Harvest Home

by Thomas Tryon

  I might have expected as much. They had come and taken the evidence away. They had killed Gracie and hidden the corpse from chance prying eyes by putting her in the hollow tree, under the vines. But why? Why hadn’t they buried her body, or sunk it? Why in the tree, here in the grove? Prying eyes had found it—Jack Stump’s. And for that he had been silenced. As I would be, if they learned I knew of it. But the corpus delicti had been moved elsewhere. Yet I knew there was a piece of evidence they had forgotten existed. One that Jack Stump knew of, and still had in his possession.

  I fled the grove, the scene of Gracie’s murder, and headed toward the river instead of the road. I did not want to go back to the village and to Beth—with the truth I knew I now had to tell her. Following the path of the stream, I tried to work it out. There had been the brutal cranial fracture, where I had supposed the Soakeses had struck down the revenuer with a heavy object. Someone had hit Gracie, causing her death. She had come to Harvest Home, and had been a “disruptive influence.” She had been killed then, not two nights later. They had waited two days and then had Irene Tatum say she found the body under the bridge. Then they brought the corn-filled coffin to the cemetery to be buried, while Grace’s body had been hidden in the tree.

  The stream widened; ahead I could see the river through the trees. I came out on a grassy bank and looked down into the cove where Beth and I had swum that day. I saw the log I had leaned against. Across the river were the bare tobacco fields, the sheds low against the line of trees rising behind. I lay down on the grass and leaned my head against the log, thinking.

  Beware.

  The all-prevailing night.

  The filthy bird hanging from her hand. Chicken blood and madness. It was I who was mad. Or if not, I had to do something.

  Do something.

  We all make our own fate, Robert had said. We all have choices; the thing to do is make the choice.

  Right or wrong, make the choice.

  I felt a tickling in my ear, then along my neck. I looked down to see small insect shapes swarming from the log, pouring out of the pulpy fibers onto my shoulders and down my back. Jumping up, I began stripping off my clothes, then ran down the bank and plunged into the water, rubbing at my skin to dislodge the insects. When I was free of them, I did not come out immediately. I swam, trying to tire myself, and when I came out I lay on the sand in the shallow water, feeling the sun on my body, the water sluicing along my shoulders and legs. I took deep breaths, trying to relax. I placed my hands on my stomach muscles, felt them constrict. I splayed out my fingers, bent them back against the wet sand to relax them, felt the smooth knuckle joint where the wart had been.

  What had happened on that night of Harvest Home fourteen years ago? Fourteen years ago tomorrow night? How had Gracie Everdeen been a “disruptive influence,” for which she had been killed? Killed? Or executed? Where were her bones now? My speculations, like circles, went round and round, always coming back to the women. What do you talk about at the Widow’s? Oh, just girl talk. Superstitions? Country notions? Perhaps. And in Justin’s cornfield, the face with the staring eyes. The little corn god. Goddess. Mother Earth. Bountiful harvest. Moon.

  Circles.

  Choices.

  “Circles,” I repeated aloud.

  “You’re talking to yourself.” The voice, followed by a laugh I recognized. I turned my head, looking up at the bank behind me. Tamar Penrose stood in the grass. She had been wading, her skirt was tucked up; I could see her legs white and glistening, her thighs, her melony breasts. Her red nails flashed as she tossed her hair back.

  Not in shame but in contempt, I rolled onto my stomach, resting my head along my arm, the water sliding around my mouth.

  “I talk to myself sometimes,” she said. I glanced up at her as she sat in the grass and dangled her legs over the edge of the bank. She plucked an autumn daisy and twirled it between her fingers. I ventured my question.

  She was pulling the petals from the daisy. “Loves me, loves me not. Gracie? How should I remember? I’m too busy with parcel post to keep track of people’s comings and goings from this world to another. Loves me, loves me not…”

  “What happens on Harvest Home?”

  “‘What no man may know nor woman tell.’ I guess that’s the oldest saw in the village. You want to know about Harvest Home? I’ll tell you.”

  She had put flowers in her hair, and the blossoms trailed down among the dark tendrils to her shoulders. She lifted the corn necklace at her breast. “This. This is Harvest Home. And these”—touching the flowers in her hair—“and this”—scooping some earth from the bank and lumping it in her hand. “It’s to celebrate this.” She opened her hand and looked at it, her voice curiously pitched.

  She tossed the lump of clay and it fell near my shoulder. She rose and came slowly down the bank. I put my head down again. I could hear the light splash of her feet and felt a coolness on my back where her form eclipsed the sun. She bent, gently running the tips of her nails between my shoulder blades. I felt her hair brush against me as she came closer. I could feel her knowing fingers toying at the base of my neck.

  “You don’t say what happens.”

  “I’m not going to.” There was an allure in her voice, as though she wanted me to urge her. “It’s just what people do.”

  I shrugged her fingers away. They immediately returned, kneading the cords of my neck. Despite the coldness of the water, against the sandy grit, I could feel a stirring: loin lust. I pulled away. “And Jack Stump. Is that what people do? Savage their fellow-man?”

  “It was necessary.” She spoke lightly, as if the matter were of no consequence.

  “Why not have killed him?”

  “I could have. I’m very strong. Feel how strong.”

  “You bitch.”

  “Yes.” An affirmation, a caress, both.

  With my head turned away, I called her other names.

  “Yes. But feel me. Feel my skin.” She took my hand and invited my touch. “Feel how soft.” I snatched my hand away, swore at her. She accepted my abuse willingly, her fingers gliding over my flesh as I accused; and as I accused, beneath me I could feel myself growing harder.

  I spoke angrily. She had silenced the peddler, had cut his tongue and stitched him. Still she caressed me. Yes, she answered in a small voice, she had done these things. “With these hands.” Ran them over my shoulders, down my spine to my buttocks, my legs. I pulled away. “Grace Everdeen died on Harvest Home.”

  “Yes.”

  I could feel my hardness in the sand, and as though knowing it, she murmured things that sent the blood coursing to where she commanded it.

  “She didn’t kill herself,” I said.

  “No.”

  “She was murdered.” I looked at her quickly, saw the answer in her eyes. “You killed her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Jesus saves. But not Grace. She came. To Harvest Home. Where she had no right. She was diseased. Unclean. She couldn’t be Corn Maiden, and she didn’t want me to be. She came to blight the crops. To blight Roger, if she could. But she couldn’t have him. I did. She came, and I hit her with my hoe. Here.” She had straddled me, her hair brushing my shoulders as she bent and laid her fingers on my temple, showing me the place. “I killed her like she should have been killed. She was put in the tree so she would be there for all the Harvest Homes that came after. So she could watch. You want to know what happens at Harvest Home? I’ll tell you. They make the corn.”

  “They—”

  “Make the corn! Not like in the play. But really—truly make—the—corn. Roger and I, we made the corn together. Missy is Roger Penrose’s child. We made her that night. At Harvest Home. Justin will make the corn. With Sophie. If Sophie can have a baby from it, it will be good. Then there’ll be a surer chance of good crops.”

  “You had a baby and there was a drought.”

  Her eyes flashed. “The drought was Gracie’s! And Missy’s the best
thing ever happened to this village!”

  I loathed her. Her fleshy weight made my stomach heave.

  I spread my palms against the pebbles and thrust upward, toppling her sidewise into the water. A light danced in her eyes, a triumphant gleam. I rose to my knees and she uttered a tiny mewling whimper as she saw what her touch had erected. She put out her hand; before she could reach me I leaped up; she lay back down with a moan. I stood over her, the sun at my back, my shadow slicing her in half.

  With panicky little moaning sounds, she scrabbled to me, sliding her hands up along my thighs, seizing and laying her cheek against me; I could feel the bite of her red nails where she had forced me to power. I lifted my foot, placed it against her shoulder, shoved violently. She fell back in the water, her mouth wet and red, then came to a crouching position and raised her arms as if she knelt upon an altar. The goddess pleading to be fulfilled. I would not pleasure the goddess; I would destroy her.

  Even as I moved toward her, I knew I wanted to kill her. I flung myself on her, my hands murderous as they sought her throat, fingers closing on her windpipe. I seized her chin, wrenched it from side to side in the shallow water. I half rose and, bending, dragged her into the deeper part, thrusting her head up and down, her tantalizing smile appearing amid a froth of bubbles. I drove her under, holding her submerged, watching her hair rippling outward, undulant as seaweed, snakes—Medusa’s head. I would obliterate it.

  Again I drove her downward, held her there, watched the bubbles rise, saw the mocking smile, as though she defied me to do it. Her head drifted upwards, the cool, ripe breasts surfacing, the water draining between them. Then, scarcely realizing my intent, as she floated limp but smiling, I dragged her to the clay bank and propped her against it. She lay there, her breasts still rising and falling. She was not dead; but would be. There was another way, a better way. My body imprisoning hers, my hands began tearing at her dress, stripping it from her, shucking her bare. She had revived, but she did not understand what I meant to do. Her hands came up, caressing the back of my neck. She pulled my head close, her lips on mine, her tongue forcing its way into my mouth, her hand fumbling its way between us, stroking, manipulating me. I grabbed her wrists and flung her arms from her sides, using my knees to force her legs farther apart. She drew her thighs around the outsides of my thighs and pulled me in toward her. Her nails dug into my neck, my shoulders, and in return I flailed her breasts with my muzzle, using the beard stubble to abrade the tender skin. And then, fully aroused, I began ramming at her.

  The light had not died in her eyes; their whiteness blazed at each thrust, her thighs sliding against me not in protest, but widening, opening herself to let me find her, to make me take her. Digging my feet into the ground for purchase, I felt my buttock muscles knot as I arched my back and drove myself into her. She shuddered and cried out then, but when I freed her hands her arms welcomed me in embrace. I wound my fingers in her wet hair and gripped, still wanting to kill her, not with my hands but with that other part of me that she had aroused. I worked at her and worked, then halted, watching her eyes roll, wild like an animal’s, holding her impaled on me, for I would not finish yet, and when I had mastered myself I worked again, rearing and plunging, and mixed with my curses and her passion were the sounds of our clashing bodies, muscles and tissue, the bulging noises I could force from her, the thud of my chest against hers, the slap of our wet bellies.

  It became a duel. Willingly she would take from me, but I would not give to her. There would be no ecstasy for her, only pain. But her pain became her ecstasy. “Oh, yes,” she moaned, “my Greek, my Lord. Plow me, plow me.” A full-throated plea and the water ran from her body in rivulets down the bank, mixing with the dark clay, and I dug handfuls of it and, riding her, ramming her against the ground, I smeared it in her face, the substance of Mother Earth, rubbing it in her eyes and ears, stopping her mouth with it, forcing her cheeks to wallow in it, her shoulders and breasts, ever driving, thrusting, pulling back, and ramming her again, sucking the saliva up from my throat and spitting it in her face, the face of the Mother goddess, driving against her, twisting, to batter her pliant flesh, to drive the goddess back into Mother Earth and bury her there.

  She did not stop her words and though I battled her and thought the battle mine, she worked upon me to have her way, inviting my violence, glorying in it, using all her parts, and I, losing, thought that no machine had ever been so cleverly invented, so beautifully crafted to provide pleasure. I fought her with the strength of my body, but hers was stronger. As I surged into her, I heard my curses soften, heard them become endearments. I put my mouth to her breasts and sucked. Murmuring, she held me gently in her arms and I knew I had lost then. The duel was hers. Fulfilling me, she had vanquished me. I had not taken her and violated her, for the earth was not to be taken or violated, and she was of the earth. She was earth itself, the Mother goddess, and even as my semen flowed I could feel my eyes sting as the tears came; the man, unmanned, defeated by the woman.

  I grasped her wrists again and shudderingly withdrew, our bodies parting with a hollow sucking noise. As she lay panting against the wet clay, I could see her bruised, triumphant smile and I saw she knew it, too; she was the victor.

  I tasted earth in my mouth. Turning, I spat, then filled my lungs and, wheeling, flung myself in the water, submerging, rubbing my hands over my flesh, cleansing it, watching the dark clay loosen from my body, break up, and float away in the current. When my breath was spent, I limply pushed myself to the surface. I slicked my hair from my eyes and looked at the bank. She was not there, but imprinted in the wet clay was the hollow of her form, and it seemed as if she had entered there, the goddess returned to the earth.

  26

  THE GODDESS. I COMPREHENDED it, or thought I did. The doll in Justin’s cornfield represented the Mother. The Mother was the goddess. The goddess provided fertility. Fertility was needed. Without it, there would be no corn. Without corn, no money or food. Without them, people died. Doll; Mother; fertility. Hope; belief.

  They all believed. All the village. They wanted me to believe, too. It was shocking, yet terribly simple.

  And Harvest Home was coming.

  Harvest Home! A time o’ joy and celebration. Eat, drink, and be merry. It means success and thanks and all good things.

  But this, the seventh year, was special. Not all good things, perhaps. “What no man may know nor woman tell.” This was the heart of it. A secret revealed; but what?

  I slowed my car as the Tatum farm rose at the crest of the hill on my right, the silhouetted buildings bleakly huddled together. There was no sign of the pickup truck, nor indeed of any activity, other than the youngest girl, Debbie, standing in the dirt track, twisting the hem of her dress and wailing, evidently frightened by the fierce clamor of hogs in the pen near the barn.

  I stopped to investigate. I could hear the pigs’ grunting bodies heaving against the sty, their wet eyes inquisitively surveying me. A board had become loosened, and I pounded it in place with a rock, then drove off. Begrimed, with a runny nose, Debbie watched me go.

  Beyond the house the landscape lay in somber peace. A smoky haze drifted over the cornfield, the cornstalks lying helter-skelter among the bearded stubble, the shocks diminishing in size as they stretched away from the road to the ridge. Behind them slid the sun.

  Pulling to the roadside, I gazed off at the desolate vista; then, listening carefully, I got out, crossed the road, and stepped into the field. Dead stalks cracked underfoot. From somewhere ahead in the field was coming a strange sound: an uncanny, hollow clank or rattle, faint at first, then more distinct. In the amber light, the hulking sheaves seemed forbidding, sinister. Then I recognized the sound: tin cans swaying on the ends of their strings, the pebbles inside making a dull clanking noise, but doing little to repel the two crows which, shiny and black, sat huddled like felons, one on each shoulder of a solitary scarecrow.

  It was impossible to account for the tumult of the pigs
; squeals and cries pierced the air as their fury drove them to fresh efforts to break from the sty. I got back in the car and began driving down the road; then behind me I heard Debbie’s cry. I looked back to see her dashing for the porch as the boards of the pen gave way and the pigs raced past her, charging across the lawn, heads lowered, a tide of frenzied shapes spilling down the slope and into the field, their short legs trampling the earth, overturning the piled shocks as they swept across the furrows.

  Debbie sat down on the steps and wailed louder than ever.

  Lights had come on in the windows of the houses along the way, and I could see people sitting down to early supper before Kindling Night. I was tired, and awash with guilt. I cursed myself for a fool, scarcely remembering the scene with Tamar on the mudbank—not what had happened, but how it had come about. Arriving at the country end of Main Street, I drove past the dark figure of a man leaning on a rake handle, watching piles of leaves smolder and burn. As the smoke drifted, blue and pungent, I heard the sound of a horse’s hoofs, and the familiar creaking of wheels; ahead, the Widow Fortune’s buggy emerged from Penrose Lane. The mare looked docile as she moved along; not so the old lady, who sat upright on the seat, her shoulders thrown back, her hands gripping the reins. I couldn’t see her face, only the white cap tied under her chin, nor did she notice me coming along; or if she did she made no sign. She wheeled onto Main Street and headed the horse in the direction of her house. I watched the white cap disappear into the gloom; then I drove into the lane.

  “Hello, Ned.” Maggie Dodd was out in front of her house, laying plastic covers over the flower beds along the side of the hedge. I called good evening.

  “I’ve just been putting my bulbs to bed. Have a good day?”