Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

The man’s voice mumbled that it was an accident. He did not know for the life of him why this boy put him in a fury. He was lachrymose, baffled, scared, contrite, but he was also, as I now knew well, quite capable in drink of taking his son’s life. I heard a strange voice, dull, slow, and swollen: “If you ever lay hands on me again-on any of us, Papa-I will kill you.”

Her voice: “Merciful goodness! Rest, Edgar. You must rest.” Had I spoken aloud? Had I imagined it? Either way, my threat made my fingers twitch and my saliva flow, it sent strange ecstatic shivers through my neck and arms that caused a bloodburst in my brain and the return of blackness.

For a fortnight, I suffered fainting spells, unholy headaches. I would force my gut hard against my stomach wall to fire my resolve and keep my head from splitting. When Minnie pled that next time I must beg for mercy, I swore I would never stoop to “that low beast,” as Mama had called him, not if he split my noggin like a frozen pumpkin. But of course, by the time I recovered, he was drinking as before, and I was trying to please him as before, being doomed to love him.

When sober enough to sit up in the saddle, Lige Watson rode with the Edgefield Rifle and Sabre Club-a detachment of the Regulators-having earned a reputation as a man who was good with horses and “would do the necessary” to protect the honor of the South and Southern womanhood; he went about his duties with grim fervor. But even Papa, who could be generous and not invariably unkind, had grown disturbed by the fanaticism of his commander. Apparently Sergeant Z. P. Claxton had accused Tap Watson of showing a hostile countenance to a white man. Advised by Captain Watson that this man on Claxton’s list was actually “a pretty good ol’ nigra,” Major Coulter gave him a long look of warning. “Sometimes it gets so us ol’ boys might feel like killing us a nigger,” Coulter told him in a low dead voice. “At them times it don’t matter much if he’s a pretty good ol’ nigger or he ain’t. Whether he done something or didn’t, understand me?”

Papa boasted to his family that thanks to his efforts, Tap was spared without ever knowing he had been in danger. Papa hoped his son was proud of his good deed. The trouble was that unlike him, I understood-or at least Jack Watson understood-what Major Coulter meant. Us ol’ boys might feel like killing-wasn’t that the point? Feel like it. Major Coulter’s remark gnawed at my heart, less because it sounded so coldblooded than because it prized out from its seam something unnatural in my own nature-or something worse, a self I feared without knowing who it was, a hidden countenance of profound ire as cold as that chill breath on the wind that is a harbinger of weather change and storm.

Even in Reconstruction days, most men of Edgefield would not tolerate a black who failed to make way for them on the plank sidewalks, and Elijah D. Watson, as his status declined, demanded more respect than most. One day as I trailed him home, his careening gait would not permit an elderly black woman to edge out of his way; she was forced off into the deep mud street just as a man in frock coat, shining boots, and long curved sideburns hooked forward at the lower jaw like a peregrine falcon, came swinging his wood leg around the corner. Blood rushed to my face as he extended a gloved hand and handed the old darkie back onto the boards-hauled her back would be closer to the spirit of it-with a distaste impartially extended to all parties. The man ignored her babble and both Watsons, swinging forward on his wooden leg as the woman hurried off in her muddied dress.

Matthew Calbraith Butler, commanding a cavalry regiment under General J. E. B. Stuart at the battle at Brandy Station in Virginia, had lost a leg leading a charge but returned to his command not long thereafter. When Private Ring-Eye staggered after him, braying that he was not a man to be insulted and further, that Captain Michael Watson had been Butler’s grandfather’s superior officer in Pickens’s Brigade, Calbraith Butler checked the drunkard’s onrush by placing the point of his cane against his chest just hard enough to redirect him off the boards. On his knees in the mud, Private Watson was coldly chastised for imposition on a general officer.

Because his son had witnessed his humiliation, Elijah Watson, still on his knees, challenged the young general to a duel. General Butler stated with hauteur that Watson was not privileged to fight a duel since he had never been an officer and was no longer a gentleman. What he was, said Butler, was a disgrace to a good family as well as to the filthied uniform which he still wore.

Shamed beyond endurance, I cried out, “Duel with his son, then, if you are not a coward!” But my voice broke grotesquely in its adolescent croak, and Calbraith Butler permitted himself a narrow smile. “When it comes to dueling with boys,” he told me quietly, “I am indeed faint-hearted, Master Watson.” With a slight bow, he turned and kept on going in strong limping stride and shortly disappeared around the corner.

As street idlers hooted gleefully, hailing “Ring-Eye” by that name, my mud-footed father bellowed outrage that an unschooled ragged boy should dare to challenge an Edgefield hero. “Call out General Butler? You ?” Jeering loudly for his audience, my father swore that this fool boy would be severely flogged for bringing such ignominy upon his family. With that, he seized me roughly by the ear and dragged me homeward, as an infuriating shock of pain tore at my head.

Aunt Cindy, watering her hens, straightened slowly as we crossed our yard. Young Lalie ran to her and peered from behind her skirts at poor eartwisted Edgar. When Tap came out, they stood as still as oaken figures in that sad spring light as my maddened father roared at them to mind their nigger business. Then the door closed behind and I was slung into the corner, mad with pain. Minnie was bawling. Even Mama cried out in alarm when he seized the heavy hickory behind the door and staggered toward me.

Slowly I stood. My ear and my wrenched arm fired my rage and in a moment Jack was there. Commanded to lean forward, hands spread wide on the log wall, I turned a little in seeming resignation, then whirled and grasped the wood, twisting it free before he could secure his hold.

“Here,” he growled, missing my intent. “Give it here.”

In the kitchen corner my mother stood, hands clasped, as formal as a mourner. “Edgar?” she said. Her query signified, Do you realize he may kill you? The man turned his stare upon his wife as if this unholy insurrection was her doing. I muttered, “Don’t you touch her, Papa.”

Afraid, I circled out into the center of the room, panting like something cornered. Sensing weakness, he made a sudden rush as Minnie moaned with terror in her cupboard. When I jumped aside, he pitched onto his knees, and I leapt and brought the stick down hard across his shoulders- whack! I struck again with all my might, for my life depended on it- whack!

Frantic to disable him, knowing his heavy cavalry coat would dull the blows, I went after the head and neck, the kidneys, the limber wood biting into the thick meat of him- whack! -and another- whack! -another and another. Cursing vilely in pain and disbelief, he dragged his collar up to protect his ears, still on all fours. I was somber, silent, stepping lightly around the yelping hulk, leaping sideways to avoid its lunges, darting in. The beast struggled to flounder to its feet, only to be stunned and struck off balance and crash down again. That hickory whistled as I beat him, beat and beat and beat and beat him, leaning into those blows with every last splinter of old fear and fury. Grunting, teeth grinding, I bent that hard wood with savage cuts- a-gain, a-gain, a-gain! -until at last the beast howled in woe and wrapped its arms around its head and hunched bloody-eared, still cursing, in the corner.