Clyde found the house abandoned. Even the sofa where Beulah had lain was empty now, brushed clean. Cora and Nettie Mae had moved the girl upstairs to a more suitable bed, Clyde supposed—now that the doctor had declared her fit to walk. He was glad he wouldn’t disturb Beulah’s rest with his comings and goings. Let the girl gather all her strength back to herself—that strange and glorious power, the seeing and knowing that were hers alone. The sooner she had recovered, the happier Clyde would be.
He saddled Joe Buck and rode to the river, then up into the foothills, all the way to the deep gully and the felled tree. There would be no work for Clyde to do till evening, when he must bring in the flock and the cattle. He could spare an hour or two for leisure—and for his thoughts.
Clyde ground-tied Joe Buck and left the gelding to graze in the blue shade of the pear tree. He climbed up onto the red boulder and tucked his legs Turk-fashion, settling his hat low on his brow against the sun’s glare. Clyde remained that way for some time, thoughtful and still, looking down on the land below. It was one farm in truth now. Two houses, but one land, any boundaries swallowed by grass, the lines erased by the softening of the year. They had made that farm together, made it one—Clyde and Beulah, working side by side.
Joe Buck whisked his tail, lashing away the flies. The gelding’s yellow hide twitched, and patches of shadow and light rippled along his flanks. Clyde watched as Joe Buck browsed along the floor of the gully, searching for his favorite grasses, patient and serene. Far below, a wind stirred the pasture in green-golden ripples that moved like waves across a pond—like the rings that spread, endlessly rebounding, when you drop a rock into water. Clyde could hear his ram calling to the ewes, a distant, sleepy call.
He reached into his trouser pocket and withdrew his carving knife and the chunk of white bone. It was coyote bone; Clyde knew that much, for it was one of the fragments he had gathered at the riverbank a few days before. He held up the broken, porous thing and turned it over in the sunlight, considering the shape and its proportions. Somehow he had forgotten this piece in his pocket, and hadn’t discovered it till he’d reached Paintrock the night before. Then, aching from the ride and shouting outside the doctor’s door, Clyde had chanced to slip his hands into his pockets, cringing against the cold. The bone had fitted itself in his hand; his fingers had closed around it, and Clyde had promised himself that he would put it to good use if Beulah survived.
He set to work, scraping with his knife, chipping away shards of white little by little. Joe Buck flicked his ears at the sound and raised his head now and then, watching Clyde inquisitively. The sun settled lower in the west, but Clyde worked on, till a blister had raised on his thumb and his fingers bore tiny garnets of dried blood in the places where his knife had slipped and nicked him.
Joe Buck moved toward Clyde, blowing gently, bobbing his head. Clyde folded his knife and slipped it into his pocket.
“You’re right, old Joe. Time we got back home. Time we brought the sheep in, too. Night will be here soon.”
He scrambled down from the boulder and stretched. Joe Buck waited patiently by his side, but Clyde didn’t mount up yet. He held what remained of the bone between his thumb and forefinger, held what he had made up against the sky. A little white ring, perfectly round, and just about the right size to fit Beulah’s finger. Clyde was sure of that.
He reached into his saddlebag and found the small wooden box Mr. Bemis had sent him from the Paintrock jail. Clyde dropped the ring inside. Then, on impulse, and blushing a little over his own sentimentality, he plucked one of the last blossoms from the pear tree and put it in the box, too. The ring needed more work—smoothing and polishing. By and by, he’d see it done. It would wait in the inlaid box till it was finished—till Clyde knew the time was right to ask Beulah for her hand.
He didn’t stop at Substance’s grave on the ride back home. There seemed little point in stopping. He passed the low mound at an easy lope; red earth, carpeted in growing things, blurred under Joe Buck’s hooves. The coyote’s skull was half-buried in tender leaves of bindweed. He could hear the ram calling again, summoning the flock, and Clyde urged Joe Buck on till they broke out onto the flat expanse of the pasture. The cottonwoods had shed their feathery white seeds; a haze of captured light hung above the grass, bright and pure as stars. The seeds drifted lazily around him as Clyde rode among his flock. The animals greeted their shepherd with deep, guttural calls. The ram fell into step beside him, and Clyde led the flock home from their pasture.
When he had closed the sheep in the fold and returned Joe Buck to the paddock, Clyde stopped at the well pump to splash his face with cool, bright water. He let it run down from his nose and chin and fall to the earth between his boots.
“I’m glad to see you’re out and about. I hope you rested well.”
Clyde looked up, wiping the last of the water from his eyes with damp fingers. His mother stood beside him. She had brought a ewer for wash water, and began to fill it as soon as Clyde moved away from the pump.
“I feel fit enough,” he said. “But nothing worse than tiredness troubled me; I was never in any danger. How is Beulah faring?”
“Very well.” Nettie Mae didn’t look up as she spoke. The exertion of lifting the stiff pump handle made her voice flat with concentration. Clyde couldn’t read her mood.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said, and paused, wondering what he ought to say next, how to find the right words, the definite words—how to assert himself absolutely without hurting his mother’s heart.
The ewer filled, and Nettie Mae let the pump handle fall. A final gush of water spilled from the spout, tumbling into the thick green growth below.
Clyde touched his mother’s arm as she lifted the ewer to her hip. Nettie Mae stopped, met his eye, and held it. Her dark brows fell—not into a frown, but into an expression of resignation. She said nothing, but waited for Clyde to speak.
“Mother.” The words came slowly, cautiously. But he knew they must come. He wouldn’t hold these words back any longer. “I’m going to court Beulah someday—when she’s ready for it. Even once Cora has moved everyone up to Paintrock. I’ll find a way, for I intend to marry that girl, if she’ll have me.”
Nettie Mae shifted—a small gesture that might have been a shrug. “Cora isn’t going to Paintrock. Not anymore. At least, not this year. She and I talked about it at length last night, while we watched over Beulah, waiting for you to bring the doctor. We’ll spend the winter together again under one roof. God will grant us a happier go of it this time, I think.”
She turned and glided a few steps toward the house, careful not to spill any water from the pitcher. But then Nettie Mae stopped again and glanced at Clyde over her shoulder. “As for courting Beulah,” she said, “you’ll get no objection from me. Now hitch up your float, if you will, Clyde. I must send you over to the Bemis place on an errand, and it must be done soon. Supper won’t cook itself, and night is coming on.”
Nettie Mae swept across the yard, as straight backed and tireless as she always was. The cottonwood seeds glowed around her.
NETTIE MAE
She had never known such relief as she felt that morning, when Beulah woke from her dreams, released from a harrowing darkness that had held the girl in its grip all the long night through. Nettie Mae had no inkling of her own fear, no real understanding of how desperately she wished for Beulah to live until that moment, when life had returned to the child. Life had returned to Nettie Mae, too—life like a sunrise, warm with promise—and she had wept with joy and gratitude, trembling with the knowledge that Beulah would survive.
The moment of waking seemed to visit Nettie Mae again and again, as if eager to impress her with the sweetness of the memory. Stepping into the sitting room; watching the girl’s eyes flicker and open. The doctor calling for Cora. Beulah blinking at the window, turning gingerly toward the sun. All through the day—long and weary, after that terrible, sleepless night—Nettie Mae revisited the memory, streng
thened and consoled by the joy it brought. Happiness buoyed her spirit and fortified her body, so she went about the business of tending the animals as easily as if she had slept like a babe all night through.
Nettie Mae sang to herself as she diced carrots and turnips into her big Dutch kettle, as she scored the fragrant skins of spring onions. The onions stung her eyes and the gathered tears made her laugh, for it seemed absurd to weep while she sang, but she couldn’t stop herself from singing any more than she could stop the tears from flowing. Her joy was too great, a round bursting warmth in the center of her chest. How long had it been since she had sung? Nettie Mae couldn’t recall the last time she had done so. She must have been a girl, singing with the church choir. Years before her marriage. How strange and yet how sweet, to find words and tunes she had thought long forgotten rising to the surface of her memory, little larks taking to the wing.
She tucked a freshly killed rooster into the Dutch oven, sprinkled it with salt and cracked pepper, then fitted the kettle’s lid and eased it down into the coals of the fire. A good chicken dinner was just the thing for a celebration. There would be more, too. Stewed greens, brightened by the precious dried lemon peel Nettie Mae always bought on her annual trip to Carbon. Mashed turnips and carrots, flavored by the bird’s rich fat. Snap beans in onion cream. And a bread pudding sweet with cinnamon and dried apples—the cinnamon another delicacy Nettie Mae usually kept to herself.
She would keep nothing to herself now. Her heart had opened with Beulah’s eyes, and gladness had flooded in. She could feel it rising, threatening to overspill its banks.
Let joy run out of me. Let it soak the barren ground of this house—my home—and let something new and bright grow up from the field of my past bitterness.
Nettie Mae heard Beulah’s voice upstairs, speaking softly to her mother. She paused to listen. She could make out none of their words from where she stood in the kitchen, but their contentment was like music, and Nettie Mae rejoiced to hear it.
Cora hadn’t left the girl’s side since they had found her on the riverbank. Nettie Mae hoped Cora had stolen a few hours of rest; the woman must be worn ragged from fretting. A good supper will be just what she needs, too—what we all need. As much hearty food as Beulah will eat, that’s what the doctor said.
Nettie Mae chuckled aloud over her own thoughts. There was a time when she couldn’t force herself to say Beulah’s name, nor even think it. “That girl,” she had been, or sometimes “the Bemis girl.” Nettie Mae was a sensible woman and harbored no delusions. She had no reason to believe Beulah’s tumble from the horse might have cured her of her strange ways and her eerie habits. Rather, the fall had cured Nettie Mae—the shock of having nearly lost the girl, the threatened revocation of Beulah’s mysterious promise. You will have a family again someday. I’ve seen it; I know.
She stirred the pot of greens, then stepped away from the hearth and pulled the kerchief from her sleeve—linen freshly embroidered with two pink flowers, Cora’s gift. She smoothed the kerchief on her palm and traced one of the flowers with a fingertip. Then she tucked it away again and used the edge of her sleeve to dab the sweat from her brow.
Cora had given the kerchief to Nettie Mae the night before, as they had sat hand in hand beside the sofa, watching Beulah’s too-still slumber, counting every faint rise and fall of the girl’s chest.
“If we’re to be parted,” Cora had said, reaching into her apron pocket, “then I would like you to have this, with some hope that you might remember me fondly . . . one day.”
Nettie Mae had accepted the kerchief without a word. She never could have found the strength to speak, even if she’d had some idea of what she wanted to say. No words, but Nettie Mae had thought, Haven’t I prayed for a chance to begin again—a chance to let go of my old pain and start anew without hate?
Minutes had passed in the silence of the sitting room, with no sound but the murmur of low flames on the hearth. Finally, the great hard knot of emotion had dissipated in Nettie Mae’s throat, just enough that she trusted herself to speak.
“Perhaps it’s best if you don’t go to Paintrock after all,” she had said. “Winter isn’t so terribly far away, after all.”
“Winter is never far off,” Cora had agreed.
They’d said nothing more on the subject, but by her flush of fragile happiness—by an upwelling of sisterly affection in her breast—Nettie Mae had understood that the matter was decided. The Bemis family would remain, and Nettie Mae was glad of it.
She went to the kitchen window and pressed her palm against cool glass. She could see Clyde’s float, rippled and distorted through the window, returning from the Bemis farmhouse with its cargo. Nettie Mae smiled, then tightened her apron strings. She was weary, but there was still much work to be done. She opened the door and called to the children, who were playing around the feet of the lilacs.
“Come inside, my darlings. Come on, hurry up. I’ll need your help setting the table.”
The children sprang up at the sound of her voice. They ran across the yard, laughing, with lilac petals clinging to their hair.
CORA
When she woke from her formless dreams, Cora lay still beside her daughter, careful not to move lest she tear Beulah from sleep and deprive the girl of healing.
It’s a wonder I slept at all, Cora thought, frightened as I’ve been.
Frightened for her child—afraid the doctor and his reassurances would prove nothing more than a vision, a cruel trick of the mind conjured by despair and wild hope. Slowly, she turned her head on the pillow, half-convinced she would find the mattress empty beside her. In place of Beulah, there would be nothing—and the hard, heavy blow of loss would strike Cora, leaving her crumpled and weak, helpless as before. But no, the girl lay easy at Cora’s side, breathing steadily, her eyelids twitching now and then as she wandered the paths of her dreams.
Thank goodness, Cora thought. She is truly returned to me, then, and she is whole. I’ve been more fortunate than I’ve deserved.
Cora’s back began to ache from her stillness. Cautiously, she rolled onto her side, watching Beulah all the while. When she settled again, Cora faced the bedroom window over her daughter’s body—looking north, toward her own home. The little gray farmhouse was just visible, the point of its steep roof peeking above the windowsill, sharp among the green blur of the foothills despite its distance and the bubbles in the glass. Cora slid her hand beneath her cheek, staring at her home above the gentle rise and fall of her daughter’s chest.
We can wake the land, Beulah had told Cora once. Wake the farm. Make it grow again.
Perhaps Cora could do it after all. Rouse the world and guide what grew from the soil. Nurture and protect, instead of making ruin.
She shifted again on the mattress. The letter in her apron pocket crackled faintly. It was time to be rid of that note, she thought. When she rose—when Beulah finally woke and left Cora free to get up from this bed, too—she would cast the old letter into the fire. Write a new message for Ernest and send it with Clyde the next time he drove up to Paintrock for supplies.
I have woken the land myself, she would write. I have kept your land alive, my dearest—our land, still living, as I hope our love still lives. I wait for your return, if you wish to have me, if you haven’t decided to cast me from your heart.
Cora’s fingers twitched, remembering the outline of the two hearts in the bottom of the wooden box. The feel of wood scored so deeply by her husband’s knife. Two hearts made permanent, intertwined. She thought, All will be well. By and by, all will be well.
Beulah sighed and stirred beneath the quilt. Cora peered anxiously at her daughter’s face, but there was no cause for concern. Her color was good, and a soft smile graced her lips. Then the girl yawned. Her body went rigid, quivering as she stretched where she lay. She opened her eyes.
“Ma.”
“I’m here, darling.”
Beulah turned on her pillow as carefully as Cora had done, min
dful of the great, tender knot that had risen on the back of her head. She squinted at the window. “What time is it?”
“Evening, almost. Time for supper, soon enough. Now that you’re awake, I suppose I should head back across the fields and see to feeding your brothers and your sister.”
Beulah grinned. “Ma. Nettie Mae is fixing supper. Can’t you smell it?”
Cora’s cheeks burned. She could smell it now, of course—had been smelling it all along, the compelling sweetness of roasted onions, the rich enticement of chicken cooking on the bone. But she hadn’t noticed until now. Her thoughts had all been for Beulah and Ernest, for Nettie Mae and the winter to come. For the future.
Cora sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Are you hungry, dear?”
“Just about starved. Help me up, will you, Ma? I don’t trust myself to do it on my own—not yet.”
Cora guided Beulah upright and pushed a few pillows behind the girl’s back. Beulah leaned against the headboard, blinking, swallowing hard.
“Are you well?” Cora asked.
“Felt sick for a minute there, but it’s passing now. The longer I sit upright, the better I feel. My head aches, but it ain’t too bad. I’ve had it worse, when I sweated too much in the summer, out there in the field.” Beulah held her silence for a moment. She stared out the window toward their own home, just as Cora had done. At length, she said, “We ain’t going to Paintrock.” It was not a question.
“No. We aren’t going to town after all.”
“We ain’t going to Saint Louis, either.”
One for the Blackbird, One for the Crow: A Novel Page 47