Take Me Home, Country Roads

Roseanna, Levicy and I paced in that kitchen for hours, before Roseanna collapsed onto the bench in exhaustion. Levicy asked me to sing, to do anything keep their hopes up, their mind focused. I had never seen her so worried, or Roseanna so scared, and the reality of the situation began to sink in.

Johnse was actually in danger and the only ones who could save him were riding hard north with their rifles and their hatchets, ready to kill in order to protect their kin. There was a lump in my throat and I thought I might be sick, but I swallowed any fear and focused on the two women.

Levicy kept looking over at me, as if she was searching for the answer to their problems in my face. As if I somehow knew what was going to happen to her son.

I wish I did. In that moment, I wished beyond everything that I knew what their fates were, what exactly happened to Johnse and Cap Hatfield, that I had listened a little bit harder to Crazy Aunt Flo when she was telling me their history. Did they die at some midnight shootout at an old drip still in the woods? Did they die in some later battle with the McCoys or did they live to ripe old age?

I swallowed hard and tried to look calm. Inside, however, I was praying, hoping, wishing that they would come back to us. Panic was rising within me – I should know their futures…what did Levicy say? That I was going to save her son? Who did she mean?

Suddenly, I feared that I had been supposed to go after them, that somehow I was suppose to save Johnse on this night. My throat tightened and I held back a cry of panic.

“Emma, where you goin’?” Levicy asked, her voice betraying little of the fear I knew she felt for her sons, as I jumped away from the table and made for the door.

“I need to go find them,” I croaked in response. The sun was just rising, and despite not having slept for two straight nights, the adrenaline coursing through my veins made me feel like I could run all the way to Kentucky if I needed too. But before I could get to the door, we heard the neighing and snorting of horses in the front yard.

I peered out the window and nearly collapsed in relief.

“Oh thank the Lord,” Levicy said, as Devil Anse, Jim, Cap and Johnse dismounted and tied their horses off before heading toward the house.

My legs felt like jelly and I moved back to the table, sliding down next to Roseanna and trying to steady my breathing. Roseanna’s grip on the table remained tight and her body tense. I glanced at her; she still looked like she had aged about ten years over the course of the night.

The front door flung open and I tried to muster a smile, but it quickly disappeared, as Jim and Anse entered, followed by a shouting and fighting pair of brothers.

“Ain’t none of your business!” Johnse said angrily to Cap. The eldest Hatfield child was a mess – covered in dirt and leaves, with a deep cut on his face, dried blood marking his cheek. “Hey, get off me!” He shoved Cap away, as his younger brother tried to force him to sit down at the table.

Levicy, Roseanna and I looked at them all in confusion, too shocked and relieved to say much of anything.

Johnse was backed into a corner as Cap confronted him. “You’re a damn fool for riding into McCoy territory!”

Johnse shoved Cap again, but they were so matched in size that Cap barely buckled back. Jim had leaned himself against the dining hutch while Anse was casually taking off his coat, as if his sons weren’t about to beat each other in his kitchen.

“None of that matters now,” the eldest said angrily, before taking a deep breath. He looked over at us, at Roseanna. “Roseanna’s carryin’ my baby.”

I nearly snapped my neck, I turned to look at her so quickly. Roseanna cheeks flushed red and she looked down at the table. Damn, girl. Behind her, Levicy was pouring tea and as Johnse’s announcement was made, her hand shook minutely, but she didn’t spill a drop.

It all began to click together in my head…that was the reason Roseanna had left. And Levicy knew it.

The men all had similar reactions to me – looks of utter disbelief. Cap stared at Johnse, almost pitifully, as if his brother was a dead man walking. Jim Vance looked between his nephew and Roseanna, and I half expected him to make some rude remark. But it was Anse who looked the scariest. Usually his demeanor was calm, but I saw the fury in his eyes. He walked to his son.

“And I’m gonna marry her,” Johnse said, staring his father straight on. Anse held his pipe loosely between his teeth, looking at his son with anger and disappointment. He whipped his pipe out, standing inches from his son.

“Roseanna’s what?”

It was the first time I had heard Anse say her name. Usually it was ‘Miss McCoy’ or ‘the McCoy girl’. Johnse had to look away and didn’t respond. The tension in the room increased tenfold and I tried to put a supportive hand on Roseanna shoulder when I realized my own hand was shaking.

“Did you know about this?” Anse asked accusingly, turning to look at Levicy. When his wife didn’t respond, he turned and took a deep breath.

“Johnse,” Jim Vance said, leaning against the hutch and appealing to his nephew, “She’s a McCoy! She betrayed her own family, she’s gonna betray us too!”

Betray seemed like a harsh word to me – Roseanna hadn’t done anything except prevent her brothers from murdering Johnse. For that, I thought, they should have welcomed her back with open arms. It didn’t seem to be going that way, though.

“That ain’t true,” Johnse replied. “You know what, I ain’t takin’ this!” He looked between Jim, Anse and Cap, who formed a semi-circle around him, a challenging look in his eye. Anse put his pipe back into his mouth.

“Oh, you’ll take it.”

With a backhanded swing he hit Johnse across the face, sending his eldest son flying back against the wall. I let out a gasp as Levicy flinched in shock. Roseanna jumped to her feet.

“Stop it!” she cried, the first time I had ever heard her speak out against Anse. He ignored her.

“You’ll take it and like it,” he said, his voice eerily calm, as he hit Johnse again.

“Stop!” Roseanna cried again, as Johnse fell to the floor and Anse tried to get a kick in.

“That’s enough!” Levicy yelled, moving to grab ahold of her husband.

“Cap, help him,” I pleaded; watching as Jim and Levicy pulled at Anse and Johnse began to swing back at his father. Cap looked at me briefly before diving in and putting himself between his brother and Pa.

“You don’t touch that boy no more Anderson Hatfield,” Levicy said furiously, shoving her husband back towards the middle of the room. My heart was beating out of my chest. This day had shown me the Devil Anse Hatfield that I had been warned about…and he was terrifying.

I considered myself lucky that his rage was not directed at me, but I was filled with sympathy for Roseanna, who didn’t deserve any of it either. When Anse turned to look at her, his eyes were dead and cold. “You’ll never marry a McCoy,” he said to Johnse, as he pointed to the quivering blonde standing beside me. Johnse, like the rest of us, looked at his father with fear in his eyes, standing up on shaky legs.

With a breath, he moved his eyes to Roseanna and took two steps toward her. Anse, standing at the window, said, “You leave this house to go after her, you don’t come back.” Johnse stalled in his walk to Roseanna, looking back over his shoulder in disbelief. Anse met his stare. “Now you make your choice and you make it now. Stay or go.”

For a moment, it felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. My mouth hung open in disbelief. Not just that Anse would make such a demand of his son, but that no one would challenge him on it. Levicy was just going to let this happen? For her part, she looked terrified. Jim Vance, the bastard, looked intrigued, entertained almost. And Cap…Cap stared at his boots, head down. It infuriated me.

“You can’t do that,” I spoke without thinking. “You can’t make him choose - ”

“Be quiet, Miss Anderson,” Devil Anse snapped, not even bothering to look at me. “Or you’ll be out, too.” I closed my mouth with one sharp look from Levicy. Cap didn’t even raise his head.

Johnse looked between his father and Roseanna, breathing heavily, blonde hair falling over his eyes. For a minute, when he gaze first fell on her, I thought for sure he would do the right thing. I knew he loved her. He could get away from the Hatfield-McCoy nonsense, marry the woman he loved and start a family with her. I could almost see the idea playing in his mind. But the moment passed, and Johnse’s eyes glistened. He looked away from Roseanna, down to the table, blinking rapidly. I could feel her spirit fail beside me – in one swift movement, she had turned and ran out the backdoor.

Instinctively, I made a move to go after her, but before I even realized he had moved, Cap was beside me, holding my wrist and keeping me in place. I looked at him, searching his face for any sign that he believed what had just happened was wrong. There was nothing there but the same stern, emotionless look that his father wore.

Johnse let out a sniff behind me and anger threatened to bubble over. I whipped my hand away from Cap and gave a bold glare at Johnse and his father.

“If you’ll excuse me,” I bit out, before heading upstairs, needing to get away as quickly as possible. What had just happened sickened me and I honestly had know idea how I was what I was supposed to do. Did I let her ride away? Did I let Johnse get away with being such a coward, Anse with being such a dick?

I collapsed onto the bed next to Nancy, who was just waking up, and tried to swallow the tears that were threatening.

“Emma?” Nancy yawned. “What’s wrong?”

“Go ask your father,” I muttered, pulling the blanket over my head so she couldn’t see the salty tears roll down my cheeks. I missed my mom and dad. I missed my friends and the comforts of the 21st century. I missed my old life. And I wanted to go home.

No one bothered me for the rest of the day or the day after. The children poked their heads in every once in a while, and Nancy brought me up some food at meal times, but other than that I saw no one. I couldn’t explain why the events of that early morning had affected me so much, but I believe it had something to do with the idea that this was all real. I had forced myself to believe that this was all just a fun dream; the requisite amount of drama, but nothing that as directly affecting me. But this whole thing with Roseanna…would that happen to me? Would I be chucked out the first time I really crossed Anse? Would Cap defy his father over me?

Between my light meals and crying and commiserating over my state, I managed to finally get some sleep and when I felt like getting out of bed, it was two days since Roseanna had left. Or since she was kicked out, rather.

As much as I dreaded facing any of the Hatfields, I knew I couldn’t lay there forever. If I wanted to have any sort of decent life here, I needed to show my face and even respect to Devil Anse, no matter how much I hated him in that moment. I was angry more than sad. Angry at my situation, angry at Roseanna for being so silly, at Johnse for being a foolish coward, at Levicy for kicking the poor girl out the first time and at Anse for forcing his son to ruin that girl’s life. And I was mad at Cap for not being the man I had wanted him to be, hoped he would be. I was mad at myself for putting that sort of expectation on him.
But, no matter how upset with them I was, I had to get out of the house. Orion was my one safe bet – the one living thing on the Hatfield farm that I could be myself around – and it was for him I headed that afternoon.

I ignored Levicy completed as I walked outside; I was still completely unsure of what I was going to say when we finally spoke. But that was a problem for another time.

It was hot, much hotter than I expected for late September, and I suddenly felt the most intense desire to dive straight into the lake and wash the past few days off of my skin. Heading down to the barn, I heard Cap and Johnse arguing about something, but made a point to ignore them as I went in and tacked Orion. Unfortunately, ignoring them is easier when they aren’t blocking the barn door entrance when you are trying to leave.

For some reason, the two brothers had moved their argument into the barn, and my jaw locked in annoyance.

“It ain’t none of your goddamn business Cap,” Johnse was yelling, neither taking much notice of me.

“It is when you bring back your foolishness back to our house and our family. Your ruinin’ the Hatfield name with your philanderin’ and I ain’t gonna stand by and let it happen.”

“Yeah, well, speakin’ of philanderin’,” Johnse shot back, before looking up at me. “How you doin’ Emma? Sleep well? I suspect Cap here has you mighty worn out these nights.”

If I had been close enough, I would have hit him. Johnse had stepped beyond the teasing banter we were usually enjoyed and was now trying to hurt not just Cap, but me as well, for no reason other than to make himself feel better. As it was, I was clear on the other side of the barn, so it was Cap who got to give his brother a bloody nose instead.

Johnse yelped in pain and I felt a small twinge of satisfaction that Cap was defending my honor, but my annoyance with him resurged after a moment. “She ain’t no thievin’, lyin’, damn McCoy, last I checked. And she ain’t carryin’ no bastard baby, neither.”

Johnse threw a much-deserved punch back at Cap, catching his younger brother on the chin. Cap swung again, but Johnse was expecting it and tackled him back to the ground.

“Hey!” I yelled, heading toward them, Orion loping obediently along behind me, seemingly entertained by the strange humans rolling around on the floor. My anger was getting the better of me for a brief moment, but the last thing I wanted to see was more fighting, using their fists over stupid squabbles when what they should have been doing was figuring out how to get Roseanna back or at least how to make her life easier. Despite my protests, the boys ignored me, continuing to tussle on the ground. By the time I reached them Cap had a bloody lip and Johnse’s shirt was torn near the neck. I grabbed Cap’s arm and yanked him away from his brother. “Stop it, Cap!”

The two stumbled apart thanks to my intervention, their chests heaving with the exertion of trying to kill each other.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked, glaring at them both. Johnse looked up at me, clearly exhausted from the past 72 hours hours, dark circles under his eyes. Between finding out he was going to be a father, getting kidnapped and almost killed, and then watching his girlfriend get banished by his father, he wasn’t having the best week. But that didn’t mean he was going to get my sympathy.

Cap walked away a few steps, hands on his waist. He was frustrated, I could tell just from the tenseness of his shoulders, but I wasn’t letting either of them off that easily. “You two are fucking ridiculous!”

“It ain’t your concern, Emma,” He replied, looking up at me intensely, clearly not happy with my language and meddling. “Just go back inside.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Cap,” I spat back, my hands balling into fists. “And don’t tell me it isn’t my concern because if I remember correctly, Roseanna was my friend too. I can’t believe you let your father treat her like that!” This was spoken to both of them; Johnse had the decency to look down at his feet in guilty. Cap, to my surprise and disappointment, didn’t look fazed by my anger.

“I’m…I’m sorry, Emma…” Johnse mumbled, his voice cracking a bit. “It’s just…it’s complicated.” I rolled my eyes.

“None of this is complicated. You got Roseanna pregnant and then you let your father treat her like a piece of garbage. You should be ashamed of yourself, Johnse,” I bit out, not caring how much at hurt him at that moment. The look on Roseanna’s face when he refused to stand up for her was burned into my brain. “You’re nothing but a coward.”

Johnse didn’t protest the accusation. Cap, despite have just been fighting with his brother moments earlier, turned his anger to me in Johnse’s defense. “You don’t get it, Ems,” he said, moving back toward me with a purpose. “You ain’t from here, you ain’t a part of this family, you wouldn’t understand. Johnse couldn’t be with that girl. Pa was only doin’ what was right.”

I stared at him in disbelief. My anger dissipated quickly and was replaced with a sharp pain in my chest. I wasn’t a part of the family? That statement hurt more than I expected; everyone had always assumed that I was a Hatfield, and maybe I had (especially after the night I had spent with him in the barn) started to believe it myself.

But, he was right. I was still an outsider. How long was it going to take for me to realize that my values and my beliefs had little to no bearing here? How long would I last before I gave in and acted the dutiful housewife they all expected me to be? I didn’t know the answer to that, but I knew that it wasn’t today.

Cap’s words reverberated through my mind and that initial pain was replaced with fury.

“What was right?” I repeated in disbelief. “You’re unbelievable, Cap.” I shook my head at him, wondering how I hadn’t seen this earlier. “You’re just a coward too.”

“What?” he asked, shock taking over his features.

“You heard me. You’re a coward. You both are. You’ll never stand up to your father for what is right. And you know what Anse did this morning wasn’t right. He preaches to high Heaven about what is decent and honorable but there was nothing decent and honorable about how he treated Roseanna. She was the only honorable and brave one in this entire situation. Remind me in the future never to trust the honor the Hatfields, since it seems it isn’t worth much.”

Cap’s face turned red. Johnse gaped at me.

“Emma, our Pa he…he took you in,” Johnse said, looking scared, as if Anse had supersonic hearing and knew everything I had said. “Now, I know he’s can be hard to deal with sometimes but he ain’t no coward and I don’t think you should be question his honor none.”

“Shove off, Johnse,” I snapped, sick and tired of being told what to do and how to act and how to feel. “I’ll wait for your dad to prove it to me, but until then, he’s just an asshole with chip on his shoulder who needs to boss around his kids and a poor teenage girl to feel like a man.”

Without another look at the two of them, I mounted Orion and took off. My horse seemed to sense my desire to get away, as he carried me up into the hills faster than I should have been comfortable with. But I was filled with an incredible sense of adrenaline; I was never one not to speak my mind, but what I had said to Johnse and Cap…I knew it would have some serious repercussions. In that moment, though, I didn’t care. I let the wind whip my hair around my face, felt Orion move fluidly beneath me, and managed to make it to the meadow before I realized that I was crying.

I didn’t bother tying Orion off, but rather let him wander in the tall, yellowing grass. With autumn approaching, the once deep green sea of grass had now become a field of gold. I made my way to the middle of the meadow and collapsed to the ground, tears streaking my face. I had lost Roseanna, but I might be able to visit her and do what I could to help. But now I had gone and just completely alieanated myself from the only other two friends I had. I could be a real idiot sometimes.

Staring at the sky, I could imagine I was back home, laying on the quad at UNC or at Battery Park or at the beach…anywhere but the hills of West Virginia in the 1880s. But the silence around me prevented me from truly believing it or forgetting that I had someone fallen through the time-space continuum. There were no co-eds playing Frisbee, no sounds from the traffic, no jet skis and sail boats. This was real and Roseanna was really gone. Anse Hatfield had really kicked her out for doing nothing wrong, except fall in love with a boy she shouldn’t have, a foolish, ungrateful boy she then risked everything to save. As much as I told myself that that was a part of the period, I still hated it. I wondered if that really happened to Roseanna McCoy, or if, somehow, my being here had caused it.

The aching in my chest returned; it was an ache of guilt, fear, disappointment, and anxiety. I wish I knew what was happening, that I had some assurance that I was here for good, or that this was all just a very vivid dream. But nothing was certain, and that was nerve-wracking. How much did my being here affect? How much could I change? Would I know when and how I was suppose to help? And had I ruined everything by the fight with Cap and Johnse?

I wasn’t left alone with my thoughts for long – the thunderous sounds of hooves on the soft ground sounded through the air, and I sat up, looking over the tall grass to see Cap riding toward me full force. I stood as he reached me, leaping down from Star with ease and striding toward me. Had it not been for the furious look on his face, I would have found him incredibly attractive at that moment.

“You apologize,” he ordered, as he reached me, jaw tense and blue eye dark with anger. “You take back what you said about my Pa.”

His anger quickly rubbed off on me, and my damn stubbornness forced me to deny him. “I won’t.”

“He ain’t been nothing but good to you,” he bit out. “Takin’ you in and treatin’ you right.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that he won’t do the right thing because he’s too afraid of McCoy.”

“My Pa ain’t afeared a nothin’, let alone some damn McCoy. You just don’t unders-”

“And stop saying I don’t understand!” I shouted, completely fed up. “I’m so sick of it! Yes, I get it, I’m a Yankee and I’m not from here and I don’t know how things are done. But sometimes there are no gray areas; sometimes things are just right and wrong and what your father did was wrong.”

“Johnse was an idiot when he brought her home,” Cap offered his brother up in place of his father. “You can’t trust a McCoy!”

“And what about a Yank?” I shot back. “What if I was pregnant, Cap? Did you think at all about that last night?” He blanched and struggled to find an answer. I watched him closely. “What would you do if your father wanted to kick me out? Would you stand by and let it happen?”

“We’re different,” he finally bit out. It wasn’t the answer I had hoped for. I suddenly felt like the biggest idiot in the world: I had known how much he revered his father; the thought that he might choose me over him was silly and naïve. The idea that he might care about me was clearly misplaced. “You wouldn’t betray our family like she would.”

“Betray your family?” I asked in disbelief. “Betray them how? This whole fucking feud is because of your father and McCoy not being able to just get over themselves for the good of their families. Anse betrayed Johnse when he made him choose between his family and the woman he loves. Anse betrayed his son as soon as he started beating him!”

The anger returned to him. “You don’t talk about my father. You shut your mouth about him.” He took another step toward me, so that we were just inches apart. He didn’t scare me, but he should have – his face was tense was fury, his body quivered as he held himself back, and his tall frame towered over me. I wasn’t afraid of him, though.

“Or what, Cap?” I asked, challenging him, though the smartest thing to do would have been to apologize. But, the stubborn part of me wanted to continue to test him. “Are you going to hit me? Because that seems to be the only thing you Hatfields and McCoys know how to do once you’re faced with some tough situation.”

His shoulders sagged slightly, some of the tension released, and he took a step back. “I’d never hurt you,” he bit out, and I believed him. But it didn’t mean that I was happy with him right now. “I’d never lay a finger on you Emma and you know that. But you don’t understand our family because you ain’t one of us. It’s about respect. It’s about honor.”

There it was again, the point that I wasn’t one of them, that I didn’t understand honor. “I’m not sure I want to be one of you if that’s what you consider honorable,” I replied, my throat tightening. “I don’t know where the honor is in kicking a scared 19 year old girl out onto the street. Though it certainly isn’t the most dishonorable thing he’s done.”

I purposefully let the words hang in the air, knowing I was baiting him and I prayed he didn’t take the bite. But Cap wasn’t one to let the challenge to his father and family name slide. His brows furrowed as he looked at me, his voice lowering.

“What you sayin’, Emma?”

I had gone too far to stop now. I remembered at least one thing from the story Flo told me, about why the Hatfield and McCoy feud started way back before Cap was even born.

I took a deep breath, wishing that I wasn’t the one to tell him. But Cap deserved to know.

“You want to know the real reason why Randall McCoy hates your dad so much, Cap?” I asked, with resignation. “Why he thinks your father is a liar and a coward? It’s because your father deserted the Army all those years ago and has been pretending that he’s this good loyal, southern boy all this time. He’s a deserter, Cap. And that honor he talks about so highly…well, it seems to only be important when it’s convenient for him.”

I waited a moment and watched Cap, who’s look hadn’t changed the entire time I’d been speaking, though his nose flared with each tense breath he took. After a moment, he wretched his gaze away from me and turned and walked back toward his horse.

“Cap,” I started after him, starting to regret what I had done. “I didn’t…I shouldn’t have said - ” But he kept walking, not turning back to look at me or even acknowledge that I was speaking to him. He didn’t stop and his long legs took him farther and farther from me as I jogged to keep up. “I wasn’t done talking to you,” I said, grabbing his arm as he reached Star.

He jerked violently away from my touch, not meeting my gaze. I blinked in surprise at the force with which he shook me off.

“Cap, I’m sorry,” I said sincerely. “I’m not going to apologize for what I said earlier but…I shouldn’t have said that just now. It wasn’t my place.”

“It’s a damn lie,” he replied steadily, but his voice was tinged with disgust – for me or his father, I couldn’t be sure. He mounted and for a moment I thought that he would ride off without another word. I almost expected it – Cap kept his emotions in check, swallowed them and never said what he was thinking. He restrained himself in everything he did. But then he turned to me and I shrank back at his look.

“You might live with us,” he said tightly, his voice low. “But you ain’t never gonna be member of this family.”

He kicked off and galloped away. I watched his form disappear into the woods, nausea taking over me. Just 24 hours ago, he had looked at me with love and devotion. Now, he looked at me as if I were the most disgusting human on earth. I sank to ground, tears rolling down my cheeks and hands shaking. I had let my anger get the better of me, and I had, perhaps, lost all of my friends in one day.