“Hutch, it’s Ann. I’m sorry to wake you—”
“You didn’t at all; I’m up reading Shakespeare. Thanks for the company today; it truly counted.”
Ann pushed that aside. “I’ve read Wade’s letter and I guess I can maybe half understand why you felt you should hold it back till tonight—you were wrong; still I can’t fight you now—but before we meet in the morning, I just need to know a few things.”
“Me too. It’s still a deep mystery to me.”
“But you’ve discussed the details with Ivory?”
Hutch said “In about four cloudy sentences only, not a real discussion. I honestly haven’t felt I had the right. And Ivory’s said nothing really, not to me, that throws any further light on the boy. She’s said we have no debts to her at all, but you heard her say that much again tonight.”
“You think Raven’s ours?” Raw as the words were, Ann’s voice had its old patient candor. I can take what comes; so can you, beside me.
Hutch almost laughed. “He’s not ours, no ma’m.”
“You know what I mean—is Raven actually kin to Wade?” Even Ann heard the quaintness of her question.
“I very much hope he is—kin to us too. We may never learn.”
Ann said “Don’t be so sure we won’t. As he goes. Wade’s traits may well show in him. Meanwhile, we can’t just let him and Ivory drift off and pay them no mind at all, not for the entire rest of our lives. She’ll need boxloads of money through the years and practical help to raise a child alone in New York.”
“She can do it, Ann. She plainly means to. She may never want us to see him again.”
“And you don’t plan to ask for anything—some reasonable visits, a hand in the child’s life? You don’t think we should contribute to his care?”
Hutch said “I want every bit of that, yes; but Ivory Bondurant owns her own mind—I’ve learned that well. I very much doubt she’d smile on our hopes. Never forget she’s Wyatt’s sister.”
“Oh I haven’t, not once.” Ann waited so long Hutch thought she was gone; then she suddenly said “You think that Wyatt will give us some peace now?” Ann was as likely to mention ghosts as any particle physicist.
Hutch was stunned for a moment. “Wyatt? Peace?”
“You know what I mean.”
I do; too well. They hadn’t mentioned Wyatt since the night Wade died, when they’d both acknowledged his nearness and power all through the house. Hutch said “Wyatt’s gone, I’m fairly sure; but Ivory’s got to be as scorched as we by memories of him—what he thought about us as Wade’s close kin, the ghastly way he chose to die.”
“Don’t blame poor Wyatt for that; God knows, he was not himself then.”
Hutch said “How do you know that? And don’t call him poor.”
“Ivory told me that much, tonight in the kitchen when you walked out.”
“How did she put it?”
Ann said “Just that plainly—you were barely out of sight; she turned those strong eyes on me and said ‘You know my brother lost his mind before he died.’ Since she’d been that honest, I pushed a little. I asked her how far back that confusion went, in his life and ours—”
“Oh, careful, Ann.”
“No, Ivory took it calmly. I could see she knew I was fishing for hope that all he’d thought and said about us was truly insane, but she didn’t stretch an inch past the truth. She said ‘I date it from three weeks before he picked up the pistol. Till then he was clear-headed—wild and sure he was right but clear-headed.’”
Hutch waited for Ann to go on.
She didn’t; she’d apparently finished for the night.
So he opened his month to say “Till morning then” but other words came. He heard himself say “Could you come back here?”
“Now, tonight?”
“Whenever, for good.”
Ann said “You can’t mean that.”
Hutch wondered if he did. It had shocked him to say it; it could be anything from a moan to a lie. Still he said “I very well may mean it, yes.”
“You’re thoroughly worn out and sad like me. Sleep awhile anyhow; we can talk tomorrow.” Her tone was a little too sensible.
Hutch said “Are you at the office or home?”
“Home—great God, I don’t work till Wednesday.”
“Till breakfast then.”
Ann said “Till when. Or whenever, friend.”
Hutch said “Old friend—”
But by then she was gone.
ONCE Hutch had lain on another ten minutes, asking himself to explain the plea he made to Ann—was it a plea or a hurtful probe?—and finding no answer, faces began to rise again and challenge his failure. This time the clearest face was Maitland’s. Hutch remembered he’d promised himself to call Mait later tonight, after their bleak parting. The lighted clock said nearly one, but he seldom hesitated to call students anytime—they hardly slept except on Sundays. Yet it took a long ten rings before Mait answered. “Moses,” he said.
Hutch said “Mayfield.”
A wait, then Mait said “Morning there, Mayfield.”
In a shy reflex Hutch said “You alone?”
“No, I’ve got Barnum and Bailey here with matched white tigers and a small troupe of midgets.”
Mait seldom joked and Hutch felt shut out, so he only said “I’ll leave you to your midgets then. I just meant to tell you I spoke too harshly, way too harshly, tonight as you left.”
“No you didn’t. You were telling the reasonable truth; I still wouldn’t hear it.”
“I was too harsh though.”
“You were honest,” Mait said. “It’s all harsh news, here where I’m living. I just can’t live by your fears, Hutch.”
“Then by all means don’t. Nobody yet ever got happy from me.”
“Now you’re lying. You’ve cheered me a lot. I told you you’ve given me a whole sense of life, of somewhere to go and a way to get there.”
“Can I lean on that? Will you try to keep living?”
Mait said “Absolutely, for what it’s worth. I just can’t promise to obey you though. My body can’t. Or won’t anyhow.”
Hutch realized Mait’s voice hadn’t cracked once in maybe two weeks; the boy had pushed through some final membrane and stood tall and ready for stripped-down life. In the dark Hutch’s own eyes were suddenly exhausted; a kind of mist had settled on his face, a dense cold webbing. He said “Please come to supper on Tuesday.”
“Cam and I both?”
“Well, if you like. I thought the two of you were on outs.”
Mait waited. “We were but he came by an hour ago. Wade’s service really moved him.”
“He’s not still with you?”
“No, but we talked calmly. I’ll go by to see him at the hospice tomorrow.”
Hutch said “And you want to bring him here Tuesday?”
“Do I hear a suggestion you don’t want Cam?” Mait was calm at the thought.
Hutch managed a laugh. “Oh no, I’ve mostly been a third wheel, some sixty years and rolling.”
Mait thought he heard a trace of self-pity. I’d better ignore it. So he just said “We’ll bring the groceries and cook them. Cam’s a dynamite chef.”
“I doubt I can easily eat dynamite.”
Mait said “No, dynamite means he’s really good.” Then he guessed that Hutch was joking after all. “You know that, right?”
“My ears can still just barely hear what young people say, yes. And sure, I’ll be glad to let Cam cook—some night next week.” Then Hutch thought What if Ann’s back here by then? But he said “I’ll be hungry and waiting at six.”
Mait said “Adiós,” not knowing he’d echoed Wade’s farewell on leaving New York.
Neither did Hutch but the word snagged in him, a strong clean hook. He could only think to sign off with the simplest translation, inaudibly whispered. “Yes, Mait, to God.” Then before he hung up, Hutch thought he should also have phoned Straw with word of the plans for
morning. Not tonight. I’m finished. I’ll call him at dawn; he’ll be there the rest of his life anyhow. The phone was barely back in its cradle before Hutch slept.
6
So in all the house no one was awake but Raven Bondurant, flat on his twin bed six feet from Ivory’s in the back guest room. In the perfect dark the boy was not scared, despite the depth of stillness around him—a stillness he’d never heard, even on Long Island. He was holding in both hands, atop the sheet, a doll that had been Wade’s. Hutch’s father had bought it for Hutch, the summer they visited Jamestown together, the site of the first white permanent English-speaking colony on the continent and the harbor into which the first black African captives were brought and sold as things.
The doll was a well-made realistic copy, ten inches tall, of a Stuart cavalier in his doublet and soft boots, his ruddy skin, blond beard and one earring—hardly the kit for life on the rim of a country settled by six million red men with plans of their own. The doll’s painted china face wore the gold-struck inner gaze of a murderous innocent, bent on triumph if it could just master the starving icebound winter ahead.
When Raven had gone in tonight, at Ivory’s urging, to thank Hutch for all his attention today, Hutch had reached to a shelf by the living room fireplace, found the doll and held it out to him. “This is yours from here out, Raven. Wade used to love it when he was a boy.”
Though Raven himself would never quite know it—nor his mother or grandmother, Hutch nor Ann—the lasting traits of Wade Mayfield, who was Raven’s father, (Wade’s merciful wit and early decency) would seep into the child’s growing body through this small likeness of a body both paler and older than Raven’s, the artful token of three whole peoples (two of whose blood ran in the child’s veins) locked in the toils of a mortal combat still undecided but apparently endless. And while it was still three hours till dawn on Hutch’s green hill in the midst of quiet woods, that nonetheless harbored their own nocturnal raptors and prey, the expectant boy took only short naps till daylight showed him this latest treasure—an unthinkably intricate potent doll, in his small hands, that would be his for good.
7
WHEN Hutch phoned Strawson at six that dawn, Straw showed no surprise and said that Emily was anticipating the Mayfields and Bondurants for lunch. So Hutch and Ann—with Raven and Ivory—headed out in a bright and remarkably dry midmorning for the short trip north. Raven sat by Hutch up front with Wade’s ashes boxed on the floor at the child’s feet. Very little was said by anyone, though Ann would occasionally point to a distant house or tree or a lone white horse and describe it to Raven.
They even passed a solitary mule in a huge mown field; and Ann said “Raven, remember that sight. Mules are all but a thing of the past; they used to own the country.”
Ivory was the one who laughed and showed interest. “My mother’s favorite brother was Mule—she’s always saying he was just that stubborn. But I never knew Muley; he died too young.” She leaned forward near enough to tap Raven’s head. “Maybe I ought to start calling you Mule, Mr. Set-in-His-Ways.”
Raven didn’t look back but, once he’d watched the mule out of sight, he said “You talking about that boy who died when I wasn’t born?”
Ivory said “Yes, he was your great-uncle.”
Still watching the road, Raven said “Don’t mention him dying again.”
Hutch said “Why not?”
“I can’t stand to hear how children die.” From then on Raven faced only the woods.
So Hutch tried to think how this world looked through this boy’s eyes. If Raven had watched as much television as most young children, and since he’d barely left Long Island till two days ago, these hardwood thickets and evergreen jungles must look more like the surface of Venus than anything common to New York state—some planet anyhow where men, women, children were far from the center of anyone’s gaze. And surely, Hutch knew, the child who grows up watching nothing more self-possessed and reliable than people and cars, buildings and madmen is cruelly blighted from the start. Is it too late here to let this child watch fields and trees and feed his mind every element it craves? They were no more than five or ten minutes from the Kendal place when Hutch said at last “You enjoying the scenery?”
Raven still didn’t turn and he offered no answer.
Ivory said “Son, answer Mr. Mayfield.”
Finally the child said “If I tell the truth, it’ll hurt his feelings.”
Hutch laughed. “No you won’t; I’m a tough old turtle.”
Raven said “I don’t see nothing I recognize. Lord, I feel like I’m lost for good.”
Ivory heard the sound of her own mother’s voice; still she said “You don’t see anything—”
Hutch said “Trust me—this is my native ground.” He chuckled again.
Raven said “That’s the problem. I stopped trusting people.”
Now Ivory laughed. “Don’t talk crazy, Son.”
Raven pressed his face to the window glass. “It’s not me that’s crazy. People killing children everywhere. You watch the TV, you’ll learn some news.”
Everybody let the child’s words settle slowly; then Hutch said “Son, you’re safe with me.”
Raven looked round and studied Hutch like a hard lesson. Finally he said “I’m not your son.”
Ivory said “What a thing to say. You mind your manners.”
Hutch grinned at Raven. “You’re right as rain. I’m a well-wisher though; I could still be your friend.”
Raven said “Well, I’m thinking that over.”
All the adults laughed.
But the child faced Hutch. “Man, I’m telling you the truth.”
Hutch said “I never doubted you were.”
8
IT was past noon then when the car drew up in the shade of the oak at the Kendal place and Straw came down the back steps to meet them. The previous day, after the service, Raven had taken a shine to Straw and followed him up the slope back of Hutch’s—the bare crest from which they could see for twelve miles south. Beyond the spires of Chapel Hill, Straw knew very little about what lay there peaceful before them; but he got the boy to join him in populating the wide sea of woods with buildings and creatures designed to fulfill their joint pleasures—horse-riding schools full of pretty girls in various shades, an ice-skating rink with giant benevolent dinosaur-instructors, tremendous rooms with women and tall men boldly dancing in long white clothes, and numerous other houses and contests: all likewise benign, though some hilarious and some fairly risky.
So as Raven was the first to climb from the car this Monday noon, he ran toward Strawson till Straw stopped midway and crouched to greet him. Somehow the unaccustomed sight of an open-armed grown man stopped the boy in his tracks till Ivory came up behind him. “That’s Mr. Stuart, Son. From yesterday. He took you walking. Show him your new friend.”
Raven stayed in place but slowly extended the cavalier doll.
Straw knew it on sight; Wade had brought it up here on numerous visits. But he accepted it from Raven, studied its face a moment, then handed it back. “You know who that belonged to, don’t you?”
Raven nodded, silent.
Ivory said “Tell him ‘Yes, thank you.’”
But Raven waited, then said “That dead man” and suddenly laughed.
Hutch and Ann had caught up by then; so everybody could laugh with the boy as Straw stood and led them on into the darkened cool house, the roof that had sheltered a sizable portion of Hutch’s long-dead kin a century back and further still. Their faces hung on in the least used rooms—Straw had bothered to round up portraits and photographs, from Hutch’s grandmother Eva, when he first moved here. They were all plainly marked by their own ancestors with the long broad foreheads and splendid eyes that, even in painful antique poses, burned with a heat that could still be felt—a heat transformable to love, hate, victory at a moment’s warning and tirelessly ready. One by one, as Straw showed Raven through the rooms, he pointed the pictures out w
ith histories and family names.
The boy absorbed as much as he could of an almost foreign world and time. Then at the picture of one hefty woman, swathed in black and coiled with braids, he finally told Straw “I think I need to stop doing this.”
Straw said “I may agree with you there.” Then he led Raven down to join the others for the bountiful meal that Emily had worked on since nearly dawn—eight vegetables (picked in the garden today), endless fresh crisp fried corn cakes, iced lemon tea and a strawberry pie with cream from half a mile down the road—a cow named Battleaxe.
Through that. Wade’s ashes waited on a table on the shady back porch among the day’s harvest of ripe tomatoes—maybe fifty big fruit. Thin as Wade had been on the night he died, his ashes filled the salt-glazed urn that Hutch had driven to Jugtown to get three days ago, made for him by his friend Vernon Owens there—a master potter from a line of potters that went straight back to Staffordshire, England more than two centuries past. The urn was eighteen inches tall and a high tan-gray with the figure of a dark horse running on the curved face.
The horse was the potter’s own idea—he’d met Wade more than once in Wade’s childhood and said he recalled the boy asking him once to make a horse’s head, life-size, in clay and then bake it hard. Vernon claimed Wade said that horses knew more than people at least. That would have been maybe twenty-five years back; Wade would have been maybe seven years old. Hutch had no memory of such a request, but he’d taken Vernon’s memory as true. So he brought home the urn, poured in the two quarts of Wade’s grainy ashes with small knots of bone and left them to wait for whatever plan developed for their scattering.
They were minerals now and dumb to the voices that washed out past them through open doors from the dining room. The voices, though, were gladder than not to be alive—well fed and gathered for this brief pause at the edge of Wade’s last traces on Earth.
9
The Promise of Rest Page 37