The Coffin Quilt (6 page)

"Pa found out that Ro's been at Devil Anse's all this time with Johnse. Not wed." Calvin spoke the words without feeling and accepted a dish of food from Mary. "Pa's all fit to be tied. It's the first time he spoke her name since she left, and I wish he hadn't."

Tolbert and Mary had stopped eating. "What'd he say?" Tolbert asked.

"He's mad all right," Calvin said. "But it's a quiet mad."

"That's the worst kind," Tolbert said.

"He didn't hold forth about it," Calvin went on. "Als't he said was that our good name was ruined."

Ruined. I thought of things ruined. A corncob doll I'd left out in a flooding rain. Or a hog if a wildcat got hold of it. But a name? Our name was still McCoy, wasn't it? How could it be ruined?

"He said old Devil Anse did this to him on purpose. That it was the onliest way he could strike out at him. And that we'll just have to show him, is all."

Tolbert nodded. "What's Pa want?"

"Wants you to ride over to West Virginny tomorrow and bring Ro home."

I almost knocked over my glass of milk. But all Tolbert did was nod. "Alone?"

"No," Calvin said. And then he looked at me. "Wants you to take Fanny with you, bein' as she's Ro's favorite."

I had all I could do to keep from jumping up and down and yelling yes, yes, I'll go. But I knew enough to keep a still tongue in my head.

"Alifair wants to know if you knew anything about Ro not bein' wed, Fanny?" Calvin asked. "She thinks you knew all along."

Before I had a chance to answer, Tolbert did for me. "Tell Alifair to mind her own business. And stop picking on Fanny, or she'll answer to me. She damn near drowned her today."

"I wasn't to home," Calvin said. "I was fishing. Or I would of stopped it. Well, so you'll go tomorrow then? I can tell Pa?"

"You can tell him." Tolbert stood up, and he and Calvin shook hands and they walked out the door together.

***

I
WAS UP
early the next morning to have breakfast with Tolbert, made by Mary even before she was out of her long nightdress. It was still half-light in the kitchen and it felt like Christmas for the excitement. I was to go with Tolbert to bring Ro home. Just him and me! And I didn't have to go to school and answer to Mr. Cuzlin why I'd run off yesterday. Tolbert said he'd write me a note about that, because I'd told him about Nancy McCoy. And that's why, I suppose, Tolbert and Mary weren't surprised at Calvin's news.

Riding through the September woods with Tolbert was certainly a sight better than going to school. That's when I asked him about our sheep. Because that was when I still thought that sheep, and people, always came home because they knew they belonged there.

T
OLBERT GAVE A
holler to let them know we were coming. Else they might have shot at us. At once their dogs started braying and yelping. They do have a parcel of dogs. But the family was smaller than ours. At last count, seven children, though we'd heard that Levicy Hatfield was expecting again.

Robert E. Lee, who was thirteen, came out to the gate. His hair was so yellow it was white, and it hung over his eyes. He was munching something. I saw him, though my brother made me stay back until he knew all was safe. Tolbert leaned down from his horse and said something to Robert E. Lee, who ran right into the house to get his pa, I guess.

Bushes and flowers grew wild everywhere. I kept thinking, so this is West Virginia. But it didn't look any different from Kentucky. I could see a woman on
the porch behind the climbing vines. Could that be Roseanna? Then Cap Hatfield came out of the house. He was two years younger than Johnse and blind in one eye. He was a big hand for killing. He loved to kill almost as much as he loved to eat, so I got a mite scared when he walked right up to my brother. But I knew Tolbert had his gun at the ready.

Their talk drifted on the morning air. Then Tolbert waved me forward. I trembled with excitement. I was finally going to see Roseanna! But I was scared, too. I didn't trust Cap. And I didn't think Tolbert should accept an invite unless it came from old Devil Anse himself.

Then Devil Anse came out of the house, hitching up his trousers, his long black beard reaching below his neck. His head was half bald, his nose like an eagle's, and his eyes all narrow and too close together. I slid off my horse and stood behind Tolbert.

The men walked off a piece. I heard Devil Anse ask my brother what we'd come for, heard Tolbert's reply. Then they conferred in low tones. I stood like a jackass in the rain, staring over at the porch. It was Roseanna. But it seemed like she didn't see me.

"You can go on over and say howdy, Fanny," Tolbert said.

The place seemed spooked, empty. Chickens were scratching in the dirt, and except for them and the dogs settled now under the big locust tree, nothing bestirred. The weathered boards of the house made it seem stark. What windows there were gazed at us like blank eyes. Yet at the same time I felt hidden eyes on me. I opened
the creaking gate and went toward the porch. "Ro?" My voice faltered.

"Fanny?"

It was Ro! I went up the rickety steps. There she was, behind the wild vines, quilting.

"Oh, my God, baby, come here." She held out her arms.

I went to her, sobbing. "Oh, Ro, I've missed you so. It's just awful at home without you."

"Why have you and Tolbert come? Is it Ma? Is she all right?"

I wiped my tears. "Yes. We've come to fetch you home. Pa sent for you."

"Pa? Pa sent for me?" She pulled back, holding me by my shoulders. "Pa? You telling me he wants me home? I thought he'd be madder than a stuck pig because of what I did."

I couldn't lie. "He is, Ro. But now he's found out you aren't wed, so he wants you home."

"Oh, Lordy, Lordy." She released me and started walking on the rickety porch, chewing on a fingernail. "How'd he find out?"

"Word's got 'round. You know how it does."

She knew. Now she folded her arms across her middle and groaned. "We wanted to marry. We still both want it. But Johnse's pa won't allow it."

I stared at her, blinking. "How can he stop you?"

"Johnse isn't twenty-one yet. But oh, honey, we love each other. And we're wed in our hearts, where it matters. No preacher could make it more legal!"

At that moment I understood more the habits of our
sheep than I understood my sister Ro. I only knew she was in trouble if she didn't come home with us today. And that was enough. "Since you're not married, you'll come home with us, won't you?" I asked.

She stopped pacing. "Oh no, Fanny, I can't come home. I can't leave Johnse. I love him."

"But you could come back when he comes of age and wed. Can't you?"

She shook her head of curly hair. "It's not only Johnse. I know Pa, Fanny. He wants me home same's he wanted that sow and pigs years ago. Because I'm his'n. But how will he treat me if I come home? You can't tell me he isn't frothing at the mouth 'cause of what I did. Can you?"

No, I couldn't.

"If I leave Johnse and go home and Pa is mean to me, I won't be able to stay. Then I'll have lost Johnse, too. He'll think I don't love him if I leave now. No, baby, I can't chance it."

Tolbert came on the porch and hugged her. "Why aren't you wed, Ro?" he asked.

"Johnse's pa won't let us."

Gently, he led her to the far end of the porch and spoke softly to her for a while, his head bent low above hers. Then I heard him finish. "You oughtn't to stay someplace with somebody if they won't let you wed, Ro," he said.

"I know." She put her hand on his arm and smiled up at him. "But Tolbert, we're working on old Devil Anse. I'm sure he'll give in soon. Did you ever know anybody who couldn't give in to me, Tolbert?"

He shrugged.

"Go on now," she said. "It isn't that I'm not glad to see you, but don't stay around too long. There could be trouble. Give my love to Ma and everybody. I'll be fine."

Tolbert didn't know what to do. He looked in the direction of old Devil Anse Hatfield and Cap, who were standing away a little piece, all the time watching us. He looked at Ro. I could tell he was split down the middle just like that old locust tree in our yard that was struck by lightning last summer. "Hate to leave you here like this," he said.

"Go. Please." She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. "I'm just fine."

Tolbert moved away, off the porch toward the gate. "Make it quick, Fanny," he said.

Was he still counting on me to convince her to come? I searched around in my mind for something to say. Then I saw the quilt she'd been working on. It was the strangest quilt I'd ever seen. All dark colors, not bright and purty like ours. "You're working on this?" I asked.

"Yes. Johnse's ma had started it and never finished. It's a Coffin quilt."

I looked closely. All around the edges were coffins, spaced well apart. The middle had a large empty space. "A Coffin quilt?"

She gave a little laugh. "I don't cotton to it much myself, but it's over half done and it's all I've got right now for our bed. Each coffin has a name of the member of the family. And when they die you move the coffin from the edge and put it in the middle. See?"

I looked up at my sister. "How can you live with
people who make quilts with coffins on them? What kind of people are they?"

"It's only a quilt, honey. Don't take on so."

"Coffins on a quilt! How can you cover yourself with it? These people are all crazy, Ro."

"It'll keep us warm this winter. When it's done I'll start on my own. Maybe one with birds, animals, and flowers."

"Ro, come home. Bad things will happen to you here, I know it."

She kissed my forehead. "Go," she said. "If you can get away, bring me a bundle of my things. Pa hasn't thrown them away, has he?"

"No." I wished I'd thought to bring her something. I thought, guiltily, of the comb. It wasn't right for a woman not to be dowered, was it? But then, Ro wasn't wed. Oh, I was so confused.

"Then maybe sometime you can ride over with them. Leave them by the gate. If I see you, I'll come out. You can do that for me, can't you? I'll warn them you may be coming, so you don't have to be afraid."

I couldn't believe she wouldn't come home with us. I bit my bottom lip to keep from crying.

Coffins on a quilt! I looked at it, lying there, ugly as sin. Then at her, so beautiful. Would she become like them if she stayed here? They were sharp-faced, ugly people, with no color in their faces. I turned and ran through the yard and the gate to where Tolbert was waiting.

T
HE ONLIEST TIME
I ever saw my pa cry was when a letter came to him, all stained and wrinkled, telling him a man he'd fought the war with had died. They'd eaten rats together in a Yankee prison. And when Pa got the letter that the man was run down by a carriage on the streets of Richmond, he cried like a baby.

That was the onliest time I saw him cry until Tolbert told him Ro wouldn't come home. Pa didn't really cry, but his face got all screwed up like he was fixing to. "Go on into the house," he said to me gruffly. "Your ma's got supper awaitin'. Tell her I'll be in directly."

By the time Tolbert brought him into the house, his face was smooth again. We all stood around the table until Pa sat. That was the custom. Then Ma would say a prayer. But soon as it was over Pa stood again, and we stopped reaching and grabbing for the food. We knew he was going to hold forth.

"Your sister has refused to come home," he said. "I say she's made her own bed, now let her lie in it. But I want to hear what you all say. First you, Sarah."

"I say we should give her another chance. Let her mull things," Ma said.

Tolbert, who'd stayed for supper, spoke next. "Her head is muddled. I think she may come if we give her time."

"I say let her sleep in the bed she made," from Alifair.

"You would say that," Pharmer flung at her. "You were always jealous of Ro. I'm for giving her another chance, Pa. Then go fetch her. We fetch our hogs when they don't come home, don't we? Can we do any less for Ro?"

"Storm the place and get her back," from Bud, "whether she wants to come or not."

"I'm with Bud," Bill said.

"Ro hasn't done anything lots of other girls haven't done," Calvin offered. "She went there thinking she was to wed. It isn't her fault the old man won't let them."

Pa took it all in, nodded after each offering. He didn't ask me or Adelaide or Trinvilla. They didn't care, but I did. And I had to say my piece. "Pa?" I asked.

"You're too young," Alifair interrupted.

"Let her speak," from Pa. "She was there. What do you have to say, Fanny?"

Everybody was looking at me, especially Alifair. She was giving me the hatefulest look I'd ever seen. "Ro's afeared you'll be mean to her if she comes home. She
said she won't be able to bear it. And then she'd lose Johnse, too."

Pa nodded.

"Is she happy there?" Ma asked.

"She seems so," I said. "But we can't leave her there anyways. We have to go and ask her again to come home. I think she would if we asked her again, Pa."

"What are you telling us, Fanny child?" Ma asked.

I looked straight into my mother's careworn face. "Ma," I whispered, "she's been working on a quilt. Not like the kind we make. It has little coffins all 'round the edges, with one for everybody in the family. And when a person dies they move the coffin to the middle."

Ma closed her eyes, and I saw her lips move in prayer. Then she said the prayer aloud. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," she said. "Ranel? You hear that? You hear what kind of people they are? They've got our daughter working on a Coffin quilt."

Pa sighed heavily and gave the hand signal that we should all start to eat. "That's decided me," he said. "Tolbert, can I prevail upon you to go and see your sister again tomorrow and try to bring her home?"

"You can, Pa. But what'll convince her to come?"

"When you tell her," Pa said, "that I aim to kill every Hatfield in Kentucky and West Virginia if she doesn't come. Can I prevail on you to give her that message, Tolbert?"