In for the Kill

19

Bocanne, Florida, 1980

"Sherman, is it? You got a great name, so you got a responsibility to live up to it. Know that, boy?"

"I guess," Sherman said. He'd had some history and remembered the name, but even though it was his name, he couldn't quite recall who it was the new boarder, Sam Pickett, was talking about.

They were sitting in cane-backed chairs out on the plank porch, leaning almost too far back with their feet up on the rail. Sherman had his ankles crossed and was sipping a warm pop. Pickett was messing around with the big, dirty briar pipe he smoked. Before them the swamp loomed green and lush, buzzing with life and smelling of rot. Something moved out there, causing dozens of blackbirds to rise screaming in a panic, and then settle down near their point of takeoff.

"My feelin' is he was the greatest Civil War general of 'em all," Pickett said, using his yellowed thumb to tamp tobacco firmly into the bowl of the odorous briar. "Ol'William Tecumseh Sherman."

That was why he hadn't stuck in Sherman's memory. Sherman was his last name. Would Pickett remember everybody famous named Sam?

But Sherman liked it that Pickett must have realized Sherman didn't know who they were talking about, yet he hadn't pointed out Sherman's ignorance or made fun of him, just went on talking as if they both knew.

"Marched through the south tearin' up Ned all the way, burned an' killed an' left nothin' to eat neither on nor in the miles of scorched earth left behind him." He glanced over and gave Sherman a slight smile and a look that might have meant anything. "You think that was great?"

"Dunno," Sherman said. "Maybe. He was a general, so that was his job." He was choosing his words carefully, wary of Pickett, who seemed smarter and more interested in Sherman than any of the other boarders. Pickett was always doing this when they talked, asking questions right out of the blue, as if testing to see if Sherman was paying attention. Sherman didn't mind. Even kind of liked it.

"You got the truth of it," Pickett said, grinning at Sherman as if proud of him. "Ol' Sherman's hated-that's the general, not you-'cause of all the death an' destruction he created, but the fact is, if people'd just read their history, his march to the sea shortened the Civil War by months or years and saved a lot more lives than it cost."

"He kill women and kids, too?"

Pickett stopped in the process of raising his pipe to his mouth and looked over at Sherman, his bushy gray eyebrows raised in curiosity and surprise. "That's a damn-a darned good question, Sherman. Let's just say he did what he had to do. You could make the argument that the southerners started the war 'cause the people wanted it, so it was the southern people-not just the soldiers-to blame, an' it was only in the way of justice that they should have to pay the price of their lives."

Sherman looked out at the swamp, thinking of all the death out there. "Seems like you know a lot about that kinda thing."

"I'm a student of the Civil War, all self-learned but well-learned. I understand what Sherman had to do, an' I think he was a good man. Now an' again you gotta do what ordinarily would turn your stomach. That's what life comes down to sometimes, Sherman."

"Yeah, it does."

The sun was going down. They listened to the crickets trilling away for a while. Pickett struck a book match and got his pipe fired up. The burning tobacco smelled good to Sherman. Better than the swamp.

Sherman liked Sam Pickett. Though he looked almost as old as the previous boarders, maybe in his fifties, there was a kind of energy about him. It was like he was younger even though he had a lot of lines in his face, and gray hair and a gray mustache. He wore his long hair in a ponytail, but Sherman never thought he looked womanish at all. In fact, if he didn't have such a big belly, Sherman could imagine Sam Pickett in a Civil War Union blue uniform, maybe even an officer's.

Pickett was the first boarder who didn't have his own room. Maybe because it was full of all the books he'd brought in his big trunk and some cardboard boxes. Or maybe it was because he was the first boarder who didn't have to pay. Sherman had heard Pickett and his mother talking about that one night when they were in the kitchen and didn't know he was listening. And what surprised Sherman was when his mother flat-out told Pickett he shouldn't have to pay any board. Pickett had said they'd work out something, that he'd pay for the groceries and whatever the boy might need. Sherman figured he was "the boy."

So books were piled on the bed where the other boarders had slept, and Pickett slept with Sherman's mother. Sometimes he and Myrna, Sherman's mom, would argue, and Sherman would hear them other nights making noises as if they were fighting in the bedroom. Now and then there were bruises on Myrna, but Sherman never heard her complain.

Though he never dared call his mother anything other than "Mom," Sherman began to think of her and Sam as a pair, thinking of how they called each other-Myrna and Sam.

Sherman guessed Pickett did pay for things, but it was Myrna who took the truck into town most of the time and bought them. She said she was the only one who knew how to drive the balky old pickup, and Pickett seemed happy enough to stay behind and read, then help her unload groceries, beer, or firewood and carry the heavy stuff in when she returned.

Pickett read more often than anybody Sherman had ever met. It was how he passed the long hours, just sitting there concentrating, like he was breathing in information. Sherman thought of Sam always with a book in his hands, and his pipe clenched between his teeth. Which was how he almost always was. There was even a notch in his stained teeth worn there by the briar's pipe stem over the years. And Sherman guessed Pickett might have calluses on his fingers from turning pages.

"Ever fished?" Pickett asked, sucking and puffing noisily on the pipe to get the bowl glowing bright red.

"Sure. Some. Got a good bamboo pole."

"Know how to use a rod and reel?"

"Never had the chance."

"You got it now. I got one broke down in one of my boxes."

"You mean someday we can go fishing?" Sherman asked.

"Someday hell! Excuse my French. Don't wait for someday, Sherman. Let's get up outta these chairs an' go fishin' now. Unless you got somethin' better to do."

Sherman was grinning wide. "Can't think of a thing better."

The removed their feet from the porch rail, and the front legs of their chairs thumped on the plank floor in unison.

Over the next several weeks Pickett taught Sherman how to find where the fish might be biting, the bluegill around the weeds near banks where insects bred, and the big catfish that were bottom-feeders out farther from the banks and twisted banyan and cypress roots. He taught him how to cast sidearm so as not to hook low branches or Spanish moss, and drop the bait or fly within inches of where he aimed. After the first few times fishing, Sam always used the bamboo pole and let Sherman use the rod and reel.

It was a great summer for Sherman. When he wasn't fishing or talking with Sam Pickett, he was reading some of Pickett's books. Sam told him he could read any or all of them without asking, only had to put them back when he was finished.

Sherman soon understood why Sam knew so much about the Civil War, because that was what most of the books were about. Some of them looked so old they might have been written during the Civil War. Sherman got to know all about William Tecumseh Sherman and some of the other famous generals and other personalities on both sides of the great conflict. And he learned about the battles, how sometimes their outcome turned on little things, like which troops needed boots and shoes, or maybe on the weather that might turn open fields into deep mud that mired down troops and made them easy to slaughter with artillery. Death meant something in the Civil War, Sherman decided. Every death.

The Civil War became Sherman's obsession because it was Sam Pickett's obsession. And Sam became like a father to Sherman-at least the closest thing to a father Sherman had ever known.

Once when he was lying quietly in the warm dark and listening to Sam and Myra talking in the kitchen while they drank beer, Sherman heard Sam remark on how uncommonly smart Sherman was for a boy ten years old, how quickly he caught on to things. That was news to Sherman. He heard his mother say that was news to her, too.

Sherman just lay there in the night, smiling, while they drank more beer and changed the subject.

Sometimes, years later, he'd lie in his bed in the dark and recall that conversation and smile. He might drift off to sleep while mentally re-creating that long-ago time and Sam Pickett.

It truly had been a great summer.

For a while.