A Gift for the Children
Two days before Thanksgiving in 1930, Hank Raymond stood in the gap between the day past and the night not yet come, watching the vibrant colors of the fall sky drain from the cirrus clouds stretching out of the sunset like willowy fingers. A thin shelf of rose-colored sky defined the arc of the horizon for a moment and then faded into gray. The autumnal equinox was weeks past, but the days were stubbornly warm, extending the misery of a brutally hot August and September. A quintet of wood ducks flew south to north across the sunset and then swept east following the run of Steerpen Creek. Hank turned with them, following their flight until they keeled over hard, dropped one wing suddenly, and disappeared. "The acorns are down," Hank thought and made a mental note to hunt the squirrels and woodies along the creek.
A nearly imperceptible wisp of cooler air brushed his cheek. He raised his chin, moving his face left and right breathing in deeply, the promise of fall. The cooler air flowed past him; convection allowed it to flow down along the ridge that rises out of the bedrock near the confluence of Steerpen and Lost Camp creeks. Fissures cut by ancient waters deep into the bedrock form a natural sluice. Over time, the sluice captured flakes of gold, but a century and a half of careless farming fueled by the markets' promise of big cotton money that never trickled down to the men who produced the crop eroded the land, filling the creek with rich topsoil, covering the gold beyond discovery.
The ridge stretches for three miles westward between the runs of the creeks upstream, widening as the streams spread, eventually folding into the contours of the piedmont. The town of Scots Bend sits on the ridge, a thin shell of immigrant life built over a deep, thousand-year-old layer of what once had been a thriving native community. Over the years, the community became so reduced by death and walking over into white that the early Scottish settlers believed the natives they found were other immigrants. Hank's ancestors had been among the natives, but like most natives, his family's memory of their true past dissipated generation by generation until only a fragmented legend remained.
Dusk was a time that Hank took for himself as often as he could, a moment between the day's work and the nights with his family, a moment to think, to remember, to listen to the little living things around him. He was smoking fragrant tobacco from a clay pipe with a worn lignum vitae stem and bit, turning the exhaled smoke into rings that rose, one neatly following the other, into the deepening night air. In spots worn smooth by the generations of hands that held it, the dense wood of the stem and bit darkened to nearly black. The clay bowl was unusual, a pale buttery gray with thin streaks of darker gray fired in the kiln of some long-forgotten artisan. Two shallow grooves ran along the underside, down the stem, under the bowl, and up the reverse side. The faded outlines of two small animals etched into opposing sides of the bowl were barely visible; generations of use had worn their silhouettes beyond recognition.
Before that, the pipe had been his father's and his father's, its ownership passing from son to father to grandfather to great-grandfather over the lost generations into not memory. The pipe was the only thing Hank owned from him. In a way he could not put into words, it connected them, and as he inhaled the rich tobacco smoke, he remembered his father, healthy and living. When he exhaled, the image changed, and he saw the slowing rhythm of his father's life, his lingering sickness, his dying. Hank thought about their last conversation and his father's last words. "It goes fast, Hank. It just goes too fast."
He pulled on the pipe again, harder this time, making the tobacco glow softly. He smoked steadily, rhythmically inhaling and exhaling; his thoughts linked the last images of his father with the sounds of all the little living things around him. An entirely new idea rose, a poignant recognition of the present woven tightly with an emerging prescience that life was passing much too soon.
The sounds around him pulled him out of his reverie, the sounds of his family in the house behind him, the bell on the pasture gate, Jake, his eldest, tolling three rings, calling the cows up to milk. To the east, the Great Falls Line's plaintive whistle cried out, the locomotive pulling flat, open cars, gathering the last of the fall's cotton to feed the weave rooms in Mr. Reeder's mills upstate. Hank walked across the road that ran parallel to the rail bed.
The narrow-gauge rails from the old track still lay rusting beside the rail bed. Mr. Reeder's folly, some said when he ripped out the narrow-gauge track built by his grandfather just after the Civil War and replaced it with a standard gauge. Still, Mr. Reeder believed the change would open other regions and extend his control over cotton and farming. He believed if he controlled the agriculture, he might eventually take the farms from the naïve men filled with hope and trust but short on his schooled brand of business shrewdness.
It was a good plan to seize more wealth, but after the stock market crash the year before, too many bankers took whatever gold and silver they were holding and fled to places like Australia and New Zealand to ride out the emerging depression. Without cash to fuel the economy, Mr. Reeder's Great Falls Line was like the body of a headless snake, still thinking it was full of life, still moving, but was writhing in its death throes.
Hank bent over, touched the rail with his fingertips, and felt a slight vibration signaling the oncoming train. He fished in his pocket for coins and separated four pennies from the rest. He arranged the pennies about six inches apart along the top of the south rail. Then, looking east, backed down into the road. The new standard-gauge Baldwin locomotive struggled to pull the weight up the old narrow-gauge Shay's 4.8 grade, climbing nearly fifty feet up the eastern slope of the ridge in less than a quarter of a mile. Hank listened and watched down the rail bed.
The locomotive raised magnificently into full view. First came the plume of black smoke, then the stack, then the conductor's cab, and finally the white-hot steam clouding up around the locomotive. Groups of children ran from either side along with the train, matching its speed for a few seconds, pumping their fists, begging the conductor to sound the whistle. The conductor pulled the cord and the train called out, answering the children; the conductor pulled the cord twice more, watched them stop, dance with delight, and run again beside the cars, waving at the laborers lounging in the cotton.
The door behind Hank opened and slammed shut. He turned to see his younger children running, not so much to him, but past him to see the train the way they did almost every afternoon. The four pennies would be theirs. The train's weight would flatten the pennies into thin disks more than three times their original diameter. He would drill a hole in each and attach a leather lanyard to make a necklace for the younger children. Jake was too old to want one of the trinkets, but Jake would understand what the simple, handmade gifts meant for this Christmas.
Times were very hard. Jake heard his parents talk, and he heard talk all over town about the depression they were in, about men leaving their families to wander the country looking for work. Most stayed in touch and sent as much money as they could home. Those were the good men, who were committed to their families. Other men left, more than you would think, and their families never heard from them again.
For Hank, the hard times seemed a repeat of what drove him away from his family to Norfolk in 1917. The only difference Hank could see was that the bean counters had devised a new way to steal money from regular people and put it in the pockets of people who already had too much. Yet, at the same time, he was grudgingly thankful that so far, the bean counters schemed a way to steal money that didn't demand a war to achieve its greedy purpose. Still, it saddened him to see good men driven away from their families again.
He counted his blessings. This time, he was more secure and didn't need to leave Emma and the children to find work. To all outward appearances, Hank was prosperous. He owned a house in town across the railroad tracks from the Oil depot. When he had time, he sat in his rocker on the porch, looked across the street, and read "Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, Scots Bend, South Carolina" on the front of the neat red building that housed his business. It gave him a sense of pride and accomplishment. He loved his wife Emma, their five children, and the feeling of home. His first son Jake was sixteen. Hank looked forward to a day soon when Jake would join him in the business. He felt complete, though the past months troubled him.
He had a special appreciation for all the trappings of home. He and Emma had seen a time of hardship and separation thirteen years earlier when he needed to leave home to find work. After the government assessed the war tax, he left because there was no work at home that paid good money. Unless Hank found a way to pay the assessment, he would've lost everything, and the draft would've taken him to fight the Huns if he hadn't found work. He rambled north from town to town, chasing rumors of jobs that never materialized. Finally, the Norfolk shipyard hired him.
Thirty-two months and eleven days passed. He sat alone in the boarding house, writing a letter home to Emma. One of the rich men who built the ships asked him to come to New York to manage part of the docks there. The man told Hank he would make him wealthy. Hank said yes. He sat down to ask Emma and Jake to join him there. He began to write.
Memories of Scots Bend made him pause. He remembered the ridge and its people. He thought of Emma and Jake, and home. Nearly three years had passed since he had seen them. He closed his eyes and imagined walking along the path down to the backfields, into the dappled sunlight of the wood along Steerpen Creek. He imagined breathing the rich air that swirled, exhaled slowly, and opened his eyes. He tore his first letter in half and began to write a different one.
Six days later, Emma opened the letter. It said very simply:
My dearest Emma,
I am done here. I miss you too much. I will take the train and be home on Saturday, the 24th.
Lovingly yours,
Hank
Emma was ecstatic. She spent a week preparing the house, buying chickens, and seeds, and a hog. The garden would be late, but not too late to help carry them through the winter. Her father let her take one of his milk cows. She wanted everything to be perfect.
Hank stepped off the train and walked back into their life together as if he had never left. Ten months later, their first daughter, Elise, was born. Three more children followed as quick as they could: Leon, another daughter, Rae, and the baby, Jack. Hank worked the farm for two years after he came home but was never content. The steel and the noise of the harbor had driven the quiet rural rhythm of the farm out of him, so he went to work for Tom Grant, who owned the Standard Oil distributorship for Scots Bend.
Tom died when he broke his neck falling from the top of his oil truck; his widow put the dealership up for sale. Hank sent word to her that when she was ready, he would like to speak with her. When she called for him, he offered his condolences, made her a fair price, took the money he saved in Norfolk, and bought the business.
He struggled at first, working long hours, delivering fuel during the day, and doing the books at night. After the first year of struggle, he brought Herman Wood into the business. Herman was his best friend and his brother-in-law. He was born in Old Sneedsboro, eleven miles to the northeast, the last community served by the steamboats coming up the Great Pee Dee from Georgetown on the coast. In 1901, when Herman was three, a family from Wales stepped off the steamer and brought a lethal strain of influenza with them. In two days, the family was dead, and over the next two weeks, Old Sneedsboro died out. Herman and his mother survived; his two brothers and his father did not.
The survivors moved to Scots Bend after spending two weeks burying the dead and releasing livestock. Eleven years later, Herman lost his mother during a typhoid outbreak and nearly died from it himself, but he survived. He lived a month with Hank and his family to regain his strength, and when he did, they located an uncle in Charleston that took Herman in.
Herman wrote letters occasionally, mainly to Hank's younger sister. He told of the hard work on the docks and the rugged people who lived there. As soon as he came of age, he left Charleston and moved back to Scots Bend. Although it wasn't obvious, death and the harsh life on and around docks made him cynical and acerbic. Hank recognized the change but marrying Hank's younger sister seemed to soothe him little by little, and for a while, he almost became his old self again.
Then, five years of marriage without a child had begun to harden him again. Though he tried to hide it, he was jealous of Hank and his children and increasingly bitter that children wouldn’t come for him. The fever of the typhoid nearly killed him. He lost every hair on his body. The doctors said it would never come back, but it did. The doctor also said he would never be able to father a child. The ten days of intense fever had made him as sterile as a gelding, still suitable for work, still healthy and strong, but unable to be a father.
In appearance, Herman was taller than Hank, but Hank's bearing, character, and the way he carried himself made him seem taller. Herman's bearing shrunk him. His movements were quick, and his hands always needed to be busy, not with productive work, but with any nervous action. He never looked closely at anything. His eyes moved quickly over everything, never taking enough time to see deeply inside anything. He was content with whatever impression he could get quickly.
Hank was the outside man, good with people, handling deliveries, and gaining new customers. His bright, outgoing personality made him perfect for that side of the business. Herman was the inside man. While he was generally cordial to the people they dealt with, the brief encounters with their customers were a challenge that Hank had to explain away. More and more, as the years passed, Hank had to soothe customers that Herman offended. Still, they had always been a good team.
Over the past year, the harder Hank worked, the tighter things seemed in the business. Fifteen times over the last eight months, when he went in for his pay, Herman told him there was no money. Hank remembered the times when he and Emma had grown the business to the point where he could bring Herman in. He knew his profit margin. It had always been enough, and he wondered how things had changed so much, but he trusted Herman. After all, he was family, as Emma reminded him every time he talked about Herman to her.
Going without pay drained what Hank saved during better years. He was broke, and that was not where he wanted or expected to be with Christmas coming. He kept it from Emma, not to be deceitful – it wasn't his way – but he wanted to save her unnecessary worry. He expected things to be right again soon, but week by week, they were not.
"It just costs us more than it used to," Herman would say and turn back to his books to end their conversation. For Herman, the problem was simple; it was Hank's fault. He was not hard enough on the customers.
He always fussed, "Business is hard, Hank, and you have to be just as hard to get ahead. I know I'm wasting my breath because somebody taught you a way to treat people that doesn't work in a business. You must see those people using both of us, keeping money out of our pockets and in theirs.
Hank replied, "I guess we just won't get there if being hard and becoming the meanest man out there is what it takes to get ahead."
Then they would both shake their heads and go on about their work. Hank collected money, but it just wasn't his way to be hard with customers. He understood hard times, and he never refused to service a customer even if they couldn't or didn't pay that week.
He regularly delivered to the commissary on the Rayfield farm. Jim Rayfield was his largest customer. Even though he was one of the wealthiest men in Scots Bend, he always seemed to be short with his money. He always asked for more time. "Hank, I'm a little short today. If you can run me again in a couple of days, I'll have it then."
Hank knew Jim was riding his goodwill, but he was his friend, maybe his best friend, and he knew Jim was eventually good for the money.
"I don't mind leaving you the fuel, Jim," Hank always said, "Everyone’s gotta have it. Just catch me up next week."
Herman bitterly complained when Hank turned in an IOU for the Rayfield commissary. "Jim Rayfield's got more money than any man in Scots Bend, for God's sake. He buys every piece of land that comes up for sale or takes it when some poor dirt farmer gets too far behind in that commissary of his. We ought to be riding him for a change."
"If he can live with it, I reckon I can," Hank replied. "I ain't ever been one to owe; I'd rather someone owe me. Money ain't nothing anyway but a way to measure what everybody already knows."
"What the hell does that mean?" Herman screamed. "Damn, you're a simple-minded idiot! Why'd I ever get into this with you?"
Emma tried to ease Hank's frustration. She said the men were a perfect match. "If Herman had to run the business by himself, somebody would be mad enough to shoot him in two days," she said. "And if it were left up to you, everybody would be asking, and you'd be giving until we're broke and out of business." Then she would smile, put her hand on his arm, peck him on the cheek, and say, "But don't ever change." She loved him and wouldn't have him any other way.
For the children, like all children, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas stretched into an eternity. For Hank, it was a blur of work and worry. Their accounts always paid slowly around the holidays, even in the best of times. He expected it and had always been cooperative, willing to wait. This year was more challenging than any he could remember; the conflict with Herman grew each time Hank came in from the route, and another customer had asked for more time. Jim Rayfield was two weeks behind.
On Christmas Eve morning, Hank delivered to the Rayfield commissary. Jim was gone; his brother, Charles, was inside. He told Hank that Jim was at the Perry farm collecting seed money. Hank unloaded the fuel and waited for Jim to return. He looked around the commissary, picking up one thing and then another, thinking about presents.
That very morning, he and Emma talked over breakfast about their Christmas. Hank knew what she expected. He kept a running number in his head as he looked. He shouldered a lovely, twelve-gauge, LC Smith double barrel that matched his and thought it might be time Jake had one of his own. What the business owed him would more than cover buying for the children with enough left over for something special for Emma. An hour later, Jim had not returned. Hank wrote a note, asking him to hold several items. He left, dreading Herman's fussing. He knew what was coming.
Hank looked forward to Christmas. He loved everything about it and resented any trouble that interfered. However, the inevitable confrontation with Herman was a cloud over the rest of the day. He made the remaining deliveries, trying to wall off the future trouble with the laughter his children would make the following day when they looked for their gifts under the tree. Customers sent small items and baked goods to his family. He thought about going back out to the Rayfield commissary, but it was late. It was already past 5:30 and getting dark when he pulled into the depot and entered the office.
Herman was sitting close to the pot-bellied stove. It was warm; the stove was not lit. For a second, Hank wondered why Herman was trifling with the stove, but the bad news he was carrying distracted him. Hank handed the worn black leather pouch to Herman and plowed in with his explanation. "Before you even open it, let me tell you that only one account paid today. The rest wanted us to carry them until after Christmas."
Herman opened the pouch, took out the tickets and a few coins, tossed them all on the table, and looked sideways at Hank.
"Hank, you're a fool. You have a moral streak in you that stands between you and money, and that's fine if you're that big a fool, but it stands between my money and me too. Money doesn't have any morals, not one speck, and people with money have that figured out. You never will. People like you don't deserve money. Go on, get over to your perfect family," Herman said with a sneer.
Hank was shocked. "You're not the one out there. You haven't ever had to look a man in the eye when he asked you for something. You've always been the one asking. I gave you this job when you needed it, and you're just plain out ungrateful. You forget! Real people, friends of ours, people we go to church with, give us our money!"
"People?" Something deep inside Herman that masked his greed and bitterness broke. It was evident in Herman's eyes. "Yeah, there's people! People that want to take, and I had to get stuck with the one man that ain't got enough sense to grab what's in front of him!"
Hank was shocked. He felt betrayed; a bridge of trust broke. His anger swelled. He stilled himself and quietly said, "Give me my pay. We'll settle this after Christmas."
"Pay!" Herman shouted. "Don't you get it? There ain't any money for you or for me either, you fool. Why don't you go back out and beg for it from those other fools out there you love so much? Ask them for your pay!" He viciously spun the dial on the safe and threw it open. "Look, it's empty! You left it out here, so there ain't anything to pay with, and there ain't gonna be any Christmas at your house."
A wall Hank never knew existed rose between them, and through the wall, he saw Herman's face changed, kindled to a fire of hate. Hank looked calmly at the stranger who was once his best friend. He no longer recognized him. He turned and walked out. The door locked behind him.
Light streamed from the windows of his house across the street, illuminating a section of the front porch. His chair sat empty, rocking slightly in the breeze. He imagined Emma cooking and the children excitedly preparing for Christmas. Jake would be out back doing the feeding. The dread of having failed Emma and his children, of going home empty-handed on Christmas Eve, of seeing the disappointment in his family's faces was more than Hank could bear. It paralyzed him in a dark cloud of uncertainty mixed with anger and frustration.
He was confused. It was Christmas Eve. What could he do? He gazed into the stars, took a deep breath, and shaking his head, released it. He walked to his truck, opened the front door, reached across, and took out his shotgun. From a box on the seat, he picked up five shells. Breeching the gun, he loaded two rounds, put three in his pocket, and walked back to the office door.
Hank looked in the window. The stove was open. Herman sat with his back to the door, counting a thick stack of currency. He thumbed through the bills, lifting them to his nose as if the money was a cluster of fragrant gardenia blooms. Separate stacks of gold and silver coins lay on the table. Herman pushed them over, mixing them with both hands, picking them up, letting them jingle to the table, and picking them up again.
Hank stood in shocked silence. He watched his best friend, brother-in-law, and partner greedily playing with money they both earned, money he'd kept from Hank, money he'd taken from Emma and the children. Nothing else entered his thoughts. His single idea was Herman's betrayal. Hank's rage rose and crested. A malevolent stillness took him.
He unlocked the door. Herman turned. His eyes widened with surprise and fear when he saw Hank holding the gun. He lifted the gun to his shoulder, looking down the barrel. He did not say a word. He leaned forward slightly, bringing the muzzle close to the bridge of Herman's nose. His body trembled. He closed his eyes and exhaled raggedly.
The scene played out, in his mind Herman was dead already. His anger was complete and calming. Herman's eyes opened. They swelled with tears and shone with the terror of death. He was no longer human. He was an animal waiting for slaughter. Hank's finger tightened on the first trigger. He held the gun steady.
Time shuddered to a stop, the seconds paused. Fate waited, the moment would weave into the tales and legends of Scots Bend and the identity of their families forever. Their wives and children would carry it. People talk.
The story would grow until it became both less and more than what really happened. The truth of it would change until it suited the person telling the story. Little would be true about a moment when one man waited to die, and the other man waited to kill. Nothing else would matter except that it happened. Time stood still.
Across the road, the bell on the pasture gate tolled twice. Jake was calling the cows up for the night's milking. Hank heard it. The seconds moved forward again. Jake's bell tolled three more notes. Hank breathed deeply, blinked, shook his head, and emerged from his rage-filled trance. He leaned back, lowered the gun, and said. "Take whatever part of this money is yours and leave! If I ever lay eyes on you again, I swear before God, you will die."
Hank turned and walked into the fresh night air. The sky was clear, and the stars were bright. He looked down at his hands and the gun, shaking his head. He opened the breech and removed the two shells that would've killed Herman. He turned to his house and watched Jake walk up the steps to the front porch. Jake turned around, saw his father, and waved.
Hank threw up his hand, and called across, "Tell your Mama, I'll be there in five minutes."
He placed the gun across the seat of his truck. Someone pulled into the yard behind him. Jim Rayfield opened his truck door and stepped to the ground. He walked to the back of his truck, leaned over the tailgate, and hoisted a large box.
He smiled and said, "Got your note. I had to come to town anyway, so I just brought your things. Merry Christmas!" Hank looked at the items in the box, then to the door of his office. He paused and then faced Jim. "Jim, I can't pay. We're having some issues," pointing back over his shoulder to the office.
Jim shook his head and said, "No, Hank, this is yours. Pay whenever you can. I owe you this much and more. We'll settle after Christmas. I couldn't sleep knowing your kids didn't get what they wanted. Emma too." Jim winked at him and climbed into his truck, leaned out the window, and said, "Merry Christmas!" He tapped the horn twice and drove off into the night towards the farm.
On Christmas morning, Hank rose early and brought the fire up to break the chill. He lit several lamps and thought the tree was beautiful in that light. Emma came in, and he kissed her softly. Hank reached into his pocket, pulled out a silver chain with five tiny pearls, and hung it around Emma's neck. She smiled and held his face in her hands, looking deeply into his eyes, and kissed him.
"Every woman should have pearls," he said.
Five boxes sat under the tree, one for each of the children. The usual things were there. Pieces of fruit and hard candy lay among an assortment of pecans, walnuts, and almonds. A unique gift lay beside each box: a top and some firecrackers for Jack, two matching dolls for Elise and Rae, and a baseball with a bat for Leon.
For Jake, his father's LC Smith shotgun lay polished and oiled. Five shells mixed with the fruit and candy in his box.
Jake looked to his father, who smiled as he watched the children. "Daddy, this is your gun."
"It's yours now, son," Hank said quietly.
In the late afternoon, Hank and Jake walked along the path, across the backfields, into the dappled sunlight of the wood along Steerpen Creek. The shell that would have killed Herman Wood shattered an old pop bottle. The ones that Hank would have used to fight the men who came to arrest him killed four gray squirrels that Emma fried and served for supper that night with scrambled eggs, grits with gravy, and biscuits with chunks of sweet butter and Cane Patch Syrup. It was Christmas, after all.
As the years passed, Hank often remembered the Christmas Eve of 1930. He wondered what kept him from pulling the trigger, wondered why he did not kill Herman. Was it Jake's bell tolling the cows up to milk? Was it his conscience, or was it more? None of the questions or the answers mattered. In the end, the only thing that mattered was choosing not to kill Herman was simply a gift for the children.