Come Juneteenth (12 page)

"No, Mr. Holcomb, it's only me, Colonel Heffernan. I heard you were ailing and thought I'd come pay my respects."

Respects?
I thought. Not this man. He doesn't know the meaning of the word. I didn't trust him.

He took the lantern from Cochran and set it down on a small table. "I have an offer to make to you, Mr. Holcomb. Is now not a good time?"

Pa made a gesture with his good hand that the man
should sit. Mama and I didn't offer to leave and nobody asked us to.

"It has come to my attention, Mr. Holcomb, that President Johnson is issuing pardons to Confederates who waged war against the Union. A pardon will entail taking an oath of allegiance to the Union and will entitle you to retain your lands and holdings after we leave."

Pa coughed.

"In your case, sir, a special pardon is needed since you own more than twenty thousand dollars in property. It should be personally applied for. But given the circumstances of your health I am in a position to recommend you as a good candidate for a pardon. The president hopes that with this pardon you and others like you will look upon him as your ally and protector."

"You mean people of sizeable means," Mama put in.
Good for you,
I thought. Stay one step ahead of him.

"All right, all right, Luanne," Pa slurred. "Let the man talk."

"Thank you," said Heffernan. "Well, I am in the happy position to be able to offer you that pardon, here and now, providing you take the oath."

Pa looked at Mama with some meaning in the look I could not discern. She nodded her head yes, ever so slightly. Then he closed his eyes and sighed. Candlelight in the room flickered. The negroes were singing about going home in a sweet chariot.

Heffernan shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then spoke. "Perhaps this is not a good time," he said.

"No," Pa said. "But not for the reason you think. You come back tomorrow. I have to be dressed up to take an oath."

I heard myself gasp but said nothing.

"Come by nine in the morning," Mama told him. "He's most alert then."

"He doesn't have to dress up," Heffernan said.

"Yes I do!" Pa said with as much anger as he could muster. "Don't know how you been raised, young man, but here in the South we do things right."

He propped himself up on his good right elbow to say this. Now he sank back down and waved Heffernan off.

The colonel picked up his lantern, started to say something, then stopped. It was clear that Pa bewildered him. So he said nothing and left, Cochran following behind.

I
WAS WITH
Mama the next day when she helped Pa tie his cravat. Edom had already shaved him and gotten him into his best and whitest ruffled shirt and black trousers. He insisted on his wool suit because the wool had all been grown on his own sheep, spun and woven by his slaves, sewn by Mama. The jacket had swallowtails, and he insisted on wearing his planter's hat on his head.

Mama handed him his gold-headed cane and he sat on the edge of his bed while Edom put on his freshly polished boots.

Heffernan and Cochran came in, and the colonel stared at Pa in amazement.

"You wait a second, young man," Pa said, his voice sounding better than last night. "I want to stand and do this thing."

Edom and Mama helped him to his feet. He reached out and took a small flag from Cochran's hand and handed it to me.

I hesitated, just a moment, and looked into his eyes.

They were pleading with me, not angry. So I took the flag and held it.

And there, in that makeshift study of Pa's, surrounded by his books, in the house his father had built in order to start the ranch, Pa took the oath of allegiance to the United States.

Heffernan said the words first. Pa followed, slowly and surely. We all held our breath.

When it was over it was clear that even stone-hearted Heffernan was moved. He cleared his throat and did not know what to say.

"You've seen the Southern training here at work, Colonel," my mama said. "But you've also seen something else."

"What is that, ma'am?"

"You've seen a man, who loves his country, embrace it unashamedly. And give good example to his children."

When she said that, Mama looked right at me. And I knew then what this was all about, really. It was about Pa's
wanting to be an American again, yes, but more it was because Mama had likely told him of the trouble I'd had in knowing which was my country. And how to feel about it.

I hugged Pa and helped him sit down on the bed. He stamped his cane on the floor. "Coffee," he said, "I'll have coffee with rum in it."

"Granville, you shouldn't," Mama said.

"Lots of things I shouldn't do. Now leave me, all of you, and let Edom and me have our coffee with rum in it."

A
NOTE CAME
to me right after that from Mercy Love down in the quarters:

"Child. Cast an eye in the direcshun of Sis Goose and that Kernal man in your old house. I hear tell from Old Pepper Apron that he has got his hands all over her. You must protect her somehow. My owl has refused to hoot for two days. He sees bad omens on this place. And I hear she carried out ashes on a Friday and this bodes no good for anyone. Come see me before you see the Kernal man and I will give you some protection. Elst wash in basil leaves to protect yourself."

A
T THE SAME
time came a letter from Gabe, wishing his best for Pa and telling us he'd be home directly.

During the war, it took a letter a month to travel 200 miles. Now, with the fighting ceased, it was a little better. Now the overland stage did not have to worry about being sniped at, so Pa still employed their riders to get and receive our mail.

It was one of these ragged riders who rode up to the gates that day with the letter from Gabe saying he'd be home directly. We paid him, offered him food and drink, but no, he had to get on. He had other missives to deliver.

I didn't tell Ma about Mercy Love's concerns about Sis Goose. Not with the temper I'd discovered in her. I was afraid she'd go storming into the house to ream out the colonel. I didn't care about him, but I did care that I might have another sick parent, and for that I would most certainly shoot Heffernan.

Which reminded me. Guns.

Naturally Heffernan thought he had collected all of them when he arrived, but he hadn't.

When Granville had taken all Mama and Pa's good belongings off to Mexico in the wagon, he had buried some guns out beyond the corncrib. If my recollection was correct, there was a perfectly good double-barreled shotgun buried there, and a Colt revolver. It was time to sneak out in the dark of night and retrieve them.

I
WAS HAVING
trouble sleeping anyway. The hot weather had brought, for me, a cold and a cough, and I had taken Mama's evil-tasting herbal medicine, boneset, to no avail. I had the fever, like Pa got off and on. But I didn't complain because then Mama would have me housebound. Still, at night I'd wake up, feverish and tossing and turning, only to find it impossible to go back to sleep again.

So I'd walk the house in slippered feet, awed by the moonlight coming in the undraped windows, listening for the sounds of the hooty owls or whip-poor-wills, every sound becoming a terror for me.

If only Gabe would come home. I'd feel safer. I wanted him as bad as I'd wanted him near when I'd had my lions under the bed.

This night there was no moon. I'd need a lantern. I dismissed the temptation to wear my boots and put on the Indian moccasins Gabe had brought home for me on his last visit. Then I picked up a lantern and went in a roundabout way to the back of the house near the quarters, where the corncrib was.

If caught, I had my story ready. I was sickly. Likely with bilious fever and was going to Mercy Love's cottage for some pills made of black pepper and opium. Best not come near me. It was catching.

Why the small shovel in my hand?

Mercy Love would most assuredly give me a red velvet bag and tell me to go to the cemetery on my way back and dig up some goofer dust just as an extra measure of protection against the disease.

Heffernan would believe anything. And he didn't interfere with any comings and goings to Mercy Love's place because he was afraid of her.

And so I made my midnight trip to the corncrib in the dark. I'd been running around the grounds here since I was two, bounding after Gabe and Granville on some
adventure. I knew every hole in the ground, every tree, every bush and fence rail and path. I didn't even need the lantern, but I took it along for comfort.

Of course, Heffernan had guards posted. In front and in back of the house. But I caught two sleeping, one other in the embrace of a negro girl, and the fourth awake but drinking and likely in his cups. They posed no problem.

Luckily Granville had insisted I be with him the day he buried the guns, so I would know exactly where to go to dig them up. And luckily it had recently rained so the ground wasn't hard. I dug as soundlessly as I could. Darned Granville. Did he have to be so thorough and exact about everything?

Finally my shovel hit something and I knelt down and shoveled away the dirt with my hands. And there, wrapped in an old blanket, were the double-barreled shotgun and the Colt revolver and all the ammunition I needed.

I hauled them out, covered up the hole, and carried them, still in the earth-smelling blanket, back to the house.

In my room I examined my treasures. I got a rag and cleaned them there and then on the spot, rubbing the handles until the special carvings and the initials, GH for Pa, Granville Holcomb, were clean and clear.

Oh, how good they felt in my hands! And it came to me how I missed going out at least once a week and practicing my shooting. Now to hide them. I did so, under my mattress. I put the ammunition in an old pair of my boots
in the corner and then lay down, feverish and plotting, until I went to sleep.

I
DIDN'T GIVE
much thought to what I was going to do, why I had gone so out of my way to fetch the guns. I knew only that it was time. That Heffernan had gone far enough putting his hands on Sis Goose, who was carrying my brother's child. The very thought of him doing it was distasteful to me. And I had to put a stop to it.

The when and how of it didn't concern me. It would all work itself out.

T
HE "WHEN"
of it happened the next night. Again I was sleepless. The night was so nice that I wished I could open a window, so I did, just for a minute. Any longer and the room would be full of mosquitoes.

But in that minute I heard a girlish cry coming from the front gallery of our house.

Sis Goose!

This time I dressed quickly, put on my boots, took up my Colt revolver, and went out the front door.

There were lanterns lit on the front gallery. Other light shone out through the front windows onto the two of them, caught in an embrace.

"No, don't," I heard Sis Goose cry.

I crept through Mama's orchard up to the front gallery. Just to one side was a brick terrace, and there,
under an orange tree, I saw Colonel Heffernan trying his darndest to get his arms around Sis Goose. She was backing away and pleading, "Don't."

"Leave her be!" I sent my voice out into the dark like a bullet, sure to hit its mark.

"Who goes there? Identify yourself." It was the guard at the front steps.

"Back off, Sergeant, I'll take care of this."

The sergeant obeyed. And Heffernan, still with one arm around Sis Goose's waist, dragged her toward the end of the terrace. He peered into the dark. "That you, Luli Holcomb? What you doing out and about this late at night? Go to bed like all good little girls."

"I said leave her be."

He saw the barrel of the Colt revolver then, pointed right at him. He laughed. "Ho, a little girl with a pistol. You Southerners really are a sight."

"She can shoot," Sis Goose said. "Don't anger her. She can shoot as good as you."

"That so?" He pushed her away, his interest piqued. He took out his revolver and aimed it at me. "What you going to do now, little girl?"

I took aim and fired. His arm. I wanted to get his upper arm. Maybe the muscle, and I must have because I heard a groan and then he bent over and clutched it. "Sergeant, get that little witch!" he yelled.

But before the sergeant could gather his wits I turned and leaped back into the blessed darkness.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sis Goose leaning over Heffernan, saying, "Come on into the house, we have to fix the arm."

The sergeant was there, too, helping him up and leading him in through a side door. I ran into the log house and bolted the door shut, then sank down on the floor in the front hallway. All I could hear in the silence was the beating of my own heart.

T
HE NEXT
morning I slept late for the first time in a long time. Sun was streaming in my room through the mosquito nets around the bed. I pushed them aside and got up to look out the window. The place was wrapped in an eerie quiet that folded around us like the mosquito netting. In the distance was the faint singing of the freedmen working in the fields, then the neighing of a horse, the barking of the hound dogs, then silence again.

No one was about. Where was Heffernan? Was he wounded? Dead? What would happen if I killed him?

I dressed quickly and went downstairs and through the back gallery to the kitchen where Mama was overseeing the making of pies. Heffernan liked pies and kept Molly busy making them. Old Pepper Apron refused to make him desserts or anything except simple meals. He was grateful for that, grateful that she wasn't trying to poison him.

Mama sliced me some ham and I reheated some muffins for breakfast. And there was coffee, real coffee. Mama was working at sorting the black-eyed peas.

She sighed. "The war is over," she said, "but around here it still goes on. I don't blame you for firing at him, Luli, but please don't fire again at the occupation officers."

"If Heffernan persists in pursuing Sis Goose, I'll kill him," I told her. "The war is over, yes, Mama, but even in peacetime Gabe or Granville would kill him for that."