Patrick Henry and the Frigate’s Keel: And Other Stories of a Young Nation (9 page)

“Maybe they're friends,” Pa said, “but there's that lawyer-man with six feet of lawbooks, and folks are already saying that what they've had six years now ain't American law, but English law. Matt Stevens, he's put it around everywhere that there's a heap more law comes out of six feet of books than out of one book.”

“And maybe they're right,” Ma pointed out.

“What! By all that's mighty, my own wife's against me!”

“I ain't against you,” Ma said calmly. “Only, one thing you got to remember—that for every case you tried there was a plaintiff and a defendant, and if you gave the case to the defendant, then the plaintiff went away stamping mad. And the other way round.”

“A woman I been married and bedded with twenty-two years come June,” Pa muttered.

“Well, it seems to me you ought to be satisfied with - twelve years of lawgiving,” Ma said.

Pa didn't speak to Ma about the election again, but I could see that he had taken what she said awful hard. Instead of going out to stump raring mad, he put it off from day to day. And all the while the lawman was stumping up and down the river. Twice, he came to the house to see Pa, but the only one he saw was Jenny. The first time, Pa went out to the stable and fed the stock two hours straight; the second time, he sat up in my attic room until I gave him word to come down. He sure was doubting what he might do to that lawman if they ever met.

And then, two or three days before election, Pa made up his mind to go out and stump. By that time I was the only one around the place who had any truck with him, he was so eaten up and burning about the lawman.

“Jess,” he said, “saddle up the filly and the big white. We're going to take this election in hand.”

When I had the horses ready I went into the house. Ma's lips were tight and she wasn't speaking. She was putting together a bag of food for Pa to take with him.

“After all, I been judging this district twelve years,” Pa said.

“And long enough.… Jess, you catch cold and I'll tan your hide good and lasting.… Don't know why you need the boy with you, anyway,” she said to Pa.

“Don't know that I got anyone else,” Pa snapped.

The first place we went was to the Joneses' farm, up the creek. Pa and Lancy Jones, they came out to this country together, fifteen years back.

Lancy was rooting stumps in a patch he was clearing when Pa hailed him. Lancy walked over and said, “'Evening, Squire.”

“'Evening, Lancy,” Pa said.

“Good weather,” Lancy said.

“My well went dry,” Pa told him. “Couldn't figure it nohow.”

“Plenty of rain,” Lancy said.

“Crop weather,” Pa agreed.

“I already seen a well to go dry just out of pure contrariness,” Lancy Jones said.

“No telling at all.”

“But that was a fine well.”

“Mighty nice well,” Pa said. “Twenty foot deep.”

“Going hunting?” Lancy asked Pa.

Pa hesitated, glanced at me, and then tugged at his beard. “Deer,” Pa said.

“I seen deer sign over at Lasting Hollow.”

“Come on, Jess,” Pa said. “Good day, Lancy.”

“Good day.”

When we were out of sight of Lancy's place I said to Pa, “That was a mighty queer way to stump for votes.”

“That's the way it's done back East,” Pa muttered.

“I'd have asked him straight.”

“Jess, you shut and don't be prying into affairs of your elders,” Pa snapped.

We went on down the valley to where the Humphrieses had their place. It was ten miles, and by the time we got there night had settled down. Rand Humphries was an old river keel boatman, and he and his wife had built themselves a little cabin to spend the last of their days.

At the Humphrieses' it wasn't much different. Rand's wife made a bed for us in the attic, and Pa and Rand spent most of the evening talking about how much better it was in the old days. But if there was one thing Pa and Rand didn't talk about, it was the election.

We were up and off early the next morning. Pa said he kind of took to this stumping business and that he was just beginning to warm up to it. He said you just can't go to old friends and ask them to vote for you out and out; a man's pride wouldn't let him do that. You had to travel around the subject, this way and that way.

Well, Pa sure had a lot of pride. We rode the horses most to death paying calls, and Pa talked with a lot of people about 'most everything under the sun, about taxes and land speculation, and corn against oats as a crop, and the price of calico and lots more. But not about the election and not about votes.

“That's that,” Pa said as we turned home. “I feel better now that I been out stumping.”

“You ain't worried about the election now, Pa?” I asked him.

“Not a bit, Jess,” Pa smiled. “You see, all them folks, well, they're old friends.”

“That lawman, though, he's canny. You remember about that shelf of books.”

“I ain't worried about them books, Jess. I reckon now that the war's over, folks won't mind a few more years of English common law.”

We were near home when we met Matt Stevens. I was afraid that might mean trouble out here, but Pa was feeling so good he just grinned.

“'Evening, Matt,” Pa said.

“'Evening, Sam.”

“I guess you're riding into the village to do your voting,” Pa said.

“I am. Heard you were out stumping, Sam?”

“Right up and down the valley,” Pa said.

“You don't reckon you're late?” Matt grinned. “Elmer Green, he finished his stumping last week. Today and yesterday and the day before he's been out at your place courting Jenny.”

“What!” Pa roared.

Matt rode off, still grinning.

Pa turned to me and said, “Jess, what do you figure he meant by that?”

“I guess that lawman's sweet on Jenny. I guess a blind man could have seen that.…”

Ma didn't give Pa any satisfaction. When he stamped around the house, roaring, combing his beard with both hands, she just turned her back on him. When he tried to take it out of Jenny, Ma told him, “That's about enough and too much, Sam Burton. Leave the girl alone. If you were home here, minding your business instead of traipsing around the country pestering your friends, you wouldn't have reason to complain.”

“Since that lawman came,” Pa moaned, “one thing and another, and now my wife and daughter.”

All that next day, which was Election Day, Pa mooned around, his face so black that nobody dared speak to him. But toward evening he cheered up a little. He said to me, “Jess, even if everything else has gone wrong, tonight I'll put that no-account young buck in his place. He'll see that he can't just walk in with his framed degree and take a district away from a man with friends.”

The next morning Pa was up with the sun, intending to ride in and get the tally on the votes. He hadn't voted, himself, because he didn't consider it sporting to put down a vote for himself. Besides, he was so sure of the election that one vote didn't mean anything, one way or another.

Pa had saddled the horse, and he was having breakfast, when through the window we saw Lancy Jones ride up and dismount. Lancy came in and stood in the doorway, seeming nervous and ill at ease.

“'Morning, Lancy,” Pa called. Pa was mighty cheerful today.

“'Morning, Squire.”

“Going down to get the tally on the vote?” Pa asked him.

“Seems folks voted early,” Lancy said. “Vote was all counted yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Pa paused, with a piece of hot bread halfway to his mouth.

“It kind of hurts for me to have to bring the news,” Lancy said. “But twelve years is a long time to serve. This young Elmer feller, why, he's got a fine stock of good law sense. Got a framed degree from one of them Eastern colleges, too. Not that we weren't satisfied with your way of doing things, Squire—”

Pa just shook his head; he shook it back and forth, like it was stuck on a spring.

“Now, Sam, don't excite yourself,” Ma warned him.

“Lancy, who won the vote?” Pa whispered.

“Elmer Green, Squire.”

“What count?” Pa whispered.

“Hundred ninety-seven to eighty-two.”

Suddenly Pa sprang to his feet, knocking over his chair and pushing the table away from him. “You're a liar, Lancy!” he roared.

Lancy didn't move, but his face tightened. Quietly, he said, “Sam Burton, you know me twenty-four year, and you know I never took words like that from any man.”

But Ma pushed Lancy through the door. “Go on now,” she said. “Go on. The Squire ain't in any state fit to argue with.” But after Lancy had left she turned to Pa and shook her head. “To say that to a friend,” she murmured.

Pa sat down by the fireplace and put his face in his hands.

“Jess, go out and unsaddle the horse,” Ma told me.

Pa sat like that by the hearth without moving until midday. Jenny and Ma and I went around him on tiptoe; we knew that after what Pa had said to Lancy there was no meddling with him or talking with him.

Well, it was about midday when we heard the sound of a horse outside. Ma went to the window, and I saw a funny expression fix on her face. She grabbed Jenny and pushed her through the door. I followed. Ma called, “Jess, you come back!” But I ran on after Jenny.

It was the lawman, calm as day, smiling, and dismounting right in front of our house.

“Elmer,” Jenny cried, “you were crazy to come here today! Don't you understand how he feels?”

“He'll feel different after I speak to him,” Elmer said.

“But you can't speak to him. Go away, please. In a week, or a fortnight, he'll feel different.”

“And you'd want me to go away—for a fortnight?”

“No, no. Why are you twisting my words?”

“It's all right,” the lawman smiled. “The only decent thing for me to do is to go in and speak with him, tell him. From what I've heard of him, that's what he'd want.” And, with that, the lawman pushed past Jenny into the house.

I crowded after him. I didn't want to miss whatever happened. I saw Ma standing with one hand over her breast. Pa was still where he had been sitting before. Jenny stood by the doorway, trembling.

“Squire Burton,” Elmer said.

Pa looked up. He saw the lawman, but I don't think he knew him from Adam right then. He just stared at him.

“Squire Burton,” Elmer went on, “I'm truly damned sorry it had to happen this way. All I can say is that it was a free election. All I hope is that I'll be as worthy of the position as you were. Yet it isn't as if the judgeship were gone from the family—but shifted—” He paused and swallowed. “You see, I want to marry your daughter. I love her. She loves me—”

Slowly, Pa came to his feet. He shook his head several times and combed through his beard. I could almost see how the words were tumbling over and over in his head.

Ma must have seen it too, because she cried, “Pa, don't aggravate yourself!”

Pa exploded. A bearlike growl rumbled from deep in his stomach, and then he leaped for his long rifle, hanging over the fireplace. He tore it down. “Get out!” he told the lawman.

Elmer hadn't moved. He was watching Pa coolly, and now he said, “I would have given you my hand if I had lost.”

“Get out!” Pa yelled.

The lawman moved quickly. I saw his hand dart out for the gun, and then the long rifle went off. The room was suddenly full of smoke and noise and flame. Jenny screamed.

I guess the lawman had been in the war back East, because now the gun was in his hands. Pa stood with his arms hanging loose, staring at Elmer. Jenny sobbed. Ma put her arms around Jenny.

“We'll go now,” Ma said. “This ain't a fit place for decent folk.”

Pa just stood there without stirring.

The lawman said, “Wait a minute, Mrs. Burton. Don't you think—?”

“I know what I'm doing, young man,” Ma said. “He's gone from bad to worse. From just plain ranting, he's turned to murder. Come along, Jess, and you, Jenny.”

Pa sank down by the hearth and put his head in his hands. Ma went around the house picking up all Pa's firearms, two pistols, a fowling piece, and a musket—that besides the long rifle. “Can't trust him with these,” she said. Pa didn't move. Elmer tried to speak, but Ma shooed him out of the house. Then she called me. Jenny followed.

But Pa didn't move.…

We had gone perhaps a mile or two toward the village when I decided to slip back. Ma and Jenny were going to put up with Parson Jackson, and Elmer kept trying to talk them out of it and into going back. But Ma was stubborn as a long night, and she said there'd be no going back, leastways not until Pa came to his senses which she reckoned would be some time.

I felt it was bad enough, with all that had happened to Pa, without me leaving him, along with the others. So, without saying anything, I turned and started to run back.

Ma called after me, “Jess, where you going?”

But I think I heard Jenny say, “Let him go, Ma.”

When I got back to the house, Pa was still sitting on a little stool by the hearth. He glanced up as I came in. “Hello, Jess,” he said.

“Hello, Pa.”

“They didn't send you back?” Pa asked me.

“No—I just come.”

“Uh, huh,” Pa nodded. “Just look how it is, Jess. A man should be humble toward life. There I was, Squire Burton, judging a district twelve years. Then it rains, shines, rains. Then I shoot a wolf, right on my own land. Then the well goes dry. Then there's election, and I ain't a judge, just because a young buck comes into the country with six foot of law books. Then I lose my wife. Then I lose my daughter. Didn't mean to shoot that young no-account, either. But he grabs the gun and it goes off, and there I am. Jess, know what I aim to do?”