Lights on the Mountain

  Just then the baby stirred in her cradle and began to fret a little. Jess tensed. She fussed quietly, tiny kittenish sounds, then fell silent, but Darya had caught the noise. Her sigh drifted out of the open bedroom door. She shuffled heavily out, snapping her robe together as she walked, and went directly into the kitchen. Jess heard the stove knob click to pilot, heard the gas lighting, the faucet running, and a pan being set on the stove. In a little while, she came into the living room holding a bottle and sat down in Gracie’s chair. She squeezed a few drops of liquid from the nipple onto the inside of her wrist. Then she held the bottle out to Jess, shaking it at him a couple of times to indicate he should take it. Reluctantly, Jess took the bottle, and set it on his knee. Darya closed her eyes. She slept immediately, breathing deeply through her nose. The baby slept too, her chest rising and falling almost imperceptibly with each breath. A cloud passed over the moon and lingered. Jess turned his face away, unable to gaze any longer at Gracie’s child, cradled in a basket instead of her arms. She would have been a natural too. Would have taken to mothering with the same ease she had taken to loving, assuming with Jess a teacherly stance, as if being born a woman made her a shade or two less green. He laid a hand over his heart. To ease the ache.

  In the dim light, everything in the room spoke to him of Gracie. Under the window were her begonias, a multigenerational family, rooted cuttings shuttled off often to live and multiply under other windows in other homes. At the far end of the divan, her knitting basket still held a skein of yellow yarn and a tiny, half-finished hat. The cloth-draped icons on the shelf in the corner, though, proclaimed her best. There was the true center of her life, the hub on which the entire wheel of it turned. The dark-eyed saints, so kind to Gracie, gazed severely at Jess, offering him scant comfort.

  Suddenly the baby cried out, piercing the silence with a fit of frantic, rhythmic screams. Darya got heavily to her feet and reached into the cradle, grunting. Jess fumbled for the bottle. Darya set the baby on her shoulder with one hand, ignoring her cries, and reached with the other into the basket on the floor beside the cradle for a diaper. In what seemed a single swift movement, she had slipped off the wet napkin and pinned on the dry one. She swaddled the baby again and handed her, still screaming, to Jess.

  “Time for milk,” she said, nodding toward the bottle. Jess pulled his knees together and laid the baby in the trough of his lap, aiming the nipple at her mouth.

  “Nyet,” Darya said, pulling her eyebrows into a frown. She made a little cradling motion with her arms.

  Jess handed the baby back to her.

  “You do it,” he said.

  Dawn came at last, with Jess still awake and fully dressed. He rose and made coffee, taking it into the living room to drink. It was just too much to ask of himself, to sit in the cold, dark kitchen, knowing Gracie was never again going to come shuffling into it half-asleep and offer him breakfast. He could not see the barn from the front window, only the tip of the weathervane jutting out of the mist. A front had rolled in overnight. The air was cool and the fog hung thick, blanketing the farm beneath. He drained his cup, hardly tasting the coffee, and took it to the sink. On the back porch, he shrugged into a jacket and walked outside. From over the hill, he could hear the low of the cows, bawling out their insecurity. A lonesome sound in the fog-soaked valley. There was a clinking of boot buckles. Ivan materialized out of the gloom, steam rising off the wash bucket he carried. Neither spoke. Jess turned, and they walked together down the hill to the barn.

  They worked in silence, each focused on his task. Jess filled the troughs with feed, then went up to the front of the barn to tend to other chores while Ivan washed down the udders and any soiled areas that might dirty the milk. When the cows had been washed, Jess returned and met Ivan in the middle of the row. He set a bucket under Ivan’s cow, then seated himself on his own stool, the one his father had made for him, with the legs knocked off short to ease his back. The milking shed was cold still, so early in the morning and it being on the shaded side of the barn, but neither Jess nor Ivan searched for gloves. The warmth of the udder was enough to limber stiff fingers. Jess had no idea why Ivan milked without gloves—he’d never asked. As for himself, he milked barehanded for the same reason he didn’t use machines: the pure pleasure of it. More than once he’d considered crossing over, watching cows get milked by suction at the fair, but in the end always decided against it. No one was getting out of this thing alive, anyhow, whether he kept to the old way like the Amish, or went the new, making constant, and costly, changes. And if neither way was going to be the salvation of a farm like Hazel Valley, the second had at present a taint of foolishness. As there was an agreeable symbiosis in the old way—the cow quietly letting down her milk, you easing her of it with your own clean, bare hands—and Jess could see none of that in the loud, too-eager suckling of the machines at the fair, he was glad to have a good, sound excuse (what decision could be saner than one that made financial sense?) for not asking his cows to endure it.

  He happened to glance down the row just then and saw that Ivan sat forward on his stool with his hand lifted, three fingers pressed together as if holding a pen or pencil. As Jess watched, the man drew, in a long, slow, deliberate motion of his hand, an invisible cross of blessing over his cow’s flanks. The sight brought a sudden sweet sadness to Jess’s chest, for he knew that had Gracie been seated on the stool, she would have made the same gesture. Ivan was reaching his hands toward the udder now, murmuring soft, tender encouragements to the cow, a skittish, first-calf heifer who was rolling her eye at him. Ivan’s behavior was almost quaint, taken on its own. But the meekness in it, at a time when a man might have been excused for being impatient or even cruel, took Jess completely by surprise. He’d never witnessed such honest, uncontrived humility. It struck him, oddly, as a thing of grave beauty. Pat Badger often went on in his modest way about the sacredness to be found in the things of earth, about how driving a post or shoeing a horse could become an act of worship. But Ivan wasn’t talking—he was doing, filling the barn with his old-man love.

  Jess had never wanted so much to weep.

  He dozed fitfully in his chair that night, dreaming of Gracie. In the dream he stood beside their bed, gazing down on her. She was whole and slim, but fragile in some new way, her flesh both brittle and translucent, as if she wore an onion’s skin. She was holding the baby out to Jess, urging him to take her. In the way of dreams, once Jess had taken the baby, she changed in his arms and became Tsura. Gracie rose from the bed, bent to the child in Jess’s arms, and blessed her, signing the cross. Then she led Jess to the cradle, motioning to it with her hand, as if to say that he should place Tsura in it. Jess readily obeyed, for Tsura had become burdensome, growing heavier and heavier in his arms as he dreamed. But what Jess saw when he went to lay her in the cradle caused him to recoil, for it was not a cradle. It was a casket. He held Tsura tighter to his chest and backed away from it, turning in fear to Gracie. She was gone.

  6

  NEXT MORNING, as soon as his work was done, Jess drove up Kerry Mountain to Zook’s house. There was no answer when he knocked, which came as a shock to Jess. Somehow, he had not imagined Tsura would not be here, on the mountain. He poked around the yard a little before trying the back door. He found it unlocked and went in. The place was spartan. The kitchen was large and sun-washed white, the only furnishings a wood-burning stove, a pump-handle sink, and a plain oak table with two straight-backed chairs. There were no dirty dishes in the sink or trash in the bin. No sign of recent living. The only evidence of Tsura at all Jess found in the attic, under the bed in what must have been her room. It was a small rosewood box, carved in flowers and leaves. In it were a couple of blue bird feathers, a tiny piece of fossilized wood, and a tuft of fur from a rabbit’s nest. Jess fingered each item gently, thinking how very unstrange they were, the sort of treasures any child might secret away. Then, as he went to close the lid, he saw there was something tucked into it. It was a photo. Or ra
ther, it was half a photo, torn neatly down the center. And staring out of it, grinning for all he was worth in black and white, was Walter.

  7

  THE PHOTO HEAPED COALS on Jess’s head. What had been a kind of vague remorse now gave way to real contrition. “And don’t we all sin?” Jess heard Gracie say. Well, yes, he admitted now, if you had to put it that way, so stark and blunt, he did. As did Clyde. And so, in her glancing-down way, did Millie.

  It was a hard thing to accept.

  He was coming to see that the path to truth was not a path at all, but a rugged mountain road, high and lonesome and winding, and when you had rounded any kind of sharp bend, or finally crested a hill, there was only yourself to meet.

  Not two days later, Jess ran into Pat Badger at the Feed & Seed. Pat was examining a bright-yellow nylon bridle. He had it stretched tight across a wide space between his large hands, testing its strength.

  “What do you think of these, Jesse? Have you used ’em?”

  “I have,” Jess said. “I guess I think they’re all right. But,” he grinned, “you know how Becky can be, so stuck in her ways. When I asked if she’d like to trade her old leather bridle, worn soft as a dog’s ear, for a fancy nylon one like you’ve got there, she said no, she didn’t think so, but thanks just the same.”

  Pat laughed. He hung the bridle back on the hook. They went outside and stood, each with a hand on the bed of Pat’s truck, making small talk. And then, almost naturally, as if the farrier were a priest Jess had asked to hear his confession, he found himself unburdening, telling Pat all about the fit of blind anger he’d been in on the night of Gracie’s death, how he had all but thrown Tsura bodily out of the house.

  “Lord, Pat, I was all out of my mind. I don’t remember what I said. I hardly remember doing it at all, but it must have been terrible for her. I was hoarse from it, couldn’t talk in a right voice for days.”

  “Aye,” was all Pat said. But it was a good reply, for while the old bygone word could not absolve a wrong, it yet blessed and said a man was understood. Jess went on to tell him, then, about the photo and how the halves fit like two pieces of an old puzzle, and how he thought he knew now what Clyde had done to break Millie’s heart. Strangely enough, as Jess talked of this, a bright spot of rhubarb color appeared at the base of Pat’s thick neck and began unfurling like the tendrils of a fern over his throat until it reached his ears, flushing them scarlet. Jess watched in discomfort, his own face reddening. He had never known Pat to be ill at ease. He said, quietly “You knew about this.”

  “Yes and no,” Pat said. “I knew there weren’t many wives could do what Millie did. What she wanted to do, rather. It was Clyde who wasn’t having it. Wouldn’t own up to anything.”

  “I know that,” Jess said. “It’s just what I’ve been saying.”

  “No, son. You’re not taking my meaning.”

  “Well, say it so I can then,” Jess said, irritably. He was getting a bad feeling.

  Pat balked. “No,” he said, and slapped his leg with the flat of his hand. He shook his head. “It was May Day. There may have been spirits afoot. And I had only her word to go on. To be sure, labor pain is a truth serum. Peg got all kinds of honest when she was having our boys, told me a great many things about myself I didn’t necessarily want to know.”

  “That’s no answer, and you know it,” Jess said.

  A look of patience came into Pat’s blue eyes and he said, quietly, slowly, “You’ve been fussing over your father a long time, Jesse. You’ve combed his hair and fixed his tie straight until he’s looking right smart. Good enough to bury. What say we do it? And let him rest in peace.”

  Jess put his hands in his pockets, looked off down the road where a car was just rounding the curve.

  Not expecting a reply, of course, Pat went on: “The pale truth is that however Tsura came to be in the world, and whoever it was should have been raising her, it was Eli Zook who did. There was wisdom in his ways too. He made a fine nest there on the mountain, grew up a splendid little swallow bird, and left her free to fly and perch as she pleased. None of us could have done near so well. Not for her.”

  “Pretty high praise for a man you told me you couldn’t vouch for.”

  “I also told you he was a friend,” Pat said coolly. “Eli has spells. Times when his mind can’t just simmer—it must boil. And once the pot has run clean over, he sinks into a cold, dark place and stays there for days. What I didn’t know until Tsura was old enough to fend for herself is that there are times when he takes off, leaves the mountain.” He paused, and when he continued Jess caught a tinge of regret, even remorse, in his voice. “She begs me not to grieve too much on it. Says a woman with sad, sweet eyes always came to stay in the house when Eli was gone, a story I’ll admit gives me trouble. But I am in no way saying it isn’t true. Anyhow, after a day or two, he makes his way back home. This last time, he just didn’t do that. Didn’t come back.”

  “Any idea where he is?”

  “None. Until last week. That’s when Tsura told me she’d seen him. You know, seen, in her way. She said he was with the Amish and wouldn’t be coming home to the mountain. So I did some checking with the ones I know. She’s right,” he said, and there was no mistaking the catch of sorrow in his voice. “Zook won’t be back to these parts.”

  “Why not?” Jess asked quietly, already sure of the answer.

  “Well, because he’s dead. Must have been just before Tsura showed up in your barn last winter, he took off from the mountain one night and walked all the way to New Wilmington. Some folks on a tour bus spied him the next morning, sitting on the rise of the hill above the highway. Had his arm around his dog and his eyes wide open, staring across the road at his sister’s house. Being unfamiliar with Amish ways, they thought he was a statue, placed on the hillock for them to gawk at. Frozen stiff is what he was, of course. It was dead, bitter cold. Whether he meant to go that way, nobody can know now. But I think not.”

  “Because he wouldn’t have walked all that way to die?”

  “Because he wouldn’t leave Tsura.”

  “But he did leave her.”

  “Yes,” Pat said, and the patience in his voice sounded tried, as if he had begun to doubt Jess’s ability to understand a plain and simple thing, “but only in the way I just said. The wandering-off way. He didn’t know it would be for good.”

  Jess said stubbornly, “You can’t be sure. Not if he’s dead.”

  “I am, though,” Pat insisted. “I delivered Tsura. I witnessed her first breath. I brought the priest that baptized her. And I brought him again, and the coroner, when her mother died. Helped Eli dig Maria’s grave. I’ve watched him look after Tsura like a daughter for eighteen years. As I said, he did go off moon-crazy every now and again, and I’ve no doubt that was hard on her. Harder, I’m sure, than you or I will ever know. But he never lifted a hand to hurt her. I’d stake all I have on that belief. And he wouldn’t have left her for the world.”

  8

  THROUGH AN OPENING IN THE TREES, Tsura could see the cross on the bell tower. The chapel was lit. She crept closer until she could hear the quiet, blended singing of the nuns. “O Gladsome Light.” They were praying Vespers. It was only just now falling dusk, but for them tomorrow had already begun.

  The song pierced Tsura’s heart. She tried to remember the story Gracie had told her about how it first came to be sung long ago, when there was a light that burned always in the tomb of Christ. It saddened her that she could not remember all of the story. It was always that way when Gracie had talked to her of church. The stories and explanations sparked her mind but wouldn’t stay put so that she could recall them later. What did stay was this warmth she felt in the nearness of the nuns, the sweetness of their prayer. Like water from a secret mountain spring, she had begun to crave it.

  She listened, hidden in the brush, until the service ended, then turned and walked in dimming light back into the woods, to the cool, shallow cave where she was camped. Tom
orrow, because she had promised, she would go with David Busco to see the falls at Hell’s Hollow. An image flashed before her then. And for the first time in her life, her spirit balked at the knowledge pressed upon it. She was suddenly weary of seeing.

  “How long?” she asked, even as she yielded.

  She lit the lantern and reached into the bag she had found left for her in the hollowed oak at the edge of the woods. Then she heard it. Below the urgent roiling of the nearby creek. Under the secretive, gathering rustle of the forest night. The voice. So familiar. Small and still and soft as the moon shining through the branches of the trees.

  A little longer, child.

  Always the same answer. Because, she knew, it was the only answer. But hearing it, she was at peace. She ate two of Darya’s rye and onion sandwiches, readied her pallet, put out the lantern, and lay down in the darkness to sleep.

  9

  THE NEXT DAY, driving the milk to the cheese factory, Jess arrived, having been absent in mind for most of the journey. His conversation with Pat had shone a little light on the situation with Tsura. And if the beam was a narrow one, stingy and slanting, it was enough to harden Jess’s resolve, make fast his need to find her and do all he could to set things right.

  The night before at dinner, Darya had finally confessed that she knew Tsura was living in the woods along Muddy Creek, near Zodie and Orville’s old place, near the spot at Mill Bend where Gracie’s nuns had built their new monastery; and now Jess was worried in earnest. Not that Tsura wasn’t just fine sleeping in the forest. She was as much so as a deer, and the weather was warm because of the late Indian summer. But there were rumors of vagabonds in the valley. Travelers, Pat called them. Hippies, Rose Marie said. Whatever anyone called them, they were young folks journeying across the land in packs, boys and girls together, pitching their tents at night in the valley fields. They were making their way slowly west from a bohemian gathering in New York. Jess thought that if any stopped on his land, he would allow them to stay a short while, as Margit Busco had always let the gypsies do—as Jess had always wished his father would do too. Why not? So long as they stayed to fallow ground and tended properly to their fires. But he didn’t want Tsura stumbling into their midst. She was a clever girl in her own way, but she had never even read a newspaper, could have no knowledge of the world these travelers would have seen.