The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

Chapter 3 THE POSSUM WARS

THE POSSUM WARS had started up and were, once again, raging around the back porch. That is, as much as a war of passiveness and inaction could be said to rage. This presented me with an excellent field of study, since every night the battle always played out exactly like this: A portly, dusty possum emerged from under the house to forage for his nocturnal breakfast of kitchen scraps and whatnot. He was inevitably surprised by one of the Outside Cats that patrolled the back porch as part of her domain. The cat and the possum stared at each other with big, round eyes of mutual shock, and then the possum groaned and slumped to the ground. He lay there on his side, motionless and stiff, his grimacing mouth exhibiting tiny needle teeth. His eyes were fixed, his whiskers frozen. He presented the very picture of Possum Death.

The cat, always freshly amazed by this display, looked on in wonder. She approached the corpse with caution and tentatively sniffed the ground around him. She then folded herself up into that loaf shape peculiar to cats and regarded her vanquished foe with enormous feline satisfaction, her duty done. After a while, she got bored and wandered off to the kitchen door, hoping to cadge a handout from Viola. The corpse lay in state for another five minutes and then, without warning or ceremony, lurched to his feet and casually strolled off in search of his own meal.

This scene played night after night, all summer long. Neither I nor the adversaries ever fatigued of it. How satisfying to have a bloodless war in which each side was equally convinced of its own triumph.

Every morning, the possum returned at five o’clock sharp. He made his way back under the house and climbed up into the wall beside my bed. His scuffling woke me as dependably as any alarm clock, my five o’clock possum. I didn’t tell anyone about him because if Mother found out she would send SanJuanna’s husband, Alberto, under the house to stop up the hole and set a trap. But I didn’t begrudge the possum his home in ours. (Question for the Notebook: How is it that the possum knows the exact time?)

I asked Granddaddy about this. He said seriously, “Maybe he carries a watch in his pouch like Alice’s rabbit.”

“Oh, yes,” I said, trying not to smile and failing. I wrote this in my Notebook so that I’d remember to tell my best friend, Lula Gates.

ONE EVENING while Granddaddy fiddled with his formula for making liquor from pecans, I sat on a tall stool at his elbow and watched him work. He had hung a dozen or so kerosene lamps from the ceiling at various heights around the old slave quarters, and you had to watch your head. The lamps filled the small space with a dancing yellow light. Mother was terrified the place would go up in flames, and she made Alberto keep big buckets of damp river sand in each corner. The windows had no glass, just flaps of gunnysack strung up in a futile attempt to keep out the insects. It was a paradise for moths.

Granddaddy had been working for years on a way to distill pecans into liquor. The experiment itself didn’t interest me, but his company was never boring. We talked as he worked. I handed him things, and I sharpened his pencils, which he kept in a shaving mug.

He tended to hum cheery scraps of Vivaldi when his work was going well; when it was not going well, he hissed softly through the thicket of his mustache. I picked a moment when he was humming in a major key and said, “Granddaddy, have you always been a naturalist?”

“What was that?” he said. He held a beaker of muddy brown liquid up to the warm, wavering light and put on his spectacles to peer at the thick sediment that settled to the bottom like river sludge. “Oh. No. Not always.”

“Was your grandfather a naturalist, sir?” I said.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t say I knew him. He died when I was a young boy.” He took a sip of the murky liquid and made a face. Distill, sip, grimace. Then he would usually swear. This was his pattern.

“Damn,” he said, “that’s ghastly stuff.”

Progress had not, apparently, been made.

“How old were you when he died?” I said.

“Oh, about five or so, I reckon.” And then, anticipating my next question, he said, “He died of wounds he sustained in a battle against the Comanche in the Oklahoma Territories.”

“Well,” I said, “was he interested in science?”

“Not that I know of. He traded in beaver and buff, but I don’t believe he had anything other than a pure business interest in them. Strain this for me, won’t you? Then put it in one of those bottles and label it with today’s date. Perhaps it will improve with time. It couldn’t possibly get any worse.”

I took the beaker from him and poured the contents through a gauze sieve into one of Mother’s empty Lydia Pinkham’s bottles. Sometimes she could really go through that stuff, especially when my brothers got on her nerves (which was a lot of the time). I stoppered the bottle and marked it with a red grease pencil: JULY 1, 1899. I placed it on a shelf next to its many unsuccessful fellows.

“Then how did you come to be interested in science, sir?” I asked.

He stopped what he was doing and appeared to stare out the window, except that I knew you couldn’t see out through the burlap at night, only in.

After a long moment, he said, “It happened at twilight. Eighteen sixty-five. I remember it as if it were yesterday. Matter of fact, I remember it better than I remember yesterday. Old age is a terrible thing, Calpurnia.” He looked at me and said, “Don’t let it happen to you.”

“Nosir,” I said. “I won’t.”

“I was the commanding officer of a troop of boys dragooned from all over Texas. They were fine horsemen, every one of them raised on horseback. They thought they were going for the cavalry, but it turned out they were meant for the infantry. To spend their days marching. My God, the endless complaining when they found out! You never heard such creative profanity. They despised walking, let alone marching. But despite their protestations, a tougher bunch of boys you never saw.

“The sun was setting. It was April on the Sabine River and we had made a cold camp. Our scout was returning, and I threw my arm in the air in silent signal to him and then, the most astounding thing, something flew—thunk!—into my hand. In my shock, my hand closed around the thing tight, and I was amazed to feel warm fur against my palm. It was a young bat, quite small, lying stunned in my grasp.”

“No,” I breathed. “No.”

“Yes,” said Granddaddy. “I was almost as stunned as the poor animal.”

“What did you do?”

“The creature and I regarded each other for a few minutes. It had an intelligent eye and soft, tender fur. It looked like a miniature fox. The wing was leathery, yes, but not cool or repulsive; instead, it was as supple and fine as a kid glove warmed by a lady’s hand.”

I wondered what I would do if a bat flew into my hand. Probably shriek and drop it. Maybe even faint. I considered this. I’d never fainted in my life, but I thought it sounded like an interesting experience.

“I wrapped it up in my last remaining handkerchief and tucked it inside my shirt to keep it warm. It made no protest to any of these attentions. I took it to my tent. Before I prepared for bed, I took it from its wrapping and turned it upside down and touched its feet to a length of rope I had strung up inside my tent to dry my clothes. Although it still seemed only partly sensible to its surroundings, its feet gripped the twine in what I supposed to be a kind of primitive reflex, and it folded itself with particularity and hung there as if in nature, presenting a compact parcel surprisingly tidy and pleasing to the eye.

“I left the flap of my tent open, and at some point during that long, cold night, I awoke to the air around me quivering, if you will—I cannot describe it any better—as the bat flew around my head and then out into the night. I wished him Godspeed.”

Listening to Granddaddy, I had the strangest feeling. I didn’t know whether to cheer or cry.

“But that’s not the end of the tale,” he said. “Hand me that length of rubber tubing, won’t you? I awoke before dawn. Since we had no fire, my man brought me a basin of cold water for my morning toilet. I had dressed and prepared to leave my tent, when the air whirred around me. My friend was back, settling himself on my clothesline.”

“He came back?” I cried.

“My very own bat,” he said, “or I must assume so. One bat looks much like another to the untutored human eye. He hung there regarding me placidly enough, then went to sleep. I refer to it as he, but, of course, I had no basis in fact for this assumption. As it turns out, sexing the young bat is not a difficult proposition, but I did not know it then.”

“Did you keep him?” I said. “Did you keep him?”

“He slept in my tent as my guest all that day.” Granddaddy smiled, illuminated by the flickering yellow light of the lamps, steeped in delightful memory. Then his face changed.

“I’ll never forget that day,” he said. “The Federals fell upon us two hours after sunrise and kept after us until the sun went down. They had hauled in a couple of twelve-pounders and they hammered the hell out of us until we could not hear for the cannon noise or see for the smoke. The minié balls took a terrible toll. We were hemmed in.

“All day long, I sortied up and down the line, exhorting our boys and offering what cheer I could. I sent first one boy off, then another, to carry a message downstream to Major Duncan. I never saw either of those boys again.” He rubbed his forehead.

“With each pass along the line, I couldn’t help looking into my tent. I worried, you see, about the bat. I worried that the noise and the smoke would panic him and send him blundering into the cross fire. He was my bat by then, you see.”

I nodded. I did see.

“The powder smoke filled the air until the sun was blotted out. You couldn’t see more than five yards to either hand.

“At sunset the onslaught eased up, I suppose so the Federals could partake of some dinner. My boys stayed in their holes and ate cold biscuit. Those that had pen and paper wrote their last letters to their families and pressed them on me and begged me, if I survived, to see them delivered. Many of them clasped my hand and told me good-bye and bid me to pray for their souls and their families at home. One unlettered boy followed me back to my tent and begged me to write his letter for him. I opened the flap with great apprehension, sure that my bat had panicked and flown away.”

I held my breath and sat like a statue.

“But there he was. Fast asleep. As far as I could tell, he had not stirred from his upside-down perch all day. If the boy noted the strange small parcel hanging there, he did not remark upon it. His thoughts were far away with his family.

“I wrote his letter for him to his mother and sisters in Elgin. He told them not to cry overly long for him and to make sure they got the corn in by June. He told me there was no man left on the place, and he did not think they could manage without him. Tears came to his eyes at the thought of their situation. He had no thought of himself. I took his hand and pledged that I would do my best to see his family through all right. He embraced me and called me Cap. He thanked me and said I had relieved his mind and he could die without worry that day. Then he left me and returned to his place in the line.”

Granddaddy pulled his big white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face.

“I looked at my bat,” he said. “I pulled up my chair and studied him from inches away. He was perfect in every way. Perfect. He must have felt my presence because he opened his eyes and blinked at me. He was exceedingly calm. The noise and vibrations outside seemed not to bother him at all. He stretched his wings wide for a moment and yawned and then refolded himself and fell fast asleep again. I never wanted to leave that tent.

“But the firing started up again. I stayed there studying him until I was sent for. I didn’t want to go.”

We sat in silence. Then I said, “Did he die?”

Granddaddy looked at me.

“That boy,” I said. “The one from Elgin.”

“He didn’t die that day.” After a moment he said, “He took a ball in the knee. He lay in a field of the dead and dying, all calling out for water, for mother, for mercy. We listened to their terrible cries growing weaker until the middle of the night, when it was safe to crawl out and drag them back. Our surgeon worked all through the night while we held rushlights overhead. If a soldier was not badly wounded, he would keep. If a soldier was too badly wounded, he was put aside and given a canteen and a grain or two of morphia and any comfort he could take from the chaplain. The ones with the shattered arms and legs required urgent amputation before they bled to death, or before the dry gangrene or the wet pus set in.

“Then, as the sun came up, it was the boy from Elgin’s turn. He was pitiably weak. We lifted him onto the table. It was thick and warm with blood. I gave him the chloroform. As I put the funnel over his face, he looked right at me and smiled and said, ‘Don’t mind about me, Cap. I’m all right.’

“Then I pulled on his leg as hard as I could while the surgeon sawed and made his flap. Suddenly the leg came off in my arms, and I stood there cradling it as if it were a child. It’s a surprising thing, you know—how heavy a man’s leg is. I stood there and held it. I didn’t want to throw it on the pile with all the others. But in the end, that’s what I did.”

“You saved him,” I said. “Didn’t you?”

After a while, Granddaddy said, “He never woke up.” He stared into the corner for a long time and then said, “Two days later, we got word that the war was over. They told us to go home, to take all the provisions and equipment we could carry, but there was little enough left. A handful of cartridges, a pound or two of beans, a moldy blanket; there would be no more pension than that. I knew that I might be in desperate need of my tent. But my bat was still there. I didn’t know how I could leave him or how I could take him. Finally, I went to the surgeon’s tent and stole the Yellow Jack from his trunk. Do you know the Yellow Jack?”

“No, sir,” I whispered.

“It is the flag that signifies yellow fever—a sign to stay away. Yellow fever carried off thousands, whole regiments, maybe as many as Federal fire. I tied the jack to my tent with a leather cord. Then I slashed a hole in the roof. I knew my bat would be safe and undisturbed for a while. I could do no more than this.

“I was overcome with sadness as I bid good-bye to my bat. Yet earlier I had set fire to a mountain of arms and legs and felt nothing. I had thrown the boy from Elgin into a trench with all the others. And I felt nothing.

“It took me eighteen days to make Elgin. I gave the news to his mother and sisters in their front parlor. I told them their boy had died a hero. I didn’t tell them that his death meant nothing in the end. They told me they were honored I had come. I stayed with them for three months to get the corn in and make the place right. I sent word to your grandmother that I would be home later—I don’t think she ever forgave me for not coming to her directly. But we got the crops in, each taking a turn behind the mule, even down to the youngest.”

My grandfather looked at me in surprise. “Why, you are the same age she was.”

I thought of walking behind the mule like our field hands. They were grown men with thick forearms and huge, cracked hands; depending on the season, they were covered in gray dust or black mud. I couldn’t imagine it.

“I shouldn’t be telling you this.” He wiped his face and looked so old it scared me. “You are too young to hear it.”

I came up and leaned against him, and he put his arm around me. We stood that way for a minute. He kissed me on the forehead.

After a few minutes, he said, “Where were we? Ah, yes. Fetch me that filter, won’t you?”

I got him his filter, and we worked on with no more talk.

I THOUGHT OF THE DODDERING old war veterans who sat along the gallery in front of the cotton gin and spat their tobacco and bored everybody with the same stories they’d been telling for decades. Their grandchildren had stopped listening to them years ago. I passed them every day.

Feverish moths of various sizes batted against us before launching themselves at the lamps again and again. One of the fuzzy ones got tangled in my fringe and tickled me unbearably. I plucked it from my hair, pulled back the burlap curtain, and chucked it out into the night. It promptly and enthusiastically flew back in my face, as if gusting in on a high wind. I sighed. One thing I had learned for sure: You could not win when it came to class Insecta, order Lepidoptera.

We would have to make a study of it, my grandfather and I.