“It’s a good idea,” he told Clara when she first broached the subject. “Take the boy on down there. There’s a lot of good to be had out of going to church.”
“You ought to come with us, John Robert,” she said.
“I expect I’ll wait awhile. Me and the Lord don’t see eye to eye these days. We’ll get around to talking, directly.” But they never did. The betrayal had been too great, the theft of Rose into the night too harsh. John Robert had looked deep into his heart and found no forgiveness. He knew he was a minute speck in the vastness of the cosmos, but he was the injured party and expected an accounting. But no bush on the farm burst into voice and flame to reveal why Rose’s presence had been required elsewhere. Skulled specters did not trot in across the back pasture under a white flag of truce to clarify why her transition from here to there had been so ungodly cruel. So John Robert did not forgive. And he did not forget.
Arthur John became initialized early in life. Initialization is a Southern rite of passage akin to the Hebrew practice of circumcision, but it is sometimes less painful and does not always occur on the seventh day. So Arthur John Longstreet became A.J., and A.J. he has remained.
When A.J. was six, Granmama took him down to the school in town. It was a bright, sweet morning in early September, and A.J. was beside himself with excitement. He was decked out in stiff-as-a-board jeans, a blue cotton shirt, and U.S. Keds, black high-tops fresh out of the box. This was the big league, and A.J. knew it full well. After a brief, informal registration, he was remanded into the custody of Mrs. Williams, a sweet, blue-haired woman who had been teaching since John Robert was a child.
So it was that A.J. began his formal education. He loved the neat structure and implicit boundaries of classroom life and awaited his lessons with eagerness. He quickly and correctly learned all the material presented to him and always seemed hungry for more. He thought Mrs. Williams was a pearl and liked most of his classmates. His one problem was Hollis Battey, a bully from a long line of the same who took particular delight in harassing A.J. Hollis was seven and much bigger than A.J. The Battey clan esteemed only unemployment and alcohol above ignorance, and Hollis was in school solely because the county sheriff had insisted.
A.J. endured Hollis’s torments for the better part of a month. He did so for two reasons. The first was that John Robert had always told him fighting was to be held as a last resort. Secondly, A.J. was afraid of the brutish boy. He knew without doubt that when it came to blows, he was going to lose. So he tried avoidance, but that was tough to pull off in a class of eleven. Then he attempted accommodation, but Hollis was not to be accommodated. A.J. even tried to make friends with the Battey boy, but the novelty of having a comrade did not appeal to Hollis. Finally, A.J. turned to his father for advice.
“If he was after you, John Robert, would you fight him?” A.J. asked, perplexed by the enormity of his problem.
“No, I wouldn’t fight him,” John Robert replied. “And I’ll love you just the same whether you fight him or not.” So A.J. went on to school without a definite solution to his predicament while John Robert put on his jacket and headed for the truck. It was his intent to drive out for a chat with Jug Battey, father of Hollis and, in John Robert’s opinion, the root cause of the problem. Clara did not care for the plan.
“I’ll not have you rolling in the dirt with Jug Battey,” she firmly declared. “That man is as mean as a snake and as sorry as the day is long.” Clara disliked Jug Battey as much as any Christian woman was allowed-perhaps even a tad more-and she did not want any members of her family near him.
“I’m just going for a talk, Mama,” John Robert responded. “There won’t be any fighting.”
“What
“I’ll finish it.”
While John Robert was chewing the fat with Jug, an animated discussion by all accounts, A.J. was arriving at a crossroad on the highway of life. It was recess, and Hollis had sought out A.J. and pushed him to the ground. Tears of anger welled in A.J.’s eyes. Then Hollis made an error in judgment and overplayed his hand. He told A.J. he ought to go cry to his mama, but that he didn’t even have one to cry to.
“People without mamas are bastards,” Hollis sneered. “You’re just a crybaby bastard.” A.J. had no clue this genealogical seminar was fundamentally in error, but he did know an insult when he heard one. He had had enough. He arose slowly, fists balled, and advanced on the bigger boy. He knew he could not win, but his anger made him momentarily fearless.
The combatants plowed into one another, and Hollis was surprised and a touch anxious at A.J.’s ferocity. Even so, it was only a matter of time before size became the determining factor, and soon enough A.J. found himself flat on his back with Hollis on top.
The drubbing was about to begin in earnest when a random factor presented itself. A small boy launched himself from the ring of spectators and landed on Hollis’s head and neck, where he held on for sheer survival. Hollis released A.J. to concentrate on the removal of the new assailant. With his freed fists, A.J. pummeled the Battey midsection with such dramatic result that Hollis was relieved when Mrs. Williams arrived a few moments later and ended the fracas.
At supper that evening, A.J. felt elated. He had stood up for himself even though he had been afraid. The whipping he received had not hurt as much as he thought it might, and he wore his faint shiner with pride.
John Robert’s black eye was a bit more pronounced. The talk with Jug had not gone well, its outcome inconclusive. Granmama was bustling around, slamming crockery onto the table while apologizing to the Lord on behalf of her son and grandson, stating she had done her absolute best.
It had been a day of meetings for A.J. He had met and mastered his fear. He had met John Robert as an equal, fresh from the field of battle, and they had met Granmama’s wrath in tandem. And he had met a small boy who had saved him. He had met Eugene Purdue, who was destined to be his lifelong friend.
CHAPTER 1
I’m dead, and I can still whip your ass.
– Excerpt of posthumous letter from
Eugene Purdue to Hollis Battey
TO THE EAST OF SEQUOYAH LIES FOX MOUNTAIN, also known as Eugene’s Mountain in honor of its owner and sole inhabitant, Eugene Purdue. The elevation came into the possession of the Purdue family soon after the conclusion of the Great War of Northern Aggression, also called the Civil War by certain scholars and historians. Upon his return from that conflict, Eugene’s great-great-great grandfather, Clayton, acquired the tract during a game of chance with Charles Fox, the last surviving member of the Fox family. Clayton Purdue was a rascal who claimed gambling as his vocation. Charles Fox was a drunkard and a fool, inalienable rights at that time of the sons of the gentry. The game was Five Card Stud, and the betting on the final hand was heavy. When Charles Fox drew his fourth jack with his fifth card, he wagered the mountain. Clayton Purdue had a great deal of money on the whiskey barrel and was bluffing a busted royal flush. Ever the sportsman, he drew his trusty Navy Colt and called the bet with finality. The dealer and only witness, Spartan Cook, swore under oath at the inquest that Clayton had acted in self-defense when he shot Charles Fox. In return for this middling perjury he received five-hundred dollars and subsequently relocated to the Oklahoma Territories to practice law. The judge at the hearing, Clayton’s cousin Samuel, ruled that the demise of Charles Fox was lamentable but unavoidable. He then awarded the mountain to Clayton after first advising him to refrain from attempting to draw inside to a straight. Both the mountain and the Navy Colt have remained in the Purdue family to this day.
A.J. Longstreet arrived at the foot of Eugene’s Mountain after driving the dirt road that wound eight miles from the state highway. It was noon on a Saturday. He parked his old pickup under the hanging-tree near the trail that snaked up the mountain to Eugene’s cabin. The trail had once been a road, but due to a bitter family disagreement, Eugene no longer had access to his father’s bulldozer and thus was unable to keep the roadway in good repair. The falling-out had occurred when Eugene inherited the mountain from his grandfather, A.R. Purdue. The inheritance had passed over Eugene’s father and on to Eugene because of a difference of opinion regarding a choice of
