3stalwarts

by Unknown

  He mumbled, “I’m kind of tired.”

  “Here, put your arm across my shoulders. It gives you something to lean upon, small if it is. Jerry, I’ve been thinking how good you were to me. I’ve been so happy here.”

  Underneath his arms, against his ribs, he could feel her shivering.

  “What are you trembling about?”

  “Nothing, Jerry. I’m not trembling.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Silly.” She slid her hand between their sides. “It’s your own heart beating.”

  “It isn’t me.”

  He felt again the small ecstatic shivering under his arm.

  “Why do you do it, Norah?”

  She laughed softly, hanging her head and looking at the water.

  “I’m excited. I keep thinking of camp-meeting, Jerry. You and me. Oh, it would please me so to be gifted with confession. Jerry, I can feel it pulling in me. Like a string I’m led by.”

  She looked straight over the water to the west. The lower edge of a dull red sun was dented upon a cloud. Her face was rapt, and her whole being seemed to listen. Jerry held his breath.

  “When will we start, Jerry?”

  “In the morning, Norah.”

  “Will Mr. Bennet be one of the exhorters?”

  “I believe so.”

  “I’d like to hear him exhort a meeting.”

  “He says he’s got the gift of eloquence.”

  “I’ll believe it. Will we go past the crossing?”

  “No. The road takes you past Mann’s Mill.”

  “Oh, that’s where the gentleman said he was bound for when he lost his way.”

  “I thought he said you told him the way. How did you know it?”

  “I didn’t. I just said the road was plain ahead where they turned off beyond the hemlock.”

  She plucked a switch of marsh grass to dabble in the pond.

  “He talked as if he knew you, Jerry. He said you came to dinner.”

  “I did. An evening dinner,” Jerry said.

  “Was it a fine house?”

  “Yes. It was a very fine house. I couldn’t feel quite easy eating there. The food was funny.” He could taste the souffle now as plainly as if he had just finished eating. “The house was full of girls— mulatto girls. The chairs had silk.”

  Her eyes half closed, She hung upon his words. Then, suddenly, she turned to him.

  “Jerry, I love you so.”

  She put her hands upon his arms and buried her face in his shirt. He looked down at the curling hairs upon her neck. His hands patted her clumsily. He could feel happy again, for the face of Dancer Borden faded out.

  Smoke was rising out of the cabin chimney. They heard Bennet’s voice calling Corbal, and the mill wheel ceased its turning. Norah sighed.

  “We’ve got to go, I guess.” She sprang lightly to her feet, casting a fleeting glance at the woods, and helped him up. “Poor Jerry. You do look tuckered out. Mr. Bennet’s sleeping in the room back of Corbal’s. You come up tonight.”

  They started walking just in time to see the head of the Shaker rising up over the dam; and as he rose his long black figure took its image in the pond.

  Corbal was a long-suffering man.

  “Every year,” he said, “about this time Anna sneaks off on me. She don’t say a word. She just lights out. She bakes me up a lot of beans. She fixes me a ham. She puts a bunch of bread into that cupboard.” He waved his pewter at the article referred to. “You can look at it now. There’s food in there to last a man a week. She had this supper all laid out for fair. But yet she’s gone.” He shook his beard, sprinkling a dust of flour on the table. “If she was Christian I would think it was camp-meeting. But she ain’t no Christian. Wedded me Injun fashion for a muskit, whiskey, breeches for her pa, and calico.”

  Bennet’s eyes twinkled. He hunched himself forward over a large tankard. From time to time he dipped his nose.

  “Women are queer, Nathan.” He smiled aside at Norah. Norah bubbled at him. But Corbal did not look at them; he was beset with the peculiarities he had wedded.

  “That’s a certain fact, Ike Bennet. They do the dangedest things. Now there’s Anna. The first time she done it I lambasted her when she got back. It didn’t do no good, though I kept it up three years on principle. Then when I seen her getting uneasy again, I took away her clothes. Injuns are sensitive to shame. But she wasn’t bothered. No, sir, when I come in one night she had cleared out. She’d took my two best shirts and made herself a skirt outen them. Then I took to locking her up. I locked her up in the smokehouse; but blessed if she hadn’t put a shovel in there first. She dug a hole out under.” He shook his head. “There ought to be Scripture about a woman like that.”

  ” ‘A woman shall compass a man,’ ” Bennet quoted.

  “Is that Scripture?”

  “It’s out of Jeremiah, the prophet.”

  “Well he was a danged good prophet all right. How long ago did he say that thing, Ike?”

  “A long time ago, Nathan. Three thousand years, maybe.”

  “To think of that! Him way back in the Jerusalem-land, seeing me here. Me, Nathan Corbal, in the town of Victor, Monroe County, York State, in America.” He rubbed a dusty cloud out of his head. “He was a prophet all right. Now if he was in a camp-meeting, maybe I’d go to it.”

  “They don’t come like that nowadays, Nathan.”

  “Well, he didn’t say nothing about Anna, did he? What she goes a-hunting after?”

  “Not that I know of, Nathan.”

  “Well, that’s it. For four days now, I’ve got to eat cold vittles. I don’t mind that. It’s cleaning of the dishes wears a man down, though. It puts a frailty in me just to consider.”

  He sighed, got up, and made his nightly passage to his room.

  Bennet grinned at them.

  “It’s just as well he never got to camp-meeting to hear his wife confess.”

  “Does she?” asked Norah.

  “Oh, yes. She’s got the gift. If I could exhort as powerful as she confesses, I’d not be traipsing backwoods circuits. I’d be setting in my coach in Albany or Philadelphia or even in Boston.”

  “I’ve never been gifted to confess,” said Norah, earnestly.

  “It’s a kind of habit once it starts. I wouldn’t worry now if I was you. It seems to me a person will have to do it all over again once he’s dead.” He grinned. “But Anna she’ll confess the most remarkable things. She will confess how she has lived in sin with Corbal. Things that would make him die to hear. Things that never got into his deaf head. She’ll get the holy rolls; she’ll shake; she’ll swound and then get up and scream she’s been bedfellow of the Devil. One time she did confess to murdering Nathan. That was so remarkable, we kept an eye on her and sent someone back here. He found Nathan crying here because he was lonesome for her. Of course we didn’t let on. Exhorters get her now to lead the way.”

  His birdlike chuckle filled the room.

  “Norah.”

  He spoke softly. He would not wake her if she was asleep. A breeze drew through the tiny windows, filling the low-ceilinged room with the damp, cool breath of sifting rain. The eaves dripped slowly. He heard drops falling on the kitchen doorstone. First one drop; then a pause; then two in close succession. Drip— drip, drip. Over and over. The sound of the spillway lulled him. In the rain it was inarticulate, gentle, hushed.

  “Norah.”

  He had never thought before how easily his lips shaped her name. Norah Sharon. Lying there, he could see faintly the curve the ceiling made to meet the eaves. In Uniontown the room he and his older brother used to share had such a ceiling, bending down to the window-tops, so that the night air flowed in like a stream, level with one’s sleeping body.

  “Norah.”

  It seemed to Jerry that a scent of roses stole through the rain; but there were no roses in Corbal’s valley. A wild rose likes light soil. He had seen them cover the cinder heaps beside blast furnaces. There were no rose
s anywhere near Corbal’s, but the scent was sweet.

  Thought of her was like a fragrance in his being. He could hardly stir for fear the fragrance would be gone. In all the weeks they had known each other, he had not felt so deeply moved as he was now. She had had the excitement of the afternoon to offer him.

  “Norah.”

  He could not bear to be alone. He lay still, stretching his ears to hear her breathing.

  Drip— drip, drip.

  There was no wind; there was no sound of rain upon the roof.

  Drip— drip, drip.

  Gradually he woke to a perception of the world asleep. He could not hear her breathing. He turned suddenly in the bed and put his hand between the blanket and the tick. Her place was empty.

  Drip— drip, drip.

  He felt of the tick, his finger-tips grown sensitive. It was still warm, and bit by bit he traced the shape her body had left in the feathers.

  “Norah.”

  He waited for her to return. He seemed to doze and wake and doze.

  Then, in a period when his senses were alert, he became aware that the fragrance of roses was a thing he must have dreamed. The room was empty and her place was growing cold. There was no sound in the house. No sound outside the window but the drip of the eaves’ drops on the kitchen stone.

  He put his bare feet on the floor. In the darkness he groped for his trousers and slid them on. His shirt felt damp and cool upon his back; his shoes were stiff to his feet.

  He went down softly to the kitchen, stepped over the board that creaked, and listened. Through their closed doors he heard Corbal and the preacher sleeping evenly. But the kitchen door was open and the drops struck on the stone with little barbs of sound.

  “Norah,” he whispered.

  He was afraid. His heart was empty. His skull felt thin as paper from the pain inside his head.

  The rain was drifting on the valley. It made no earthly sound. It did not fall. It seemed to hang like a veil that he could put his hand against, that he could strike with his fist, that was too light to break.

  The water at the mill slid down with a hushed frail sound like laughter. “Do go lightly.” The filled buckets on the wheel caused it to sway and it creaked faintly on the spindle.

  “Norah!”

  The rain wrapped its veil round his voice. It muffled his lips. Jerry began to run.

  His feet should know the track. He thought as he ran, “I’ve traveled it often enough by dark to know it now.” He walked when he thought the corduroy was due; and at the first stride it was there. It made him bitter.

  She couldn’t leave him now. It was not possible. She had been so set on going to camp-meeting. She wanted to confess. The urge was in her; she said it pulled her like a string. She’d said that if he went she thought she could confess. And he was going. He had promised her to go. She would not have run off; it was not possible. Why, Dancer Borden could not have spoken half a dozen words to her before his friend. It was not possible. Something had happened to her.

  Sometimes she had gone outside at night to walk. Sometimes he had gone with her. She had just walked along the track to the Victor road, and then she had come back. Tonight, with the spirit of confession strong within her, she had wanted her time alone. She had walked down to the Victor road. But it was raining and she hated rain. Dew she loved; but rain she could not bear. She would be cold to him when he came upon her. She would not speak as they walked back to Corbal’s. She would seem small, and chilled, and her being would be withdrawn where his blundering could not reach it.

  But his feet took him doggedly ahead. He must know. They sludged upward to the Victor road. He stood still there, listening. The rain drifted through the leaves. Its drip was hushed between the roots. There was no sound but the dry labor of his heart.

  A stick broke behind him. He whirled to meet two outthrust arms.

  Jerry smelled the man’s strong scent. The muck odor in his clothes was unmistakable.

  “I guessed you’d be coming back.”

  The arms drew him in. The hands slipped up upon his shoulders.

  “Leave go,” said Jerry.

  The man swore.

  He dropped his hands and stepped back.

  “Who are you?”

  The man spoke up surly.

  “What difference?”

  “Andrews, aren’t you?”

  “What if I be?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “What difference?”

  “Tell me, blast you.”

  The man stepped forward. Jerry could see him looming in the rain.

  “Listen, cocky. I don’t take no more orders from you. I came here to meet a girl, see? I’ve had my eyes on her some time.”

  The rain stuck Jerry’s shirt against his shoulders.

  “Did you see her?” he asked quietly.

  Andrews laughed shortly.

  “Not exactly to see her. She skun out of my hands. I don’t exactly know. I caught my toe on a God-damned root. I took out after her, but I couldn’t make up. My ankle smarted me. So I come back. I thought she’d come back sometime.”

  “Which way did she go?”

  “One way or another— how’d I know?”

  “Which way?” Jerry’s voice rose.

  “How could I tell. My nose was in the dirt.”

  “Which way?”

  Andrews laughed.

  “You go back home, cocky. She’ll come back. I’ll fetch her to you.”

  “Which way?”

  “Go wipe yourself.”

  The white blur of his face reached over Jerry. Jerry knew that the face was grinning. As he stared up at it, his eyes drew in the features, the bright, small eyes and widening nostrils, the short brown beard. His fist closed in the darkness at his side. He struck at the face in the dark rain.

  The tingling in his knuckles was real. He felt the jaw snap back from them and the squelch of the man’s boot heels.

  “Which way?”

  He heard Andrews stroke his jaw and his breathing go deep.

  “I’ve always wanted to trim you, cocky. I’ve always aimed to give it to you sometime.”

  “Which way?”

  “This way.”

  He saw the face come over him again and felt the hands reach out. Stepping back, he struck again, his right against the jaw, his left low down as he stepped in. He felt the man wince, and his elbow was struck up by a rising knee. He glanced aside; his shoes slewed in the muddy road, skidding him round.

  Andrews laughed.

  “A spiteful little cocky, ain’t you?”

  The sludge of boots came at him, slowly, carefully. The man limped a trifle from the twist he had had. But Jerry watched for the white blur of the face. He glanced upward under his brows to show his own as little as might be. His head was very clear.

  He missed the jaw, but found the throat, and Andrews fell back gasping. Jerry stepped in. He sank two blows as low as he could guess, and as Andrews lunged he threw himself down and stretched his foot out. Andrews fell, and Jerry sprang up and kicked with all his might. His boot found solid flesh. Andrews made no sound. He got up slowly in the dark, but his breath rasped through his beard. He launched himself low down, his head catching Jerry’s thigh and spinning him off. The pain came dully, stiffening his leg. But Andrews was hampered by his weight in the slippery mud. Jerry did not jump on him as he kneeled. He slipped behind him, and as the man rose on his feet he said, “Which way?”

  Andrews turned oxlike in his slow surprise to meet the blow with his mouth. Jerry could feel the hair over the lips, the lips themselves, and the teeth under them. He stepped back as Andrews spat.

  The woods were still. The rain came through the leaves as still as ghosts. It wetted their faces. It stuck their shirts against their steaming skin.

  “Which way?”

  It gave him pleasure to cut in at the blurred face. He could not see what he was doing; he could only launch his fists. His head sang from the hammering inside
his ribs; his head felt light above his feet, and the cold of the rain upon his skin was remote. The only sounds were their breathing and the slip and squelch of their shoes in the muddy road.

  “Which way?”

  The only words he knew. His voice was cold, like another person’s voice. It kept asking questions over his head. It asked where he had stood a moment since and Andrews charged it like a thundering bull. The redemptioner had lost all sense of cunning. His fury carried him in. He did not try to strike. But he began to whisper over and over, as if he prayed, “Just let me get my hands on him.”

  He was too slow to cope with Jerry. In daylight, if he could have seen, it might have been a different matter. Now he was like a beef to carve.

  Jerry felt the flesh of the blurred face grow loose under his knuckles. A sticky warmth sprang out upon his hand and crawled into the notches his clenched fingers made. He felt so light. He felt his head as clear as water in a wineglass. His body took on joy.

  “Which way?”

  Andrews drew back and took a shuddering breath in through his lips.

  “Mann’s Mill.”

  Without a word, Jerry turned on his heel along the road. And then, with the ugly swiftness of a bear, the redemptioner was on his back. From chin to toes his body struck the road. The great hands on his shoulders twisted the fingers in. The knees climbed up upon his back and the man lifted himself on his hands and hurled himself down on Jerry’s back.

  He forced Jerry’s face into the mud.

  “I got my hands on him.” There was wonderment in his voice. He stretched himself flat on Jerry, suffocating him with his rank odor, and whispered in his ear, “Eat it, cocky. Eat some mud. Eat it. Eat it.”

  The lightness had gone from Jerry. His head was stonelike in the man’s hands. He could not move with the weight pressing him down. A little fountain made of fire seemed to play in the back of his head and the spray from it came out before his eyes in specks of all the colors in the world.

  Suddenly Andrews got up.

  He stood over him a moment.

  “Get up. I won’t hurt you any more. It’s just a taste of a man’s fighting.”

  He laughed harshly to himself, caressing his jaw.

  “Go after your girl if you like… . She’ll consider you a pretty little cocky to make love to. Get along. I’m done with both of you.”