“What about Ray, why isn’t he here? Did you forget to invite him, or was he just too smart to come?” Eli asked as he stood up.
“Ray! Are you kidding? He’s too stuck in his ways. He’s not going to have the guts to put himself out there.”
“This is a bad investment, John. It’s a mistake,” Eli warned.
“What would you know about investing? You can’t come in here with your simple understanding of things and try to tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. The testimonies for this corn are staggering! We’d all be idiots not to invest!” He picked up some fliers and turned to the rest of the men. “If we don’t move on this quickly, we’re going to miss out.”
Eli snatched a paper out of John’s hand and glanced over it. “Who are these testimonies from?” he asked. “Look at this! These are all from men directly involved with the company. They’re going to tell you what they want you to believe. They all have something to lose if more people don’t invest! Show me something from a non-investing farmer—or an impartial scientist. These testimonies are worthless!”
“And that’s your quick assessment, is it?” John said. “You’re suggesting we all steer clear just because you don’t want to trust what’s being said about it. Don’t you think the men cultivating this corn seed would know more about it than you? You keep complaining that I tell people what to do with their money, and then you come in here and tell these men not to invest. What do you think you’re doing? Maybe you should take your own advice and let these intelligent men make up their own minds.”
Eli turned to his neighbor. “Isaac, you’re not considering this are you?”
“Well… I don’t know… I’m no expert. What if John’s right?”
“He’s not! You have to believe me. Don’t invest in this!” he pleaded.
“You know, Eli,” John said, his voice raised to a near shout. “Just because you like wallowing in poverty doesn’t mean the rest of us do. How dare you come into this meeting and tell these men not to do something that could change their lives. This is why I didn’t invite you. You know nothing about money. You’re poor. You’re pathetic. You’re lazy. You have no work ethic. What makes you think anyone here would even listen to you? You obviously don’t care about the people of this town or their success. And you pretend to be all great and heroic bringing that doctor here. You’ve got this poor, humble do-gooder act going on, but I know the truth, boy! You didn’t contribute a cent to that Martin baby’s surgery.” John wiped at his mouth as he glanced around the room. “You hear that, men? How much of your hard-earned money did you all give for that baby? Eli, here—he didn’t give anything!”
Eli’s anger boiled over. “You have no idea what I gave toward Angel’s surgery…” he began to say, but John cut him off.
“Oh, yes I do! I saw the ledger; I saw what everyone gave. You weren’t even on that list.” As Eli’s mouth dropped open, Marcus and David stepped into the church, looking concerned.
“What is everyone doing here?” the pastor asked. “We could hear you shouting down the street! I didn’t approve this gathering. What’s going on?”
Eli barely heard him. “That ledger was none of your business.” He took a step closer to John. “Why don’t you tell Marcus how you’ve been snooping around in his office? Go ahead, there he is,” he said, pointing to the two men who had just entered the building. “Hey David, listen to this! John has some foolish investment idea he thinks everyone in town should jump on. How about that? No, wait! I mean everyone except the people who might actually know how bad it is.”
As Eli spoke, John clenched his teeth and breathed through flaring nostrils. Eli pressed his finger into John’s shoulder and pushed him toward the front of the room. “You know, John, I really thought you were smarter than this. But I guess you’ve thrown away any intelligence you might have had, and you’ve focused whatever brain is left into all your angry, prejudiced ideas. I am done with your insults! You’re the one who doesn’t know anything. If you invest in this, you’re the idiot!”
With that last word, John’s fist shot out. Eli’s instinct was triggered by his anger, and he countered the attack. He sidestepped John’s strike, grabbed his wrist, and twisted his arm behind his back. Eli pushed the farmer’s shoulder toward the front wall of the church and pinned his chest against it with the weight of his body. He brought his face close to John’s ear.
“You really want to fight me?” he growled, “Is that how you want this to go?” He brought his fist up and let it hover in the air, level with John’s face. Blinded by his anger, Eli was oblivious to the other men in the room.
The pastor’s voice cut through all the murmuring. “Stop!” he yelled.
Eli glared at John’s grimacing face, unable to lower his arm. Before he knew what he was doing, his fist shot forward and sunk into the wall a mere inch from the farmer’s nose. He pushed himself away and spun around to face the others. Some of the men looked ready to jump on him. David held his arms out in an effort to block them.
Marcus stepped forward with his hands held up, palm side out. “You need to calm down,” he said in a composed tone. “It’s over, okay.”
Eli raised a hand and pointed at the pastor as he pivoted and backed toward the door. “You’re right, it is over,” he said, spitting out the words. “I’m done, Marcus!” He looked around the room and his eyes landed on the banker. “Tell them whatever you want, David. This is a bad investment! Maybe they’ll listen to you.” He spun around and stormed out of the church, ignoring Marcus as he called after him. He blindly walked toward his home, cradling his swelling hand as he went.
MARCUS
Marcus knocked on the Gardners’ door. He waited as the seconds stretched out in front of him. Just as he was about to knock again, the door opened halfway. Ada blocked the entrance with her body, neglecting to adorn her face with her usual welcoming smile. She stood in silence, peering at him as he waited in the low twilight.
“Is he here?” Marcus finally asked. “I need to talk to him. Can I please come in?”
She pressed her mouth together, considering his request. “Not until you tell me something first,” she said. “What does the other guy look like?” Her voice wavered slightly.
“The ‘other guy’ is a dent in the church wall,” Marcus replied. “But John Miller probably thinks that dent landed a little too close to his face for comfort.”
Ada bit her lip and looked down. After a pause, she opened the door the rest of the way. “He’s in the kitchen,” she said, gesturing him in.
Marcus found Eli sitting at the table. He leaned back in his chair and held a cold, wet rag against his knuckles. Reddish-pink smears of blood stained the cloth.
“That’s going to hurt,” Marcus said.
“What do you want?” Eli asked with a straight face.
“Isaac filled me in on what transpired between you and John before I got there. Look, Eli, this is going to have to be dealt with.”
“Dealt with!” he said, cutting Marcus off before he could say more. “What is that supposed to mean? John has been on me ever since I moved here. I haven’t done anything to deserve it. There wasn’t a single man in that room who came to my defense tonight. What am I even doing here?”
“Eli…” Marcus started to say.
“No, you saw it yourself! John swung at me, but who did you choose to call off? Not one man, Marcus! Not even you.”
“Okay, you’re right; he swung first. But from what I could see, you had the upper hand. You may not have hit him, but your fist flew also. We need to resolve whatever is going on between you two. Take the night to cool off and come to my office tomorrow afternoon. I’ll have John meet us there as well. We can lay everything out on the table and figure out what’s causing this.”
“I won’t be there,” Eli said as he looked under the rag at his knuckles. “Ada and I are leaving in the morning.”
“What do you mean?” Marcus asked.
“We’re going h
ome,” Eli said in a flat tone.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know!” He wouldn’t look up. Marcus glanced at Ada, who remained quiet as she peered back at him.
“Listen,” he said, sitting in the chair across from his friend. “Why don’t Grace and I join you? I’d like to meet your family and see where you grew up. I can’t leave until after the service on Sunday, but we’ll come as soon as we can. What do you say? Just tell me how to find you.”
Eli turned his head away from Marcus and remained silent as he clenched his jaw tighter. Marcus looked at Ada again for an answer. She dropped her shoulders.
“It will only take you two days to get to Oak Springs if you go through Clearwater,” she said. “If you leave as soon as the service is over, you should arrive around five o’clock on Monday evening. There’s a coffee house at the Inn; it stays open late. You can meet us there and follow us the rest of the way. But Marcus, come prepared. We spend a lot of time outside.”
He nodded and thanked her as he watched Eli closely. “You will meet us there, right?” he asked. “Promise you’ll be there.”
Eli stood, still avoiding his eyes. “Ada, show Marcus out. We need to start packing,” he said and walked out of the room.
ROSA
“Jed.” Rosa nudged him as the wagon approached. “They’re here.” She wasn’t expecting them to arrive for another week, and certainly not on a Friday. She figured they would have waited for a weekend to travel. As everyone set their supper aside and moved to greet the couple, Rosa noticed a subtle difference in Eli’s posture. He wore a thin smile as he greeted them, and there was no energy behind it. Hopefully, he was just tired. But when she hugged Ada, she knew something was wrong.
“Is everything all right?” she whispered.
Ada glanced at Eli. “We’ll see…” she replied.
Jed and Rosa helped them clear out their vardo and unpack the wagon. Eli’s responses to their questions were short. Jed must have picked up on the tension as well, but he didn’t press the subject. As they carried their things into the vardo, Eli kept his work gloves on and favored his right hand.
Soon, they joined the group around the fire, and Hattie offered the couple some supper. Eli sat with his hands stuffed in his coat pockets, claiming he wasn’t hungry. He watched the flames flickering into the dim night, barely responding to the inquiries about their journey. Even Lily’s playful prodding was unable to elicit more than a faint smile from the young man. His words remained few as she tried to show him her new doll. He brought his left hand out of his pocket when she begged him to hold the toy.
Rosa stood and carried her chair to him. She placed it in the space between him and Jed and sent the little girl back to her mother. She raised her eyebrows at Jed before she sat and turned to Eli.
“Let me see it,” she said, holding out her hand.
“It’s all right, Rosa,” he insisted, not budging.
“I’ll decide that,” she argued. “Show me!”
The rest of the group was quiet. He pulled his right hand out of his pocket and placed it in hers. It was bruised and swollen; the knuckles had barely started to scab over.
“Oh, Eli…” She sighed and began to gently press around the top of his hand. He winced as she checked his bones. “Well, I don’t think you broke it, but I’m going to wrap it anyway.” She stood and went to her vardo to collect a few things. When she returned, she rubbed ointment onto his knuckles and began wrapping his hand in strips of bandages.
“Who’d you hit?” Jed asked, breaking the silence. Eli’s eyes shifted from his hand to the question. He shook his head and glanced at the ground, letting a quiet scoff escape his throat. Jed tried again. “Was someone messing with Ada?”
“No, Jed, I was just angry,” he said. “I hit a wall.”
“Eli, every man has a responsibility to protect his family,” Jed stated, “and I’ve never told you to back away from that kind of fight. But if you only needed to let off some steam, then it doesn’t matter if you hit a face or a wall. When your anger moves to your fist, you need to walk it off.”
“I’ve been walking it off for four years!” Eli said. Rosa scarcely finished wrapping his injury; he pulled his hand away and nodded a quick thank you to her. Standing, he glanced at Ada. “I’m going to bed,” he said and left the group. Rosa flashed a look toward Jed, who sighed and turned to Ada.
“What’s going on?” he asked. “Who’s he fighting with?”
“I think…” she said, shifting her worried eyes between them. “I think he’s fighting himself.”
ADA
Ada peeked at the late Monday sun as Hattie told her about last summer’s markets. The cheerful woman laughed while relaying a humorous event involving a clumsy man and one of their tables, but Ada found it hard to concentrate on the anecdote; she was worried about Eli. Even though he had disappeared every morning since their arrival and stayed away for hours, she had prayed that—at least today—he would be back by now.
On Saturday, he spent the entire day fishing at the lake. He left camp before any of the other men could wake up and join him. Long before the sun had risen, Ada heard him dig the fishing gear out of the shed and call quietly to Cobra.
In the late afternoon, Jed went to look for him but returned unsuccessful. Eli must have hiked out farther than usual. He had a lot on his mind, so she didn’t start worrying until the sun went down and he still hadn’t returned. Several hours after Ada had gone to bed, the door opened, and he stepped into the vardo.
Ada sat up. “Eli, where have you been? I couldn’t sleep.”
“Sorry,” he apologized. “I went to the other side of the lake.” He changed and climbed under the covers.
“You’re cold. Did you eat?”
“I cooked some of the fish I caught. I’m sorry I worried you.” That was the only explanation she got that night.
During worship the next morning, Eli sat in silence as he stared into the fire. He didn’t move the entire time. He didn’t sing any of the songs or share in the comments as he normally did. Ada couldn’t tell if he had heard a single word of Ira’s sermon. After breakfast, he grabbed a pole and started down the path to the creek. Jed called after him and asked if he wanted company, but Eli shook his head and continued to walk away without turning around.
Again, he didn’t return until after dark. Ada didn’t scold him when he slipped into bed. She wrapped her arms around him, warming him up as they fell asleep in silence. When he climbed out of bed the next morning, she rolled over and watched him get ready for the day.
“Eli,” she said, causing him to pause at the door. “Marcus and Grace will be arriving in town tonight.”
“I know,” he replied and walked out.
The sun had now made a significant arc in the sky. Hattie continued to relay her story as a knot grew in Ada’s stomach. Eli wasn’t going to be back in time. She turned to the woman, who was attempting to distract her.
“I’m sorry, Hattie. Do you know what time it is?”
Hattie stopped speaking and glanced at Floyd. He pulled a watch out of his pocket. “It’s ten past four,” he informed her.
“Will you please excuse me?” she said to them and stood up. Jed and Rosa had been talking in their vardo for the past hour. She walked to their door, and after she tapped lightly, Jed pulled it open and peered down at her.
“Could you take me into town?” she asked. “Our friends will be here soon.”
He looked past her and scanned the camp. Sighing, he grabbed his coat and said, “Yeah, let’s go.” As they walked to the wagon, he stopped and placed his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Ada. I don’t think he’ll let me help this time.”
“No,” she agreed. “He’s going to have to figure this one out for himself.”
ELI
Eli tied a small, weak plant to the stake. One of its leaves was torn and dangling. He wondered if this one would survive. Nevertheless, it still deserved a chance. He spread dir
t around the roots. The dark soil had rubbed into his skin, lessening the contrast between the pigment of his flesh and the ink in his tattoo. As he drizzled water around the base of the plant, he heard a voice.
“Eli, I want to show you something.”
He stood and stretched his aching muscles. As he stepped forward, he saw that he was no longer in the field but on the edge of a steep hill. The man from the field stood next to him. Eli could vaguely see him in the fringe of his vision.
“There,” the man said, pointing at a town below. Eli followed the direction of his gesture. Faceless, nondescript people walked along the street of the town, nodding greetings to each other as they went about their business.
“Why there?” he asked. He didn’t see what was so special about that place.
The man put a hand on his shoulder. “Does it matter? That’s the place because I said it is. How badly do you need to know all the ‘whys’ and ‘whats’ before I’m ready to tell you?”
Eli’s eyes drifted across the figures in the street. As he turned toward the man, he discovered he was alone again, but he could still hear his voice.
“Eli, wake up! It’s almost time…”
Eli’s eyes sprung open as a shadowy, echoing voice faded from his mind. He became aware of Ada’s body pressing against his back. Turning over, he put an arm around her. As he felt her sigh, he thought about the night he had asked her to go with him when it was time to leave. Would she still agree all these years later? They had just lost Ruth Ann, and she barely had time to grieve. He closed his eyes and whispered into the night: “Lord, I promise I’ll go, but please let me give her a little more time.”
Painted Vessels Page 25