Sweet Mercy

by Ann Tatlock

  Annie laughed lightly as I left the kitchen to join Mother and Daddy in the dining room.

  It was nearly noon when Annie peered out the kitchen window and said, “There’s one of them men from the camp. Let me fix him a little plate to eat, and you can carry it out there to him, Eve.”

  She put together a ham sandwich and put it on a plate with some potato salad and baked beans and handed it to me. “Oh, and take him a glass of nice cold water too,” she said, handing me that as well and holding open the door for me.

  Link sat by himself on the grass, his back against the stone wall. His hands were behind his head and his eyes were closed, though his jaw worked as he chewed on a long blade of grass that poked out one corner of his mouth. I had to stop a moment just to admire how fine he looked as he sat there soaking up the sun. No denying he was a handsome man. If only the stock market crash hadn’t interrupted his life and turned him into a bum, he’d probably be quite popular with the ladies.

  “Haven’t seen you in a while, Link,” I said.

  He opened one eye, smiled. He pulled the piece of grass from his mouth and tossed it aside. “Why, hello, Eve. I was hoping you’d come out.”

  “Where you been?”

  “Oh, here and there. Wherever the work is. What have you got there?”

  “A ham sandwich. Annie made it. You hungry?”

  “Famished.” He sat up cross-legged and reached for the plate and fork and the glass of water. He patted the ground beside him. “Can you sit for a minute?”

  I shrugged. “I guess. But not for long.” I sank to the grass, my legs to the side as I leaned my weight on one arm. As I watched Link take voracious bites of the sandwich, my mind wandered to the camp up the river. Surely it was full of hungry people, some who were maybe even worse off than Link.

  The sandwich was almost gone and Link’s mouth was full when he said, “I heard there was a raid at the station across the street last weekend.”

  I nodded and looked out toward the river.

  “I wonder what made the cops think there might be illegal liquor stored there. It makes them look pretty foolish, busting into a place like that and coming away with nothing.”

  He went on but I couldn’t hear his words over the sudden rush of emotion that rose up out of my chest and overflowed. “I saw that liquor with my own eyes,” I blurted, and the moment the words left my lips, I was sorry. I slapped a hand over my mouth and lowered my eyes.

  Link was quiet a moment. Then he said, “You saw the liquor?”

  Slowly I dropped my hand from my face. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “Why not? What are you afraid I’m going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You can trust me, Eve.”

  “Can I?”

  “Yes.”

  Our eyes locked, but only briefly. I had to turn away, back toward the river.

  “Now you’ll go and try to get some of that liquor for yourself, I suppose,” I said.

  Link laughed loudly at that. “I’m not going to buy any of that liquor, Eve. What makes you think that?”

  “I already told you out in the boat, remember? The first time I met you, you asked if we had any liquor here at the lodge. If you wanted it then, you want it now.”

  Link shook his head as he pushed his empty plate aside on the grass. “I was just joshing with you when I said that, Eve. Honest. Listen, I don’t drink myself, okay? Or, not much anyway.”

  “What do you mean by not much?”

  “Well, let’s see.” He smiled as he lifted his chin in thought. “It seems when my cousin got married back in ’28, I imbibed in a little wine. Didn’t get drunk though, if that makes any difference to you.”

  “Where’d you get the wine?” I asked.

  “My uncle’s wine cellar,” Link said. “There wasn’t a bottle at the wedding that hadn’t been purchased before Prohibition, which means it was all perfectly legal.”

  I felt my eyes narrow and my mouth become a thin line. “Are you telling me the truth, Link?”

  His face turned serious. “Listen, Eve, I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  “How do I know? I really don’t know you very well.”

  “Then you should get to know me. And I should get to know you. Don’t you agree?”

  I paused, not quite sure how to respond. Finally I said, “I suppose.”

  “Good.” He nodded and leaned a little closer. “So let’s start with your telling me about the raid.”

  “If I tell you, do you promise not to tell anyone else?”

  “You have my word.”

  As I searched his face, I had the sense that I could trust him. So I told him all that had happened, from Marlene’s frantic phone call to Jimmy’s showing us the liquor to Daddy and me going to Captain Macnish. I told him about the newspaper article calling the raid a bust, and how Calvin Fludd must have been tipped off and got rid of his entire stash before the cops showed up. And I told him too how Jimmy and Marlene had run away, and how I’d got the letter telling me they were married. While I talked, Link listened intently, never taking his eyes off me. He kept nodding, as though he were filing the story away somewhere in his mind.

  When I finished, he said, “Well, I’m sorry you lost your best friend because of this.”

  At first I thought he meant Marcus, until I realized he was speaking of Marlene. “She’s glad for what happened,” I said. “She’s happy to be married to Jimmy. It was all she wanted anyway.”

  Before either of us could say more, Annie hollered at me from the kitchen doorway, “Eve! I thought you done wandered off and got lost. You been sitting out there all this time?”

  “I’m sorry, Annie.” I stood and wiped at the seat of my dress.

  “We got lunch to serve and tables to clear and you out there dillydallying.” She sounded stern but she was smiling.

  I smiled back. “I’m coming right now!”

  Link rose too and waved at Annie. “A mighty fine lunch,” he said. “Thank you kindly.”

  “You’re welcome, young man. You come on back whenever you need something to stop the hungries.”

  “Thank you. I’ll do that.”

  I picked up the dirty dishes from the ground, but before I could move toward the lodge, Link grabbed my elbow. “Eve, what about Macnish?”

  “Captain Macnish? What about him?”

  “Do you trust him?”

  “Why . . .” I paused. It was the same question I’d asked Daddy, but now I had my own answer. “Yes, I trust him.”

  “You don’t think he knew about Fludd before you told him?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “And you don’t think he’s getting paid off by Fludd like so many others? You don’t think he was the one who warned Fludd of the raid?”

  I frowned and shook my head. “Why would Captain Macnish do that, knowing he’d end up a laughingstock when no liquor was found at the station?”

  Link looked at me a long while. Then he said, “I suppose you’re right.”

  “But why, Link?” I said. “Why are you asking me this?”

  Link paused a moment, then lifted his shoulders in a small shrug. “No reason, really. You’d best get on inside. Annie’s waiting.”

  With that, he gave my elbow a small squeeze and went on his way.

  Chapter 23

  But he came back the next day. And the day after that. He came and had lunch at the lodge now whenever he wasn’t out working somewhere, which was often. Sometimes he came with several other men and sometimes he came alone, but either way, he always seemed to want me to hang around for a while.

  Annie teased me, saying, “That young man ain’t coming around just for my cooking anymore, honey. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that man has intentions toward you.”

  “Hush, Annie,” I scolded. “Plenty of men from the camp come here to eat, and you know it.”

  “Yeah, but that one more than any of them.”

  “He must b
e hungrier than any of them, then.”

  “That’s what I’m saying, honey. And he done seen a sweet thing he likes.”

  My face took on color and I suppressed a smile, but even so, I adamantly shook my head. “You can stop your matchmaking, Annie,” I said. “Link’s a nice enough fellow, but he’s a bum.”

  “Uh-huh.” She chuckled.

  “He doesn’t have a real job and he lives in a camp.”

  “Uh-huh. All that’s just for a time, Eve, and you know it.”

  I didn’t tell Annie that Link had taken college classes before the stock market crash; that would have only added fuel to her fire. I enjoyed the five or ten or thirty minutes a day I spent with Link, but still, I couldn’t imagine introducing a dirty-clad, tent-dwelling day laborer to Mother and Daddy as a possible suitor. I didn’t want him as a suitor. I didn’t want any more suitors, and I didn’t want any more broken hearts. I wanted only to concentrate on doing well in school, once it started up in the fall, so I could go on to college and devote my life to helping people.

  Funny thing was—and I scarcely admitted it even to myself—but the more Link came around, the flimsier and more ghostlike the image of Marcus became in my mind. Before long, the boy who had been my first love had very little substance at all, as though he’d never been real.

  Toward the end of July I was washing the lunch dishes with Annie when Morris entered the kitchen carrying a crate of canned goods. I paused with a plate in one hand and a dish towel in the other, and in that moment I heard the Reverend Kilkenny quote one of the verses about mercy that he was so fond of quoting: “He that hath mercy on the poor, happy is he.”

  I looked at Morris carrying the canned goods, and I looked out the window at the handful of men from the camp that had come for a plate of food, and I finally connected the two.

  “Morris,” I said, “you told me there’s a lot of food in storage down in the cellar, right?”

  Morris nodded. “That’s right, Miss Eve. About near enough to feed Noah, his family, and his whole boatload of animals till the flood clear up, I’d say.”

  “Why, honey?” Annie chimed in. “What you thinking?”

  “I’ll be right back!” I yelled. Leaving the plate and dish towel on the counter, I rushed down the hall to the front desk.

  Uncle Cy was there as usual, registering a family with three small boys. While he spoke with the father, the phone rang, and when he excused himself to answer that, I blurted out, “Uncle Cy!”

  He held up an index finger in my direction, had a brief conversation with the person on the phone, dropped the receiver into the cradle, and turned back to the father.

  “Uncle Cy!”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Danby. Eve, what is it? Is the kitchen on fire?”

  I laughed out loud, giddy at my own idea. It was such a good idea Mr. Danby could wait. “No, the kitchen’s not on fire,” I said. “I want to take some food to the people in the shantytown. Can I?”

  “You want to feed the people in the shantytown?”

  “Yes, they need food more than anything.”

  “But, Annie already—”

  “But I mean, I want to take it to the camp—”

  “Eve, I’m awfully busy right now.” The phone rang again. “Excuse me just another minute, Mr. Danby.”

  “But can I, Uncle Cy?”

  “What, Eve?” He put his hand over the telephone mouthpiece. “Yes, yes, take them some food. Fine, fine.” He waved me away and said into the phone, “Marryat Island Lodge. This is Cyrus Marryat speaking. . . .”

  I clasped my hands together in victory and hurried back to the kitchen. “Morris, Uncle Cy said we can take some crates of food to the camp!”

  Morris’s eyes widened and he scratched his ear. “You just now asked him, Miss Eve?”

  “Uh-huh. And he said yes. I’m sure we can take anything we want.”

  “Well, now,” Annie said. “That’s right nice of Mr. Cyrus, though I’m not surprised. He’s a good man.”

  “What do you want to be taking, Miss Eve?” Morris asked.

  “Beans, fruit—I don’t know. Whatever’s down there. I’m sure the people living in the camp will be glad for whatever we bring them.”

  “So you want I should just pack up the truck with this and that and haul it on out there?”

  “Yes, but I want to go with you.”

  “I don’t know about that, Miss Eve. Might be dangerous, you going out among all those drifters and all.”

  “Oh no, Morris, I don’t think so. The men who come here for meals are very nice.”

  “Especially one,” Annie interjected.

  “Hush, Annie,” I said. “I’ve gotten to know several of them. There’s Freddy and Bill and Cecil and—”

  “And Link,” Annie said.

  I sighed. “Yes, him too.”

  “Listen honey, if you go on out there,” she went on, “you’d best be taking your daddy with you. Morris, you, and your daddy, then that’s all right.” She nodded.

  “I can’t go today, Miss Eve,” Morris said. “Got runs to make to the train station and too much other work around here. But you go on and ask your daddy. Maybe we can make a run on out there tomorrow, if you think your daddy can take time away from the Eatery.”

  “I know he’ll do it. Daddy always wants to help people. Up in St. Paul, we worked at the mission all the time. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before!”

  The next morning, Morris and Daddy carried up a dozen crates, cardboard boxes, and bags of fruit from the cellar and loaded them into the back of the pickup truck. After they tied everything down with cord, the three of us crawled into the cab and headed for the shantytown. None of us had been there, but we knew we’d simply have to follow the railroad tracks to find it.

  Morris put the truck in first gear—I had to snuggle close to Daddy on the hot vinyl seat to avoid the gearshift—and turned right onto the road that ran behind the lodge. The road stretched out between the railroad tracks and the river, a bumpy narrow avenue between steel and water. A warm wind blew in through the truck’s open windows.

  “Eve, darling,” Daddy said, speaking loudly into the wind, “you’re sure Cy said we could take these goods out to the camp?”

  “Of course I’m sure, Daddy. I already told you that a hundred times.”

  “Well, so long as we take note of what we’re giving away so Jones can restock, I guess it won’t be a problem.”

  “I wrote down what was in each crate and box as you and Morris carried them out. See?” I reached into the pocket of my chemise and pulled out a piece of paper and a stub of pencil. “Canned peaches. Baked beans. A bag of apples. Flour. Cooking oil—”

  Daddy stopped me with a nod of his head. “All right. Give that list to Jones.”

  “I will.”

  We picked up speed and the truck whined as Morris shifted into a higher gear. The inrushing air pulled the short ends out of my braid and whipped them across my face. I squinted against the assault.

  “That Mr. Cyrus,” Morris said, “he’s a generous man. Always helping folks out. Always doing good round the town. Don’t worry, Mr. Drew. He won’t pay no never mind about a few canned goods and whatnot. He always glad to give to them that’s needy.”

  I gave Daddy an I-told-you-so look, then pointed out the window. “Look, Daddy, there’s Uncle Luther’s mill.”

  Daddy glanced outside, nodded curtly, moved his eyes back to the road. As I watched, the muscles of his face seemed to stiffen, and his expression grew stony. Then I remembered and understood. Uncle Cy had the lodge. Uncle Luther had the mill. Daddy had run away from it all and come back with nothing.

  No one spoke again until we arrived at the camp, which thankfully was just ahead, beyond the bend in the road. Morris eased the truck onto the grass, and we bumped along until we came to rest at the edge of organized squalor. There’d been a thunderstorm during the night, leaving the paths between the tents a maze of muddy walkways. The tents themselves
looked on the verge of collapse, as though beaten down by the rain. Ill-clad men sat here and there on cinder blocks and tree stumps, huddled around campfires that left the air gray with smoke. The place smelled of ash and mildew and things I knew nothing about because I had never been homeless.

  Several men stepped forward to meet us as we climbed out of the truck. One of the men appeared to breathe out a sigh of relief when he recognized me. “Good morning, Miss Eve,” he said. “What brings you out this way?”

  “Hello, Cecil,” I said. “We’ve brought a little food from the lodge to pass around.”

  With that, the men took a step closer. Heads began to poke out of tent flaps and around corrugated tin doorways. The figures clustered by the fires rose one by one, hesitantly. Undoubtedly driven by hunger but at the same time cautious, they moved slowly toward us through the mud.

  “Cecil,” I went on, “I’d like you to meet my daddy, Drew Marryat.”

  He was a large man, Cecil, with hands the size of dinner plates, which he tried to wipe inconspicuously on his overalls before extending one to Daddy. “Glad to meet you, Mr. Marryat.”

  “Likewise, Mr. . . .”

  “Gutermuth. Cecil Gutermuth.”

  The two men shook hands, while the others nodded and muttered greetings.

  Daddy said, “My daughter here got the idea you men might appreciate a few extra provisions.”

  Cecil glanced at me and I smiled. “Yes sir,” Cecil said. “That’s mighty kind of you.”

  “So we have just a few items in the truck, if you don’t mind helping us distribute them.” Daddy nodded toward Morris, who hopped up onto the bed of the truck and started untying the cord. Daddy hopped up behind him to help.

  I stepped closer to Cecil. “Is Link here this morning?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “He got himself a couple days’ work up near Lebanon. I saw him leave the camp before daybreak.”

  I smiled to hide my disappointment. “Well, would you mind putting a few items in his tent for when he gets back?”

  “I don’t mind at all, Miss Eve. We’re much obliged.”

  I stepped aside then and watched as the men lined up while Daddy, Morris, and Cecil formed an assembly line of sorts to hand out the food. Those wearing overalls stuffed apples in their pockets and canned goods behind their bibs. The others made slings of their shirttails and carried off the goods that way. The whole procession was done in a quiet and orderly manner, men taking whatever was offered without complaint and with a word of thanks. Still, I could see the conflict in their eyes, the clash of pride with gratitude as they found themselves in the place of accepting charity through no fault of their own.