by Liz Newall

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Strange how fate turns on things you can’t touch. Things you can’t cup in your palms and taste or wrap your arms around. Like the sudden blast of a train whistle. An exploding white-hot bolt of lightning. A chance meeting. A virus.

These thoughts were about as philosophical as Clarence Dean’s eighteen years afforded him. As he considered those intangibles that seem to ignite fate, good or bad, he paid special attention to the last one. And to be honest, he couldn’t believe his luck, if a virus could be lucky. Not that he wished illness on anyone. Far from it. He planned to become a doctor.

It was September 1902, and Clarence was about to begin his second year at Clemson College. After Clemson he would go to Tulane University School of Medicine in Louisiana. Once he earned a medical degree, he’d return to his home in upstate South Carolina to set up a practice. Specifically, to Dean’s Station in Anderson County.

But at the moment he was more concerned about the upcoming end-of-summer party and what he hoped would be his first official date with the lovely Miss Jennie Stevenson. Each September a few days before school started back, the little town of Starr, two miles down the road where his mother grew up, held a celebration. The young folks from the surrounding area who’d spent hot days in gardens, fields, sawmills and the like, looked forward to the party all summer long.

The soiree, as his mother called it, was sponsored by the ladies of the Eastern Star and held at the Masonic Lodge. In the trees around the lodge, they’d drape small paper lanterns and streamers thick as Spanish moss in Charleston’s live oaks. Of course, there was no Spanish moss in upstate South Carolina. But the ladies said the streamers added a Lowcountry flair.

This year’s party fell on Saturday, two days before Clarence would return to Clemson. If he played his cards right, not that he played cards very well. In fact, he’d never even shuffled a deck until his freshman year at Clemson College, but that was beside the point. If he managed to be clever and charming, he thought, just maybe Jennie Stevenson would want to be his date for the party.

Jennie was the prettiest girl in all of Anderson County, at least in his opinion, with golden auburn hair the likes of which he’d never seen. And eyes as green as spring grass. Green eyes were almost unheard of in Dean’s Station, where the bulk of citizens were his kinfolk. As his mother, Josephine, often pointed out, most everybody in the Dean clan looked the same — light hair, blue-gray eyes, pale skin. That pretty much described Clarence except his skin was slightly tanned in the summer.

He’d first seen Jennie in late spring when he’d visited a Clemson classmate, who happened to live next door to her in Bleckley, another small community in Anderson County about three miles north of Dean’s Station. Her coppery curls had caught his attention. When they’d met, she’d been sitting on her front-porch swing reading. Although he’d shown his best manners, she’d seemed unimpressed, or shy, scarcely looking up from her book with her grass-green eyes. But he was undeterred.

He was fairly certain that he could capture her attention if he had the shiny new buggy he’d been dreaming of, the type that advertisements described as the “Young Gentleman Style.” His summer goals became a new horse and buggy and a date with Jennie Stevenson.

While he was home from college on summer break, Clarence helped his father, Claude, in the Dean’s Station gristmill. It was hard labor but he liked sweating side-by-side with his father because it made him feel like a grown man.

Claude seemed to enjoy working with his son, too, who’d passed him in height the previous year. Rather than being paid in wages, they earned a share of the profits because the gristmill was a Dean family business like most other businesses in Dean’s Station.

Such was the setting — father and son, covered in flour or cornmeal, loading bags, and rolling barrels — when Clarence broached the subject of buying a new buggy.

“We’re in a new century now, Pa,” he began. “Have you thought about getting a new buggy, you know, mostly for yourself?”

“What’s wrong with the carriage?” Claude responded.

“Nothing ’cept it’s old and bulky.” Clarence knew he was reaching but continued, “Don’t you want something speedy to drive? Like if you need a fast trip to Anderson for business?”

Clarence was surprised when his father actually seemed to consider his words. Truth be told, Claude hadn’t owned a fast, classy buggy since the early years of his marriage more than two decades ago — a sleek little buggy pulled by a handsome bay stallion with black stockings. Unfortunately his horse had turned out to be too spirited for the harness and had wrecked his sporty buggy, nearly killing his wife and first-born daughter. After that, he’d bought heavier, no-frills carriages and middle-aged mules to pull them.

Claude didn’t like to think about that first buggy. In fact, he and his wife seldom talked about the accident although she’d quickly developed the annoying habit of holding onto the bench every time she climbed into the carriage as though her life depended on it. Still, at the age of forty-five, he’d begun to wonder if there wasn’t more to life than a dependable old carriage pulled by mules. So he listened to his son.

Then the virus came into play. More specifically, the grippe, what most folks called influenza.

During the previous winter and early spring, the grippe had spread throughout the northern part of the county. By late spring, it’d crept south into Dean’s Station. Clarence’s mother had been among the first to fall ill. As soon as she was barely back on her feet, her invalid Aunt Elizabeth, whom she cared for, had caught it. So between her own illness and her aunt’s, Josephine had little time for much else like keeping up with what her husband and children were doing. In fact, she probably didn’t even know that Claude was considering a fancy new buggy at all. If she had, she surely would have brought the notion to a halt.

Not that Clarence felt good about his mother’s or his great-aunt’s illness, but it did present an opportunity to sway his father into thinking like a younger man before his mother could intervene. So he did.

Claude and Clarence began scanning the newspaper and checking with livery stables. Soon, they put in their order with the Rock Hill Carriage Company. By mid-summer, the new buggy arrived. And it did not disappoint — a shiny black, four-wheel, two-seater with soft leather bench and convertible cover. It sported bronze filigree around the box and step-ups, and bronze rims on the wheels. Ornate loops on each side held lanterns for driving at night.

“It smells of oiled canvas and fresh varnished wood,” Clarence said as he lovingly ran his hands all around the buggy.

“And money,” Claude added. But if it was a dream come true for son, it was also a bit of returned youth for father.

Of course, they quickly agreed that their current draft mules were, quite frankly, unsuitable. The father-son team next set about looking for a fine horse to go with their fine new buggy. Clarence took it upon himself to lead the search. And he soon found the perfect pulling horse, at least in his opinion. Claude was less certain.

It was a standardbred colt, not yet three, black as coal and standing at about 14 hands. A trotter with boastful lines and already trained for the harness. His shoulders were set back in his chest allowing for an impressive reach with his front legs, as the horse breeder pointed out.

“Two years old is a mite young,” Claude noted. “And he’ll need to be cut.”

“No!” Clarence shot back. “That’ll break his spirit.”

“Better than breaking your back,” his father said. “Or someone else’s.” But he had to admit, the horse was handsome and seemed to have a good disposition.

Clarence sensed that his father was softening. “We can name him Ace.”

“Ace?” Claude asked.

“You know, like the Ace of Spades.”

“So you’re playing cards now?”

“Just a little at school to relax after a hard day,” Clarence offered.

“Long as you’re not gambling,” his father said.

Clarence shook his head, which was misleading he knew. But it wasn’t a complete lie like an out-loud “No” would’ve been.

He quickly pledged his summer earnings toward the purchase. “I bet,” he caught himself, “I mean I think we could make our money back on stud fees.”

When Claude didn’t object, Clarence promised, “I’ll work with him every day.” And so he did.

The Dean men kept Ace in their pasture and barn next to the depot to get him used to shrill whistles, random blasts of steam, and metal-on-metal grinding brakes. On the first weekend, Clarence hitched up Ace, drove three miles north to Bleckley, and just happened to end up on the street where Jennie Stevenson lived. As he rode by, he saw her sitting on the front porch with book in hand. After several passes, she looked up. Clarence stopped, reintroduced himself, tied up Ace, and bounded up the steps.

After several more weekend visits, he met her mother and learned that Jennie’s father had died of a heart attack some years back, that her stepfather had died recently from a stroke, and that her uncle was a doctor. She seemed impressed when Clarence told her he was studying to become a doctor, too.

She said she had one more year of school and then would go to college in Charleston to become a nurse. A future nurse and a future doctor. Fate for sure, he thought. He asked her right then and there if she’d accompany him to the end-of-summer party. She said yes, if her mother and uncle agreed. And so, Clarence’s visits continued.

He enjoyed the rides to and from Jennie’s house almost as much as visiting her. He often heard the call of a mourning dove or the sound of a train whistle in the distance. Once he saw a red-tailed hawk drop like a thunderbolt into a field, then quickly ascend with a writhing snake, probably one less copperhead. He took it as a good omen. He passed a pond that reminded him of his father’s favorite fishing hole in the backwaters of Mountain Creek. He recalled a few times as a boy when he and his father admired the silvery green arc of a jumping largemouth bass. He could still hear its sudden splash as scale and fin fell back into the dark water.

The red clay roads took him past large and small farms, dark tenant houses and light cotton fields. Picking would begin soon, he knew. His father would turn his attention from the gristmill to the cotton gin, and another year would cycle through while Clarence was back at Clemson.

At times he was torn between staying home to help his father and going to college to become a doctor. Not that his family was struggling. He’d never had to pick cotton like entire families who lived on tenant farms. His family worked hard and suffered losses like everybody else, but they weren’t poor and hadn’t been as far back as he knew.

His parents had always been clear to him and his siblings that “for unto whomever is given, of him shall much be required.” It was from the Book of Luke although he wasn’t sure of the chapter and verse. His older sister was finishing her studies at Williamston College to become a teacher. He would be a doctor. He wasn’t sure about his younger sister and brother, but he knew they’d do something worthy of the Dean name.

He’d grown up hearing stories about how the Deans had crossed the ocean from somewhere in England although no one seemed to know exactly when or where. They’d settled in Maryland and Pennsylvania where some had fought in the French and Indian War. And some in the Revolutionary War. At least one branch had eventually migrated to South Carolina, and their descendants fought in the Civil War. Clarence was glad there wasn’t a current war, but as a military cadet and a Dean, he knew he’d fight if necessary.

Such were his thoughts as Ace trotted along the clay road leaving a red cloud. And so his summer progressed. As for his mother, Josephine was too tired to interfere with his plans. The first time she saw him drive up in the shiny black buggy pulled by the equally shiny black, high-stepping stead, she simply said, “You look like the undertaker come-a-callin’.”

As for his father, Claude drove the buggy a few times into Anderson and seemed to enjoy it. Soon, however, Clarence noticed his father was slowing down at the gristmill. And coughing. At first, Clarence thought it was from the grain particles in the air. But when the cough persisted at home, he was convinced that his father was coming down with the grippe too. 

He was also fairly certain that if his father had fallen ill first, there’d have been no new buggy. He again pondered those small things that determine fate. But as long as no one died, he thought, fate was working in his favor. His parents would recover, he told himself. They were both healthy and strong. But he was less certain about his Great Aunt Elizabeth, a kind, generous lady who’d raised his mother after her mother had died from typhoid fever.  Elizabeth was eighty and already in ill health. He knew that if she developed pneumonia, which was common after the grippe, she wouldn’t survive. It was a lot to think about if he let himself. But he didn’t want to. Not just yet. He had a few more days of summer left.

On the morning of the party, Clarence washed and brushed Ace and polished his hooves with mineral oil. He’d put off having him shod because shoes weren’t essential on the fairly smooth roads. Summer had been drier than usual, and the roads hadn’t pitted yet like they would from harvest and market traffic in the fall. After winter rains, road crews would come in and add sand to the clay to stabilize it. By late spring, they might have to add more sand, depending on rainfall, but throughout the summer, the roads held up. 

By September, however, they were mighty dusty. So Clarence used a soft cloth to rid the buggy of red dust until it was spotless. He put oil in the lanterns. Then he cleaned himself up and dressed in his best church clothes. He was tempted to wear his cadet uniform, but because the party wasn’t a military function, it was against regulations. He tried to follow rules when he could.

He arrived at Jennie’s house by late afternoon. Her mother let him in. Jennie floated down the stairs in an emerald-green dress with a tiny waist and flowing skirt. She’d pinned up her hair exposing her beautiful neck. A few curls had broken free around her temples and the back of her neck. He sucked in and exhaled louder than he meant to. Her mother looked at him and smiled.

Clarence held out his arm and escorted Jennie across the front porch, down the front steps, and to the patiently waiting Ace. He helped her into the buggy, careful with her skirt. Then he hurried around, untied Ace, stepped up, and slid in beside her. Thus began the adventure of his young life.

The couple rode the three miles from Bleckley to Dean’s Station with polite conversation. As they arrived, a train was just pulling into the depot. Ace was unaffected. Clarence stopped at his house, helped Jennie down, again careful with her billowy skirt, and they joined his family on the front porch as planned. His father appeared to be charmed although he looked pale. But he wasn’t coughing. Clarence took it as a good sign. His mother was gracious, to his relief, and complimented Jennie on her beautiful gown. His younger sister was clearly enthralled with Jennie’s hair. And his younger brother was unusually polite, probably because someone had put the fear in God in him.

Just at dusk, the young couple returned to the buggy. “Be careful with that horse,” Josephine warned. “You never know what might set him off.”

She glanced at Claude who stared straight ahead and said rather wistfully, “Enjoy your youth while you can.”

Clarence raised the buggy cover, and they departed for the two-mile ride south to Starr and the Masonic Lodge. He anticipated a perfect twilight ride with a beautiful young lady in a classy buggy pulled by a fine horse.

Then, just as Ace broke into a trot, fate struck again. This time on the silent wings of a great horned owl. Any other time, Clarence would have taken the rare sight as a good omen. But on this occasion, the huge mottled-gray owl with its broad, fringed wings was in hot pursuit of a hapless field mouse. Clarence spotted the mouse first, a tiny thing darting across the road in between Ace’s high-stepping front hooves. In an instant, the pursuing owl collided with Ace’s head, wrapped its wings around his eyes, and dug its talons into his nostrils.

Ace reared up, then shook his head side to side and up and down. Still the owl held on. Ace began twisting and bucking as violently as any wild bronco, fighting the harness as though the owl and buggy were one. A burst of dust shot up like a tornado. Clarence fell backward off the bench and into the cover. Yet he held onto the reins, pulling hard to regain control. Ace reared again nearly falling backward onto the buggy. Pieces of harness broke free and disappeared into the red cloud as the horse lunged forward and resumed bucking. The front axle snapped. The front wheels fell off. The buggy dipped hard catapulting Clarence from back to front and Jennie toward the terrified horse. Clarence grabbed her by her skirt. Fabric ripped and Ace’s hoof caught her dead center in the forehead, sending her flying back into the cover.

When the horse finally broke free from both buggy and owl, he spun around and galloped off in the direction of Dean’s Station. Somehow both passengers were still conscious and inside the wrecked buggy, but Jennie’s forehead gushed blood. Several Dean cousins who’d witnessed the whole commotion quickly rescued the wounded couple and returned them to Dean’s Station.

Josephine opened the front door to frantic knocking and came face to face with a bare-chested Clarence who was trying to staunch Jennie’s head wound with his shirt, while Jennie held tight to what remained of her dress. Josephine stifled a scream, steeled herself and quickly brought them inside. Claude, who had gone to bed early, hurried out in his bedclothes. The younger children huddled in the hall until their mother ordered them back to bed.

The Dean cousins rushed in behind the bloodied couple and competed to explain what they’d just witnessed. Josephine wrapped Jennie in a sheet and ran the cousins out. Then she began cleaning the girl’s forehead with soap and water while Claude checked his son for broken bones. 

Such was the scene that greeted Jennie’s mother and uncle. How they’d gotten word so fast was anyone’s guess. Probably the Dean cousins. Her folks must have galloped all the way from Bleckley to Dean’s Station in record time. When they rushed in the open door, Jennie ran into her mother’s arm. Her mother tried to smooth her tangled hair, now caked with dirt and blood.

Her uncle set his doctor’s bag on the dinner table, pried mother and daughter apart, lifted Jennie, and laid her onto the table. He surveyed the wound. Next he opened his bag, took out rubbing alcohol, a small wad of cloth, a needle, and surgical thread. Then to everyone’s horror except his own, the doctor set about sterilizing the wound and stitching closed the gash on Jennie’s forehead.

She turned whiter than the sheet wrapped around her, but she didn’t cry out. Nor did her mother. Clarence thought they must be in shock. He sat at the table next to her. Acid rose in his throat. He fought the urge to throw up. He’d known being a doctor would involve blood and torn skin and lots worse, but he’d never considered how hard it would be to treat your own family or people you loved.

When the uncle was finished, he returned his tools to his bag, snapped it shut, and looked Clarence straight in the face. “If that horse hadda been shod, it woulda killed her.” He handed his bag to Jennie’s mother, lifted the wounded girl in his arms, and swept back out the still-open front door.

Clarence wanted to follow, to say how sorry he was, to ask if he could see Jennie again. But he could not stand, could not talk. And so he remained seated at the table. Claude began coughing and returned to bed. Josephine sat with her son a while longer. Then she stood, hugged him as hard as she dare, and left him alone in his newfound purgatory.

Clarence finally gathered himself enough to wash off and fall into bed. But he slept little. He kept running the ruined night through his head trying to understand what he could have done differently, how he could have been so foolish as to think fate somehow favored him.

Just before dawn, he reconsidered the parting words of Jennie’s uncle. Maybe some tiny speck of good luck had clung to him after all. He’d put off having Ace shod till fall. He held onto that thought until he fell asleep.

The following day was Sunday. Normally his family would go to church. Usually, they walked to the nearby Presbyterian church where most of the members were Deans. Occasionally, Claude would hitch the mules to the carriage and drive the family south to the Starr Baptist Church where Josephine had gone as a child.

On this Sunday, Josephine sent the two younger children to the nearby church, but stayed home to look after her aunt, who seemed to be losing ground. Claude said didn’t feel up to going either.

At midmorning, Clarence forced himself out of bed. His ribs hurt and so did his muscles and joints, but he knew he had to get moving — first to look for Ace and second to collect what was left of the buggy.

Just as he’d hoped, he found his horse patiently waiting at the pasture fence. His shiny black coat was a rusty brown with dust. Clarence led him into the barn, relieved to see that the horse wasn’t limping and that he had only a few scrapes other than the cuts and punctures around the nostrils. He brushed away the dust and painted Ace’s wounds with purple medicine that they kept for the mules. Then he watered and fed his beautiful trotter.  

As Clarence hitched up the mules to the heavy farm wagon, Claude appeared in the barn hallway.

“How’s the horse?” he asked, startling his son.

“Seems alright,” Clarence said. Some cuts around his nose and scrapes on his legs, but nothing too bad. “I was just about to get the buggy. Or what’s left of it.”

Claude nodded. “I’ll ride with you.

“But how you feeling, Pa?”

“Fair to middlin’,” Claude said. “I s’pose this grippe will let go eventually. How ’bout you?”

“Some bruises,” Clarence said. “Guess I’m fair to middlin’ too.” His words sounded odd inside his head. In his eighteen years, he’d never thought of himself in any way other than strong and healthy and eager. He was on unfamiliar ground.

Both men struggled to get up into the wagon, but neither complained. They rode in silence the short distance to the scene of the accident. But Claude wasn’t prepared for what he saw.

“Good God A’mighty!” he uttered at the sight.

The front axle lay broken, and the front wheels rested several yards away. The buggy’s box bowed on the ground as though it had surrendered. The shafts were splintered and the harness in pieces. The back axle had held but both back wheels leaned at odd angles. The stretch of road where the owl had struck the horse looked like it had been plowed for winter wheat.

Father and son eased down from the wagon and began slowly picking up pieces of leather and wood.

Claude gathered several long, fringed feathers. “Yep,” he said. “A big ole owl.”

Clarence stared at the feathers as though they were alive.

The clean-up process was slow and discouraging. Finally, the men struggled to lift the box onto the back of the wagon.

As they drove home, Claude spoke first. “Don’t think it can be salvaged.”

Clarence nodded and asked, “What about Ace? You know it wasn’t his fault, right?”

“I know,” his father said. “Don’t guess we’ll sell him unless we need the money. But his days as a pull horse are done. Anyhow, you bought him. I s’pose you can still ride him.”

It was mid-afternoon by the time they unloaded the bits and pieces of the wrecked buggy. Claude went back to bed. Clarence wanted to, but he needed to pack his bags for his return to college the next day.

On Monday, Clarence rose early. The train wouldn’t leave for Clemson until late afternoon, but he went ahead and laid out his cadet uniform. Then he walked to the barn, took care of Ace, and hitched the mules to the bulky carriage.

When he returned to the house, he went to his room and dressed in his uniform. Claude was still in bed and Josephine was putting out breakfast.

“Save me some biscuits and bacon for when I get back,” he said to his mother.

Without asking where he was going, she hugged him and said, “Don’t expect too much.”

He pulled himself into the carriage and pointed the mules toward Bleckley. He’d hoped to find Jennie on her front porch swing, but it was empty. He slowly climbed the steps feeling every sore muscle and joint. He knocked on the door and waited. Jennie’s mother let him in, but her face was expressionless. Jennie sat in the front hall reading. She looked up. Her eyelids puffed halfway over her green eyes. Yellow and blue bruising colored her cheeks. Her copper curls were pinned straight back, probably to keep her forehead clear. As for her forehead, it looked worse than he’d imagined, a solid shiny contusion with a half circle of stitches.

He took a chair beside her and began what he’d practiced all the way there. “I’m going back to college later today,” he said, straightening his uniform collar and sleeves.

She didn’t respond.

He continued, “I just wanted to check on you before I left.”

Still nothing.

He hurried on, “I’m so very sorry about the accident, about your injury …” His voice trailed off.

“Uncle says it could have been worse,” Jennie said hoarsely as though it hurt to talk. “He used the new silk sutures instead of catgut. He thinks the scar won’t be as bad.”

Clarence was encouraged. “I’ll be home for Thanksgiving. Can I see you then?”

She touched her forehead. “No.”

“But why?” he asked, realizing he was seldom told “No.” More unfamiliar ground.

“Just no.” She returned to her book.

He sputtered a bit, then rose to leave. Her mother stood stone-faced at the door. He glanced back at Jennie. Her expression mirrored her mother’s. The only semblance of a smile was the curve left by Ace’s hoof.

He began the painful drive home — both in body and heart. He had to rethink fate. As bad as he felt, he realized, perhaps in small ways, he had been lucky. After all, both he and Jennie were alive. Even though she had borne the brunt of the wreck, she hadn’t lost her eyesight as she might have if the kick had been lower. Or suffered a broken nose. Or had teeth knocked out. He shuddered at the thought, but continued his line of reasoning. The buggy was a total loss, but Ace was okay.

Perhaps fate was a pendulum, of sorts, that sometimes swung in his favor and sometimes not. But if had swung away from him, he thought, then it must have swung toward someone or something else. Certainly not Jennie. Not his sick father or exhausted mother. Not Ace. Not the owl.

Then he remembered the field mouse. It had escaped two certain deaths, by hooves and by talons. He had to admit that fate seemed to have favored the lowly mouse. The idea was ridiculous, and yet …

He looked at the dark woods along the red clay road. He thought he saw a brush stroke of autumn color. It wouldn’t be long until the poplars showed yellow and the persimmons red. Then the maples and finally the oaks. Summer was as good as gone. In a few hours, he’d be leaving his family and riding the rails back to Clemson.

He drove the final mile home to Dean’s Station and thought again about the lucky field mouse. He felt like laughing and crying and shouting at the top of his lungs. But he knew it would hurt too much. Healing would take time.

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Liz Newall grew up in the farming town of Starr in upstate South Carolina. She received degrees from Anderson College (now University) and Clemson University. She’s been a teacher, peach picker, freelance writer, and managing editor of Clemson World alumni magazine. Now retired, she lives on a farm in the Wild Hog community of Pendleton, S.C. Her short stories, poetry and features have appeared in publications across the country. Her first novel is Why Sarah Ran Away with the Veterinarian. Her latest is You Don’t Have to Tell Everything You Know.

Jerry Craven is director of Ink Brush Press and active founding editor of the literary Journal Amarillo Bay. He is a member of the Texas Institute of letters, Texas Association of Creative Writing Teachers, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and the Texas Literary Hall of Fame. In 2011 he designed and began Lamar University Literary Press, which he directed for twelve years. Craven has published thirty-three books and is currently completing the 34^th, another collection of poetry. He is an award-winning graphic artist; samples of his art are posted on the website http://www.jerrycraven.com. He lives in Texas with his wife the poet Sherry Craven.