Requiem by fire : a novel

Charles Frazier called Cataloochee, Wayne Caldwell's acclaimed debut, "a brilliant portrait of a community and a way of life long gone, a lost America." Now, in Requiem by Fire , Caldwell returns to the same fertile Appalachian ground that provided the setting for his first novel, recalling a singular time in American history when the greater good may not have been best for everyone.

    In the late 1920s, Cataloochee, North Carolina, a settlement tucked deep in the Great Smoky Mountains, is home to nearly eleven hundred souls--many of them prosperous farmers whose ancestors broke the first furrows a century earlier. Now attorney Oliver Babcock, Jr., has been given the difficult task of presenting the locals with two options: sell their land to the federal government for the creation of a national park or remain behind at their own financial peril. 

    While some of the area's inhabitants seem ready to embrace a new and modern life, others, deeply embedded in their rural ways, are resistant. Silas Wright's cantankerous unwillingness to sell or to follow the new rules leads to some knotty and often amusing predicaments. Jim Hawkins, hired by the Parks commission, has relocated his reluctant wife, Nell, and their children to Cataloochee, but Nell's unhappiness forces Jim to make a dire choice between his roots and his family. And a sinister force is at work in the form of the deranged Willie McPeters, who threatens those who have decided to stay put.

    Requiem by Fire is a moving, timeless tale of survival and change. With humor and pathos, this magnificent novel transports readers to another time and place--and celebrates Southern storytelling at its finest.
 
 

Chapter One A Sign of the Times Silas Wright, dreaming. He told his compatriots, "Hardest part'll be digging up the nerve to do it." They shook hands in the dark as if to seal an infernal bargain, then bent to their work, feeling instead of seeing, pushing tinder under the little building. Silas heard the muffled click of kitchen matches in his overalls bib and the slosh of whiskey in his hip pocket. He was not unsteady-he could hold his liquor-but a twinge of either remorse or nausea struck the instant he bent his head to poke under the edge of the building. Straightening his back, he looked at the sky. In flatlands he would have seen a fingernail moon about to set, but Cataloochee was ringed with high mountains that always hid such a rind of light. Thin clouds obscured all but first-magnitude stars and Saturn hung high in the western sky. Brothers Hiram and John Carter, his neighbors, worked on the other side, boots scraping the ground. Silas was glad no dogs barked. It would be a bitch to explain if they were caught. None of the men had burned a school before, but they figured if they used wooden matches and no coal oil, people would not be suspicious. This time of year the teacher banked the fire in the potbellied stove against the night chill, so there would be ample coals to start a blaze should some errant bear knock over the heater, which Silas meant to do before they lit the circumference. Fire laid, they met at the front door. Silas, a head taller than Hiram and John, and an angular man, was rarely seen without his briar pipe. He plucked it from his bib pocket and looked at his friends. "You boys ready?" They nodded as one, but suddenly Hiram's balding head turned, owl- like, as he whispered, "What was that?" Three intakes of breath preceded perfect silence. Hiram exhaled. "Thought I heard something." "Don't spook a man like that," said Silas. "I ain't ready to see Jesus just yet." They listened for a half minute. "Okay, boys, let's get to it," he said, and opened the door to the smell of warm cast iron and generations of chalk dust. A dull red glow outlined the seams in the stove. Donning a pair of gloves fetched from his back pocket, he breathed deeply and muttered, "Well, son, here we go." A good shove broke the stovepipe away from the heater. Downdraft made fire leap immediately from the nipple. He pitched the stove the rest of the way over, scattering burning coals on the puncheon floor. Outside, on their knees, John and Hiram fanned tinder. Within a minute they had a decent fire. They were maybe twenty yards from the school's bell, which was elevated on a post on the other side of the recess field, and Silas meant to ring it when the fire was advanced enough to ensure no possibility of saving the building. As Silas lit his pipe, a sudden wind swept the valley, rushing, like word from crazed mountaintop prophets or perhaps a gale from the mouth of God Almighty, who had seen their crime and made fair to blow them all to kingdom come. The fire devoured the schoolhouse like a living beast, leaping from yellow to orange, roaring in a noticeable rhythm, content to feed upon itself long past the existence of the puny structure it consumed. Silas had not figured a small building to sound so sinister in its dying. Where did them damn Carters get off to? He had to think fast. Ride home and pretend he'd been asleep? Ring the bell like they had planned? Get the hell out for a few days? He started running toward the bell, but the post seemed to get no closer. His chest felt like he had run uphill two miles. Gasping, he stopped and grabbed for his pipe. Gone. Fallen out somewhere, damn it all, perfect evidence he had burned a schoolhouse. Cursing and wheeling toward the fire, he began to run. He again made no progress, but . . . A bony hand grabbed his shoulder. Carl, his niece Ethel's husband, yelle Excerpted from Requiem by Fire: A Novel by Wayne Caldwell All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.