Low Country (23 page)

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and doing the old dances, teaching visitors the songs

and legends.…”

“My God. A theme park. Gullah World. That’s just

extraordinary, Clay,” I said fiercely. Anger was begin-

ning to raise its snake’s head. It felt good, like scalding

hot coffee when you are frozen and exhausted.

“It’s not like that. It could be done with great taste

and dignity. Sophia Bridges…you know, the young

black woman with the child…she has an undergraduate

degree in cultural anthropology, and she did her thesis

on the Gullahs. She’s going to do a great deal more

research down here. She thinks it’s fascinating, and

that it could be an important cultural asset to the whole

region.…”

“Sophia Bridges wouldn’t know a real Gullah if one

tackled her and held her down and put her hair in

cornrows! This is not an experiment, Clay! Those are

real people over there! My God! And the ponies…what

about the ponies? Are you going to open up a Wild

West exhibit with them?”

“The ponies are ultimately the responsibility of the

government,” he said. “The Park Service. We’ve been

talking with them for months about the ponies. They’ve

given us at least six months to relocate them or to

cull…”

“
Cull
?”

He looked away again.

“They’re not healthy, Caro. They’re so inbred

200 / Anne Rivers Siddons

that their genetic weaknesses are going to kill them in

another generation or two. They don’t get enough

food, or at least not the right kind. They’ve just about

grazed out the available hummock grass on the island.

You can’t let them starve. They’ll be much better off

on one of the undeveloped islands, where the grass is

strong and new.”

“They’re not starving, they’re fat as pigs,” I cried.

“Clay, this is…I won’t do this, Clay. Not to the people,

and not to the ponies. I will not give you that land.”

He did not speak. I watched him, my chest heaving

with rage and anguish. Finally he nodded.

“Then, as you say, it’s your island,” he said.

There was another long silence, and then he said,

“Caro, I have to sleep. I’ll die if I don’t sleep. You

should, too. I’ll talk to Hayes in the morning, tell him

it’s off. The Atlanta people are still here; we can wrap

it up before noon. But right now I’m just plain done

for.”

He turned over and reached up and pulled the chain

on the bedside lamp. The room swam back into its

comforting darkness. I heard him settle into his pillow

and give the small sign that meant he was poised at

the edge of sleep. I felt my heart contract slightly with

the first frisson of pity. He had never before said he

was too tired to talk to me. This must have taken a

terrible toll on

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him. I remembered how it had been with him when

he was first learning the island, in the summer days

after Hayes had brought him over from Charleston the

first time. I remembered the sheer enchantment on his

face, the wonder in his blue eyes. You wouldn’t lose

that, not entirely.

I lay still, staring at the drawn curtains. A faint line

of pale, colorless light had appeared under them.

Dawn. The dawn of a day I wished I might never see.

“Clay…” I said softly into the darkness.

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t there any other way? I mean, anything you

could do so that the people at Dayclear and the…the

ponies and all…could stay, wouldn’t be disturbed?

Put it somewhere else on the island, or scale it down,

or something?”

After a long time he said, “We could try. If you’d

agree to think about it, I’d agree to go back to the

drawing board and see if we can’t do better for the

people and the horses. We have until spring before we

have to give the earnest money back. That money

would keep the Calista investors off my back for a long

time. Maybe long enough. I think we could…Caro? If

we could show you how much better it could be? If

we could show you it would really benefit the people

at Dayclear?”

“I…if you could really show me, I guess I

could…think about it. I guess I could do that. But oh,

Clay…”

202 / Anne Rivers Siddons

“We’ll talk about it in the morning, baby. I promise

you we can make it work. I promise you it won’t be

anything you’d have to hate.…”

“Will you promise me something else?”

“Anything.”

“Will you promise me not to talk about it anymore

until after the holidays at least? I don’t think I could

stand it, Clay. I don’t think I can talk endlessly about

this thing, or hear about it. Let’s just get through the

holidays. It’s going to be bad enough, looking at all

those poor, silly little new people and knowing what

you brought them down here for.…”

I should not have said it. No matter what, it was a

gratuitously cruel comment, designed to hurt, and it

did. I knew even before he answered that I had hurt

him.

“That shouldn’t be too hard,” he said in the chill,

neutral voice I fear most. “We don’t talk about any-

thing else.”

I lay still, wrapped in my own pain, until I heard his

breathing slacken into sleep. I meant to get up then,

and go to try to sleep some more on my daybed, but

before I could gather the energy I fell asleep, too, and

when I woke, the sun was high and straight over the

sea, and he was gone.

7

I
t’s funny how a night’s sleep can change the
complex-

ion of things. I couldn’t have slept more than five

hours, but when I finally got showered and dressed

and in some sort of forward motion, the terrible night

before had faded and bleached itself down to a kind

of half-memory, half-dream that lacked the poisonous

immediacy of the night itself. I knew it was something

I had done myself, while I slept, in order simply to

survive and go on; I had done it sometimes when the

pain of Kylie got too overwhelming. It was a kind of

interior litany that threaded my troubled sleep and

bore me up when I waked: Well, it was awful; it was

the worst thing in the world, but here it is the next day

and we’re still here. The sun is still shining, the birds

are still singing. It isn’t going to kill us, and what

doesn’t kill us can only make us stronger. There’s still

Clay and me, the fact of us. There’s still that.

204 / Anne Rivers Siddons

I was so proficient at it that it was buried deep in

my subconscious now, and I knew only that a night

had passed and a day had been born and we were still

intact. As long as we were, we could work this out.

He had said so, hadn’t he? He had said they’d go back

to the drawing board with ideas for Dayclear. He’d

said we didn’t need to speak of it again until spring.

It would take at least that long to come up with a better

plan. I didn’t have to do anything at all about this

until then. The light would have turned to pale, tender

gold and the marshes would be greening up before I

ever had to think of it.

I ran down the stairs two at a time, eager to be out

in the crisp, clear light that flooded the back garden.

I would have coffee there, and then cut the last of the

roses and bring them in. Then I would go back over

to the island. There was one more thing I had to do

before I could pack the enormity of Dayclear away.

An hour later I stopped at the little unpainted cabin

that had served the settlement as a general store and

community center since I was a small child, to ask

where Ezra Upchurch’s house was. I knew that Janie

and Esau Biggins, who had kept the store almost that

long, would know. They had served the settlement’s

needs and wants and its deepest aches for forty years.

And they were Gullahs, too, originally from Edisto.

There was

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little about the people of Dayclear they did not know.

The vertical planks of the little house were blackened

with age and weather, and several had rotted through.

The roof was rusted tin and missing many squares.

The listing porch held a long-defunct metal Nehi

cooler that squatted stolidly in a corner, like an aban-

doned god. Usually someone sat on it, or a group

played checkers or cards on its pitted surface, but the

day was sharp, and I knew that everyone would be

inside, clustered around the black iron stove that would

surely, as my grandfather always said, burn the place

down one day. A few chickens pecked and scratched

in the swept dirt yard and under the porch. They were

Domineckers; I had always admired their precise tweed

dress and vaguely African demeanor. They seemed to

me so much more exotic than the fat, complacent

Rhode Island Reds, almost as picturesque as the

beautiful, witless, pin-head guineas that sometimes

foraged alongside them. These did not stop their

noshing as I walked through them and up the steps.

Inside, the thick, rank semigloom smelled of smoke

and licorice and the dusty peanuts in their shells in a

big barrel by the counter, and something else darker

and older: dried blood from the carcasses of the

chickens that were slaughtered out back and sold. I

felt a little uncomfortable,

206 / Anne Rivers Siddons

for I knew that mine would be the only white face, but

I had been here before, many times, and I was known.

I would be treated with courtesy because of my

grandfather. He would have been treated with affec-

tion.

Janie was behind the counter this morning. She

smiled her gold-toothed smile and nodded but did not

speak. That was for me to do first, and I did.

“I’m looking for the house Ezra Upchurch is staying

in, Janie,” I said. “He’s got someone staying with him,

a Mr. Cassells, that I need to see.”

“Ezra, he stayin’ with his auntie down at the end of

the row, but he ain’t to home,” she said equably. “Seem

like he say he goin’ to town today.”

I did not know if “town” meant the village on Edisto

or Charleston or what, but it did not matter, since it

was Luis Cassells I wanted. I was glad that I would

not have to say what I had to say to him in front of

Ezra Upchurch. The great wind of Ezra’s presence

would, I knew, overwhelm me. This was going to be

hard enough.

“That’s okay. I’ll just walk on down there and see if

Mr. Cassells is there. Thanks a lot,” I said.

“I’m here,” a masculine voice said from somewhere

in the gloom behind the stove, and I peered into it.

Luis Cassells was sitting in a spavined old rocking chair

in the shadows, drink

Low Country / 207

ing coffee and smoking a large black cigar. Both

smelled good, rich and masculine. They reminded me

of my grandfather. There was a cardboard box beside

him on the floor, and I heard a scuffling and scratching

from it. Walking back, I peered in. There were three

small black and tan hound puppies there, curled

around one another. Luis was scratching their heads

with the hand that held the cigar. He smiled up at me,

his teeth flashing white in the murk.

“Pull up a chair,” he said. “I’ll buy you a cup of cof-

fee. Or maybe you’d prefer a puppy. Esau’s trying to

find homes for them. Their mama got run over on the

bridge.”

“I wish I could,” I said. “If he can’t place them, I’ll

put a notice in the office. Where’s Lita this morning?”

“Ezra’s auntie is teaching her how to wrap her hair.

She’s been after me for a week to let her. Says that way

I won’t have to comb it for days and days, and she

won’t have to cry. She has a point. Combing hair is

not one of my long suits.”

I smiled. Then I said, “Mr. Cassells…”

He raised an eyebrow at me and I felt myself blush,

and was glad of the darkness.

“Luis,” I said. “I came to apologize. I was pretty

crappy to you yesterday. And…you were right about

Dayclear. There are some plans to develop it. I didn’t

know about them. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to

happen; I
do
own this

208 / Anne Rivers Siddons

part of the island, and if it seems to me that the prop-

erty would harm the settlement in any way, it’s not

going to happen. Clay and I have an agreement about

that. I thought you might pass the word along. Nothing

at all is going to be done until spring, and then only

with their blessing.”

He studied me for a space of time.

“I see,” he said. “Well, that’s good to know. Why

don’t you come on back with me and tell them your-

self?”

“Because they’ll be more apt to believe it if it comes

from you,” I said, knowing it was true. “They’re nice

to me because of my grandfather, but I’m whitey all

the same. We don’t have a great history of truth-telling

in these parts. But you’re one of them. They’d trust

you.”