As predicted by Sudie when the squirrels began cutting green pecans, autumn came early to the Tensas swamp in 1863. Rainey Lake was ringed by giant cypress trees—Choctaw call them shankolo—whose leaves resemble delicate green feathers. Soon after the first cool north breezes they turn burnt orange in the frame of a deep blue sky. Always this scene reminds me of the only story that has come down to me from my father’s mother. I heard it third-hand from my mother. Grandmother’s tale was of the largest cypress tree in the country where her people had lived. It stood alone on the inside bend of a small clear creek. Two earthen mounds rose from the opposite bank. The titan was a double tree that grew together as lovers in an embrace. Far above the canopy of the surrounding forest their bodies separated for a short span before entwining once more into the crown. Through this hole a single shaft of light flowed at sunrise on the longest day of summer. A basket set atop a pole on one of the mounds captured the magic sunbeam that was quickly spirited away for safekeeping by a wise man of the village. That is all I know of the story, but from the time I first heard it as a small girl I have yearned to find the sacred tree. Minor said that we would search for it some day. He began to say other encouraging things to me also as the autumn weather restored his health.
The sugar kettle therapy continued even though Minor’s wound was healed on the outside and he was able to help tote water and wood. Often in these sessions my thoughts would stampede. I would watch Minor undress and become nearly smothered in out-of-control emotions. Like a pair of run-away horses we fast approached a cliff. One evening as he waited for the water to cool a bit, I asked a question that had long been on my mind, “Minor Barrett, what was the whole of your original plan?”
“I had no plan beyond the wedding and my enlistment. Early on I prayed for a revealing epiphany, but as days passed I learned that my fate was bound to the winds of war. And so it was,” he said.
“But what now though?” I asked.
He walked to the edge of the firelight, turned, and came back to take my hands. A wild, almost violent passion consumed us. We both took liberties with abandon. On this night I bathed with Minor in the sugar kettle for the first time. In the end he drank me like sweet milk. This was his saying, but I felt it so.
To say that this episode changed our relationship would be an understatement. Questions were answered, doubts vanquished, and the air between us became saturated with an agitated excitement. I am not high-strung, but in this period my nerves were raw. I rose in the morning with one goal—to end the day with Minor in the sugar kettle. I may have acted a fool, but it did not seem so then. The passions of my body overpowered those of my mind and controlled my reasoning. I was ashamed of my hair that had just begun to recover from the Vicksburg shearing. I was proud of the way my breasts roused to my thoughts during the day and gave Minor every opportunity to notice them in this state. When he did, it worked him up.
We began to go to the kettle well before dark because the nights were getting much cooler and it took a while longer to heat the water. On some evenings our passions tended to boil faster than the water. Anticipation enhanced our desires to no end. The kettle was seven feet across and more than three feet deep when it was full. It barely contained our lust. Minor told me of a deck of bawdy playing cards that he had seen in the army. A sergeant said they were from Paris, France. Minor was bashful, but in my way I made him describe them in detail. Then we experimented with all of the scenes on the cards that he could remember. Thus we carried on until the water cooled or exhaustion drove us back to the cabin. None of this seemed wrong then or now.
Atlas and Sudie suspected our new intimacy, and though they did not say much, I knew they did not approve of it under the circumstances. One morning Sudie examined a scratch on my cheek from the rough edge of the sugar kettle and said while walking away, “Look like a yeller barn cat after de full moon.” I was glad she could not see my back or Minor’s. We called on our trysting place steadily for two weeks until the first of November, when the final sojourner came to Rainey Lake.
The visitor was Butcherman, and he brought death in his oxcart. We had been at Rainey Lake long enough for word of our presence to spread among the freed slaves up and down the Tensas River. With the persistence of a cold-nosed blue tick hound he trailed the rumors to Sudie’s cabin. He came during a heavy rain and was already in the yard before anyone noticed. Mirah went to the door when the dogs finally barked and announced the arrival of a white stranger in a wagon with pretty wheels.
He stepped onto the porch and asked of Sudie who stood in the doorway, “Mind if I drip heah on yer porch until this toad strangler passes?”
Sudie nodded and he began to pull off his oilskins as the rest of us filed out into the dogtrot to look him over. I was not surprised at his coming. In the back of my mind I half expected and dreaded it in a way that I cannot explain. He was one of the gatekeepers, always in a position to alter the journeys of those whose paths he crossed, especially if a gain was in sight. His works were not restricted to butchering and tending ferries.
He recognized me and figured out Minor. “Howdy agin Missy,” he said to me, “and you must be Mr. Barrett, fully resurrected.” I had told Minor of my encounter with Butcherman. He wore morocco-topped boots, a favorite of stylish, rich men, but they did not raise his class even a quarter-notch. His beard was shorter, barely covering a dozen deep smallpox scars. Now that he was here in the flesh and blood, as loathsome as it was, instead of wandering around in the darker places of my imagination, I was not afraid of him.
Minor was short with him. “What brings you to these parts?” he asked.
Butcherman would not look straight at a man when he talked. He directed his answer to the bottom log on the porch. “Well, a freight job brung me close, and when I started hearin’ tales of a gal with a blind mule nursin’ a soldier over heah on the Tensas, my curosities got riled. If my hunches wuz right I figured a business opportunity gratifying to all parties might crop up. From the looks of things heah my reckonings is pert near on track.”
Sudie shook her head and said, “I wish de Lawd’d make ever man speak out de front a his mouth.”
“Sir, what business pertaining to us would make it worth your while to seek us out?” Minor asked.
“Mr. Barrett, my wares today is news. I’m peddlin’ mighty peculiar tidins’ from Iron Branch and gamblin’ that you all are in need of a hundredweight.”
Butcherman carried in his head that thing most dear to Minor and me at the time, and he knew it from the looks on our faces the moment he revealed his merchandise. We were desperate to learn the state of affairs at home.
The rain turned into Noah’s torrents. “You may as well spend the night now. You can bed down here in the dogtrot,” Minor told him. “We’ll consider your story after supper.”
Butcherman unhitched the ox, fed him cottonseed from a sack in the cart, and staked him in front of the cabin. Sudie’s beans had been simmering all day when she ladled them out into new sassafras bowls carved by Minor and Quint. Butcherman had three helpings. Not a word was spoken by anyone during the meal.
Minor stoked the fire and offered Butcherman the stool nearest its heat. “Sir, what is your price for news from Iron Branch? News of substance that is, that would be of interest to refugees such as we are,” Minor asked.
Butcherman stood up and talked to the hearth. “Nothin’ much of value these days ceptin’ gold. Scrip don’t even make good kindlin’.”
“I have got gold!” I blurted out without thinking, and Minor’s sudden frown affirmed my foolishness. Butcherman was unsuccessful in hiding his pleasure at the prospects.
Minor took charge again. “You will be compensated fairly for your detour. That I can promise. Beyond this, the situation is in your hands.”
Butcherman allowed that he would take a chance with our fairness and began a story that would cause us to hurry from the great forests of the Tensas, the nosi aiasha of my mother, the place where acorns abound.
Butcherman said he had traveled to Claiborne Parish to discuss the freight contract in which he was now engaged. While there, Yankee soldiers from the east occupied Monroe for several days, blocking his normal route of return. To avoid them he returned on the north road from Homer through Farmerville and stayed the night at the livery stable in Iron Branch. Old Mr. Colvin gave him the news.
Anatilda had returned to Iron Branch in a state of terrible despair. She told of rescuing Minor from a prison hospital only to see him drown before her very eyes as they tried to cross the Mississippi River at night. It was a damned Yankee gunboat that rammed her skiff, she claimed, and she and Mink barely escaped alive.
In a rough-cut way, Butcherman was capable of compassion. It seeped from his voice as he told of Minor’s mother. When Mrs. Barrett heard Anatilda’s news she took to her bed and died two weeks later. Always fragile in spite of her noble spirit and subject to the fevers, she died of the shock and was buried next to her husband on the sandy ridge that juts out into the l’Outre Swamp.
The news stunned Minor and me. Sudie spoke condolences in her simple way, and Atlas put his huge hand on Minor’s shoulder.
“That’s the worst of my report,” said Butcherman, “but I fear the balance ain’t cheerful neither.” He went on to tell that Anatilda was making a claim for the Barrett estate, her being the widowed daughter-in-law and closest living kin. Seems the Tubbs were falling on hard times, just like everyone whose wealth was tied to cotton in a big way. Butcherman said he heard that Anatilda would get a hearing at the November court in Farmerville if it was held. Nothing was certain anymore since the Yankee raids on Monroe and Bastrop. He said that was all of his news connected to us.
“Was there talk of my fate?” I asked him. I dreaded the worry I had caused the Carters.
“I didn’t hear none directly, Missy, ‘ceptin Old Man Colvin said you wuz mostly written off as dead too.”
“Court is on the first Tuesday of the month,” said Minor. “What day is this?” As time passed on the Tensas, we had lost track of the date.
Butcherman said he was sure this night was Saturday, the third of November 1863.
Puffs of smoke swirled back down the chimney and into the room. Just as the weather changed, so too did our lives. Minor said we would leave the next morning at first light. He did not want to talk any more then, and we all went to bed. Butcherman slept alone in the dogtrot. Sudie double-checked the latchstrings to be sure they were pulled in.
Everyone stirred early. Sudie cooked, Minor and I collected our few belongings, Quint brought up Chula, and Atlas curried him with a mussel shell comb. Butcherman said he was headed back to Claiborne Parish through Monroe, figuring the Yankees were done with their raiding there for a while being’s it was so far from their main force. He claimed to know the favorable stream crossings on this route and allowed that our company would be welcome. Minor accepted his invitation as long as progress was satisfactory. Atlas and Quint decided to escort us for a half day.
The sun rose on a clearing sky, the last clouds chased away by a brisk wind of the far north. Trees still dripped from the evening storm as if to mock the tears of our sad farewells. I hugged Sudie and Mirah for a long time. Sudie urged me to remain ever cautious. To press her point she chilled me to the bone by telling me that Dalkeith had planned to take me too. Mirah cried when I gave her my red hair ribbons and ran to adorn her baby. The handfuls of gold coins that I left in the churn could not begin to repay our dark champions. Before I knew them, I had worried that the Bible did not mention Indians, but after discovering that angels could be black I felt better for myself.
The ox bawled in the yoke when Butcherman cracked his whip and started the cart’s rainbow wheels rolling north along the riverbank. We followed behind the cart in the mud, each of us with thoughts of the past and future. Only young Quint dwelled in the present as he roamed the trail gathering the wind’s bounty of freshly fallen sweet pecans.
Before noon we reached the rain-swollen ford on the Tensas. Butcherman said we would not be able to cross in another hour. He was right. The water was above my waist, and I had to hold fast to the back of the cart to keep my feet. From the far bank our dear friends waved their last goodbyes, Atlas’ toothless grin forever a treasured memory. The road kept north, still against the river.
In my innocence or ignorance I had not until then realized that Minor’s plan was to be in Farmerville for the Tuesday court if it was held. The notion came to me with his growing impatience at the pace of our journey. According to Butcherman, the ox had one gait and no amount of abuse or reward would hasten his step. Butcherman figured we could make it in time if we traveled part of the night. He said jayhawkers and other bandits roamed the country and it would be safer if we stayed together. He said he had a good pistol under the seat for our protection. Then he said something that led me to swear that I would be nowhere near him or his cart when darkness came.
Minor asked him, “Would thieves consider your cargo valuable? Perhaps we are subject to added danger by being in your company.” I had paid no attention to the lumps beneath the cotton sacks in the cart.
“My freight today wouldn’t interest any but a starvin’ hog. And as a man right familiar with swine likes and dislikes, that’s saying a heap.” Butcherman reached back and pulled the cotton sacks aside to reveal two pine coffins. Rapping his knuckles on the closest, he continued, “My apologizes fer neglectin’ the formal introductions, but I figured you didn’t have a mind to shake Tommy Ratliff’s hand.” Butcherman saw that this talk was making Minor mad, so he began to explain. “His old pap sent me to fetch him and bring him home to Claiborne Parish. The boy took sick and died in Mississippi a couple of months ago. Some men from his unit got him as far as Vidalia, and that’s where I met him, cached under the Methodist church. He’s in right good shape, tarred and packed in charcoal dust, much more agreeable than a hickory-smoked feller I hauled a couple years back. He was a mean ‘un. Said his last request was to be buried in a chinquapin coffin so’s he could go through Hell a poppin’. I reckon he was paid back in his own coin. The nails is loose if you all want to look Tommy over.”
I realized then why Chula had shied away from the cart all day. Unlike me on this occasion he did not need sight to sense an unsettled spirit.
Minor asked about the second coffin. As the ox plodded onward, Butcherman reached behind the seat again and flipped the lid off the other box. “It’s waitin’ fer a paying customer,” he said. “No tellin’ what opportunity lies around the next bend of the turnpike.”
I grabbed Minor’s arm and pulled Chula up short, letting the cart go ahead. “Did you see what was in the open coffin?” I whispered to Minor. “Butchering tools: a meat cleaver, hand axe, bone saw, and knives thin and pointed, thick and blunt—and leg irons. Tell me why a butcher needs two pairs of leg irons. I will not be his next opportunity!”
Minor had never seen me in such a state of panic and tried to calm me. “He’s too slow for us anyways,” he said. “We’ll part company right now if it will ease your mind.” I assured him that it would ease my mind considerably.
We paid Butcherman ten dollars in gold, leaving us with six dollars for whatever lay before us. He was satisfied and thanked us for the business. “Might cross your path agin before you know it, if I set my sails for night travelin’,” he said. We soon left him behind, Chula high-stepping in the mud and grumbling in the deep holes.
At the Vicksburg-to-Monroe railroad we struck the main road that ran along the track on the south side. There, to our surprise, the ferry on Bayou Macon was operating, served by two young women dressed as men. When Minor asked about the trains, they said none had run since the Yankees raided Monroe. We crossed without troubles and passed through the village of Delhi without stopping. Burned down as it was on the last Christmas Day, it seemed a pitiful place.
The higher ground of the Macon Hills was a welcome sight to swamp-weary travelers. The yellow earth, when wet, did not ball up and stick to shoes until they were pumpkin size like the coal-black soil of the Tensas. We made good time throughout the afternoon, even eating Sudie’s baked sweet potatoes while walking steadily onward. The late fall day was short, but as darkness came we approached the high bank of the Boeuf River.
A natural campground under giant elms was situated above the ford. Minor wanted to camp there but decided to stay only after carefully studying the river. Leaves and other sweepings of the stream rode the middle currents, a sign that the rise was over, so we stopped to camp for the night, figuring the ford would still be passable in the morning.
All day long wild fowl had passed over our heads riding the north winds, some calling, others silent. As we gathered firewood and spread our blankets, they began to fall from the sky in whirls of spinning cyclones over an old bed of the river that lay before us. In their language those already on the water beckoned newcomers with enchanted pleadings. Countless wings from every direction answered the appeals until all was muffled in a dull roar. Suddenly shots thundered in their midst. Only a temporary pause in the din disturbed the clamor. The shotguns fired again, flames from three barrels flashing bright in the twilight. Another volley and the hunters were done. The spectacle of thousands continued as before. Minor said Yankee soldiers were like ducks in that there was no end to them.
The night was cold. I spent most of it huddled before the glowing coals trying to think of anything but the last time I camped on the east bank of Boeuf River. The hole in Chula’s ear was daily reminder enough. When those thoughts did slip through my prayers and quiet hymns, they seemed to come from a time when I was another person. I wondered if it was possible for as many new things to happen to me in the next four months as had happened in the last four. I wondered if I could confuse the squeak of an oxcart wheel with the calls of baldpate and teal ducks. The scenes playing out in my imagination lasted until almost dawn, fading away before the finale.
Boeuf River was as deep as the Tensas. We crossed early and found the three duck hunters at their roadside camp. Two old men and a boy had just returned from retrieving the birds killed the night before and were drying their clothes before a fire. Dressed in their underdrawers, they paid me no mind and told Minor that nine shots had yielded two grass sacks full of ducks, all they could tote back to the Monroe market after drawing the entrails. Their only noteworthy news was that the road to town was passable but difficult in the Lafourche bottoms.
Out of the swamp again, the road turned northwest to run along Bayou Desiard above Monroe. We followed it through once-rich plantations until the stream emptied into the Ouachita River. Passersby assured us that no steamboats were running the river to any destination, including Farmerville. This news doused our hopes of an easy end to the journey and pressed us harder for time. We crossed the river to Trenton on a cattle barge and began to search for horses to hire. The livery yielded a bay gelding with lampers and a lead on another horse belonging to a woman who lived on the edge of town. She was happy to rent her tall, iron-gray mare for a deposit in gold. Once mounted we took the Arkansas Road through the pine hills, stopping briefly to satisfy Chula who refused to be led by Minor on the gelding. He had no dispute with the mare though and followed her at ease with only small debates concerning the pace.
As we rode along I pointed out to Minor a small clump of Indian pipes growing in the shade of a mulberry. They were no taller than a snuff bottle, without color, and their heads bowed over toward the earth in a manner of gloom. “About the coming events, I am feeling the way they look,” I told Minor. “Besides, I must look and smell the part of a wet polecat, between the layers of dust and wood smoke.” Minor said I looked just fine to him, but that he would work on the problem.
By evening Minor was confident we could make Farmerville by mid-morning the following day and began to seek shelter for the night. The first house offered beds and a supper of peas and cornbread. The family name was Downs. When we left the next morning, Minor said he felt bad about passing ourselves off to them as cousins.
In the back yard stood a rusty well pump, which served the house and stock on this dry farm. A half-log blackgum pipe beneath the spout caught the tailings and carried them through a worm fence to a big cypress trough worked smooth by some master of the adze. The pump was long primed – it took nearly twenty strokes of the handle to bring up the first cupful. Afterwards, I called it the guinea pump because when worked it cried like a spooked guinea hen. Minor said the slow, short strokes sounded more like a jaybird to him and that it was a shame the people did not properly oil the barrel on such an important implement.
After supper Minor gathered a kettle of water and hung it on a pot hook in the hearth to heat. He signaled me to follow him and led me to the pump where he had arranged a three-legged milking stool, a towel of sorts, a soap cake, and a vial of rose water that he had bought from the woman of the house. “Abita Carter of Bayou de l’Outre,” he said, “on this fine, clear night with Orion as our watchman, I will cleanse your spirit.”
He sat me on the stool and began to wash my hair. The water was cool enough to draw chill bumps at first but not uncomfortable. It flowed over my shoulders, down my blouse and skirt. No effort was made to keep from wetting me thoroughly. Minor alternated his rhythmic stroking of the pump with those of his fingers through my hair. He tilted my head back to add the soap. It smelled faintly of honey and rose to a fine lather in the soft water. Still the pump handle slowly rose and descended over me, Minor’s hands worked, Orion watched, and the jaybird cried. For some moments I left my body to stand to the side and watch this scene. It stirs me yet.
Minor left to retrieve the kettle and returned to rinse me with warm water. I sent him off again to fetch the remains of my simple, clean dress from Chula’s pack. Minor brought it; I draped it over the fence and demanded that he sit on the stool for retribution. His hair was nearly to his shoulders, as long as mine, and in dark waves just the same. The flowing water revealed hard muscles returning to his neck, chest and stomach. At some point the silence of the jaybird roused me from this second trance and revealed my hands far from Minor’s hair. Minor sneezed suddenly and claimed that he was not owed a drowning. It was his way of moving us along to a more proper level in this setting. Before we went into the house, he daubed the notch in my neck with rose water and just lower too. When he kissed me the worries of the morrow parted as surely as the Red Sea did for Moses.