Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You

  “He needed Preacher Hardy’s private counsel about this new trouble to his spirit, so now he asked Angela not to attend the prayer sessions that had become so regular. I know how I’d feel,” my grandmother said, “if two men, and one of them a minister, started having meetings in my house and shutting me out and talking in whispers about me and giving me sigoggling shamefaced glances. But I can’t say how Angela Newcome felt, because I don’t have the saintliness of character to imagine that. My best notion is that she accepted this development, took it in her stride, as she did all the rebuffs and injustices that came her way, and went on with her business.

  “Whatever advice the preacher gave to McPheeter didn’t help much. He got bluer and more long-faced every day. The only thing that would save his peace of mind was if she went away. He couldn’t ask her to do that, couldn’t stand the thought of saying the words. But no more could he bear to see her around always. It got to where he believed in his heart that if he saw Angela perform one more act of charitable goodness, he would find a way to hang himself, awkward as that must be to manage when you’re bound to a wheelchair.

  “So she had to go—there was no other choice. Preacher Hardy understood the situation entirely. The two men plotted and conspired together for hours without glimpsing the least gleam of a solution. Preacher Hardy thought long and strong, recognizing that when Angela was asked to leave, he would be the one saddled with that unhappy task. Then one Tuesday afternoon word came that Hamish Twilley, that lived with his wife, Elsie, in Saltlick Holler over on Coleman Mountain, had died at age eighty-five.

  “No one on this porch has ever been to Saltlick Holler,” my grandmother said, “and none of us is likely to go. It is a far piece now and it was farther then, the roads being what they were. The Twilleys had to be hardy spirits. Difficult to imagine what they found to eat back amidst the rocks and scrub, poorest old hardscrabble clay hills in the world, I reckon, though, as I say, I never viewed the place myself and only heard your grandfather talk about it. They had the old pioneer endurance, the Twilleys, and, like Daniel Boone, were not fond of dwelling within earshot of a neighbor’s ax chop. A lot of young fellers dream about living in the old-fashioned way, and some of the young women, too. That’s because when you’re young you never foresee the day when you’ll be old and helpless and feeble and beholden to the goodwill of other folks. Of course, if you’ve got your children nearby, you might be able to make out, but Hamish and his son, Zebulon, had spoken words and then Zeb left and never returned.

  “So with Hamish in the burying ground, Elsie was all alone and friendless at the frosty end of a holler where the whippoorwills are starved for company. It was a sad situation, but Preacher Hardy saw it as an opportunity. Now there was somebody that needed Angela even more than the legless McPheeter did, and when he told her about Elsie, she nodded her agreement, seeing it on the instant as her born duty to go to Saltlick Holler and be to the sickly widow woman what she had been to so many others. Her only regret was in having to leave McPheeter without her ever-present care, but the preacher assured her he had worked it out for two of the MacCallum girls to take turns with William. Angela nodded and packed up her few belongings.

  “But the leave-taking must have been a strange one. Here was McPheeter that Angela by patient service and unwearied devotion had brought back not only from the edge of the grave but from the very brink of perdition to his immortal soul, and he felt toward her more gratitude than he could ever express by word or deed, and yet when she came to bid him good-bye, it was all he could do to choke back a hallelujah of pure joy. There she was, leaning over him in his wheelchair, with her head on his right shoulder and tears trickling on her face like sweat running down the side of an icebox, and so moved by sadness, she could not speak. And there he was with his face turned in the opposite direction and as red as sunrise, his eyes bugging out because he was holding his breath so tight. If he opened his mouth to take a breath, he would have laughed. And if he laughed, he wouldn’t be able to stop. And if he couldn’t stop laughing, Angela would understand why and that would break her heart. Or if it didn’t, if she was already in such a state of blessedness that his laughing wouldn’t distress her, then it would surely break McPheeter’s heart. They hugged each other close and soundless, their high feelings running exactly contrariwise. Then Angela left with Preacher Hardy.

  “Back then, the journey to Saltlick took the better part of two days. Which meant they’d have to stay overnight at somebody’s house along the way. The preacher had sent out word that he and Angela would need accommodations but received no welcome reply. There was not one family from Blue Creek to Coleman Mountain that wasn’t beholden to Angela Newcome for some charitable favor big or small, and they were all ashamed of the debts they owed her. Finally, Hattie Sawyer sent a message by her oldest boy that she and George would be pleased and honored to take in the pair and feed and bed them royally, only Angela must promise not to do any good deeds in the household or anywhere else on the Sawyer property. In fact, she was not to stir foot nor lift finger while she was there, but only sit where she was told and be entertained. The preacher didn’t relay that exact message, of course, but he did assure the messenger that Angela on this one occasion would find it more blessed to receive than to give.

  “So in two days the toilsome journey was accomplished. They rode through briar thickets and skirted laurel hells and forded ice-cold creeks. Finally, Preacher Hardy brought Angela to the dirt-floor log cabin where the newly widowed Elsie Twilley dwelt. They were met at the door by Doreen Raxter. She was a girl from the family that lived six miles down the creek, a sullen, dirty thing. All those Raxters are a shaggy bunch, even the ones over in Harwood County. She let them in and departed on the instant, being no hand at caring for the needful, her head full of boys and nothing but. I expect she finally got satisfied on that score, giving birth to three boys herself, and all out of wedlock.

  “In they went, and it was no palace that met their gaze. Light shone through the roof shingles, the floor was lumpy because Hamish had never succeeded in getting all the rocks out, and the three windows were not square in the walls and had no frames. I could go on describing it to you as my husband described it to me. Your grandfather was the most skillful of carpenters and had an eye for the way houses were put together. When he told me he wouldn’t raise pigs in such a hovel, I told him that was what he said every time about another man’s handiwork. He thought again and said he wouldn’t raise blacksnakes in this one.

  “As soon as Elsie Twilley and Angela Newcome laid eyes on each other, something passed between them. Elsie was eighty-two years old and had been married to Hamish since she was fourteen. Sixty-eight years that couple was wed. Think how awful close they must have grown, with little but gumption to support them in a place like Saltlick Holler. When Hamish died, it must have ripped a hole as big as a cave mouth in Elsie’s soul. But with nobody there after the funeral except that Raxter girl, she couldn’t give in to her grief. She had to go on, sick and dizzy with sorrow, nobody to talk to, nobody to feel for her. So when she saw Angela, she let go all at once—began to weep softly and her knees buckled and she dropped to the ground with a thump. She recognized that her aid and comfort had been delivered to her, you see, and the sudden uplift within her made her fall in the dirt.

  “Angela rushed to her and began stroking and petting and murmuring. Then she pulled her up and walked her to an old busted rocking chair and got the preacher to pray with her while she readied the bed for Elsie to lie in. The bed making required a mighty effort. Everything in that rude cabin was filthy and vermin-infested. But she prepared it the best she could and led Elsie to it and laid her down and loosened her clothes a little and then Elsie’s staring eyes closed and she slept for the first time in who knew how long.

  “Angela stood above her, gazing down, and Preacher Hardy watched as the change came over her. He could tell by looking that Angela had discovered the strongest calling of her life. All her heart went
out to Elsie; caring for her would be her happiest crowning. She turned around and said so. He could only agree; he had seen Angela’s face change in a manner that made it seem to glow with strange light.

  “He asked what he could do to help. Angela waved her hand to take in the whole situation—the sorrow-broken widow woman, the lonesome surroundings of Saltlick, the shambly cabin. If anything could be done to remedy the situation, Angela herself alone would have to do it. He acquiesced to that and held Angela’s hands and prayed with her and then took his way back to Blue Creek, riding his horse and leading the borrowed one. It was nigh dark by then, but he was needed for a funeral as soon as he could get to the burial ground. That was Cousin Ronnie Haskell; they were keeping the body as cool as they could in a springhouse, but you can well comprehend how that was not real satisfactory.

  “He left with heavy heart and uncertain mind. If anybody in the world could manage to make things better there, Angela was the one. He couldn’t foresee how she’d do it, though; it would be like trying to make a downy feather bed out of a heap of jagged rocks. Preacher Hardy surmised that Angela Newcome might at last have encountered the challenge that was too much for her.

  “Of course, nobody knew for the longest time just how the two women were faring. I have pictured them there a thousand times,” my grandmother said, “and all I can see is misery and hardship a hundredfold worse than I’ve ever had to endure.

  “Yet they made it somehow. Some willing folks had stocked in food for Elsie after the funeral and that helped them along till Angela could begin to make do. It was late in the season, but she got a little kitchen garden staked by. She cleaned out the spring above the house and found it to be sweet. She started in on the house, repairing where she could and rebuilding where she had to. And all the time she kept a close watch on Elsie and was all the consoling company to her that she could possibly be.

  “Elsie gained a little color and her spirits warmed. But her long, hard years and the loss of Hamish had taken heavy toll. From the first moment she saw Angela, she loved her as the daughter she had never borne. Yet even that was not enough; she was only lingering now, observing in pure wonderment the ministering angel that had come to attend her. A miracle, that’s what Angela was to Elsie, but not even a miracle could pull her through. Little by little her small light dimmed like the spark of a blown-out candlewick that glows red for a long time but is never going to burst into flame again.

  “That’s the way I have figured it,” my grandmother said. “A thousand times at least I’ve traced the trail of events in my thought. So have others. Many another woman has puzzled at it just as close as I have, and, as far as I know, we all reached the same conclusion.”

  * * *

  “You can’t stop now!” I said. “I’ve got to hear the end of the story.”

  “Your grandmother doesn’t take orders from you, Jess,” my mother replied. “You’d be wise not to be telling your elders what they should do.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s not the way I meant it. But I hope you’ll tell me the end of the story and not leave me hanging like Daddy would do.”

  She relented and gave a small smile. “No, we don’t want to be copying Joe Robert with our style of storytelling. He must be the most unhandy man with a tale who ever drew breath.”

  My grandmother spoke gravely. “The trouble is, Jess, that we don’t actually know the end of it. Nobody does that is now alive. Preacher Hardy pieced it together the best he could, and he was a right smart man and trustworthy. But he could only make a guess from the way he found things when he returned to Saltlick.”

  “What did he find?” I asked.

  “Well, almost six months passed before he was able to get back, and when he rode up to the cabin there, his heart mis-gave him. He told us what a dread feeling came over him at the sight. No smoke from the chimney, no movement from inside the dwelling. Everything all around as still as a midnight pond. He observed that a halfhearted small patch of ground had been staked out and scratched up for a garden, but no headway had been made. The earth was shriveled and dry. He was afraid of what he would find inside, but he took a long breath and pushed the door open.

  “Still, he was surprised. The two women had passed away, just as he’d reckoned, but everything was different from how he’d pictured.

  “Elsie Twilley was lying on her bed with her eyes closed and her arms straight along her sides. Her face was as calm and peaceful as any pleasant dream would make it. The bed was clean and unrumpled; it did Angela proud.

  “Angela herself was lying on the floor on a pallet of leaves and pine needles, all still green about her, and with her arms straight along her sides just like Elsie’s, and her hands still as white and soft as those of the finest of young ladies.

  “They must have been dead a good while, maybe even weeks. Preacher Hardy could tell that much from the shriveled-up garden and the dust on the dishes and chairs and the cobwebs in the corners. Angela would never abide that kind of dirt.… But, Jess, no rats or other varmints of any kind had molested them. Nor had corruption overtaken their bodies. They were as fresh and untainted as sleeping children. They had passed away quietly at the same time.”

  “How could that happen?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “But what do people think?”

  “Some think one thing, some another.”

  I understood that she was hesitant to say further, but my curiosity spurred me painfully. “All right,” I said, “but what do you think?”

  “I’ve studied on it,” my mother replied, “and my mind has gone round and round about. Finally I saw it happen in just one way. I closed my eyes and watched it play out in my thoughts. Why don’t you close your eyes and try if you see it the way I do? Maybe you’ll come to a different conception.”

  “All right.” As soon as I closed my eyes, all the sounds about us that I’d been taking for granted made themselves known afresh. I heard the cardinals and jays in the oak grove below the road, the stop-and-go buzzing of a couple of flies on the porch, and the soft breeze in the nearby hickory.

  My mother said, “I see the two women alone there in that drear cabin and I hear the wind soughing around its edges and swooping in through the cracks and shivering the two of them by night. I see Angela having to watch as Elsie grew weaker and grayer every hour. I see Elsie lying down to die in spite of anything Angela could do or say. And Angela deciding then that death was going to enter this shambly room and take away a life and that it ought to be her and not the dearest love she’d ever known. I see her making a green pallet on the floor there beside Elsie’s bed and laying herself down on it and praying for the doom to be her own and not her friend’s.”

  “You mean she wanted to die instead of Elsie Twilley,” I said.

  “That’s what she wanted. But nobody can go that journey for another. Somebody might try to go with you; it would have to be somebody real special. But they can’t go far.… Have you got your eyes closed tight?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Can you see in your mind’s eye those two women lying there in that bare-bones cabin?”

  “Yessum,” I said, but I was fibbing. Behind my eyelids I saw only red streaks and stars and burning rainbows. The tighter I squeezed shut, the more incandescence I saw.

  “All right … Elsie is lying in her bed watching the roof and the stars through the cracks. Angela is lying in the same posture on her pallet on the floor and watching the stars the same as Elsie. They are waiting to hear one certain sound they have never heard before. They are still and patient and willing to wait a long time. Then finally at last they hear it.… Do you hear it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. But I heard only the flies and the rustling hickory and the jays quarreling in the grove below.

  “This sound means that death is in the room and one of the women must go the long, long journey. But the other woman is there, too, and offering to take the place of her friend. But if it can’t be done, if things
are fixed so they cannot trade places, then she will keep her friend company every step of the way to the end.… Now do you see what happens next?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said—because now I didn’t see anything, not even the sparks and streaks and stars written on my eyelids. And I heard no more the sounds around us, the flies and birds and trees all shut out. I saw nothing but blank dark as a chilly shadow began to creep over all my skin and sweat bathed the roots of my hair. I smelled a breath on my face as cold as frosty glass.

  Then I opened my eyelids so fast, they must have clicked. My grandmother and mother were looking at each other, silent and expectant, taking no notice of me.

  At last my mother broke the silence. “That story makes me sad,” she said. “I don’t often care to think about it.” She turned her face away and looked out into the daylight, staring at nothing or everything.

  “Well, daughter, I have a real different feeling. Whenever I remember the story of Angela and Elsie, I feel comforted,” said my grandmother.

  That was a great distinction between them. My grandmother had not the slightest fear of death and would speak of it with warm familiarity. But my mother couldn’t abide the thought. Whenever a hint of death brushed her attention, she frowned and made an annoyed gesture with her left hand, as if someone in her presence had made a joke of dubious taste.

  THE REMEMBERING WOMEN

  This is the tale with four tellers. My grandmother told it to me a number of times and at other times my mother gave the account in very different terms. Sometimes they would talk about it simultaneously, shooting each other puzzled or affirming glances as they ranged from point to point. Most importantly, it is a story told in the words and thoughts of a famous man named Holme Barcroft. And now I set it down on paper for my sister, Mitzi, to read at her leisure someday and maybe pass on to her children.