Chapter Text
Election Day 1873:
“William Anderson Hatfield! You get back here!” The yell came from a young woman holding a baby. The boy she had directed her call at was standing right in front of me. He was blonde and tall and turned confusedly to her.
“But I was just...” He trailed off as the woman took a-hold a’ his hand. My brother Jim rounded the corner of the wagon just as the woman walk off, boy in tow, and laid his hand on my shoulder. Jim was my oldest brother, he was twenty-two and notin' scared him.
“What was that about, Alice?” Jim said in a tone I couldn’t quite place but wadn’t fond of.
“I dunno,” I responded, looking ‘or my shoulder to find the blonde boy standing with another boy who looked like his older brother and a smaller boy with towheaded curls.
“I do,” said Tolbert, another one of my older brothers, pulling hisself up to set on the side of the wagon. He was nineteen, big and strong, with an ornery disposition, not that I knew what that meant, mine being only nine and such, but it's what Ma always said.
“Oh, do you now?” Jim asked irritably.
“Yep,” Tolbert inclined his head in the direction of the younger boys. “Don’t say you don’t recognize that little blondie.”
“I’ll be damned,” Jim said after a pause, taking his hand off my shoulder and placed it on his forehead. “That Devil Anse’s sons, ain’t they?”
Tolbert nodded and jumped off the wagon. He turned to me all serious like.
“What that lil' shit want?” He demanded a' me.
“Notin’,” I answered, well and fully confused. “Just, he wanted to play. He says that his big brother was too high and mighty now to play with him and his little brother was too small.”
“William Anderson Hatfield the second asked my lil' sister to play with ‘im?” The thought seemed to both amuse and enrage Tolbert.
“Alice,” Jim turned to me, shooting an irritated glance at Tolbert. “We’ve told you a million times, don’t talk to Hatfields, aight?”
“Ok, Jim. But why?” My little nine year old brain couldn’t wrap isself around the idea.
“Cause Hatfields ain’t nothin’ but stupid, murderin’ sonsabitches,” Tolbert informed me before staking off to go find Floyd and Sam.
Later that night, after supper, Calvin and I were settin' on the porch and I asked him what a ‘sonsabitches’ was. He stared at me at first then burst into laughter.
“Calvin, come on,” I punched his arm but it only made him laugh harder. He finally stopped laughing long enough to tell me that a sonofabitch was a mean, bad person and that I shouldn’t repeat what Tolbert said because it would most like git me in trouble.
Calvin was my favorite brother. He was only two years older then me, making him eleven, which, in turn, made him an all-knowing genus. He had the same dark brown hair that I has. His eyes ‘re blue like mine too, the same light blue that made people stare at us. He said that because we were the only of our siblings who had blue eyes, we could tell each other everything but we had to promise not to tell the other's secrets to anyone else.
“Not even other blue-eyed people?” I had asked his once, with a quilt pulled over our heads, the light from the moon coming in through the window above my bed.
“Nope, not even them,” He had answered with a grin.
Calvin and I, as inseparable as them come, sat on the porch almost every night after supper. Most of the other children would do the same. Josephine, Jim and Floyd didn’t live with us anymore on accounts they had all gotten married and move out. Lilburn also didn’t live in the cabin anymore because he had died when he was only two months old. He had been born before me so I ne'r knew him. So that left twelve of us children living in the house. Tolbert, Sam, Alifair, Roseanna, Calvin, Pharmer, Bud, Bill, Trinny, Adelaide, two-month-old Franny and me.
That night, of the fourteen who lived in the house (including Ma and Pappie) only Calvin and I were on the porch. There was a lantern glowing over the doorway and, by its light, I could see the scar on Calvin’s forehead, right above his right eye, shinnin’ as I looked up at his face. I reached up and ran my small fingers over it. He flinched away.
“Oh, sorry. Does it still hurt?” I asked. Calvin looked down at his boots and shook his head. He mumbled something about it being late and stood up, causing my head, which had been resting on his lap, to fall and hit the boards.
“Sorry Alice,” he said as he offered me his hand. Ignoring it, I stood and brushed my dress off. I tried to be annoyed with him but I couldn’t. The memory of that scar was still too fresh. So I instead I took his hand and let him lead me inside the cabin.
He walked me to my room and said goodnight before to going into the room he now shared with Pharmer, Bud and Bill. I still hadn’t gotten used to the new sleepin' arrangement and sometimes got confused about it, even though it had been like this for or' a year. I shared this new room with Roseanna, my sister a' fourteen and Alifair, my sister a' fifteen.
When I entered my room, I found Roseanna already there. Alifair was nowhere to be found, someum for which I was thankful. I still hadn’t forgiv'n her.
“Hey there, baby girl,” Roseanna looked up smilin’. She had her blonde hair in a twist and looked purty as ever.
“Hi, Roseanna. Can I ask you something?” I walked or' to her bed and sat down next to her.
“Sure thang. What’s’a matter?” She smoothed down my hair as she spoke.
“Why do we hate the Hatfields?” I blurted out.
“Oh, well I suppose that’s on a count a it was Hatfields what killed Uncle Harman.”
“But that was a long time ago,” I mumbled. In truth, it had been thirteen years earlier but that seemed like a long time to me.
“I know, Hun,” Roseanna said. “But it’s just the way things are. It’s one of the always-truths of these mountains.” She grinned at me. “Do you remember what the always-truths are?”
I strained to remember.
“There’s witches in the woods, Painter Cats in the mountains and Hatfields and McCoys will always hate each other.”
Roseanna clapped her hands together and laughed.
“Very good Alice,” She hugged me tight.
That night I dreamed about when Pappie had belted Calvin. It was in the middle of the night and the oil in the lamp above the door was almost all out, only everyone was up, ‘xactly as it was the first time. Calvin was lyin’ in the dirt in front of the house and Pappie was looming over him, raising the whip ‘bove his head, only this time it weren’t Pappie. It was a man I just barely recognized as Devil Anse Hatfield and he was grinnin’. Only, I knew that Devil Anse hadn’t been the one who beat Calvin half to the grave, it had been Pappie. So when I woke that next morning, I was mad. At Pappie and at Alifair and I wouldn’t acknowledge either one.
Ever since I was born, Calvin had been my favorite. I hung on him all day. Following him ‘round and such. And, ever since I was old enough to not have to sleep with Ma, Calvin and I would share a bed. We were really little and that was ok. But when I was eight and Calvin was ten, Pappie told Calvin that he couldn’t sleep in the girl’s room anymore. Calvin fought him on it but lost when Ma said she agreed. He relented and that Christmas, he gave me a doll. He said that the doll would replace him at night. I told him that it was just a doll and couldn’t do that but he insisted.
Near on a year went by without any problems. But then, one night four months ago, I had this terrible nightmare. I woke in a cold sweat. I should have woken up Roseanna or Alifair, as they shared the room with me but I didn’t want either of them. I know that only Calvin could make me feel safe so I stole into the room he shared with Pharmer and Bud. When I woke him, he said that he couldn’t but I insisted and he finally agreed. We crept back into my room and he climbed into my bed. I crawled in after him and curled up next to his chest. Even through his nightclothes, I could smell his skin and it made me calm. He wrapped his arm around me and I fell asleep, the nightmare all but forgotten.
That night, it had turned out, Pappie had been out late. He had been drinking and came home very drunk. Around the same time he got home, Alifair had to go to the bathroom. She got up to go the outhouse and was passin' my bed when she must have heard Calvin sigh in his sleep or a cloud passed beyond the moon and lit the room. Either way, she shrieked. I bolded upright as did Calvin and Roseanna. Doors where slammin’ and feet were runnin’ elsewhere in the house. Then the door flew open and there stood Ma and everyone but Pa, who was asleep still.
“Oh, it’s only Calvin,” Roseanna said. The others looked irritated for being woke up but mumbled their agreement with her. Ma even didn’t seem to care. Only Alifair did. She went downstairs and woke Pappie. Ma was telling everyone to go back to bed when Pappie stormed into my room. He was mad and drunk, two things that made ma Pappie terrifying. He grabbed Calvin by the front of his shirt, pulled him out of bed and dragged 'im down the stairs, all the while shouting at him about disobeying his father. He kicked the door open and with one hand literally threw Calvin out and onto the ground and with t’other, he grabbed a horsewhip that hung by the door. Pappie stomped to where Calvin was standing up and yanked him by the hair, tossing him to the ground again. He brought the whip up ‘or his head and down onto my brother over and over, each crack louder then the last. Ma and I and my other siblings were crowded on the porch. Ma was yelling at Pappie to stop. Pappie was shouting at Calvin and Calvin was crying. Then suddenly, he weren’t no more.
Pa had brought the whip down hard across his forehead, blood was gushing from a cut and Calvin lay still. Ma screamed and ran forward. She wrestled the whip from Pappie’s hand and smacked 'is face. Pappie slumped back into the house; leaving Calvin bleeding on the ground, Ma standing there, whip in hand and the rest of us staring in silence. It had been Tolbert of all people who when to Calvin, me on his heels.
Obviously, Calvin survived. Pappie had never belted anyone other before then nor anyone since. The beating had strained Ma and Pappie’s relationship and made Calvin even quieter then before. But he was still my favorite brother and would always be my favorite brother.