Tall Tail

Monday, August 15, 2016

“Cooler down here.” Harry welcomed the temperature.

“Remind me why we’re down here,” Susan grumbled as she followed the narrow deer trail along the creek.

“I knew we should have stayed at home,” Pewter complained in chorus with Susan.

Mrs. Murphy sidestepped a tree root. “We could leave you here.”

“But then we’d have to come back.” Tucker leapt over the root.

“I never said anything about coming back.” Mrs. Murphy brushed against an increasingly irritated Pewter.

Without a peep, Owen, Tucker’s brother, steadfastly followed the two humans.

“You promised your DAR chapter that you’d walk the creek that used to divide the old Garth property down to your grandparents’ farm, which was founded shortly before the Revolution. Was the Selisse farm first.”

“I did.” Susan took a breath. “I never realized how far it was.”

“On the topo map, it reads five miles over various terrain.”

“My ancestors didn’t walk this creek. They used the farm roads. Why am I walking? What was I thinking?” Susan complained louder.

“The old map from the time, the one around the time of the Jefferson-Fry map, shows this creek. Well, it shows all the tributaries into the rivers, of which this was one. Running water changes, so banks change, bends change, and the modern map shows some differences. We are walking to see it and to see if any old foundations are visible,” Harry patiently explained, for she was fascinated by natural phenomena. “Remember, back then, many of the poor built right by water so they wouldn’t have far to haul it. Digging a well could be expensive.”

“Still is.” Susan sat on a big stump. “Let me catch my breath.”

“Sure.” Harry plopped down on an upturned log.

The dogs happily sniffed everything while the cats peered into the creek, searching for guppies, crawdads, anything that moved.

“Can you imagine owning all the land that the Garths owned or the Holloways? And they were so smart they never subdivided over the decades. Even after 1865, they hung on pretty much until World War One, when cars changed things. A bit of money began to creep south of the Mason-Dixon Line.”

“It’s a flood now.” Harry laughed. “But you know, I respect those people who held it together, who didn’t want to divide up their land even though they no longer had money.”

Susan smiled. “No weed wackers, tractors, or snowplows. Tough, how tough they were.”

“Your people have a wild history. All that talk about Creole blood.”

“Harry, it was just talk, because Francisco Selisse and Maureen, the first wife, didn’t have children. Well, she didn’t. He availed himself of local talent.”

“It’s kind of like the Cherokees, isn’t it? They interbred with the white people and the blacks, and certain last names underline that. Selisse is a name still seen in the phone book and at Junior League.”

Susan sniffed. “Oh, when I was in Junior League, Marilyn Selisse always claimed to be descended from Francisco. She had that Creole look. I never paid attention to it.”

“Getting snotty, are we?” Harry teased her.

“I couldn’t stand her then and I can’t stand her now. I will shortly be facing her for the country club championship, and you know she does nothing but play golf. Once she married Leigh T. Roudabush, can’t forget the T, she focused exclusively on golf.”

Leigh T. Roudabush created and owned a plumbing supply company that expanded as housing expanded. If a fixture was created of marble with gold faucets, he’d find it for you.

“She had what he wanted,” Harry remarked.

“Six children later, yes.” Susan laughed.

“Speaking of Creoles, today is Napoleon’s birthday, 1769, and he married a Creole.”

“She must have been a real bombshell.” Susan took another deep breath, getting her wind back. “History records her as having bad teeth, being of average intelligence, but a woman who drove men crazy.”

“You know, I don’t envy any woman that. I just want to drive one man crazy,” Harry said thoughtfully.

“I think you do,” cracked Susan. “Me, too, but when I was little I used to wonder about the Selisse monument in the graveyard. And I wondered if I had Selisse blood. G-Mom swore no and said G-Pop’s grandmother, who was still alive when she married Sam, said the Holloways did not have a drop of Selisse blood. As you know, we’ve got all the family Bibles, as much as the discharge papers for Mother’s family for the men who served. Francisco didn’t serve in the war, but he helped pay for it.”

“As did Ewing Garth. Those kind of people never get credit.”

“No, but they usually thrive in business or run for office. Holloways have been running for office since the time of Monroe. I can’t decide if we are anchored by our past or imprisoned by it.”

Harry reached down to pet Tucker, who, like the cats, had given up on the guppies. “We’re southerners. We’re imprisoned by it.”

“You can’t say that to a member of the DAR,” Susan teased her.

Harry unfolded the new topo map. “What I can say is let’s go. We should reach the corner of the Selisse tract in an hour if we keep a steady pace.”

Susan was already tired. “Then we have to climb that hill.”

“One step at a time,” Harry encouraged. “Come on.”

“What I look forward to is a big lemonade and Mignon or Mother driving us back to my station wagon. We sure aren’t walking back.”

“Susan, you walk the golf course when you can,” Harry said.

“That’s different. Actually, I wish Farmington and Keswick and all the courses would outlaw carts. You’re supposed to walk. It’s part of the game; plus, you feel great after eighteen holes.”

“Money. Jam ’em on the links.”

“Hate it,” Susan forcefully said, then noticed a rock outcropping. “Look on the map.”

They stopped. Harry pulled the map out of her back pocket. “It’s here. There are two more back on Garth’s. This one’s pretty jagged.”

Pewter sat down. “I’m not going in there. Too dark.”

“You can see in the dark,” Tucker chirped.

“Doesn’t mean I’m sticking my head in there.”

Mrs. Murphy dashed in. “It’s teeny. Two people could wedge in. No bears.”

Pewter was having none of it.

“These rock outcroppings aren’t common down here in the Piedmont. More the farther west you go, but I think the rock outcroppings and little caves we do have were formed by the glacier,” Harry noted. “Virginia owes the glacier a big thank-you. All that soil that was pushed down and little plants and creatures that don’t live elsewhere. We are the true dividing line between a northern climate and a southern one.”

“Ned is fascinated by that, too,” said Susan. “Once he got on the environmental bandwagon he’s made it a priority to study everything unique to Virginia. He knows even more than G-Pop, who made environmental protection a priority when he held office.”

“The environment wasn’t so important politically then, so he was ahead of his time,” Harry remarked. “But these little caves and outcroppings, they were part of the Underground Railroad.”

“G-Pop knew that. He was always interested in the war and he told me when I studied history in high school that the Underground Railroad started when some of the northern states outlawed slavery, end of the eighteenth century, more in the nineteenth. Until then there wasn’t anywhere to run.” Susan found the railroad daring.

“Wouldn’t it be great to start a tour company that took you on the different paths of the Underground Railroad?” Harry shaded her eyes. They were close to the corner of the old Selisse tract.

“Would. You’d think someone would have done that.”

“Susan, here’s the thing. Well, let me back up. Reverend Jones says that the Wests, the people that built St. Luke’s, questioned slavery, and their children and their grandchildren became part of the train, so to speak. But no one knows too much about how they did it. Things like just getting food to the runaways without someone smelling you out, literally.”

Susan put her hands in her back jeans pockets. “Why would we know about it? If we did, wouldn’t it mean they got caught? Or were killed, sent to an early grave?”

“You’re right. Never thought about that.”

Leaving the cool creek bed, the sound of running water, they climbed the steep hill. The animals panted. Harry and Susan would slip, bend over, go up on all fours. Finally reaching the top, they beheld the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. To their left, the gathering of buildings could be seen, the distinctive rooftop of the château easily visible.

Sitting for a few moments under a chinquapin, everyone waited until they weren’t breathing heavily.

Back on their feet, they approached the graveyard in fifteen minutes, the Selisse tomb dominating all. The animals ran ahead, the cats leaping onto the carefully laid stone wall about two and a half feet high around the family graveyard, a neat rectangle thirty-five yards by thirty-five yards, planned with enough space for future generations if the deceased were carefully laid out.

“Tucker!” Mrs. Murphy smelled something wrong and hollered. “Bark!”

Without questioning, Tucker barked loudly, and Owen followed his sister.

Pewter jumped off the wall, running to the Selisse tomb. She let out a horrendous yowl.

Knowing their animals, Harry and Susan ran toward the graveyard.

“Oh, no!” Susan quickly opened the wrought-iron gate.

Right behind her, Harry rushed to the monument.

Governor Samuel Holloway was sprawled at the foot of the Avenging Angel, the flaming sword aloft. He lay on his side, his feet toward the monument, his body across the tomb for Jeffrey Holloway, his hand on the grave of Holloway’s second wife, Marcia West Holloway. Sam had joined his ancestors at last.