Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You Page 17

  “She was as good as her word, of course, and every three or four days she would adorn herself with a revolver, hike down to the Outpost, and survey that day’s crop of loafers. Five visits running, she culled them all. There were some women who said she made herself a laughingstock with her straightforward ways, but after five inspections, the joke began to look like it was on the menfolk. Whatever the laughter took up for its subject, it didn’t begin till Ginger had legged it up the hill again, well out of earshot.

  “The sixth time she pushed into Bradley’s, she spotted a tall, big-shouldered, freckle-faced fellow with hair as red as a flame of fire. She peered at him closely for a long minute and then said, ‘I believe you to be Orlow Jackson.’

  “He colored up and said, ‘That’s who I am all right.’

  “‘You have not been seen around these parts for a while.’

  “‘I just got out of the service,’ he said. ‘I’ve served in the infantry the past four years.’

  “‘I wonder if they cured you in the army of the dirty sneaking ways you used to have.’

  “His color rose high again, till it was almost as red as his hair. ‘I reckon I don’t know what you mean,’ he said, holding himself as stiff as the king in a deck of cards.

  “She kept looking him over as closely as she might inspect a whiteface heifer on the auction block. ‘I believe they might have done you some good,’ she said. ‘I want you to come along with me outside, Orlow Jackson, where we can have a word or two in private.’

  “‘I ain’t ready to go anywhere right yet,’ he said.

  “She answered not a word but withdrew her thirty-two special from her belt, and when he ventured to say he did not expect her to fire, she stretched up on her tiptoes and conked him on the noggin with the barrel, right on the topknot, where she had plunked him with a river rock ten years before. Then while he was staring at her with a sudden new comprehension in his mind, she grasped him by his shirt collar and pulled him out the door of the Outpost and back under a big beech tree by the side of the road.

  “Naturally, the other five loafers there in Bradley’s rushed to the door to see what would happen next, but a hard glance from Ginger made them hang back, and they couldn’t hear what she said to Jackson as she peered straight up into his eyes and talked as low and earnest as a preacher boring in on an unrepentant drunkard. They were dying to ask him, but he didn’t come back into the store. When they parted, Ginger commenced to climb her hill again and Orlow Jackson sidled over and got on his roan stallion tethered there and headed in the direction of his own house.

  “But she had made a speech that took effect, for the very next evening that same roan horse carried Jackson up the hill to Ginger’s cabin, where they sat chatting on the front porch and sharing some sugar biscuit she had baked. And the evening after that, the same thing happened, and the next after that, only this time he had dressed up in creased gray cotton pants and a fresh-ironed shirt buttoned up to the chin. Ginger came out to meet him on her front porch in a blue gingham dress with lace at the collar. I don’t know about her shoes, but they couldn’t have been those ugly old lace-up boots she affected to wear for everyday’s.

  “They sat there and whiled away the twilight and then went inside to the kitchen and ate supper by the light of that lonesome kerosene lamp that Ginger had removed from the table and set in a cupboard shelf to cast romantic shadows.

  “Have I told you what a marvelous cook she was? Well, she was, one of the best I knew. Maybe only Aunt Pearlie Adams was ever a better. She had dozens of little secrets, you see, for making stewed tomatoes and squash burgoo and okra fried crunchy in cornmeal. And her pies! Her every pie was a wonder, especially her dried-apple pie, where she would soak the slices in hard cider to soften and then pour off the cider and boil it down with brown sugar and cinnamon and nutmeg and maybe the tiniest pinch of mace, if I remember correctly, till it was a thin syrup and pour that over the slices into a crust that was as light as goose down and top it all off with a lattice. She would slide it into the oven and add one more stick of stove wood to the fire pit and then never open the oven door again except to take the pie out when it was the color of a field of ripe oats. She never looked at the clock, either. I suppose she must have judged by the perfume of it when it was done.

  “I like the new electrics myself, but there are women who will swear that the old-timey woodstove is the only way to cook. Remind me to tell you sometime about Aunt Pearlie’s misfortunes with an electric stove.

  “So Mr. Orlow Jackson enjoyed quite a feed on that pleasant evening. I disremember what all Ginger cooked up for him, but I would hope she made him some of her famous lumpless mashed potatoes and those turnip greens that she could make taste fresh and not greasy and some of that chicken she would fry up in a savory batter.… Like I say, Ginger was as clever with a wood range as she was with needle and thread and knife and pistol.

  “Pretty soon it had got to be serious. Jackson’s folks had been complaining how they couldn’t get any work out of him on the farm because he was always down at Bradley’s Outpost, whittling daylight down to eventide. Now they complained he was always at Ginger’s house, but they couldn’t say he wasn’t working, because he was. Side by side with his sweetheart in her little garden, or up top patching the roof where needful, or helping her to build a milking shed where she could stall that pretty little Jersey she was buying on time from Jerry Jarrett.

  “Of course, when Ginger heard of the Jacksons’ displeasure, she told Orlow she wanted him to be back helping his mother and daddy on their home place because that’s what civil sons and daughters owed to their parents. So he did as she said, plumb crazy about her by now and always a little cowed when she employed that word civil on him. But it just about wore him to a frazzle, because when he finished his proper work at home, he would scurry over to Ginger’s and put in a good half day’s labor there.

  “Things just swum right along, slick as a mossy rock in the Cataloochee River, and nobody was surprised when they made the announcement that they were engaged.… Well, they didn’t make it, in fact. Ginger made it herself, and that was what started the next trouble between them.

  “Ginger had figured the time was opportune; Orlow was ripe for marriage, she thought. And so he was, only he didn’t know it yet. Jackson had turned out a right worthy fellow, nothing like when he was a mean old boy. But he wasn’t what you’d call perspicacious and hadn’t come to a serious thought as yet about taking the vows. So when he heard from Glenn Harkins that he himself, Mr. Orlow Jackson, was engaged to get married to Ginger Summerell, he bowed his neck against the yoke and set himself down there on the Jackson farm and left off seeing Ginger and wouldn’t desert his mind on the point. I believe that Ginger had made a rare miscalculation in this particular matter and had hurt Jackson’s feelings. Men like to feel they make the important decisions, you see, and the trick is to let them believe they actually do.

  “But if Orlow was a stubborn man, Ginger was a stubborner woman. Weeks fled by that they didn’t see each other or send any hint of message. Finally, Ginger did send word by her brother Efird, but it wasn’t what you’d call loving. Her reputation had been violated, she said, and she was going to avenge the insult herself. She didn’t trust anybody else to repair the good name of an injured maiden girl, not even her daddy or her brother. So, would Mr. Orlow Jackson please make known the weapon or weapons of his choice and meet her this coming Saturday, August second, at three in the afternoon in the bald on top of Bailey Ridge? That was to be their field of honor.

  “She coached her brother thoroughly, Efird not being warmly familiar with the term reputation or the concept of honor, and when she was satisfied he could say it off clearly—though with a mystified expression on his face—she sent him off to the Jackson farm, where he gave a pretty good account of himself as a messenger. In fact, Efird was so proud of his feat of memorization that he spouted his sister’s speech afterward to anybody he met on the road and to the Outpos
t bunch and to just about everything not rooted to one spot in the ground.

  “So when three o’clock Saturday rolled around, there was quite a swarm of people on Bailey Bald, Orlow Jackson tall and gloomy among them. He had not brought any weapons, of course, but he had to show up on the spot or be shamed by the woman who claimed she’d been jilted. And yet he had no more idea what was going on than any of the chance bystanders.

  “Finally, Ginger arrived with a big burlap tote sack slung over her shoulder. She asked Orlow if he was armed and ready to defend himself.

  “‘Aw, Ginger,’ he said, ‘you know good and well I’m not. I can’t be shooting at you, and I hope to God Almighty you won’t be shooting at me.’

  “‘My honor must be satisfied,’ she replied. ‘I will make that clear to you. Nothing else will pacify my mind.’

  “‘What are you going to do, then?’

  “‘Let’s go over yonder to the level place next to that stand of trees,’ she said. ‘That will give us a firm ground to rest on.’ And off she set with those scissor strides, covering ground so fast, he had to trot to keep up.

  “‘I ain’t going to shoot at you,’ he said. ‘I didn’t even bring a gun.’

  “‘I have supplied weapons for us both,’ Ginger said. She lowered her tote sack to the grass and began taking things out of it. First object she pulled out was an old twelve-gauge shotgun that had seen better days, but not recently. Then she took out her rifle; I guess it must have been a thirty-thirty; anyhow, it was lever-action. Then out came her two pistols and a hammer and an empty Prince Albert tobacco can. Then she revealed a big hunting knife with a foot-long blade as keen as a copperhead tooth. She reached way down and brought out two little blue milk of magnesia bottles, the kind kids like to play with.

  “In fact, all this truck spread out on the grass looked like a trove of children’s toys, and the sight of it puzzled Orlow Jackson. He stood there staring at it and rubbing the back of his neck. Nobody else could figure it out, either, and they crowded around to look. There must have been at least twenty people there, not counting the younguns, and some of them must have reckoned Ginger Summerell had totally lost her sanity.

  “There they stood, the two of them, with all this silly plunder spread about their feet, and they took careful estimate of each other. Orlow looked as uncomfortable and puzzled and gloomy as a tattooed sailor at a church social and Ginger gazed upon his manly form like he was a side of beef she was fixing to butcher into porterhouse.

  “‘Since I am the one offering the challenge, you must choose the weapons we will battle with,’ she said.

  “‘Ginger,’ said he, ‘I won’t.’

  “‘If that’s the case, then the choice comes back to me,’ Ginger said, ‘and I choose that we will duel with shotgun, rifle, pistols, and bowie knife.’

  “‘Not me. I don’t want to duel with anything,’ he said.

  “‘What you want doesn’t signify,’ Ginger declared. ‘For as sure as the sun rolls across the sky, there is going to be a duel.’ And with that, she picked up the clawhammer and marched over to a big white oak about fifteen paces away. She took a roofing tack out of her pocket and unfolded a scrap of newspaper and nailed it to the tree trunk. She came back to where he stood and dropped the hammer in the grass and repeated her solemn vow: ‘There is going to be a duel, Orlow, as sure as the stars shine at nighttime.’”

  * * *

  “Watch out, Jess! You’re about to knock over that punchbowl. I don’t know what I’d do to you if that bowl got broken. It’s been in our family for three generations. And so many of my prettiest things have got chipped and cracked over the years, it looks like I’m going to wind up with nothing but discards. Here, give me that. Maybe I’d better finish up and you go on and do something else.”

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “Not till I hear about that duel. You can’t be turning me out now. No, ma’am.”

  “Well, all right. Go ahead and start polishing on those spoons. But for heaven’s sake, be careful.… Now, what was I talking about?”

  * * *

  “Oh, yes, the duel.

  “Ginger picked up the shotgun from where she had dropped it on the ground so careless and took a shell out of her pocket and broke the gun down and loaded it. That made the onlookers stand uneasy. They edged back from Ginger and Orlow and the women began to look about to see to the safety of their younguns.

  “It was hot in the valley, but there was a cool breeze across Bailey Bald. The sun shone bright, with not a cloud in the sky. The birds were singing and the children shouting and chasing butterflies, but when Ginger snapped the breach of that shotgun closed, all the sound died away. Even the cicadas went silent, seemed like.

  “She offered the shotgun to Jackson, but he only shook his head and kept his hands in his pockets. ‘You say you won’t take it? I’m giving you the first go,’ she said. ‘I’ll stand my ground at sixty yards and you can fire at me when ready.’

  “But he only gazed down at her with eyes as sad as a beagle’s.

  “‘All right. That means the first shot is mine,’ she said, ‘and I’ll show you what I might do if the notion was to take me.’ She knelt down and plucked that Prince Albert tin off the grass and flung it up in the air and brought the muzzle up and pulled the trigger and blew it to flinders.

  “Just like that.

  “She laid the shotgun away and said, ‘That would be your big stout belly I aimed at there, Orlow.’

  “He was like a man in a trance as he considered her sentence. Slowly he took his right hand out of his pocket and tenderly rubbed his stomach. His face was coloring up like the red in a thermometer.

  “She offered him the thirty-thirty rifle and he only stood confused. She retrieved the two little blue bottles from the ground and sent them spinning into the air. Bang! She smashed the first one. Then quick as a flash she pumped the lever and fired and smashed the other. Bang!

  “‘And then off your head I shot your big old flapping mule ears,’ she said.

  “His mouth flew open as he took a deep breath and clapped both hands to the sides of his head. Yes, his ears were still there, but only because of the tender mercies of Ginger Summerell.

  “Then she held out the two pistols grip-first, but he couldn’t move a muscle except to let his hands drop to his sides. She took them back and stuck one in her belt while she searched in the deep pocket of her corduroy trousers and fetched out two Coca-Cola bottle caps. These, too, she tossed way up into the air. With her left hand she shot the nearer one and it disappeared from view. With her right hand she snatched the second pistol out of her belt, cocking as she did so, and fired, and the other bottle cap was gone like it had never been.

  “‘Those were your two beady little pig eyes I plinked right out of your skull,’ she said.

  “He only stared in her direction without seeing her, for it was obvious he had gone blind for a moment and would have to wait for his sight to be restored. When he could see again, he looked at Ginger and his red face mottled with white patches till it was almost polka-dotted.

  “She didn’t bother to offer the bowie knife. She just leaned over and grasped it by the blade and threw it as straight as a dart. It pinned dead to the tree trunk that scrap of newspaper that had been fluttering like a kite tail in the breeze.

  “‘And that, Orlow Jackson,’ she said, ‘was your treacherous false heart that I sliced out of your breast.’

  “He closed his eyes and swayed on his feet and his face went all white and so did his sweating hands, white as a toadstool in the dampest forest shade. Then he opened his eyes and color came back into his cheeks and he was recovered to life again.

  “Ginger dug her fists into her hips and twisted her lips shut and looked into his face with eyes like lightning bolts. She stood as straight and steady as a locust fence post, daring the fellow to do his utter worst.

  “The mouths of everyone in the crowd were gaped like bear traps. Men, women, and children let out suddenly
the breaths they had been holding and took their gaze from Ginger to turn rapt attention upon Orlow.

  “He appeared to study strenuously, like a man considering the finishing touches on his last will and testament. Then he came forward, slowly and gravely approaching Ginger, and there was no telling what decision had come to him, for his face gave nothing away. When he got to where Ginger stood waiting, he knelt down as slowly as sap oozing from a tree cut and picked up the clawhammer. He held the handle toward her.

  “‘Here is one last weapon you forgot to use,’ he said. ‘I believe that if you was to hit me over the head with it, I might come around to better sense.’

  “She budged not an inch and moved not muscle one, but only kept him fixed in her electric stare.

  “‘Go ahead, Ginger,’ he urged her. ‘Clunk me a good one. That will be an earnest of our vows.’ He smiled upon her as ingratiating as he could and said again, ‘Go ahead. Third time’s a charm.’

  “Still she scorned him, not accepting the hammer and giving no sign she had even heard his generous offer.

  “‘Well, if you won’t, you won’t,’ said he. ‘I reckon it’s something I must do for myself.’ With that he turned the hammer around and brought it up with cool deliberation and smote himself with it right between the eyes. Nor did he go easy with any gentle love tap. It was a blow as stout as you’d please and wrought such handsome effect upon his head that consciousness fled from his brain and he pitched forward face first, plunging like a felled sapling right at the feet of Ginger Summerell.