Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

I went ahead of him up the red road. “A black man’s word won’t mean much against mine. Just get you in bad trouble, Tap.”

“Barrel still warm, Mist’ Edguh. Sposin I telled ’em dat?”

“It won’t be warm by the time you get there. Anyway, it’s very dangerous, messing into white men’s business.” No answer came, only a slowing of the scuff of boots on the frozen clay. What would the Regulators do to any nigger who raised a weapon to a white man? I asked next. A nigger who slung greens at that white man’s chest like he would toss slops to a hog? And threatened to report him to the bluecoats? If Major Coulter got wind of this, Tap Watson would be a stone dead nigger before nightfall.

But of course Tap’s story would be told before the Regulators could shut him up. A loyal nigra, a “good home nigger,” a church deacon swearing on the Bible-who would doubt him? Who would believe Ring-Eye’s stinky son even if he told the truth, that a traitor long ago given up for dead had been caught stealing from his trapline? That Colonel Robert Briggs Watson’s nephew had only gone to get his rabbit back, taking a weapon in case the thief attacked, finding instead the traitor Tilghman, wounded mortally the night before. He had grabbed the gun barrel and the old gun went off. It was an accident.

Wounded mortally? Hold on right there, boy! How you figger it was mortal? You a doctor, boy? Wounded by who? You’d best get your story straight, young feller!

Colonel Robert would deliver a harsh judgment. Was a pilfered rabbit reason enough to kill a starving kinsman? An Edgefieldian, a Confederate officer, a battle hero? Colonel Robert would call it murder.

Oh, I warned you! -I could hear Aunt Sophia now. At Clouds Creek, those “sky-crazed Celts” (Cousin Selden’s term) were sure to seize on this excuse to cast out Ring-Eye’s lineage for good. In the imminence of such injustice came a pounding ache so violent and a vertigo so sudden that I never even realized I was falling.

A black face inset in the gray heavens, mouth working without sound. Darkness came and darkness went. Jack Watson awakened, in grim humor. Panic had given way to a resolve as clear as that still point when, with the wind’s dying, the shattered moonlight on the surface of rough water regathers its shards into one bright gleaming blade. How terrible that blade. How pure and simple.

No one lived near. I rolled up onto my feet so easily and swiftly that the black man stepped back in alarm. Leading the only witness back into Deepwood, I felt strength surge into my step, and every breath renewed me with wild power. I even teased Tap over my shoulder. Hadn’t he only wanted me along because black folks were scared to be alone with corpses? With his contempt for darkie superstitions, Tap would normally be caustic in response. Today he remained silent, and when I turned, he stopped short in the road, then relinquished the musket.

“Dis sho’ly ain’t no nigguh business, nosuh, it sho ain’t.” Mumbling, he took out a bandanna, wiping his neck in the frozen air as he might have done in the hot fields of midsummer. “You too young to be mixed up in dis, Mist’ Edguh.”

“I’m not mixed up in this. Unless you mix me.”

“Ain’t fixin to mix nobody, Mist’ Edguh.”

But it was really me who needed company. When I waved him toward the hole in the west wall he went ahead, then slowed. After a few more steps, he went no further. Having glimpsed what lay inside, he placed his hands over his eyes-“Oh Lawdamercy!”-and fell to his knees as I forced myself to look.

I had not tarried long enough to see the Owl-Man’s body through the musket smoke. It had no head.

Without a tool to chip a grave in the frozen ground, we piled half-burned timbers on the trunk and legs. Tap mumbled prayers. “You was a good man, Cop’n Selden, suh,” he finished, bowing his head. “A very good man. Black folks ain’ gwine fo’get you.”

Standing behind him, I lifted the musket and sighted down the barrel at the gray-frizzed scalp, the bare skin of the crown, the ears, the twitching skin and throbbing pulse, the humble skull. How fragile and transient the bent human seemed, with death hovering so close. One inadvertent twitch of my forefinger, already half numb with cold on the frozen metal. In leading me to kill by accident, Fate had betrayed me. In tempting me to obliterate the only witness, regaining my lost life, was Fate redeeming me?

At the base of my tongue was a quick metallic taste-not the taste of death but the taste of an unholy power to take life. I held my breath as with great care I lifted that numb finger from the worn and shiny lever of the trigger, but not before Tap Watson jerked his head around and stared into the eye behind the hammer.

Even as I hurried toward Clouds Creek, my criminal sire, roaring with drink, was driving Major Coulter’s cart like a loose chariot, careening around the Court House Square, scaring and scattering old ladies, dogs, and children, whipping his poor roan bloody. When one wheel was struck off by the wood sidewalk and the buggy pitched him headlong into the mud, he was seized and hauled forthwith up the courthouse steps and through the courtroom to the cells behind. Next morning he was charged with disturbing the peace, endangering life and limb, resisting arrest, and public drunkenness-everything the constable could think of that might hold him without bail until the next session of the circuit court.

I knew none of this when on Sunday before church, I went to collect my wage. From the stoop, I called good morning to the Colonel’s wife as she crossed the corridor. Aunt Lucy only shook her head and did not answer. Then her husband came. He did not offer his hand, only coldly informed me that someone had reported a charred corpse in the Deepwood ruin and someone else had seen me on the road near Deepwood early yesterday morning. “It seems you were carrying a weapon. And a shot was heard.”

He stood in wait, perhaps still hoping that I might explain. I was struck dumb. Who would have gone into that ruin? And just stumbled on a body beneath stacked timbers? Tap had betrayed me.

“You must leave this district.” Colonel Robert’s voice seemed far away. “You have no future at Clouds Creek.”

“Sir? If my work-”

“It has nothing to do with that. You are an exceptional young farmer.” Having no son of his own, he looked truly bereaved. He drew forth a money packet. “I’ve included fair payment for your hogs. Now go at once, you are in danger here.”

I searched his face as a shot bird follows the hunter’s hand descending to wring its neck. There was no absolution in that gaze. I wanted to howl, It is not just! It was an accident! And he was already dying! An inner screaming, a ringing like crazed bells. I must have gone straight over backwards. Later I recalled a faraway whump made by my head and shoulders as I struck the ground.

Muffled hog grunts and the croon of chickens. Cold white winter sun.

“Edgar, try to sit up.”

“He fainted, did he? Wily as the father!”

A close warm smell of horse tack, burned tobacco. “He has these spells. Look at his color.” Less patiently, the man’s voice said, “Mrs. Watson, please do as I ask. Fetch him a blanket.”

Rummaging, she called, “Does he know his father is in jail?”

I rolled away, sat up-“I’m fine”-fell sideways. Taking me under the arm, Colonel Robert tried to help me up off the cold earth onto the steps. Wrenching away made me dizzy and I sat down hard. I said, “It was not my doing. I never wished him harm.”

Cousin Robert nodded, leading me behind the house out of sight of the road. “Yet you know what was done and you know who did it.” He paused a moment. “I have come to know you, Edgar. You are prideful and stubborn. You will not betray the guilty. And since, to defend yourself, you must accuse-” He put his big hands on my shoulders, squeezing hard to make sure I understood that he understood. “Pay attention, Edgar. Men are out looking for you. If you’re caught, you could be shot or hung.” He offered his hand. “You have had a hard bad road for one so young and were set a poor example. I am truly sorry.”