a sanctified imagination

My grandmother, Mimi, likes to tell the story of the man with the long white beard and black suit who hung in the frame beside her stairs. He was a traveling medicine man who did magic tricks she tells us. He happened one day upon my great, great, great grandparents farm in Winona looking for work. He told them he was from Scotland, his name was Sharron and he turned out to be a hard worker, too. Soon he was married to the couples daughter and my great grandmother, Linda Sharron, was born. And this is Mimi’s favorite part to tell, and mine to hear her tell, he would saw her in half as the final trick in his show!
We have told that story of the Scotch Medicine Man now in our family for generations, only problem is our cousin, who is now studying in Scotland, has looked up the family history and can find no record of any of it being true. Oh, he was a medicine man, and a magician, that part is true, and he cut Great Mother in half! Ha! But how did this “Scotch” man come to Winona and happen upon the little farm? It’s a mystery we may never know. This is just what I imagine….

The Scotch Coin

He didn’t have much to live for now, he thought. He looked around the almost empty bar and took a seat in the back corner away from the other customers. He had never been to a place like this on his own but he had been with his father. When he was younger his father had always left him at the cabin alone when he went out. They lived just outside of Greensboro in rural Webster county Mississippi in a log cabin, which was really more like a shack, that his father had built after he escaped from jail. His mother had left him when he was just under a year old. She put the corner of his gown under the old rocker on the porch so that he could not crawl away and left a note telling the old outlaw that she was sorry but a family from Jackson was going to pay her room and board to care for their six children and since the promise of eating everyday was more than he could give her she was going to take them up on their offer. They would not, however, allow her to bring her own son and since he looked just like the old outlaw did, she had no problem leaving him there along with the memory of her life in the cabin. By no means was he ever a decent man. In fact, it was rumored that he was one who started the fire in the old Webster County Jail, but she had been the only good thing that had ever happened to him. He could hardly stand to look at the boy after she was gone and so the child spent many nights alone in the cabin with the shadows and the noises from the woods.

Only recently, since he had turned sixteen, had his father let him go anywhere with him.
“You are a man now, Son.” He said and turned out this meant his father thought he was old enough to accompany him to establishments like this one to help him cheat at poker. The two came up with a scheme whereby the boy would sit in a back corner of the bar somewhere where he could see one of the players hands and then he would go through a series of symbols and signs that the two had come up with in order to tell his father what cards the other player was holding. A tapping foot meant clubs and the number of taps was the number on the cards. Fingers drumming on the table meant spades. He’d flick his cigarette for diamonds. For hearts he lined the rim of his glass with his index finger. A jack was a pat to the head, a queen a touch of the heart, and king a nod and an ace a smile. It was a pretty good routine and since his father had never carried him with him anywhere before no one even knew that the two were related. The boy quite enjoyed it, not that he necessarily thought it was honest, but what did he care? His father was spending time with him and it was exciting to be so clandestine.

The two did quite well. His father always lost a few hands in the beginning just to throw off the other players and then the boy would come in. Sit in the back. Order a glass of whisky and begin to roll a cigarette. By the third or fourth hand he would have begun the routine and before midnight his father would be winning. For several months the winning was good. All the food and whisky the two could want. The boy loved it. Never before had he felt such excitement for life. It was fun pretending not to know his father, giving the bar tenders and other patrons fake names and of course watching his father smile at him and pat him on the back. It seemed as if his father, too, was more alive than he had been in years.

One night they took some of their winnings and went to a show. A magician from New York named The Great O’Brien was in Greensboro. He traveled from town to town with his cart full of wares and goods. He’d roll his cart into town and perform tricks and sell miracle potions and for only a cent you could come to his big show at the theater at night. He did all sorts of magic, selling things to audience members as he performed, a pair of shoes that would make you taller, a drink that would make a bald man’s hair grow, a cream that if rubbed on the nose each night would prevent the common cold. And for his final act he would cut a woman in half with a saw and then put her back together again! The boy was amazed. And he loved how the man sounded when he spoke. He was from Scotland, he said, migrated to New York on a big ship and all the goods were authentic miracle cures from Europe. The boy and his father bought a one cent piece for just ten cents that would bring luck to any man who kept it hidden in his pocket. And it seemed to work! That night the boy and his father won more money than either of them could spend. It seemed that the Scotch coin was just the trick that the two needed.

The next night the boy made sure that the coin was in his pocket and then he headed to the saloon where his father had been losing on purpose for about the last hour. They had gotten into the routine good when one of the players stood up abruptly and threw his chair just over the boys head. It smashed into pieces, the boys heart nearly jumped out of chest.

“Who is that?” The man questioned, and pointed his finger sharply at the boy. His father tried to look alarmed and confused but the boy could see the deceitfulness in his eyes and he hoped that the man pointing his finger at him could not.

“I have no idea who that boy is.” His father lied.

“You rotten sack of lies! He cheats for you! I have sat here all night watching him. And now, now you tell me that you take my money honestly!” The man screamed. The boys father could not find words. He stumbled out of his chair and before he could recover the man pulled out a gun and shot him. Dead in the chest. The man took the money from the boy’s father’s pockets and aimed the gun at the boy’s head.
“If you ever try to take me again, Boy, I’ll shoot you too!” He warned and left the bar without even the blink of an eye. The bartender, the only other person in the room, was hiding behind the bar and the boy, not knowing what to do and still scared that the man would come back for him, took off running. He thought at first of running back to their cabin in the woods but afraid that the man would find him he just kept on going.

He ran all night it seemed, stopping only for moments at a time to rest and then he would run again. When he could run no longer he laid down on the cool grass floor of the forest and slept between visions of what he had witnessed.

He wasn’t sure where to go when he awoke the next morning. A thought like a knife to the heart struck him. What if the man went to the police with his description. He had to leave town, maybe even skip to the next county, but what would he do? Where would he go? Just then the old horse drawn cart the magician from Scotland owned rolled by and much to his surprise it stopped.

“Where are ye headed, Lad?” the Scot shouted down to him from the carriage.
“Anywhere. I guess.” He replied. “ Anywhere away from here.”
“Hop on” The magician said and he waved the boy up. The boy obeyed half afraid the man might cut him in half if he didn’t.
“What’s your name, Lad?”
“Tom.” The boy lied.
“Well, Tom, from now on your name is Shay Sharron and you are my assistant. I brought you over with me from Scotland, you understand.” O’Brien said.
“I, I don’t know if I can learn a proper Scottish accent,” the boy stuttered.
O’Brien smiled and in southern Mississippi drawl he whispered, “Yes you can!”

For the next several weeks the two camped out in the woods of Warren County. All the while O’Brien teaching the boy his tricks, his cons and his way of speaking. He taught him that a good magician has the audience looking one way while the trick is actually done the other. He taught him how to read your audience and sell your goods accordingly. If there are a lot of women in the crowd for example your magic potion becomes miracle wrinkle cream but if there are more men it is guaranteed to grow fuller mustaches. He even taught the boy to curl his feet up in the box at just the right moment before O’Brien cut the box in half.
The boy enjoyed the time in the woods with O’Brien and soon he was almost as skilled as the old con man himself. He had, after all, been a con man for quite sometime at the saloons with his father. He thought about his father sometimes. He had not been the greatest father to him, in fact, he had been down right rotten for most of the boy’s life. But the last several months that they had spent together had been fun. He felt terrible if he thought about how he just left him there at the saloon. He couldn’t let himself think about it and so most nights he just practiced the tricks that O’Brien had taught him and tried to put the memory of his father and his father’s killer out of his mind.
When O’Brien was certain that the boy he now called Shay was ready the two left the home that they had made in the woods and headed for Montgomery county. The scenery in the small towns that they came to was not unlike the scenery that they had just left. Cotton fields and dirt roads as far as the eye could see dotted with the occasional town square seemed to make up most of this part of the country. But each town that they pulled into was another chance for O’Brien and Shay to play their little game with the town’s people and the boy was loving every minute of it.

One night after the pair had taken a few towns for more than a few bucks they rolled into the little town of Winona just as the sun was going down. O’Brien was asleep in the back of the wagon and the boy was driving the horses. As he pulled onto the main street he could see the little shops in the distance. There was a dry goods store, a place that sold hardware and farming equipment and a ladies dress shop. As he pulled closer he was a lone figure on the street walking away from the dress shop. A girl. She must have been about his age, maybe a few years younger. But she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He followed her as she turned down the old dirt road that ran behind town. She noticed the old creaking cart behind her and looked back. They boy lost his breath to look into her eyes.
“Mam.” He recovered with a nod. She gave him a sharp look and cut across the cotton field to get off the road and away from the strange boy and his odd cart that had been following her but the boy pulled back on the reigns and halted the horses. He watched her walk all the way across the field. Her dress was red and it stood out juxtaposed against the white blanket of Mississippi snow. Her long hair bounced as she walked and the boy could not take his eyes off of her. When he could see her no longer he turned and pulled back the curtain to peek into the cart. O’Brien was still fast asleep in the back. The boy slapped the reigns and got the cart moving again. He would keep on going. No town where an angel like the one he had just witnessed lived should be taken by con men.

When O’Brien awoke the next morning the boy told him that Winona was a nothing town with not much to speak of and that he had instead driven all night to Vaiden. There was no reason for O’Brien to doubt the boy and so he set up like always and the two began to prepare their con. A large crowd gathered quickly as happened quite frequently and soon the game was on. It was going well and the towns people were sucked into the scheme quite easily. O’Brien was selling a miracle medicine that promised to cure anything and Shay was testifying about how the dark liquid when taken twice daily had healed his lame leg when all of the sudden a familiar voice came shouting out over the crowd.
“You!”
Shay looked up with a fear that was driven so deeply into his heart that he thought it would stop. It was the man who had shot his father. O’Brien, not knowing who the man was, said “Yes sir, can I put you down for a bottle of the miracle cure?”
“You!” the man shouted again and he pointed again at the boy. Shay pulled his hat down over his eyes and tried to pretend he did not recognize the man, but the persistence in the man’s fingertip aimed straight at him just as the gun had been before made his face grow hot and his palms begin to sweat. The man began to walk toward the make shift stage and the town’s people cleared a path for him eager to see the new show that was developing before their eyes.
O’Brien leaned into Shay’s ear. “Who is this guy?”
“I don’t know.” He lied but the con man could see through his protégé’s deceit.
“I thought I told you that the next time you tried to take me you would die, Boy!” The man was shouting and reaching into his pocket.
“Now hold on just a minute there!” The local sheriff stepped in calming the man, “This is a respectable town. Not like the town full of criminals over in Greensboro you come from. Now I don’t know who you think this boy is or isn’t , but you had better just calm down or be expected to leave.” Reluctantly the man walked away and O’Brien and his assistant were able to hide out at a local hotel until nightfall.

The boy told his story, the whole story , to O’Brien and the two decided that it was probably best to head back to the cart under the guise of night, pack up their things and be on the way. When they got back to the cart, just to be safe, O’Brien pulled a pistol from his trunk and stuffed it beneath his belt. They boy realized how serious a situation the two could be in and he felt sorry that he had brought his magician friend into harm’s way. Just as the two were almost finished with their packing and the boy had all but forgotten the danger that they were in a dark figure emerged from behind the cart.

“I told you if you ever tried to take me again, Boy, I’d kill you.” The figure whispered. The boy froze with fear but O’Brien reached his for pistol. He shot but the man shot too and then he shot again. Before the boy knew what was happening he felt like he had been kicked by a mule in the chest and he was laying on the ground beside his friend. It was dark but he could see a black pool forming beneath O’Brien’s head. He laid there for a moment. Was he dead too? He could see the man who had killed his father, who had killed the magician squinting into the dark night expecting his work, trying to see if they were both in fact dead. They boy lay silent and did not move and the man turned to walk away. The boy reached for his chest were he had been shot but there was no blood. He didn’t understand. He reached into his shirt pocket and there he found the Scotch Coin with a bullet lodged into it. At that very moment it hit him, this was American currency. It could not have come from Scotland it looked just like the coins he and his father had cheated the pokers players out of and just like the coins that he and O’Brien had conned from the town’s people, except now it really had brought him luck. He sat up all but forgetting about the killer in amazement at his discovery and the man turned quickly back around . Thinking that they both were dead he was slow to react and the boy reached without thinking and grabbed O’Brien’s gun. Before he could even blink he had shot the weapon and the man was lying on the ground.

That night was even more restless than the night he had spent running from the man who shot his father. He drug O’Brien’s body to the woods and buried him. He would not leave his friend the way he had left his father. He did not quite know the words to say in order to honor the Mississippi “Scotch” man who had taken him in and so he just stood silently for a long while over the grave that he had dug. He also buried the other man. He had no respect for the ill tempered outlaw who had shot his father, his friend and whom he himself had killed, but he feared being found out to be both a thief and a murderer.

He drove all night in the cart thinking. He thought about the little cabin in the woods were he had lived with his father, but decided that he had better not go back to that town full of criminals. It had been no good to him and there were too many memories there. He thought about his father. He never really knew him, he realized and he felt sorry for this. O’Brien had been more like a father to him. But now they both were gone. He drove until the sun had come up and as he was pulling into the next town he thought that maybe he had better go into the local saloon and have a drink. He was sitting in the back corner thinking about his father, about how wrong it was for them to have cheated like they did. At least O’Brien entertained the people he thought. He may not have really given them exactly what they were promised but they were smiling when they left and they had seen a good show. It was a good show, he thought. He had so enjoyed being Shay Sharron. He never wanted to be associated with his old life in Greensboro again. And that’s when he decided that it did not have to end. Of course, he would do things a little differently. No more selling miracle cures that didn’t work. He would just do the magic. He could get a job, an honest job, maybe as a farm hand to earn his meals and put on the show just for a little extra and for the fun of it. And who knew, maybe he would even learn a little about actual medicine and really help people cure what ailed them. He would have to still pretend to be Shay, though, that part he would keep up. Just a little white lie, after all he had gotten so good at the accent. And so off he went with the cart, his lucky scotch coin and a new dream bound for Winona and the girl in the red dress he could not get out of his head.