The Coffin Quilt (16 page)

"Baltimore!" Adelaide said. "What I'd give to see Baltimore!"

"It isn't as if we're staying at any fancy hotel," Trinvilla said. "We'll be guests at Will's aunt and uncle's home. But it is grand, I hear."

"But think! You wed. And going away with a man!" Adelaide was starry-eyed.

Trinvilla laughed. "I feel the fine lady in this dress Ma made. Do I look it?"

"You look finer than anybody. They'll love you in Baltimore," Adelaide told her. "There, you're all packed. I've got to go downstairs and help Alifair with the food."

Left alone with Trinvilla, I did not know what to say. I think she felt the same way. She sat down on her bed and smiled at me. "Adelaide won't marry," she said. "So you're next, Fanny."

I shook my head no. "I'm only eleven."

"Time to start making your Wedding-ring quilt, I had my eye on Will since I was ten."

She was just sixteen. "You're so grown up, Trinvilla," I said.

"How come you never call me Twinny, like the others?"

I blushed. "We were never close. You were always on the side of Alifair."

"I went along with her because I wasn't strong enough to say no. I saw how she treated you. I'm sorry for that, Fanny. But you stood up to her, always. I thought that was right fine."

My eyes widened. "You did?"

"Yes. Now listen. I'm going away. It's time to say some things. I don't know if we'll stay in Baltimore or if we'll come back here. But if we do, we'll move more inland. You know the governors of both states are telling people to move more inland, to get away from the fighting."

I nodded yes.

"Jim is thinking on it. And Calvin is trying to make
Ma and Pa move. But they won't hear of it. Ma told Calvin the only way they'll get her out of this house is to carry her out. They like it, Fanny, all the fighting. Do you know what first drew me to Will Thompson? He's like his pa. He wants no part of it. Around here you have to be either for the Hatfields or the McCoys. You have to choose sides. Well, Will and I are staying out of it. I'm tired of it, Fanny, all the killing. When you cast an eye on a boy, be sure he's out of it. And when you wed, get away. Stay out of it, Fanny, do. Or it'll destroy you."

I couldn't answer this outburst. Never did I expect it from quiet Trinvilla.

"I love Ma and Pa," she said, "but they're crazy. This whole family is. You know how Alifair acted with me when I got betrothed to Will? Like I betrayed her! Wouldn't help with my Wedding-ring quilt, wouldn't listen to me about my plans. Imagine! She expected me to not wed. To stay home and do her bidding. Well, she's got Adelaide as her indentured servant, but not me. I aim to make a life of my own. And not stay around here and wait for the next shooting and go to the next funeral and see Bill mourning at the grave and Calvin waiting to run out on the next raid. And Roseanna looking like she should be in the grave."

She stood up, smoothed her dress, and smiled. "Enough," she said. "If you ever get tired of it all, Fanny, you can come and five with us."

"Thank you," I said. Then I kissed her. "I wish you well, Trinvilla. I do."

She put her arm around me and we went downstairs.
Afterward I stood at the window as they drove off in the buggy to Will's father's for overnight.
I never even knew my sister,
I thought.
And now I've lost her.

***

F
OR A DAY
or so I pondered what Trinvilla had said. I tried not to think of the feud. I didn't listen when Pa told how there was a five hundred thousand dollar price on Devil Anse's head. Or when Calvin told how he'd met two detectives in Pikeville who were set on capturing Hatfields. Or when Adelaide said how Nancy and Johnse had a baby boy. I tried to stay out of it.

I tried to think about school. I was doing well in my sums, geography, history, and English. I was getting so good at milking the cows that I could read while I did it. Just lay a book open on my lap. I read the book intended for Calvin and lost myself in Mr. Dickens's England at Christmas.

I told nobody about Roseanna's quilt having our names on it. Roseanna left us right after the wedding and went to stay with Tolbert's Mary, who was thinking of moving back to Louisville, where her parents lived.

Winter closed in around us, bringing some heavy storms, so that we had all we could do just to care for the animals, clear the yard, and get back and forth to school.

One night the first week in February, after it had snowed a fine needlelike snow all day, I came back into the house from milking the cows and Bill hadn't come home. It was nigh onto dark. Pa was tying a rope from
the house to the barn to use for a guideline if more snow came. We had supper and nothing was said about Bill. After I'd helped Adelaide and Alifair clean up, I put some food in a pot, then started getting on my outside clothes.

"Where do you think you're going?" Alifair demanded.

"To take Bill some food. In case you haven't noticed, he hasn't come home."

"You take off that coat. If you didn't spoil him so by bringing food up there, he might come home. You're not going out to slip into the ravine and nobody'll know it. Besides, he's probably warm and cozy in a corncrib someplace. He's not stupid, even though he makes like he is."

But he wants to die,
I thought.
You don't understand.

Pa came in the door then, his hair and beard covered with ice. "Your sister's right," he said. "Bill can take care of himself. Leave him be." His tone brooked no argument.

"You're just doing it to be mean," I told Alifair.

That night I was the last one to blow out the oil lamp in the kitchen and go up to bed. I waited and waited for BUI, torn between wanting to put on my coat and go fetch him and fear of what Pa would do if I went out and got lost in the snow.

Bill,
I thought,
Bill, why don't you come home? Are you safe in a corncrib somewhere? Why wouldn't you ever take a gun with you like Pa and Calvin said, so you don't get ambushed?

I went to bed. Under my quilts I listened to the howling wind, to the needlelike snow against the window. Once I thought I heard something outside and got up to look out.

There it was. Eyes glowing, yellow-green. Moving through the snow like it was summer wheat. I sat up half the night trembling and finally went to sleep. At dawn the sun shone, sparkling on tree limbs and fence posts. After I milked the cows, I walked to Floyd's. He came with me up the hill to the cemetery. From halfway there I saw the vultures in the naked trees overhead. Crows called. Everything echoed. Floyd told me to stay back, he'd go up. But I said no, I was coming, too.

And there, at the graves, we found Bill. Frozen stiff with his fiddle in his hands. His eyelashes were crusted with snow, his face bluish white. Floyd had to carry me down the hill, I was so crazy with grief, then go back up with Calvin and a sled to fetch Bill down.

"W
HAT ARE YOU
doing here, Fanny McCoy? Don't you go to school anymore?"

I turned from the long white pine counter at the Pikeville General Store. Nancy McCoy. A baby in her arms and a knee-high at her skirts. "Hello, Nancy. Yes, I still go. But Ma's sending me to stay the night with Martha."

"Oh, that's right. Your brother Jim moved his family to Saylorsville. Considerable smart of him. Keep his family safe." Her mouth quivered.

I set down the goods I'd bought—some crackers, tallow candles, and coffee beans—and walked over to her. "You have a new baby."

"Yes. This is Stella. She's four months old. Isn't she darlin'?"

I took the baby up and admired it. But I was seeing Nancy. She was older, and it was downright eerie. Some
of the old Nancy was still there in the face, but just when you glimpsed it, it was gone. The new Nancy was still pretty, but now there were lines around the mouth. And something shadowy in the eyes. "How is Johnse?" I handed the baby back.

The mouth quivered again. "I'm a-leavin' him. Why else would I be in Kentucky?" The beautiful violet eyes brimmed with tears, and she hugged her baby close.

"What happened, Nancy?"

"What didn't happen? He's been drinkin'. When he's in his cups those Hatfields can get him to do anything. His people beat up my sister Mary and her mother-in-law, Mrs. Daniels, in a masked raid. Left 'em bleedin' and unconscious. Johnse's brother Cap was at the head of that. Mary's husband said so. I told Johnse I won't stay with him if his family hurts my family anymore. He promised they wouldn't Then they went and killed my brother Jeff."

We'd heard about all that, of course. It was the reason Pa and my brothers Jim and Sam were off on a raid now into West Virginia, because of Jeff McCoy's death last week. It's why I was going to stay with Martha. Because Jim would be away. Ro would be there, of course. That was another reason I was going.

In the last two years I'd seen my sister Ro maybe four times. We'd had a fight after Bill died. I blamed her for telling him a body could will themselves to die. Ma didn't know the reason for our fussing. But she'd finally said enough. "There's feuding going on outside this family. We don't need to add to it."

"And then last night Johnse came in drunk and pointed a gun at me," Nancy was saying. "I told him no more. It isn't bad enough his brother Cap shot my brother Jeff." Her voice trailed off, then picked up again. "I'm sorry about your brother Bill dyin' and all. I haven't seen ye since."

Bill. Gone over two years now, but the pain inside was new every time somebody said his name. I blamed myself for Bill. I should have gone out that night and brought him home. Over and over again in my head the last two years I'd asked myself why I hadn't. Why hadn't I gone against my family and been strong? Why hadn't I been strong enough, like Trinvilla?

"I have to go, Nancy." I picked up my old straw suitcase and my sack of goods. "Martha and Ro will be along any minute to fetch me in the buggy." I wanted to get outside and away from her. I didn't want her following, to give her howdy to Ro. I was on the outs with Ro, sure, but even I couldn't be the one to bring about a meeting between her and the woman who'd stolen away Johnse. Even though it looked like Ro was well shut of him.

***

M
ARTHA HAD A
loom in the parlor. She said it was her great-grandmother's and was over a hundred years old. "It's a four-harness loom," she told us. "'Bout a year ago I got Jim to get it out of the barn and set it up for me. Here, I'm making this bedcover."

We'd put the children to bed in the loft. Martha put
up coffee. Until now the little girls had kept us from talking of ourselves. Martha knew that Ro and I had been fussing. She knew this visit was a strain to me. But with her round, smiling face and sunny disposition, it was impossible to speak of trouble in front of Martha. She just wouldn't hold with it.

The bedcover was red and white. The wild-rose pattern. "It's beautiful," I said.

"Don't you like quilts?" Ro asked.

"'Course I do," Martha said. "But my grandmother Gertrude taught me to weave like this, and I'm making this to hand down to my daughters. An heirloom. I just love heirlooms."

"I wanted my quilt for my Sarah Elizabeth," Ro said real sadlike. "But now I don't know who I'll give it to. Fanny, most likely."

"I don't want it," I told her.

Martha's innocent blue eyes went wide. "Why, Fanny McCoy, what an awful thing to say. You should be honored to have your sister's quilt."

I stared hard at Ro. It was clear that Martha knew nothing of the Coffin quilt, "I don't want it," I said again. I couldn't forgive Ro for putting Bill's coffin on the quilt.

Martha put a hand on my arm. "Honey, I know you two have been fussing. But don't let your dear mama hear you say that. It's cast her spirit down something awful. And don't ever say such in front of your brother Jim. Family's like religion to him. Why Ro is putting love into every stitch of that quilt of hers, I wager. Just
like I'm putting love into every thread of my coverlet."

Love?
I wanted to laugh. They stood, both of them, firm and set against me.
How unfair of Ro,
I thought.
How dishonest.
I loved Martha. I couldn't abide having her think ill of me. But she would now. And I couldn't explain. "I think I'll go to bed," I said.

"Maybe you'd best," Martha said coldly. "And think and pray on what you just said. This family needs to stick together. More now than ever before."

***

T
HERE WAS A
three-quarter moon and its light came through the window of my small room. And I thought,
That's what woke me.
I'd been dreaming of Bill, dreaming that I was putting my coat on and going out the door to fetch him home. But when I went out the door there was a posse waiting there in our yard, armed and talking softly.

I sat up in bed. Why didn't those men stop talking? Didn't they know I was awake now? The night outside was bright as daylight. I peered out the window and gasped. Can you conjure people from dreams? A group of men sat in the front yard, exactly like in my dream, armed and talking softly, like it was broad daylight. They aimed to attack us!

I ran down the hall to wake Martha and Ro. In an instant they were up and looking out the window with me. "They aim to attack," I said. "They know Jim's away. Like they attacked Mary McCoy and Mrs. Daniels."

"Not while I've got any breath in me," Ro said. And
she turned and ran downstairs. We followed. In the kitchen she took up a long rifle from next to the fireplace.

"What will you do?" Martha stood there, wringing her hands.

"I can shoot," Ro said. "It's the one good thing Johnse Hatfield taught me." She unbolted the door and stepped out on the porch, the rifle set under her arm. "Can I help you, gentleman?"

They stopped talking. There were at least six of them. Masked. Martha and I cowered just inside. These men could kill us all if they took the notion. Or beat us and make us cripples like Mrs. Daniels. Beside me I felt Martha trembling.

One of them urged his horse forward and spoke. "That you, Roseanna McCoy?"