sometime, or perhaps the week after, the slaves would begin putting in seeds mixed with ashes to soften the hulls and help in the growing. Everyone in these parts knew when the squire was planting his cotton. The voices of the slaves singing could be heard all up and down the valley. The fields to the east were left to wild rye for pasture; the squire owned forty-one mules and horses, three hundred sheep, and seventy-four cows. He also owned one hundred twenty-two hogs and more chickens than anyone had ever bothered to count.

At the main house, Hadley and Will peeked through guillotine windows into the room beyond, lighted with fourteen blazing tapers in a hanging brass chandelier. The squire was dining. The Chisholms had taken their supper before sundown, but neither did they have a pair of house niggers to serve them. A wainscot of what appeared to be pine stained a darker hue ran around the entire room to a height of some four feet from the pegged wooden floor. Across the room were two windows identical to the one through which they spied goggle-eyed upon the squire, each window hung with what was either calico or printed linen, they could not tell.