Peter Matthiessen - Shadow Country

When I stopped shouting and fell quiet, Mandy continued, with that gentle resolve that I would come to dread: if the first Mrs. Watson had been the angel I extolled so often to the second Mrs. Watson-I sensed Mandy’s fond ironic smile even in the dark-then she surely watched over her loved ones from on high and was grieving that her innocent child had been abandoned. (That idea gave me a start, and not because of Sonborn: if Charlie and the Lord were in cahoots on high, they might have witnessed all my dirty doings with Miss SueBelle Parkins.)

And so on a Sunday I rode over to the house of Mr. Curry Collins, who was whittling a wood toy out on his stoop. As I entered the yard, Ring-Eye’s ancient roan, half warhorse and half mule, gave me a walleyed look and stamped and snorted, moving sideways and in circles.

“Been a bear around,” Old Man Curry advised me-not much of a greeting. I informed him I had come there for my son, having heard that Mrs. Collins was feeling poorly: no doubt a growing boy could be a burden, and anyway, it was high time he came home.

“Home?” Mr. Collins stood up slowly but did not come down the steps, and he never invited me into his house. “This is the only home he’s ever had.”

I never even swung down off my horse, which chose this moment to drop a steaming load right in the dooryard. “No sir,” said I. “This is not his home and it’s not up to him. You tell him to pack up and come out here quick unless you want me to go in there and fetch him.” At these words, Charlie’s brother Lee came out and looked me over with dislike, hands in hip pockets, then returned inside without a word.

They believed all the bad stories, that was plain. Mr. Curry was concerned for his grandson and never tried to hide it. “We tended little Elton these eight years while you forgot about him. That entitles us to some say in the matter, Edgar.”

“Nosir, it does not,” I said. “You are entitled to my thanks for your hospitality to your own grandson and you have it. Now let’s get a move on.”

Already I was talking past him to the small boy in the doorway, who held my eye with a cool and steady gaze. You weedy little shit, I thought, you’re not much to show for the unholy joy that went into your creation. In a moment, he ran back inside, but the brief glimpse shook me, for he had his young mama’s full black eyes and pale rose-pointed skin. With one look I knew that this child would stir up squalls of that hard grief which I so dearly hoped were at last behind me.

“I am his daddy, after all,” I added gruffly.

“First time you acted like it. You never even took the time to go register his name so we named him Elton.”

“His name is Robert. After his great-uncle, Colonel Robert B. Watson of Clouds Creek, South Carolina.”

A wail rose from the ill woman within. “Elton!” she cried. The boy was already through the door, both arms wrapped around a little bindle.

“Whatever happened to you, Edgar?” Curry Collins said, very sharp and cold. “You were a pretty nice young feller when you first come around these parts, as I recall.”

“Say thank you and good-bye,” I told the boy.

Robert Briggs Watson stuck his hand out, saying, “Good-bye, Grandpa,” but winced and shifted in discomfort, I noticed, when the old man leaned down to peck him on the head-no doubt old breath. “Good-bye, Elton,” Collins called after him in muffled voice as the boy ran to my horse. He looked defeated but he kept his dignity and did not call again.

I swung the child up behind me. “Your name is Robert now,” I notified him. “You ready, Robert?” “Yessir,” he said. As we rode away, Mr. Collins lifted a slow hand which his grandson never saw. The boy had his arms around me, face pressed hard, and I guided his small hands to my belt loops, feeling a coolness where his tears wet my shirt. “I knowed you’d come,” came his small muffled voice. And in a moment, he said, “Papa? I been waiting and waiting.” Not knowing how to answer that, I said, “Don’t set so far back on his withers, boy. Makes the old fool buck.”

Even before we arrived home, I knew this boy would bring his mother’s ghost into our house-just what I feared most. I glared at Mandy when she came running out with a big smile. “You wanted him so bad so you take care of him.” I swung him off and galloped away down the woods roads, headed for nowhere, riding my heart into the ground. In the next days I drank, worse than before. Morning after morning, I woke up sick to death on some sawdust floor or in some shed or ditch, and finally in a stinking Suwannee jail, bruised, bilious, broke, and mean down to the bone.

That day, riding homeward through Lake City, who should I see but Miss SueBelle Parkins in a rose-decked yellow gown tilting down the sidewalk; plainly she was in that painless state in which she might share her bounteous person with a friend. I eased up behind her. Low and soft, I whispered, “sweet sweet Sooee gal,” and a tipsy grin inched all the way back under her ears. Even drunk, she knew better than to display acquaintance with a white man, but she hummed a little as she sashayed her hips back and forth to tease me, blocking my path and murmuring under her breath, “Doan you go to whisperin sweet Sooee, Mistuh Wil’ Man, cause SueBelle ain’ no white man’s li’l shoat.” Already those firm smoky hips shifting along under that cloth had fixed me hard as a bird dog up on point, and Sooee knew this, never had to look. She was having such fun lighting the fire in her Wil’ Man that she clean forgot to move aside to let a white man through. Folks coming out of church had stopped and some were pointing.

Recalling that day on the square at Edgefield Court House when the neighbors jeered at Ring-Eye Lige for challenging General Butler to a duel, my brain hammered and heat swelled my face. In the next moment, with no warning, Jack Watson banged the hard heel of his hand between her shoulder blades- Out of my way! The blow pitched her forward and she almost fell. Finding her balance, she reeled around and squinted at me with a cunning smile, hollering “Wil’ Man? Dat you? Ain’ you my own big brutha?” What had she meant? Could this be why she had been so full of dread? Did this explain Aunt Cindy’s iron coldness toward my father?

Thinking herself safe in the bright sunlight of a Sunday morning, Sue-Belle grinned saucily, waving her perfumed lace whore hankie as she pirouetted. “How come,” she cried out loud and clear, “you never come around no mo’ to visit?” Only then did she see Jack Watson and squawk and skedaddle in her haste to flutter off that sidewalk, but she was too late. Jack’s hand flew from behind and cupped her forehead, pulling her head back against his chest. The other hand held the knife blade to her throat. Her eyes and mouth popped open as he bent her head back onto her shoulder blades so far that her face was almost upside down, eyes staring out from beneath the nose and gasping mouth. That upside-down mask of terror startled Jack and stayed his hand, but not before he feigned a pass across her throat, using the rough nail of his forefinger.

When his hand withdrew, she remained motionless, eyes rolled upward, mouth opening and closing as if struggling to find air. Her eyes entreated but she made no sound. Slowly she sagged, slowly, slowly to her knees, as her fingers wavered up under her chin, dislodging one cheap tinsel earring as her thumbs pressed up to hold her life in. There was only a faint crimson thread, a minute trickle that, seen on her fingertips, she took to be the first freshet of the fatal spurt. At the sight of it, she groaned and coughed, then vomited, soiling her yellow gown.

Church bells. Figures transfixed. The dying bells. No one drew near. When I straightened, the figures backed away.