by Ron Rash
Laurel didn’t speak until they were on the pike.
“Marcie told me you and Carolyn are setting up house on Balsam.”
“Carolyn’s daddy won’t abide her living in the cove,” Hank said after a few moments. “That’s why he’s giving us the twenty acres.”
“It seems most everybody knew that but me.”
“I was going to tell you,” Hank said. “It just never seemed the right time.”
There was more she could say, and say in an accusing tone, but she suddenly felt too tired to bother.
“If you were in my shoes, you’d not do the same?” Hank asked after a while.
“I’ve never had that chance, have I?”
“You’ve got it now,” Hank answered.
“How do you know he’d even want me?”
“Because I ain’t got two hands but I do have two eyes,” Hank said. “You know well as I do that he came back because of you.”
“I don’t know that for sure. How can I if he can’t say it?”
“Dammit, Laurel, why else would he? To bust his ass all week for what he can probably make one night tooting a fife? Because he likes being in a gloamy cove?”
When they got to Slidell’s, Laurel unhitched Ginny and led her to the barn while Hank helped Slidell into the house. Hank returned with the lantern they’d left for the walk back. Hank hung the lantern on his forearm, struck a match, and lit the wick before handing it to her.
“I’m staying here tonight.”
Laurel walked out of the yard, the lantern held before her. Soon the moon and stars vanished as the trail began its descent. She counted back the days to her last bleed because it wouldn’t be like Jubel with his rubber sheath. It seemed a safe time, especially since she’d been drinking the tonic. There’d be some women who’d hope they weren’t fallow. They’d think getting with child would snare Walter into staying, but Laurel knew of men who’d seeded a chap and then run off. They’d left behind their kin and work and sometimes even farms, lots more than what Walter would leave. You may be putting the cart before the horse, she told herself, thinking how the earlier times when Hank had left, she and Walter were so skittish around each other they hadn’t even kissed. The trail dropped sharply and Laurel swept the lantern low over her feet to see each coming step. After a while the trail leveled and the woods thickened.
No light came from the porch, but as Laurel approached, the flute’s music filtered through the trees as if to guide her. She let it, no longer looking at the trail. As Laurel walked into the yard, the song changed to the one Walter had played on the Friday night eight weeks ago. A farewell song then, but now it welcomed her. Even if he can never say a word, even if there’s no one to speak to for weeks at a time, he can play for me. That’ll be enough, Laurel vowed. I’ll never want more, and if I do I’ll make myself remember what it was like here alone. She wasn’t sure who she was swearing it to—herself or God or Walter, maybe the cove itself. Only when her foot touched the porch step did the song cease. Walter sat in a chair, wearing a coat Hank had given him. He set the flute in its case and closed the lid. His face showed dimly in the lantern light.
“Hank is staying at Slidell’s tonight.”
Laurel placed the lantern on the railing and sat down. She thought about taking his hand but didn’t. Don’t wait, she told herself, if you do you’ll not say it at all.
“I want to tell you something,” Laurel said, and took a breath, let it out slowly. “I have feelings for you, heart feelings. I need to know if you feel that way about me.”
At first it seemed Walter hadn’t heard. Then he nodded, almost reluctantly it seemed, but his hand settled over hers. Laurel turned her hand and their palms met. His hand was cold as hers. She felt calluses that, like the thickened muscles in his arms and chest, hadn’t been there in August.
“So you feel the same for me?”
Walter nodded.
Minutes passed and they both seemed afraid to make the slightest move, as if between their clasping hands was a moth or mayfly, something so fragile a touch could damage it. Walter leaned and kissed her softly on the mouth, let go of her hand. He stood and walked into the cabin.
Laurel lifted the lantern and went to the privy, then came inside. As she passed Walter’s door, the lantern’s glow revealed it half ajar, but that also meant half closed. Laurel went to her room and set the lamp on the bed table, took off her dress and shoes and put on her gown. She sat on the bed and stared at the inch-thick wall. So close, three feet of emptiness and a couple of wooden planks. She almost rose to place her hand on the wall. That way she could imagine Walter doing the same.
Instead, Laurel snuffed the lantern. Though she was cold and the quilts would warm her, she did not lie down but remained sitting on the bed. She began shivering, unsure if it was just the cold. A few minutes later she heard the rasp of corn shucks. Walter had lain down or gotten up. His door creaked and Laurel waited. The footsteps paused at her open door. Getting his bearings, unsure what might be in the room, for as far as she knew he’d never been in it. That or still deciding.
“I’m here,” Laurel said softly, and pulled back the covers, lay down, and made room.
Chapter Thirteen
Hank left for the Weatherbees’ house early Sunday morning. I’ll likely not be back till dark, he’d told Laurel, making clear that, as on Friday night, she and Walter would be alone a long while. Walter had come to her room after Hank left. Afterward Laurel hadn’t put her gown back on. Instead, she’d spooned herself into him, Walter’s chest against her back, knees tucked close and his arm over her hip. The quilt was pulled only to their waists and Laurel let it remain so, his body a more soothing warmth.
Outside, it began to rain, at first a few slow drops tapping the tin roof, a sound much like yesterday when Hank and Walter boarded up the windows. Laurel had welcomed the hammer’s steady taps, because it signaled Walter’s presence. So different from the previous fall with her father newly dead and Hank still in Europe. Each afternoon full dark had come earlier, making the cove feel like a hand slowly clenching. Worst of all had been the days of unending rain, the barn and shed and woods dissolving into that grayness. The rain hushed all other sounds, so there wasn’t even the call of a cardinal or chatter of a squirrel to let Laurel know she was still in the world. Slidell had dug the grave and afterward reminded her to cover the cabin’s one mirror with a dark cloth, as had been done when Laurel’s mother died. Even after enough time passed and Laurel could uncover the mirror, she hadn’t, unable to shake the dread that she might look in the glass and see no reflection. Not long after the funeral, Slidell came one morning and boarded up the windows. It had felt as if she was being nailed inside the cabin forever.
Walter’s steady breaths warmed her neck and she thought of earlier that morning when she dreamed she’d heard her name spoken. The voice had been so real Laurel had opened her eyes and wrapped a quilt around herself to see if someone was outside. She’d fallen back asleep and dreamed that she had taught Walter to speak one word, her name.
When she awoke again the rain had stopped. Walter was up and dressed. Doing it for propriety’s sake, just in case Hank came back early. Before too long Hank would be with Carolyn and Walter could share her bed anytime. The thought pleased Laurel, but then curdled at why that was so, and how almost everyone, including Slidell she now realized, had known Hank’s plans before she did. By then, she and Walter might be engaged. It was possible, not just a fancy. As Laurel dressed, she imagined ways that Walter could propose—a drawing of them holding hands in church, or shaping a ring out of a gold piece, or even bending a knee with his hand over his heart, like she’d read in a book one time. He’d find a way.
Now that harvesttime was over and she’d picked the last of the beans and corn and grabbled up the last potatoes, she could teach Walter to read and write. All the signs argued a hard winter. Squirrel nests hun
g in the low branches and the woolly worms bristled, thicker moss on the trees too. There’d be a gracious plenty of snowy days when they could sit by the fire as lines and curves of pencil lead became letters and then words. She’d use the books Miss Calicut had given her, maybe borrow some Appleton’s school readers like she’d learned with. Miss Calicut could tell her where to buy a chalk slate and lined paper. She’d be a teacher after all. Laurel smiled at the thought but then another thought came—that Walter able to read and write would make him less needful, maybe change his mind about settling for her. Selfish to think such a thing, a lot of folks would say, and maybe it was, yet she couldn’t help it. Turn your mind to the words he’ll write you, Laurel told herself, and how those words will bring us closer, and maybe confidence him enough to go to town where it’d be worth the snubs and stares to share an ice cream or let him pick out cloth for a shirt, maybe even dance with her at a victory jubilee.
When Laurel walked to the privy, the chimney smoke wisped downward. Colder weather was coming but not before late afternoon. The trail to the outcrop would be muddy but the rock itself would be dry. She walked back inside.
“I’m fixing us a picnic. There’s a place I want to show you.”
Laurel folded a quilt in the clothes basket, added a cake tin of cornbread and jar of blackberry jam, last a bottle of muscadine wine. Walter lifted the clothes basket and they walked into the woods. When they came to the two lichened stones, Laurel paused.
“That’s where my parents lay.”
She and Walter walked into the deeper woods. The rain and wind had felled another dead chestnut and they walked around a trunk so thick neither of them could see over it.
“A blight’s killing them,” Laurel said. “They claim there won’t be a chestnut alive in these mountains before long.”
Walter nodded, though whether that meant he already knew she had no idea. Once he could read and write he could tell her so much more, his whole life. It would be like reading chapters in a book, written just for her. The path to the outcrop was slippery so they moved slowly. High above them, the last dark clouds drifted off the edge of the sky. The ground leveled and they came to the wash pool. She set the wine in the water to get cold.
“You’d better look down at the ground. The brightfulness near blinds you at first.”
They walked into the light with their heads bowed. Laurel shadowed her eyes with a hand and Walter did the same once he set the basket down. When her eyes adjusted, she took the quilt from the basket and spread it near the ledge. They lay on their backs and let the outcrop’s stored heat soak through the cloth and warm them, the only sound water skimming the rock and splashing into the pool below. Bringing Walter here could be a mistake, Laurel suddenly feared, because it brought notice of how dark and dreary the cove was. You can’t twine a better-not into every little thing you do with him, Laurel chided herself. Yet how could a woman shut inside a cove all her life know what a man like Walter thought about things, especially since he couldn’t talk. Laurel shifted onto a shoulder, their faces almost touching.
“You wouldn’t leave without telling me, would you?”
Walter opened his eyes and shook his head.
Laurel moved closer and placed her head on his chest and felt the rise and fall of his breath, the deeper movement of his heart. After a while she went to get the muscadine wine. A trout wavered in the pool’s center, its fins orange as fire, flanks spotted red and gold. Spawning colors, but the spawning was done now. Laurel could tell by the trout’s tail fin, ragged from fanning sand to cover the eggs. As she took out the bottle, the trout flashed back under the bank.
Laurel returned to the outcrop and opened the cornbread tin and jam jar. She uncorked the bottle and filled the cups. Walter took a swallow and Laurel did too. Its coldness felt good surrounded by the outcrop’s warmth. They ate the bread and jam, then drank more wine. After her second cup, the world felt cozied in cotton. Laurel raised up on her elbows and gazed at the far ridge. Except for the black scabs of dead chestnuts, hardwoods quilted the ridge in red and yellow and orange, some purple sweetgum leaves too.
“This,” Laurel said, tugging the dress to show the birthmark better. “Does it bother you to look at it?”
Walter shook his head.
“Some folks claim it to mark me as cursed.”
Walter moved closer, pulled back the cloth enough to place his lips on the birthmark and kiss it. They lay back down. This is how it’ll be, Laurel thought, hours and hours I won’t say much and he won’t say anything, but he can show me with his eyes and touches that he loves me. He’ll play music that’s prettier than any words he could say and after I teach him, we can write love letters. Laurel curled an index finger around one of Walter’s belt loops and closed her eyes.
When she awoke, the outcrop was half in shadow, the air cold. Walter was where he had been when she’d fallen asleep, though now his hands were laced behind his head, eyes open. Her finger was still curled in the belt loop and that pleased her. Laurel turned and kissed him, a long lingering kiss, tasting the wine on his breath, letting her hand settle on his cheek.
“We need to go.”
As they walked back, the woods were silent and still, the squirrels tucked in their nests, the crows hunched on branches. Like the sky’s quick unclouding, all boded frost, maybe a dusting of snow.
Hank returned at dusk, whistling to announce his arrival. He took off his army tunic and hooked it on a peg. He lifted a copy of the Marshall Sentinel from the side pocket and set the newspaper by the hearth.
“This week’s paper. Mr. Weatherbee gave it to me.”
“Oh, good, it’s been ever so long since I read one,” Laurel said. “I still can’t figure why Slidell stopped bringing us his every week.”
“Well, I guess at his age you’ve earned the right to forget a thing or two,” Hank answered.
“I reckon so,” Laurel said, and handed the coffeepot to Walter. “You can fill the cups while Hank washes up. Then we’ll eat.”
Afterward, Laurel added applewood to the fire and the three of them pulled chairs close to the hearth. She and Hank shared the newspaper’s two sections, Hank spreading the paper on his lap to turn pages better. It was good to have the paper in her hands, not just for the news but as much for the pleasure of reading. Laurel lowered the newspaper and turned to Walter.
“I want to teach you how to read. We’ll have lots of time for it once the hard cold comes.”
Walter nodded and she turned her gaze to a photograph of a fifty-pound pumpkin, the farmer embracing it like a huge belly. She read every recipe and every advertisement and every death notice. Hank asked Laurel about several words before they exchanged sections. On the front page there was a picture of Paul Clayton in his uniform, below it an article about his November eighth welcome-home celebration. Below the fold was a picture of an American warship named the Leviathan. Laurel showed the pictures to Walter and read the captions, then turned the page and read an article about a skyscraper in New York City that was twenty stories tall. Laurel wished there was a picture so she could ask Walter if he recognized it.
On the newspaper’s last page was Chauncey Feith’s petition above a long list of names.
“You signed this,” Laurel said.
“Feith can be right about one thing,” Hank answered. “That professor shouldn’t have been talking to them Huns. He’s lucky they didn’t lock him up too.”
Laurel saw other names she knew, including Ansel and Boyce Clayton. At the bottom, separated by a skipped line, were the words Supporters of This Petition, Mars Hill College Faculty. Fifteen names followed, all with Professor or Doctor before them.
“Slidell didn’t sign it.”
“He’s just being contrary.”
Laurel set the section by the hearth.
“They’re saying the war will end soon.”
“They w
ere saying that when I was in France,” Hank scoffed. “Another month and we’ll be home for sure and then it was by Christmas and after that Easter. Maybe it is about done, but how can anyone know? There’s never been a fray like this one. I do know one thing though. If that professor’s a spy, I’ll shed nary a tear if they hang him from that clock tower.”
When Laurel turned back to Walter, he was looking at the warship picture, the words beneath it as well. Already trying to start learning, Laurel thought as she went to fetch her sewing basket. She spread the muslin on her lap and guided the cotton thread through the needle.
“It’s called the Leviathan,” Laurel told Walter. “They claim it the biggest ship in the world. You reckon that to be true?”
Walter looked up but made no sign if he believed it or not.
“I’d not misdoubt it,” Hank said. “The damn thing weighs fifty-eight thousand tons. That ship would fill up this cove.”
Hank fetched his razor and took the whetstone from the mantel. He placed the stone in his right elbow, the razor’s blade rasping as Hank’s good arm sawed like a fiddler’s.
“Would you be of a mind to play some, Walter?” Laurel asked. “It’s been near a week and I miss it.”
Walter nodded and soon the flute’s music filled the room, the rasping of steel on stone heard in the silences. The applewood burned now, adding licks of blue and green to the yellow flames. Laurel’s needle caught the fire’s light and different colors slid on and off the metal as it dipped and rose, all the while the fire’s heat keeping the cold at bay. The Balm of Gilead. That was the pattern she had laid off with the bluing, using her mother’s bedspread as her mother had used her mother’s. It would be Hank and Carolyn’s wedding gift. Laurel paused and pulled another piece of thread over the beeswax, then dipped the needle into the muslin to start another knot. An ashy bottom log buckled, sent up orange sparks, and resettled. Only then did Laurel realize that Walter had quit playing. It was like the flames and the music had so blended that one was lost in the other. She reached for Walter’s hand and squeezed it. He laid his other hand on their clasped hands and Laurel saw the scraped knuckles and broken nails, a farmer’s hand.