Memories Of Another Day Part 21

The sheriff took a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. "Fm sorry, Dan'l," the sheriff said. 'The law says I got to use these on sentenced prisoners."

Daniel looked at him, then silently held out his hands. The handcuffs clicked and locked around his wrists.

The sheriff looked at him. ''You ain't angry, are you, Dan'l?"

Daniel shook his head. "No, Sher'f. Why should I be? It's over. Now, mebbe, I kin fergit it."

But he never did.

Now The air brakes hissed as the big trailer truck pulled to the side of the highway. The door swung open and the driver stared at us as I got out of the cab. I held up my hand to help Anne down.

''You kids are crazy," the driver said. ''Gittin' off in the middle o' nowhere. It's thirty-five miles down the road to Fitchville an' fifty miles back to the next town. An' nothin' in between except maybe some sharecroppers."

Anne swung out of the cab. I picked up the backpacks. 'Thanks for the lift," I said.

He stared at me. "Okay. But be careful. These people ain't exactly friendly toward strangers. Sometimes they shoot before they ask question."

"We'll be all right," I said.

He nodded and closed the door. We watched the truck pick up speed, and in a moment it was lost in the highway traffic. I turned to Anne. She hadn't spoken until now.

"Do you know where we're going?" she asked.

I nodded.

Her voice turned sarcastic. "Mind telling me?"

I let my eyes scan the countryside, then pointed at a small hUl rismg above the trees about a mile from the road. "There."

She looked at the hill, then back at me. ''Why?"

'Til know when I get there," I said, I scrambled down the side of the embankment from the highway. When I looked back she was still standing there, staring down at me. "Coming?"

She nodded and started down after me. About halfway, she slipped. I caught her and she came to a stop, her head against my chest. She was trembling. After a moment, she looked up into my face. "Fm frightened."

I looked into her eyes. "Don't be," I said. "You're with me."

It took us almost two hours to reach the crest of the hill, another half-hour to the knoll about a quarter of the way down the other side. I dropped my backpack and sat on the ground. I took a deep breath, then, on my knees, began to feel the earth under the tall wild gra.s.s.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Looking for something," I said, and at the same moment my hand hit a stone. Carefully I felt it. Rectangular in shape, the upper surface slanting slightly toward me. Quickly I pulled the gra.s.s and weeds ft*om around it. It was a block of stone no more than two feet long and a foot wide. With my hand I brushed away the earth and dirt covering it until the letters etched into the stone were clear and sharp.

HUGGINS.

Her voice was soft behind me. "What have you found?"

I looked once more at the stone, then up at her.

"My grandfather's grave."

"You knew where it was?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No."

"Then, how?"

"I don't know," I said.

206.

'Tell her, son. I told you.'

**You*re dead. You never told me anything even while you were alive.''

'7 told you everything. You weren't listening."

''What makes you think I'm listening now?"

His laugh was the deep, heavy chuckle I had heard all my life. ''You haven't any choice now. I'm inside your head."

"Let go, Father. You're dead. And I have my own life to lead."

"You're young yet. You have time. First you have to lead mine. Then you'll be able to lead your own."

"s.h.i.+t."

"Exactly." The deep, heavy chuckle again. "But you'll have to learn how to walk before you can run."

"And you're going to teach me?"

"That's right."

"How are you going to do that with seven feet of dirt sitting on your head up there in Scarsdale?"

"I told you. I'm in every cell of your body. I am you and you are me. And as long as you live I'll be there."

"But someday I'll be dead too. Then where will you be?"

'' With you. In your child.'' The man's voice came from behind us. "Turn aroun' slow and don't make any sudden moves."

I got to my feet. Anne put her hand in mine, and slowly we turned toward the man. He was tall and thin, faded overalls and work s.h.i.+rt, sun-squint lines etched around his eyes, a wide-brimmed straw hat on his head and a double-barreled shotgun pointing at us across the crook in his elbow. ''Didn't you see the No Trespa.s.s signs along the path?"

"We didn't come along a path. We came up the side of the hill from the highway."

'Turn aroun' and go back the way you came. Whatever you was lookin' fer, you won' fin' it here."

**I ah-eady found what I was looking for," I said, pointing to the headstone on the ground.

He stepped to one side and looked down at it. "Huggins," he said softly, p.r.o.nouncing it with a soft G. '^What's that got to do with you?"

'*He was my grandfather."

He was silent for a moment. His eyes searched my face. ''What's your name?"

'' Jonathan Huggins.''

"Big Dan's son?"

I nodded.

The muzzle of his gun dropped toward the ground. His voice seemed gentler. "You kids foUer me down to the house. My wife has some nice cool lemonade hangin' in the well."

We followed him down a path through the trees on the far side of the hill. We came out on a small knoll just above a cornfield. Beyond the cornfield was the house. If that was what it could be called. More a lean-to shack-odd pieces of wood nailed together, the crevices sealed with construction paper and tar, the roof more boards nailed together over plastic. In front of the house was a battered old pickup, dusty in the afternoon sun, whatever paint was left on it a faded, indistinguishable color. He led us past the cornfield, past the pickup, to the door.

He opened it and called in. "Betty May, we got visitin' folk."

A moment later, a girl appeared in the doorway. She couldn't have been more than sixteen, round face, round blue eyes, long blond hair and pregnant. She looked at us carefully, a hint of fear in her eyes.

"It's okay," he said rea.s.suringly. "They f'om up No'th."

"How do?" Her voice was a child's voice.

"h.e.l.lo," I said.

He turned to me, holding out his hand. ''Ym Jeb Stuart Randall. My woman, Betty May."

"Pleased to meet you, Jeb Stuart." I took his hand. *'ThisisAnne."

He made a half old-fas.h.i.+oned bow. "Honored, ma'am."

"Not ma'am, Ms."

"I beg your pardon, miz," he said, not picking up on the word.

She smiled at him. "Nice to meet you Mr. Randall, Mrs. Randall."

"Git the lemonade fom the well, Betty May. Our visitors must be parched fom the attemoon sun."

Betty May seemed to slip by us as we followed him into the shack. The interior was dark and cool after the bright heat outside. We sat down around a small table in the only room. On one wall were an old-fas.h.i.+oned coal cooking stove and a sink with cupboards over it; the other wall had one old wooden closet, a chest of drawers and a bed, over which was thrown a patchwork quilt. A small oil lamp was in the center of the table.

Jeb Stuart took a half-smoked cigarette from his pocket, placed it in his mouth without lighting it. Betty May came back into the house with a pitcher of lemonade. Silently she filled three gla.s.ses and placed them in front of us. She took none for herself, neither did she sit at the table with us. Instead she went to the stove and stood next to it, watching us.

I tasted the lemonade. It was thin and watery and very sweet. But it was cool. "Very good, ma'am,"

"Thank you," she said in her pleased child's voice.

"I heard on the news about your pappy pa.s.sing away," Jeb Stuart said. "My sympathy."

I nodded.

"I seen your pappy once," he said. "He cut a fine figger, an' man, could he talk! I 'member Ustenin' to him an' thinkin'. That man could charm the angels fom the trees."

I laughed. 'That's probably what he's doin' right now. Either that or getting the Devil to change the working hours down there."

He didn't know whether to smile or not. ''Your pappy was a G.o.d-fearin' man. He's prob'ly up there with the angels."

I nodded. I had to remember that we didn't speak the same language.

"Yer pappy was one of us. Bom right yere. He made a name for hisself that the whole country could respec'." He fished in his pocket and came up with the familiar blue-four-leaf-clover-on-white union b.u.t.ton, the letters C.A.L.L., one to each leaf, s.h.i.+ning white. "When he started Up the Confederation, we was among the first unions to jine up with 'im."

"What union was that?"

"The S.F.W.U."

That made sense. Southern Farm Workers Union. The s.h.i.+t end of the union stick. Neither the C.I.O. nor the A.F.L. had ever bothered more than to collect dues from them. There wasn't any real money there. But my father knew better. He knew he had to begin somewhere. What he was looking for first was members, not money, and the South was ripe for picking. That was why he insisted on the word "Confederation" rather than "International." He was right. Within one year he had every union in the South with him, and with that as his base he moved rapidly, north, east and west. Three years later he could call on a national affiliation of seven hundred unions, with a members.h.i.+p of more than twenty million workers.

Jeb Stuart gestured to his wife, and without a word she refilled his empty gla.s.s. "I kin still remember his ever' word.

" 'I'm one a you,' yer pappy said. 'I was bom in these yere mountains. I he'ped my paw with the plowin' an' 's.h.i.+nin'. My first job, when I was fourteen year ol', was in a coal mine. I punched cattle in Texas, worked oil rigs in Oklahoma, loaded river barges in Natchez, drove a dump truck in Georgia, crated oranges in Florida. I been fired f om more jobs than any o' you fellers ever dreamed existed.'

''He looked aroun' the meetin' hall at us Tom under them big, bushy eyebrows. We was all laughin He had us. He knew it an' we knew it. He didn't smile, though. He was all business.

'' 'I'm not askin' you to leave the C. of I.O. to come and jine with us. The C. of I.O. is doin' a good job fer you. Even though ol' John L. is gittin' on up there in years an' sot in his ways an' them Reuther boys up No'th in Detroit is a mite young an' needs some sea-sonin', they still doin' a good job. But they cain't do it all. Not even when they git back together with the A.F. of L.-an' min' you, they will git back together -will they be able to do it all.

" 'I'm not askin' you people to saddle yerselves with more dues an' a.s.sessments. Heaven knows you fellers are payin' enough right now. I'm askin' you fellers to jine a confederation. Now, everyone in the South knows from their history books exactly what a confederation is. It is a group of people jinin' together of their own free will to preserve their rights as individ'ls. Jes' like our great-gran'parents did years ago in the War between the States.

" 'The purpose o' the Confederated Alliance of Livin' Labor is to he'p each individual union to maintain its independent status and to achieve the best results fer its members. We give you services. Consultation, plannin', management. So that you can decide to do what is best for yerselves, jes' like the big unions and big businesses call in specialists fer their problems. You pay no dues, nothin' at all less'n you call us in to work fer you. Then you only pay us while we're workin'; when the job is finished, you stop payin'.' "

He picked up his lemonade and took a sip. "I didn'

know what he was talkin' 'bout, an' I don't think anyone else in the hail did neither, but it didn' matter. He had us all wrapped up."

I laughed inside. I knew the speech by heart, having heard it a million times. My father made it sound like a call to the Confederacy: the South would rise again. Once a union was signed up, that was only a beginning; then the sales program would go into action. I don't think there was ever a union that realized they needed so much a.s.sistance. Where they thought they had only one problem, C.A.L.L. would show them they had ten. Then it was all over but the shouting. And the beauty of it was, there was nothing the A.F.L. or the C.I.O. could do about it, because after all, C.A.L.L. was there to help them too.

''What happened then?" I asked.

''Later that summer, there was a great deal o' talk about goin' out on strike because there was a b.u.mper harvest comin'. C.A.L.L. showed us we'd be hurtin' ourselves more than the big farmer, because there was a good chance of ever'body workin' for the first time in three years. An' if we lost that big harvest, it would take us more'n six years at increased wages to make up that loss. The predictions were all for a poor harvest the following year. That was the time to nail the farmer, when he needed it more than we did because half the members.h.i.+p would be out o' work anyway. An' it worked. The strike was over in two weeks. The farmers caved in; they couldn' afford a total loss."

I looked at him. "And after that there was always someone from C.A.L.L. down at the union office working on some important project."

He stared at me. "How did you know?"

I smiled. "That's where I grew up. I knew my father."

"He was a great man," he said reverently.

"Do you still think so now that you're farming on your own?"