Ten Thousand Charms

by Allison K. Pittman

  “Good. Now transfer it under your arm, hold it tight against you. Just like that. Now, take another handful, hold it with the rest until you have a nice big bundle. Good, now take a piece of twine,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a length of string, “and wrap it ‘round.”

  “Then tie it off?”

  “No. If you hold it tight enough, you'll just need to tuck the end under, like this…no…here, let me…” John William leaned in and helped Gloria guide the end of the binding twine under and around itself. It was the first time he'd touched her since the night she'd said she was leaving, and he half-expected her to flinch. He was pleased when she didn't.

  “And we'll do this all day?”

  He chuckled. “Time will fly. You'll see.”

  For this day's labor, John William had given up his seat driving the reaper and chose instead to walk behind the machine. He had cheerfully handed the reins over to Big Phil, who seemed only too eager to climb up and master the rig. Lonnie worked behind them, cutting the missed stalks with a scythe and bundling them in seemingly one motion.

  “See him?" John William said, gesturing toward Lonnie. “Before you complain about the labor, look at that and realize it could be a lot harder. I spent my childhood workin’ alongside my father. Hired out.”

  “There's worse ways to spend a childhood,” Gloria said.

  The newly formed sheaves were unceremoniously dropped in the wake of the reaper, but when three or four were formed, John William showed Gloria how to stand them together, each supporting the other, so they could dry.

  “You see why you need to make the bundles strong?” John William said. ‘They need to be able to support each other.”

  On they worked throughout the morning, stopping only for swigs of gingered water from the stone jug that rode alongside Big Phil on the reaper's seat. At the first break, there was some hemming and hawing and searching for a suitable cup so that Gloria, too, could drink, but thirst overwhelmed her and she simply grabbed the jug from John Williams hand and swigged away like the rest of them. She followed her swig with a satisfied swipe of her sleeve across her chin.

  Then they were off to work again. They made an interesting crew. Big Phil rode the reaper, occasionally looking over his shoulder to share witticisms and wisdom.

  “Know why some dogs just won't hunt?” he'd ask. And just as the others braced themselves for some great truth, he'd answer, “'Cause they're lazy.”

  This made Gloria laugh and John William groan and Lonnie grumble that if he had half a dollar for every time he heard someone fall for that one, he sure wouldn't be here choppin’ wheat alongside no potbellied philosopher and greenhorn farmers.

  Somehow, John William's prediction about time passing quickly proved to be true, but by noon every inch of Gloria's body—from the tips of her fingers rife with tiny cuts to her blistered feet—called for a time of respite. The ache in the small of her back intensified each time she stooped or stood, and her right arm was sheathed in pain. The decision to leave Maureen home to tend to the children had been made with the understanding that, come noon, Gloria would walk back to the house to nurse Danny and Kate. But now such a trek seemed far too heroic an effort, and her breasts felt none of the heaviness she associated with mealtime. Instead, she dropped her last bundled sheaf and asked, “Can we eat now?”

  “Hungry, are you?” John William flashed her a smile full of understanding. “Maureen sent somethin’ with us. I guess we can break.”

  He called out to Big Phil, who willingly called a halt to the team and jumped down, bringing Maureen's wicker basket with him. Lonnie swung his scythe through one more handful of wheat, bundled it, and steadied it against the sheaf Gloria had just dropped to the ground.

  John William took the familiar frayed quilt from under the reaper's seat and spread it, flinging weeks’ worth of grass and dirt into the air. The massive noon meal of that first day of harvest had diminished, being replaced by a loaf of bread, a crock of sweet apple butter, and cheese, but to Gloria it seemed a feast.

  “Cheer up, darlin',” John William said, mistaking the exhaustion on her face for disappointment. “When 1 saw Maureen this mornin', she was pickin’ out a chicken I suspect she's plannin’ to fry up for supper.”

  It didn't take long for the last morsel to disappear. Lonnie unhitched the team of horses from the reaper and took them to drink from the creek at the far edge of the field. He wasn't more than five steps away when Gloria saw the real reason he volunteered for the job—a silver flask he'd been sipping from all morning. Big Phil sat propped against the overturned basket and declared he would rest his old eyes for just a minute while the horses got watered.

  “I thought we were all so desperate to get this done,” Gloria said. “If we all have enough time to take a nap, then maybe you can just finish up without me.”

  “Calm down, darlin',” John William said. “The body has to rest a bit if it's to be any good at all. And since we have to wait for the horses to get back anyway…” His final thought trailed into silence as he stretched himself out on the quilt, flat on his back with his hat covering his face, just as he had every afternoon of their journey together.

  So, just like every afternoon of their journey, Gloria was left alone with her thoughts as she sat, bolt upright on another corner of the quilt. Just next to her was a little patch of some wildflowers that had miraculously escaped the whirring of the blades. She picked one, then another, and worked their ends together. She picked another and another, finally making a chain long enough to fit over her head, like a necklace. She lifted one of the blossoms and scrutinized the color. Lavender. Maybe he would notice that it just matched her eyes.

  Until now, it always seemed as if life was like this chain— each moment, each man, a link stretching on and on until suddenly it was over. That had certainly been true for her mother. The final link, the final cough.

  But now Gloria wondered if life wasn't a little more like what she'd lived this afternoon. Maybe people didn't pass through your life, weighing down your past like so many rings of iron. Maybe she and Danny and Kate and John William and even Maureen had been scooped up by some giant hand—maybe even by God—and brought together, held close and tight and wrapped and tied. Maybe life wasn't a chain of moments and people strung along, but a bunch of them, tossed together chaotically and imperfectly to be set against one another, leaning, depending, pulled from the safety of their soil and roots to become something better.

  The thought of it made her smile. Made her want to stay, because though her body ached and her fingers bled and her skin was soaked with sweat, she felt today like she belonged. Like she had never belonged anywhere ever before. She wanted to stretch her foot and nudge John William right now, to announce her conclusions and ask him to let her stay, but the imposing figure of Phil snoring softly nearby stilled her impulse.

  She sat quietly, staring at the wheat, wanting desperately to talk to him. About anything. She missed him.

  Had this been an afternoon on their journey, John William would have roused himself from his nap and settled in for a Bible reading, and the remaining stalks of wheat bowing in the breeze reminded her of one of the stories he'd read, about a man who'd had a dream about wheat. His name was Jonathan? Jehoshaphat? Jericho?

  “John?" she asked, softly at first, then repeated it until she got a grunt in reply.

  “What was the name of that man in that Bible story who had the dream about the dancing wheat?”

  John William brought his hand up to tip his hat away from his face—-just enough to give Gloria a puzzled, impatient look. “Dancin'?”

  “Remember, all the wheat was dancing around all the other wheat—”

  “It wasn't dancin',” he said, propping himself up on one elbow The look he gave now was one of affection and indulgence. She loved the thought that she had pleased him.

  “It was Joseph,” he continued. “And the wheat was bowin’ down to him because he was about to rise up in power o
ver his brothers. They weren't happy about that, so they—”

  “All right, all right, I don't need the whole story. I just couldn't remember the name.”

  “Why were you wonderin'?”

  “No reason,” Gloria said, shrugging. “The wheat just reminded me of it, and I couldn't remember.”

  “All right.” He gave her one more suspicious glance before lying back down and balancing his hat over his face.

  The afternoon was tinged with just a bite of autumn, and the last of the summer insects droned along the margins of the clearing. Phil's snores added to the symphony, and John William's breath was heavy and regular. After a few moments, Gloria felt her own eyes growing heavy Half of the quilt was there—empty and inviting—and it wasn't until she was stretched out, lying on her stomach with her face buried in her arms, that she realized this was the most intimate position she'd ever shared with John William. Truth be told, this was the most intimate position she'd ever shared with any man. At first she was tense, worried about what he would think, worried that she would offend him, but soon sleep edged its way in to quiet her thoughts.

  Then she heard his voice.

  “Hmm?” she said, taking her turn at giving him an indulgent yet cranky glance.

  “I said I had a dream about wheat once.”

  “Really.”

  “It had to be a few years in the future, because Danny and Kate was old enough to be walking, but not too big. And the wheat was grown high—'bout up to my waist.”

  “That's high all right,” Gloria said.

  “And I guess they wandered off or some thin', because I couldn't find ‘em. They wasn't tall enough to be seen over the wheat, and I was just tearin’ through the fields, callin’ for ‘em.”

  “Did you find them?” Gloria still refused to lift her face from the nest of her arms.

  “I woke up and walked straight over to make sure they were all right.”

  “Were they?”

  “Of course.”

  “That's good.”

  A silence settled around them once again, and Gloria dozed in and out. At some point she felt like a spectator in John William's dream, saw him striding through the fields, searching, calling. And then she wondered.

  “Was I there?" she said.

  “Where?”

  Gloria propped herself up on one elbow and turned her body toward his.

  “In your dream," she said. “Where was I?”

  She watched him sigh before he brought his hand up to lift his hat from his face. He turned his body to mirror hers. His brow furrowed before giving way to a full and joyous smile that drew Gloria to him like no embrace ever could.

  “You were right beside me, darlin',” he said, “callin’ out their names.”

  It was a moment, Gloria thought, that should have taken her breath away Such affirmation. Such invitation. Instead, she felt it settle within her.

  “What do you think it means?” she asked

  Big Phil interrupted with a yawn befitting his name and a satisfied belly scratch. “If you ask me,” he said, grunting as he hoisted himself off the ground, “it means that you two better keep them kids on a leash once they're old enough to walk.”

  John William and Gloria had been smiling at one another, and now they burst into comfortable, relieved laughter. In the distance, the soft jingle of the horses’ harness signaled an end to the noontime break. Rested and revitalized, they roused themselves to resume the day's work. There were, after all, only three acres left.

  The harvest was in before dark.

  I will arise and go to Jesus,

  He will embrace me in His arms;

  In the arms of my dear Savior,

  0 there are ten thousand charms.

  loria sat in the willow rocker exchanging gurgling giggles with a very happy Danny. It was a rare moment stolen from the endless work of the field and garden and kitchen. But the cellar was stocked with vegetables, and the cupboards were full of things pickled and preserved. A glimpse out the window showed Big Phil and Lonnie in the distance, pitching the bundles of wheat into John William's wagon, its sides framed high to contain the sheaves. Gloria's eyes searched the distance for John William—seeking him as she seemed to these days—and became so engrossed in her search that she failed to see his face grinning at her from the other side of the window until his knock on the glass caused her to jump.

  “Dah!” blurted Danny, his chubby finger pointing.

  John William smiled and wiggled his fingers at Danny before beckoning to Gloria. “Come outside,” he said, his voice muffled.

  “What do you want?”

  “Just put the baby down and come outside.”

  Gloria sighed, heaved herself and Danny up from the willow rocker, and went to hand the child off to Maureen.

  The season had definitely turned. The afternoon held a bracing chill as John William and Gloria made their way through the newly shorn fields.

  “It looks sad out here,” Gloria said.

  “Sad?”

  “Dead. Finished.”

  “You can't look at it like that, darlin',” John William said. “You've got to look at the ground and see the promise. It'll be a new crop next year, more, even. I hope to put in at least another fifty acres of wheat, maybe corn.”

  “What does Maureen think of all these great plans?”

  John William was quiet for a moment. “She's signin’ it over to me in the spring. It'll all be in my name. It's gonna be ours.”

  Ours.

  They continued walking farther from the house, across the fields, their feet sinking into the soft soil, heading toward the grove of trees that bordered the field.

  “Where are we going?” It was the third time she'd asked since leaving the house, each request more petulant than the last.

  “You'll see,” he answered.

  John William's long stride covered nearly twice the distance of each step of Gloria's, and she scrambled not quite behind him, determined to keep up. Once or twice she stumbled on the uneven ground, and she reached out and clutched John William's sleeve. When her ankle twisted in a particularly deceptive hole, John William caught her around the waist and steadied her.

  “All right?” he asked.

  “Fine.”

  “Good. Come on.”

  Somehow her hand ended up clutched in his, and she left it there, content now to walk behind him, following in his footprints as he half-led, half-dragged her across the field.

  A small running stream, maybe ten feet wide, created a border between the edge of the wheat field and the grove of trees.

  “What do we do now?” Gloria asked as they came to a stop at the water's edge.

  “What? Can't you swim?”

  His amusement seemed to infuse his body from the twinkle in his eyes to his smile to the slight squeeze he gave before dropping her hand, plopping to the ground, and pulling off his boots.

  “You're not serious,” Gloria said. She looked at the stream, trying to gauge its depth. “It doesn't look deep.”

  “Guess we're wadin. then.” He whistled a little as he rolled up his pants legs.

  “I am not walking through that river.”

  “Now, darlin', it's hardly a river.”

  “Have you ever had to drag yourself around in a wet skirt and petticoat?”

  “Do you really want an answer to that?” His smile was infectious now, and Gloria found herself wanting to play along.

  “Oh, all right,” she said. “But you undo the laces.”

  “At your command.” He bent down on one knee in front of her. Gloria put her foot on his leg and steadied herself with a hand on his shoulder, enjoying watching his fingers work the intricacies of the hooks and laces on her boots.

  “Stockin's, too?”

  “Of course not,” Gloria said, a false haughtiness to her voice. “I am, after all, trying to become a lady”

  When the second boot was loosened, Gloria stepped behind John William and reached under her skirt
s to untie her stockings just above her knees. Then, her palm firmly planted on the top of his head, she lifted first one foot, then the other, pulling off boot and stocking in one fell swoop.

  “Let's go, then,” John William said when the second boot hit the ground.

  “Just one second.” Grumbling, Gloria gathered handfuls of skirt and petticoat, bunching it all up gracelessly just above her knees

  Together they took the few remaining steps to the water's edge.

  “Give me your hand,” John William said. “The rocks might be—”

  Her foot gave way beneath her, and she landed on her backside on what had to be the hardest boulder in Oregon Territory. Somewhere through the water's splashing and the curses flying in her head, she thought she heard deep throaty laughter. Then one strong arm wrapped itself around her waist and hauled her to her feet; another hooked itself behind her knees and swept her off them. They were well into the middle of the stream before Gloria could speak.

  “Put me down.”

  John William laughed that big laugh of his. “You've already been down. Now let's work on getting you across. If you wiggle, I'll lose my balance and we'll both take a tumble, so be a good girl.”

  Gloria relaxed and dropped her head against his shoulder, leaving it there until they were safely on the other side.

  “What about my shoes?”

  “What about them?”

  “They're on the other side.”

  “I guess they are.”

  “I'm supposed to walk barefoot?”

  “Unless you want me to carry you the whole way.”

  She did.

  “Is the ground soft?”

  “Soft enough.”

  “Then put me down.”

  He hesitated for just a moment before gingerly lowering her to the ground. Still, his hand lingered on her waist, and neither made any move to budge it.

  “What are we doing?” she asked. “I mean, where are we going?”

  “I want to show you something.”

  She felt the slightest squeeze of her waist before he took his hand away and started walking. The ground was soft and covered with layers of dead leaves and grass. It seemed as if they were going to be walking through dense forest, but within just a few seconds they'd stepped into a clearing.