The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate Read online

  “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.

  CHAPTER 4

  VIOLA

  We may conclude . . . that any change in the numerical proportions of some of the inhabitants, independently of the change of climate itself, would most seriously affect many of the others.

  IF I’D BEEN PAYING attention, I might have noticed that Viola gave me a funny look whenever I headed out the back door to Granddaddy’s laboratory. Viola had been with us forever—since even before Harry was born—ringing her handbell at the back door to signal to those working outside to come to dinner and then banging a small brass gong at the foot of the stairs (which Mother thought more genteel inside) to signal those of us upstairs in our rooms. Mother would have liked her to use the gong outside as well, but with my brothers and me scattered from the gin to the river, we would never have heard it. And we were expected to be on time for dinner, washed and brushed, or else.

  I had never thought about where Viola came from; she had always simply been there, punching down dough, peeling apples, preparing huge roasts in winter and frying up mountains of chicken in summer. No one, not even Mother, crossed her in the duchy of her kitchen. In between meals, she could be found inspecting the hens or the hogs or the vegetable patch to see what was next on the menu, or sitting at the kitchen table with a chipped mug of coffee at her elbow, resting up before the next mammoth meal.

  She must have been somewhere in her forties. She was handsome, wiry, always wearing a wash-print dress and long apron, a clean kerchief binding her hair. She was slender but had a surprisingly powerful grip when she grabbed your arm to force your attention. She lived by herself in the old slave quarters out past Granddaddy’s laboratory, and though it had once housed a dozen or so slaves, it was the perfect size for one person. At some point a bare plank floor had been installed over the packed dirt. She had a woodstove for winter and a zinc sink with her own pump.

  Viola’s skin was no darker than mine at the end of summer, although she was careful to stay out of the sun, while I didn’t care. She was only one fourth Negro, but that made her the same as full-blooded. I guess she could have “passed” in Austin, but that was a terribly risky business. If the passer was unmasked, it could result in a beating or jail or even worse. An octoroon woman in Bastrop had passed and married a white farmer. Three years later, he discovered her birth certificate in a trunk and pitch-forked her to death. He only served ten months in the county jail.

  Viola and my mother had an easy relationship, and I never saw any high-handedness between them. I think Mother truly did appreciate the enormity of cooking three times a day for so many hungry boys and knew that our family ship would sink without her services. The swinging door between the kitchen and dining room was left open, except when we had dinner guests. Passing by, you could gauge the progress of the next meal—and Viola’s temper—by the level of pot noise.

  Sometimes the two of them sat together in the kitchen to discuss meals and go over the household accounts. Mother made sure that Viola got nice new lengths of cotton in the summer and flannel in the winter, along with her weekly wages. Mother also shared
old copies of Ladies’ Home Journal with her, and although Viola couldn’t read, she enjoyed paging through them and exclaiming over the latest outrageous fashions from Paris. For her birthday, she got a silver dollar; at Christmas, she got a gift of snuff. Viola didn’t take snuff often, but she needed a generous dip before making her magnificent lemon meringue pie, a marvel of tart lemon custard and towering egg whites that she whipped into existence with her wooden spoon in an agonizing ten-minute exercise that left her panting and exhausted. Every time I saw her taking snuff, she said to me, “Girl, it’s a filthy habit. You take it up, and I’ll have your hide.” It’s the only time she ever threatened me, and generally we got along fine, but not as well as she and Harry. Harry had always been her special boy, what with him being so handsome and charming and all.

  Her other preferred companion was Idabelle, the one Inside Cat, whose tour of duty included the kitchen, the pantry, and the laundry, and whose commission it was to keep mice out of the flour bin. Viola doted on her, which was odd since she barely tolerated the other cats—the Outside Cats—and sometimes swept them off the back porch with her broom. Idabelle was a fat, calm tabby who was good at her job, and although she had her own basket in a corner next to the stove, she sometimes wandered upstairs to sleep on your pillow and curled around your head like a purring fur hat. This was wonderful in winter but unbearable in summer. She often got chucked outdoors in summer, much to the smirking satisfaction of the Outside Cats.

  The Outside Dogs could usually be found either sprawled on the front porch or else penned up next to the barn, depending on how great a nuisance they were making of themselves on any given day. Ajax, their leader, always pleasantly exhausted with his lot, dozed his days away on the porch, occasionally stirring himself from his dreams to nibble a flea before flopping back down again with a heavy sigh of happiness. I liked to think that he dreamed of ducks and doves, waiting for hunting season, when he would spring into action and work hard for a couple of weeks like, well, a dog.