One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow: A Novel

by Olivia Hawker

  That was why Substance had been all the things he had been: fist and boot, hard eye and hateful mouth. Because he had been a man, and a man was not a woman.

  The heat lurched up Clyde’s backbone. Up toward his neck, his throat. Down into his gut, where it made him feel so sick he wanted to heave and spit it from his mouth, no matter how it might burn coming up. But to gasp and choke in the grip of illness was to be weak and womanish, too.

  You aren’t here anymore, Clyde said to his father. You’re gone now—gone forever.

  Substance said nothing. He wasn’t there.

  There were other ways to be, Clyde knew. The ram in the fold was not a man, but he was male. Clyde could see him now, leading his flock out into the sagebrush to feed, patient and steady as he walked into the low summer sun, though it was autumn now, and rainy. The ram defended his own, but he didn’t brutalize the ewes. He never harried his young nor drove them away. And Joe Buck. How many times had the horse stood in quiet acceptance, allowing Clyde to hide his tears in the coarse, dark hairs of his mane?

  Once, Clyde had gone to Joe Buck and hidden his face against the horse’s neck. And after a time, when Clyde’s tears had run dry, the horse had whickered in surprise, and Clyde had looked up, more curious now than he was hurt. A few yards away, in a patch of trampled grass, he had seen three young jackrabbits playing. Clyde held so still at Joe Buck’s side that the rabbits hadn’t known he was there. He watched them chase one another in the sunlight, in the drone of cicada song. Running, skipping, boxing with their paws. He could see the jackrabbits again now, but from above, like a hawk gliding over the plain. Dark bodies sharply defined against the white glare, brown and distinct as figures carved in wood. The rabbits ran in a circle, faster, faster still, until their rapid legs blurred and then their bodies, until all Clyde could see with any clarity was the creatures’ long ears. There were three rabbits; Clyde was certain of that. Yet he could count only three ears. There should have been six. He blinked—the hawk blinked—and then he understood. If he narrowed his eyes and focused, he could pick each rabbit out of the blur of motion, see each animal whole. Every jackrabbit in the circle sported two long ears, after the usual fashion, but as each ear tapered to its point, that point merged with the skull of the next rabbit, so that every animal shared its body with the others. There were three rabbits, and yet not three. What seemed an individual, whole and distinct, was tied inextricably to its neighbors. You couldn’t separate one rabbit from the circle. If you did, you broke the chain, deprived the remaining lives of wholeness. The jackrabbits were more than merely connected; none could have existed without the others.

  Someone entered Clyde’s bedroom again. His mother—or the memory of Substance, brooding, hanging near the threshold. Clyde shifted on the mattress. The bedstead squeaked when he moved, and the sound was far too loud. He winced, squinting toward the window. His eyes watered heavily, but he could tell that the light was thinner and higher. The morning had grown late, so suddenly. Or perhaps he had slept without dreaming.

  “Who?” Clyde’s voice was so thin, so dry, he could scarcely hear it.

  “It’s me. Beulah.”

  She stepped away from the door and moved to Clyde’s bedside where he could see her. She was holding a pitcher of water with both hands, and she set it on the small table near his pillow. A stack of clean cloths waited there, too. She dipped a rag in the water and wrung it out, then laid it, cool and soft, on his forehead.

  “Can you sit up?”

  Clyde attempted it, but his arms were trembling—weak. He fell back on his pillow.

  “Never mind.”

  She soaked another rag and held it to his lips. Confused, Clyde drew back.

  “You’re powerful dried out,” Beulah said. “You’ll have to suck on this rag to get a little water in you. Like a baby sucking pap. Come on, now; don’t be shy. We were all babies once.”

  Clyde knew it was shameful—the greatest shame—for a man to be coddled so, treated like a delicate infant. But thirst racked him, searing the back of his throat. All at once, he could feel the thickness of his own blood, its sluggish, labored pounding in his veins. He took the dripping rag into his mouth and sucked. The first mouthful of water was such a relief that it made him giddy. It tasted sweet and green. The river was full, fed by autumn rains, and the well was generous.

  Beulah soaked the rag again and held it while Clyde drank. When she made as if to dunk it in the pitcher a third time, Clyde shook his head, and she lowered herself to the bedside stool.

  “The sheep,” Clyde said.

  “I’ve let them out to graze. I’ll bring them in again at sundown.”

  “The ewes.”

  “None have lambed yet. There’s time still.”

  But not much time. Clyde must get up, must spread new straw in the barn, no matter what Substance thought. Joe Buck would be watching from the corral while he worked. A yellow horse standing stark against a heavy blue sag of rain cloud.

  “You’ll need more water and some food before you’re fit to get out of bed,” Beulah said, as if she could hear Clyde’s thoughts.

  “What happened to me?”

  She answered lightly. “Caught sick by all the rain, I guess.”

  “Am I . . . am I bad?” He felt as if he must be. The burning in his back was relentless, the thirst still demanding, though he wanted answers now more than he wanted to drink. He must get up, yet the mere thought of doing so hollowed him out.

  But he had asked the question he’d feared to ask. The thing was done. All that remained now was to hear Beulah’s answer. Whatever it was, Clyde would accept it. He had little choice.

  “Heavens, no,” she said with a laugh. “You ain’t bad; just weak from not drinking all night long. Your mother should have made you drink, but I guess she was sore afraid for you and couldn’t think straight. She loves you a powerful lot, you know. I can tell by the way she looks at you.”

  “Mother is downstairs,” Clyde said. It wasn’t a question, but he did seek reassurance, for he couldn’t hear her moving down in the kitchen, couldn’t feel Nettie Mae at all.

  “No,” Beulah answered. “She rode to town. Thought you needed the doctor, though I told her you didn’t. You’ll be all right, and she’ll see for herself, once she returns. Come on, now; suck up more of this water till you’re strong enough to sit. I put some chicken soup on the fire. It’ll be ready soon.”

  Clyde turned his head on the pillow, so he could see Beulah clearly. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders. There was a tiny leaf caught in one sparrow-brown lock, a dry autumn curl from an apple tree. Clyde wanted to pluck it out of her hair, but his hand was too weary to move. He wanted to take that leaf from her hair and hold it, enclose it in his fist, never let it go.

  When she held the rag to his mouth again, he drank; and now, at last, some of his weakness gave way. Clyde struggled up till he was leaning against the headboard.

  “Good,” Beulah said. She poured water into a clay cup and placed it in Clyde’s hand. “You sip this, real slow and easy, while I go down and check on the soup. And on the little ones. I had to bring them all over with me, for my ma’s gone today, too. I told them I’d scald their backsides if they made a sound. You need your rest.”

  She vanished a moment later, so quickly that Clyde would have thought her a part of his fever dream if he hadn’t heard the girl’s feet on the stairs and then, low and tense, the murmur of her voice admonishing the children.

  Distant sounds drifted in from outside, too, blending with the wordless rise and fall of the voices downstairs. The ram calling to his ewes, thin and small at the far end of the pasture. Birds chittering in the lilac trees out beside the barn. Far across the fields, at the Bemis homestead, the milk cows lowed, rising on an emphatic note, and Clyde thought he could hear the light, fleeting sounds of a sage thrasher singing by the river. He could hear the river itself, far away though it lay—a low, constant sigh of unending movement. Clyde sat with the cup gr
ipped in both hands, steady on his lap, and listened. Beulah and the children, birds and sheep and river, he heard them all, each voice distinct. And then, as he listened to each in turn—to every voice at once—the sounds blended and merged. They stretched, reaching beyond their respective boundaries, the walls of the house or the bodies of the animals, and suddenly Clyde lost the distinctive notes. All became one vast, concerted hum. Everything he heard, he heard as a singular voice, and the voice sang in harmony with the heat that still flowed up and down his back, the ember that burned inside him.

  He closed his eyes, but he still saw Beulah’s face and the hair hanging down across her shoulder. The leaf caught up in those thin brown strands. She was downstairs in the kitchen, but she was also beside him, and her voice was one of many singing an endless chord. Clyde and Beulah were a part of the whole—two limbs of one body—as were the others, the blackbirds trilling beside the barn and the river breathing down the long, smooth course of its banks. There were two families, two farms, but the lines drawn between them were dissolving now, just as the trout in the shallows dissolved the boundary between light and shadow, between water and fish. There was but one land, one reality, and everything that moved beneath the boundless sky shared itself with its neighbors.

  The cup tipped on Clyde’s lap, and he tightened his grip before the water could spill. He opened his eyes and drank, lifting the cup to his lips with both trembling hands. When he leaned back against the headboard, he could feel the water at work inside him, cooling what remained of the fever, returning strength to his body.

  I’m not going to die yet, Clyde thought defiantly.

  He half expected Substance to answer, but it was Beulah’s voice he seemed to hear, asserting itself over the chorus of life just loud enough that Clyde could pick out her words.

  Not yet, she said. It’s not your time to fall apart.

  He heard the kitchen door open, then close, and heard no movement below. Beulah and the children had left the house. Clyde pivoted carefully on his sweat-damp sheets, slung his legs over the edge of the bed, and stood, clinging to the bedstead with both hands. After a few moments of uncertainty, his legs firmed and held his weight.

  Clyde shuffled to the window, still holding the bed for security. He brushed back a curtain and peered out at the world. The sky was still heavy, but the clouds had thinned enough to admit a diffuse, pearl-white glare of late-morning light. He looked down from the height of his window to the patched yellow and green of autumn pasture. Sheep were moving out near the hedge that held them back from the riverside, small and pale, square amid countless ripples of bending grass. The children played in the yard below, chasing one another through the wet grass, leaping over Nettie Mae’s herb patch. Beulah stood watching their game, hands on hips, unwearied by a long day’s work. She turned to face the barn. An instant later, the blackbirds sang.

  4

  ROOT AND BRANCH

  Just before sundown, my ma returned, rounding the shoulder of the hill in our rattly old wagon. I watched from Nettie Mae’s kitchen window—watched the wagon pick up speed, for Ma was eager to leave the dreadful lonesomeness of the forest behind her. But she drew up short outside our barn, and even across the pasture, I could see a new tension take her, a kind of fear. It took me a moment to realize what had upset her. She had expected the little ones to come running out to greet her, but our gray house was silent except for the hens darting and fluttering in the yard.

  Come on, I said to my brothers and sister. Ma’s come back with the wagon, and I bet she’ll be powerful hungry. Let’s all go over and I’ll fix us a bite of supper. Then I must come back and see to Clyde, for I promised Nettie Mae I would stay with him till she gets back from Paintrock.

  By the time I’d rounded up the little ones and guided them out of the Webbers’ yard, Ma had abandoned the wagon with our horse still cross in his harness; I could see him lashing his tail, vexed and sore. Ma was hurrying over the pasture toward the Webber house. I could tell by the way she ran that she was near-about frantic with worry. When I appeared with the little ones, she stopped in her tracks. Her shoulders sagged, and she tipped her face up toward the heavy sky. I could all but hear Ma’s prayer of gratitude.

  When we reached her, Ma gathered up the little ones and hugged them so tightly the boys became embarrassed and twisted away. She wrapped me in her arms, too, and I could feel their trembling, the bone-deep exhaustion that had wrung her out like a well-used rag.

  Thank God you’re all right, Ma said. When I came home to an empty house, I thought . . . Never mind what I thought. You’re all safe; that’s what matters.

  I explained about Clyde’s illness and how Nettie Mae had come riding over that morning to plead for my help.

  Nettie Mae, asking our aid? Ma shook her head. Wonders never cease. How does Clyde fare?

  He’s dandy, I said. He never was in any danger, and I told Nettie Mae so. But she wouldn’t listen.

  No, Ma said, I suppose she wouldn’t. She doesn’t know you the way I do, Beulah dear.

  Then Ma clapped her hands and shooed the children toward the house, promising them supper, though I could see she hadn’t the strength to fix it. I didn’t mind. There were biscuits and cheese in the pantry, and a good smoked ham for sandwiches. Ma would be glad of my help.

  The little ones ran ahead, but I hung back and walked at my mother’s side—slowly, which seemed the only pace she could manage. I noticed how her hands clenched and flexed, as if she were testing their mettle. Her dark hair was wild, locks pulled out of the tight bun and blown askew by the mountain winds. I could smell her sweat, too—a sour smell, thick with desperation.

  Did you get a good load of wood? I asked.

  No—oh, no, I should say not.

  There was a dreadful catch in her voice. In another moment, I knew, she would begin weeping.

  Beulah, it was a miserable day. Alone up there in the hills, in that sinister forest. I worked until I could scarcely stand, until I was all but done in. But I hardly gathered more than a few sticks of wood.

  She raised her hands, pressing them to her face, and I caught a glimpse of the blisters on her palms—angry, white, already leaking their stinging honey.

  Oh, what are we to do? Ma wailed. This rain . . . Snow can’t be far off. We must have wood—we must! But I cannot gather it myself; that much is plain to me now.

  You can buy firewood up at Paintrock, I said. Men go out into the foothills to cut it. They sell it by the wagonload.

  But we have no money. Ma whispered those words, for shame at her plight—and, I suppose, shame at her weakness—robbed her of breath.

  I said easily, Then we must trade for our wood.

  What ought we to trade? I’ve nothing of any value, and I don’t dare trade away any food. Not with an early winter looming just ahead.

  We had reached the porch steps by then, so I patted my ma on her weary back to brace her up and quiet her. I didn’t want her frightening the children.

  I’ll work something out, I said. Don’t you worry.

  But I knew she would go on fretting, for my mother had never learned to trust in the land to provide.

  Nettie Mae returned with the doctor long after dark. I went out with a lantern to greet them and to take in the doctor’s horse, and when Nettie Mae hurried inside, she was pleased and startled to find Clyde lounging on the parlor settee, bundled up to his chin with good, thick blankets. I had fed him on soup and boiled potatoes, and he was looking fine and sturdy, as thoroughly out of danger as the doctor pronounced him to be.

  Once she had settled the doctor in for the night in an upstairs room, Nettie Mae stood awkwardly before me, shuffling her feet and failing to meet my eye.

  I must thank you, she said, rather grudgingly. I’m grateful for your help, and . . . and for the good care you gave Clyde.

  It ain’t worth mentioning, I answered.

  But Nettie Mae insisted. She said, Without you, I might have gone mad with fear. But Clyde is we
ll; that’s all I care about. You were very neighborly, girl. Your mother could learn a valuable lesson by emulating her daughter.

  The rain stayed on for a few days more, sheeting down relentlessly, both day and night. Ma and I ventured outside only to tend our animals, who were restless and cross from the small choice we’d given them: stay shut up in their coops and barns or venture out to feed in the downpour. Ma was terrible afraid the cows would catch scald, for we had no tar left to treat their wounds if they did. We lost two young pullets to rattlers who found their way into the coop, sheltering from wind and wet.

  My brothers and sister were every bit as restless as our animals, for they weren’t allowed to step foot out of doors under any circumstances, not even to visit the outhouse. Ma made them use their nighttime chamber pots; she went out to empty the pots herself, and came back each time looking as if she’d been soaked in the laundry kettle and run only partway through the wringer.

  I kept the children occupied as best I could with stories and games. But when my stories lost their luster, I fell to braiding straw, fashioning bracelets and necklaces with intricate weaving, which the boys used to play Indian chief and Miranda mostly sucked on. I kept one of the bracelets for myself, and when the rain broke at last and the skies were more forgiving, I ventured out to the riverbank to visit my neighbor’s grave.

  The grasses of the prairie had flushed out with green, recovering from months of parched heat in only a few days’ time. Every blade and stem had been beaded with raindrops, and the land was like one great expanse of velvet, green on one side of the nap, silver on the other. When a breeze stirred, the grasses shifted, rippling from silver to green and back again, as if some vast, invisible hand were brushing the fabric of the prairie this way and that. As I walked through the cow pasture, sweeping the dark line of my path with my wet and heavy skirt, I watched the colors shift all along the field, down over the Webbers’ land below, out to the twin ruts of the road. And even beyond, to the endless flat forever of the untouched prairie, where a flock of blackbirds had risen, black against a gray sky, all of them twisting and turning high above the earth, a dance of gladness in the brief respite between the storm that had passed and the storm yet to come.