The Heavenly Table(16)

“This ain’t the time to be jokin’ around,” Cane told him.

“Maybe not,” Chimney said, “but I think Cob’s right. That poor old sonofabitch lying there just got the only thing he’s wanted for years. Christ, we should be happy for him.”

Although Cane couldn’t dispute the logic in his brother’s argument, such an attitude was still, to his way of thinking, a little too swift and coldhearted for the occasion. It was only right that a tear or two be shed, or, at the very least, some kind words spoken, before you started poking fun at someone’s passing. He stood up and walked over to the water bucket to retrieve his shirt. As he did so, he heard Cob say, “Well, I know I am. Heck, he’ll be eatin’ steaks big around as wagon wheels, and tender as…as…Oh, shoot, how tender was them steaks again, Chimney?”

“Tender as a young girl’s kitty-cat.”

“An’ the biscuits? What was it you said about them?”

“Oh, they’ll be hot and fluffy as—”

“Enough,” Cane said. He looked toward the shack on the other side of the cotton field. “You gather up the tools and me and Cob will carry him back to the house.”

“Where we gonna bury him?”

“Back there by the hog pen,” Cane said, as he finished buttoning his shirt. “At least that way he’ll have some company.”





10


BEFORE ELLSWORTH WAS halfway across town, he saw, coming toward him on Paint Street, a group of soldiers on horseback, their new leather saddles squeaking and the polished tack shining brightly in the morning sun. He pulled Buck off to the side and studied the procession closely, but he didn’t see any sign of Eddie. After they turned and headed down Main in the direction of the train depot, he continued on. He was amazed at how much Meade had grown since his last visit, and nearly overwhelmed by the racket coming from the automobiles and horse-drawn carriages and throngs of people on the sidewalks. “And this a weekday!” he exclaimed to himself. He looked about for something familiar, and as the mule plodded by Spetnagel’s Hardware with its ears bobbing, he recalled that he had bought Eula a nice dress there once, a blue and white print with pearly-looking buttons and a lacy collar. Even after all these years, he could still see the surprised look on her face when she opened the box. They had been married only a short time and were still getting to know each other. She had worn it to church the next week, and as they started to drive home afterward, he heard her start softly singing the hymn the preacher had chosen to close the services with. “What you so happy about?” he asked.

Eula stopped singing and glanced shyly at him, then looked away. “I know it’s silly,” she said, “but ain’t nobody ever bought me anything as nice as this dress before.”

Ellsworth had felt a lump start to form in his throat. Though Eula didn’t talk much about her past, and he didn’t ask, he’d heard a little about how she had been raised on the edge of Bourneville. Her father had been born deformed, without any fingers, and his arms hung helplessly at his sides like a pair of clubs, while her mother, when she was in the grips of what people called one of her “spells,” walked the roads at night wrapped in nothing but a bedsheet and talking nonsense about being of royal blood. Nine times out of ten, someone would usually find her the next morning lying violated in a ditch or under a tree somewhere, the older boys around Bourneville, and even some of the men, not caring one iota about who the crazy bitch married to Crip Sims claimed to know in Buckingham Palace. Throughout Eula’s childhood, every spoon of slop put out on the banana crate they used as a table was due to somebody’s charity. By the time she met Ellsworth in 1897, she was twenty-two, keeping house for an old man named Wheeler in Bainbridge in return for fifteen dollars a month and a bed in a windowless back room. Her parents were long dead, and her lone surviving relative, an older brother who had left home on his twelfth birthday, was a tramp who used to come through every two or three years to bum a buck or two. “Well, shoot, you’re my wife, ain’t ye?” Ellsworth finally managed to say.

“Until the day I die,” she had answered, then leaned over and kissed him quickly on the cheek. The dress, along with a pair of stockings and a petticoat, had set him back four dollars, but it was the best money he ever spent in his life.

When he finally arrived at the entrance to the army camp, Ellsworth swung down off the wagon and approached the three guards warily, explained that he was looking for his son. “Been gone three days now,” he said.

“Was he called up?” asked a man with a corporal stripe and a nose shaped like a sharp blade.

“What?”

“Did he get a draft notice?”

“No, not that I know of.”

“So he enlisted?”

“Maybe,” Ellsworth said.

“Well, if you don’t know, why do you think he’s here then? He could be anywhere.”

Just as Ellsworth had begun to suspect last night, they were going to make it hard for him. That’s just the way it was with the government; he had heard it said a hundred times over at Parker’s store. They were incapable of doing anything in a forthright, sensible way. But Christ Almighty, he couldn’t just turn around and head home without knowing for sure. What would he tell Eula? He looked the man straight in the eye and said, “I’d be much obliged if you’d check anyway. It took me most of a day to get here.”