Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All

  At Ruth’s wall-mounted oak phone with its ear cup, I went onto tiptoe. Five foot one, it’s never enough. She settled at her nearby table and made a show of lighting two cigarettes, of getting her clean ashtrays ready, like having busy hands would prevent her overhearing. Of course, it was her house, her phone. I wanted to ask Ruth to call Louisa in. But that didn’t seem quite fair to Lou, almost thirteen. It’s just I wanted family here for this.

  “I’m Lucille Marsden, who’m I talking with? Who got hurt? Did somebody?”

  At that, there come a long crackling. All I needed was to get cut off! A man’s voice finally said to somebody, “Go tell June they fetched the Marsden lady. Here, June. June, good, you talk. Woman should.” I heard a scuffling as folks changed places.

  I leaned, my eyes closed, tipped against the white enameled wall. My chin I pressed toward my chest and I was bowed here like preparing for a blow across the back and shoulders. I swore to at least conduct myself right. Lately, so much had made me act so crazy. Bad things won’t personal. Stuff happens. Worse things’ve happened to better folks than me, I told myself.

  But, honey, I knew what I was wishing. And it scared me to admit but I did admit it. One of my two hunting relations had likely been killed or damaged, right? If it had to be one? … dear God, no contest who I’d pick. After Cap done made this end run around me, snaking our boy out of town for gun play? No contest. I did not regret it either. I was learning not to be so guilty. It takes you a long time to learn that part.

  “Yes,” the lady said. “Is she, Jim?—Yes, are you there?” I answered I was. She said good and then she asked would Jim bring over her coffee, please. Said, “Yes, they put me on to tell you. I live right beside our general store here down in Duck? I’m June? And look, they asked me to.—Look, is this the mother?”

  THEN I waved around for Ruth to slip a chair beneath me and she scooped it perfect and I settled with perfect dignity, I did.

  “Dearie?” the woman said. “They told me I should. You his momma?”

  “Probably,” I said. “How bad? Please just tell me it quick, ma’am.”

  “He’s alive, it’s okay. It’s just … it’s been a accident. They took him to the hospital near Wilmington. I hear it’s real nice. The one whose gun went off it was the one with the white beard—they say his safety won’t on good—he was holding bob wire open for the boy? the shotgun went off, honey, in the direction of the boy. He’ll likely pull through. So it’s not that, honey, no. He caught the burns more than the shot really, which is good. But, see, he caught it more in, well … look is somebody there with you? Are you near your home?”

  “Yes, a neighbor. I’m next to home. My kids are outside, my other children, tell me please and don’t stop.”

  “See, sugar, it’s the eyes. It’s more in the child’s … the eyes is what.”

  “They’re burned? You’ve got to, Mrs.? Miss? you’ve got to be real specific here with me here. To hold back is not fair on me now that I know this much, honey. Please.”

  “Okay. It was hard to tell what was wrong when they had him in here—you know how it gets, I mean there’s blood in any accident, but my guess is that, I’ll level with you, that the eye-type damage is ‘extensive’ … my guess is they’re really hurt to the point of being … To say it straight, well, they’re more or less, the eyes, sugar, the eye parts are pretty much scorched, gone, sugar. But he’s fine. Such a little soldier right through it too. All us near the store, we still cannot get over him. He was comforting the beard one—his granddad? Now he’s the wreck because he knows he did it to him. He said call. The State Police took off with sirens going. Here, I got a number at the hospital.”

  “June? I’m going to put somebody else on now, June, to copy that? but look, June, I want to thank you for doing this part. I can fancy what it’s like to tell even a stranger, and please leave your address ’cause I want to write you when I get a minute or send you little something, June. June? my name is Lucy. I thank you.”

  “’S nothing, dear. You’d of done it for my boy. Of course, I got all daughters, which I’m glad of.”

  “Yeah, do be. Here’s somebody who’ll copy.”

  Ruth was right there with a pad and pencil. I thanked her. While I’d talked to June from Duck, I noticed a Stage and Musical Personalities magazine folded under on the low table nearby. Its mailing label had Baby Marsden’s name on it but Ruth’s address and I knew Poor Ruth subscribed to things for all my kids to draw them over here. I rethanked Ruth, backing out. I was just thanking everybody.

  LOUISA stood at Ruth’s screen door, nose grated there, one hand visoring her eyes so she could see in.

  I needed to get by. “Here we go,” I said so she’d back up.

  Sunlight struck me and I sneezed. “It’s your brother,” I said. “Poppa took Ned hunting.”

  “With Billy Preston?”

  “No, Billy’s momma had the sense to keep hers home. I thought I had the sense. I’ve had no sense, Lou.”

  “What happened, something happened,” she told me, taking one hand. By then we were in our own yard. We stood beside the clothesline, where wet sheets hung though it was Sunday and most neighbors felt it dead wrong to do laundry on the Lord’s day. We stood near enough damp white sheets so when a breeze come up, one cloth pressed against us like a cooling compress. I took hold of Louisa, she was almost thirteen but nearbout taller than her mother here. I whispered to her. The sheet was lightly lashing us, all chill, and it felt wonderful. I needed to tell her what’d happened. I couldn’t say it at regular volume, knowing as how—more than news of her own monthlies coming—this’d change her, probably. I hated to change them.

  “Ned’s alive,” I whispered. I said, “There’d been a shooting accident and the gun went off, nobody’s fault, but there’s some certain burning and it could be near … his eyes. Burned Ned’s eyes. But we can hope. We’ll do things till we hear more. Ruth’s calling the hospital.” I said how she’s been good in this and I was ashamed of how I’d carried on about her. “And the woman from down there told me and was just unbelievably nice. It must be hard, to tell.”

  Louisa looked unchanged except I watched all color leave her lower lip. “Ned’s eyes. Not Poppa’s gun?”

  “Something like that, honey. But, look, we need to stay moving here. I believe I know what needs doing. We got us a project till we learn more. Come help Momma. Because—this is ending. I am ending all of this. I don’t want it in my house ever again. Such a fool I was. Who did I think I was living with?”

  4

  HONEY, at that moment I become this force of nature. I headed to get the guns, and it was like going to drive the wasps out of a hive, every last poison one. I turned into a sleek goddess from the Greeks and Lou beside me, my sister in efficiency. It soon felt like flying, light and vengeance mixed—that whitest spot where sunlight splits to rainbow that can set a world afire like paper. Past my other kids beneath the huge black-walnut tree and its black swing-tire hanging like an udder. They all turned my way—and seemed to know, sharing a sound too fine and hurtful to be heard by normal un-Marsden hearing. “Ned!” They knew, and I felt that understanding enter their bodies, and as much as I hated their father for doing what he’d done to our boy down there, bloody on the coast in some bad store, I hated their father almost more for forcing all Ned’s sisters and brothers here to know the nature of a world where crimes spread and cannot be contained and a second’s carelessness can change stuff in far lives forever. I think what we were hearing was the cry that second of a child not-screaming on the floor of a sawdust general store, a boy trying and spare his poppa’s feelings, a boy who’d refused to let his mouth grieve for absent eyes above the mouth. Our silent heads picked up a noise Ned had denied hisself, and we took his scream and we nursed it, and oh we valued it. But we appeared silent. All my children’s eyes were huge, knowing then. But folks filed past for church, ladies’ matching purses, the pastels. Nobody knew. Nobody knew yet.

 
“OKAY, get organized,” I told myself. I heard a rattle that each breath made, caving into me and pushing out with waste air, keeping me alertly me, a angel of revenge and purpose.

  Passing through my kitchen’s coolness, I grabbed a new blue-handled broom. Striding to the arsenal, I saw a oval label on the broom, the label said: “Blind-made quality. Thank you for continued patronage of we, the deserving unsighted.” I’d never noticed that before.

  I wrapped my uncut hand in rags, the bloody fist still in its bloody apron so’s I wouldn’t mess up anything else. Then I stepped into his trophy-room, scene of my former private life.

  I ordered Lou to close the door and keep every living soul out until I finished, no matter what the noise. “Yes, ma’am.” But I decided to first run fetch a pair of high rubber boots from among old decoys and, with these on, shut myself away in the onetime sewing room now housing one hundred and ten instruments for flying pellets ready to cause damage to anything anywhere. I tugged at three of the twelve brass padlocks—he had the keys on his person. He had everything along with him. I noticed which cases showed empty slots. I tried imagining what the gun’d looked like that’d done that to my boy, but canceled such-like thinking. I used the broom’s stick end to bust out twelve huge sheets of otherwise good plate glass. I danced clear of many icy zigzags falling, ambitious to be harmful, aiming towards me. No way. The sound brought people running from three blocks off. I knew it would. Half of First Methodist milled outside the hallway door. In my house already. Leeches. (I didn’t hear quite right for two full days after, such was the noise, and I kind of liked that—sealed me off from some of what followed.)

  I knew June had paid me the favor of not holding out false hopes. She’d paid me that favor, woman to woman, not lying a bit or being sicky-sweet. I knew the worst already. Had known during last night’s moving picture (was it only last night?). I had known when the sound of one boy’s scream woke me Thursday when I scurried off to do a mother’s body count upstairs. Maybe I’d known during my honeymoon or earlier.

  When all panes were ruined good, I used the stick to knock loose jagged pieces from wood framing. Then I could reach in, begin to gather weapons, picking up pawpaws, picking up poison. Out you all go. When I opened the door onto the hall (having a time of it since blue-green glass stood inches deep), when I stood here with my first armload of rifles and told Lou to take these direct to our side yard—I saw concerned adults, shirts and ties and ladies in white gloves. In my home uninvited. I considered hollering like wild Winona. Faces told me they all knew already. They wanted to help but, as usual, didn’t understand how. They also longed to keep well clear of me. I must’ve looked a sight, and it’d only started.

  I sent Sunday-school adults into our yard, each toting guns worth thousands. They agreed to, but like humoring me. They didn’t know where to grip each one—like I’d passed them severed human limbs. Pistols, muskets, all the lethal things soon started moving outdoors in piles, and nobody quite understanding what I planned. Me not knowing either till I told Lou, “Child, build a fire. Let’s us make a big fire and have done with it.” “Yes, ma’am.” Ruth stood in the middle of a group, her telling them it again and crying. I asked for more news—she yelled: They won’t at the hospital yet but were expected, the Lieutenant Governor had two doctors from Chapel Hill headed to the coast by another siren motorcade and Cap’s message was, he promised everything that could be done would be done, Lucy.

  I said, “That’s for sure.”

  Lou soon had kindling glowing and a wad of Herald Travelers joining in and all my other kids held a log apiece and stood there crying waiting to be useful. I took them off to one side. We’d never been a family for hugging constantly and kissy-kissy and like that. They dropped their fuel and clung to me. In trying and purge the house I had forgot them. I felt bad as they hung on to me. I told them nobody was to blame. I lied to them because they had to hear that at their age. For six minutes, we were fused there, turned aside from gathered watchers.

  Since the day Cap’s guns got shown in Liberty, new men had been filing in, reverent, to view them. These same fellows now stared envy at these museum pieces nude here in sunlight, lit by nearby flames. I made many dashing trips. Out came ivory derringers that slipped into my apron pockets, cherry-wood dueling pistols with cursive curlicue ivory garlands inlaid, two German revolvers black as oil and snub-nosed like terrible lizards and so cold to the touch. I lifted my apron’s outmost ends and lugged still more, knowing that my bare thighs probably showed, not caring who saw. These legs’d stopped interesting anybody long long ago. Me especially.

  The children tried being useful and so were picking up what rifles I dropped. I told the grownups worried all around, “See they hold those by the handles, not their tips, whatever. Baby, not by the tip.” To show you how stunned my kids were, Baby—our dramatic one—had said not a word, had shed no tear but ran everywhere helping, dead white.

  I got a shovel and begun digging a hole. Then—disorganized—I laid first rifles into the decent little fire Loud made. One sinewy black teenager, eyeing dueling pistols, he lunged over, said, “They loaded, any of them? Don’t be sticking guns in no fire, all these folks around, they go off, then where you be?”

  I thanked him, mortified right proper. I ordered all the things unloaded. I was taking charge, but of what? Where was any help for me? The bullet check let men do what they’d longed for, pick up each gun, crack open the works, look down its sight. Unloaded ones among flames won’t burning too good. I saw now, even charred, the things would still have worked, metal latchings stay intact even on a charcoaled stock.

  So I hollered, “Take them off from here. Get them far from this house and my children. Go to the river with them, melt them down, I don’t care. Just let it all be over please. Hide them.”

  The colored teenager grabbed them cherry dueling pistols right out of the fire. They burned him till he jammed them under his belt like a pirate. Boy wagged his hurt hands but was smiling at his luck. I knew those guns had garland inlay on them and might be called works of art, but any artwork on a weapon had misunderstood something basic and, for me, won’t.

  Boy ran off fast and two white men after him, keeping track for Cap. I saw that. Other fellows lugging cordwood armfuls now went zipping off in all directions whilst eyeing who’d got what. Once men stepped off our land, I seen them halt, admiring their own loot. Some were standing there across Summit’s sidewalk, wearing Sunday suits, a Bible tucked under one arm and aiming their ill-gotten guns up elm treetops. The wives beside them looked back over here at me, very very tired. I saw what a mistake I’d made. Once you got the weapons, what do you do with them?

  I sat right beside the fire still burning peaceful. Nearby was one old pillow slip the kids’d stuffed with sand and pine straw to be home base. I crawled over to it, hunkered here, seeking safety. My children come and bunched around me, in a circle, like being my guards until my mind would clear. Resting under the swing made me think of Mr. Stevenson’s poems someway. I said one, numb, trying to calm my kids:

  “When I am grown to man’s estate

  I shall be very proud and great.

  And tell the other girls and boys

  Not to meddle with my toys.”

  This crowd of spectators watched us from the sidewalk. I heard Ruth’s phone keep ringing. More news I could not bear.

  Lou stood beside me and her knees were there. I put my arms around the backs of both her knees and hugged her to me, one ear tipped against her stomach as she stroked my hair. She said, “Let’s us go in the house. They’re looking, Momma. This is bad. We’re outdoors.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, and tried standing. I saw the crowd, everybody afraid of me, my bloody hand worse now, stains all over.

  Louisa helped me up. I bumped into the rope swing’s tire. It now seemed some dark lynching victim. I filed indoors with my kids. We moved like people ashamed of ourselves. We were ashamed. We had let this happen. We could not clean u
p after ourselfs.

  CASTALIA, ripe in mink, winded from her trudge uphill, both hands still coated with flour from baking, right massively appeared, put Louisa in charge of other kids, sent strangers from my kitchen, guided me to the front parlor. I always kept it covered with cloths to spare my best furniture till fancy enough company eventually came. They never did.

  Castalia heaved down onto the davenport, sighing relief. Coat still fastened, she patted her wonderful and ample upper thighs. I did as told, I settled in the vast deep lap of all of her. No mink on earth could’ve given a person more pleasure then, more comfort. Her arms, enminked, closed round me, her hands’ skin felt so cool and smooth. The pressure from a human squeeze released me so, I felt pooled, grown right smack into the front of her.

  She smelled of dough. And not just because of interrupted baking. There’d always been this yeasty and producing kind of scent around her. Marigolds, dust, basil. I patted her minks like living pets she’d brung to cheer me. I looked into her eyes’ yellowed whites, the black black centers that’d never let daylight make them less than solid jet. She seemed, if possible, larger than before. Could she be gaining at her age? Castalia had been named, like many Marsden slaves, for a local city. Maybe this added to her sense of scale, child, made her seem both a person and locale, a principality, almost.

  “Look at you,” she said. “No wonder they all running from you. Look like you the war one, blood all over place. How you cut that hand, on them racks you busted?”

  “You know what my husband is begging for, don’t you? Our husband. He wants us to kill him, Cassie. He’s like some foaming-at-the-mouth dog that is basically just dying for release. He needs the help that’d only come from being dead.”