by Davis Bunn
The Campbell home stood upon a knoll which had once been the high point of steeply sloping farmland. From her place behind the wheel, Connie could look out over both the house and the valley. Though the sun had descended behind the western ridges, streams of light turned the high reaches to shades of burnished bronze. The valley was lost to gathering shadows, while little star-flecks of light appeared to mark the way home.
When Dawn remained silent, Connie risked a glance over, and felt the breath catch around her heart. The girl’s face was captured by the fading light of day, softened with timeless hues, filled with the wisdom of sadness. Her eyes remained steady on Connie, waiting for the older woman to face her full on.
Connie did so reluctantly. Everything about this new side to Dawn unsettled her. She could feel the child she had nurtured and loved slipping through her fingers like mercury, forcing her to confront a stranger. One who seemed to know more about Connie than she did herself.
Only when Connie had released her hold on the wheel and slid around on the seat did Dawn ask, “Why didn’t you ever marry, Aunt Connie?”
There was another catch to the air, one that made it hard to answer. But the gathering night and the light in Dawn’s eyes demanded honesty, even if it seared her insides to respond. “You know I once had a shine for your daddy.”
“Sure. Then you went away to college. After that you got hired by the county and came back home.”
“There was a boy then. It was the pastor’s older brother.”
“Reverend Blackstone?” Surprise lilted her tone. “I didn’t know he had a brother.”
“Julius Blackstone left town the year before you were born.” All these secrets reappearing. Things she had thought buried and forgotten. “He wanted me to come with him. But by then I’d finished my visiting in the outside world. I had gone out, seen all I wanted to, and known I was meant to live out my days in Hillsboro.”
“That’s sad. But still it doesn’t mean there couldn’t have been somebody else.”
“The problem with growing old in a small town is, everybody has a past.”
“You’re not old.”
“People tend to see you in light of what you’ve done. All your mistakes are out in the open.” Connie felt defeated by what she could not express. “I grew more involved in my work and let other things, like romance, fade away.”
The moment seemed to swell with the past, until it was almost natural for Dawn to give voice to the unspoken. “You still wish it was Daddy, don’t you?”
Connie wondered at how the dimming light seemed to be captured by Dawn’s eyes. “How did you learn about me and Chad?”
“Oh, I think I’ve always known. I remember how you used to look at him, and how Momma watched you two when you were in a room together.”
I never knew that, Connie started to say, but the words did not seem to want to come out. So she sat there, held by the soft truth and by all that had never been.
“When I was still real young I asked Momma about it once. She said God had given us Aunt Connie so that if any- thing ever happened to her, there would be someone to take care of me and Daddy.”
I never knew that either, Connie wanted to respond, but her throat had swollen shut.
“I thought it was the most natural thing in the world to have two mothers. I always had two daddies, God the Father and Pop. So why not two mothers? I never did understand how other children made it through life with just one of each.”
Dawn then did the most natural thing in the world, which was to slide over and give Connie a fierce hug. “I love you, Aunt Connie. I wish there was something I could do to give you the life you deserve.”
Connie felt captured by the words. The little girl she had helped raise was no longer there. Instead she watched as a woman slid back to the other door, gave her a lingering glance, and said with studied calm, “Duke Langdon and I are getting married. It would mean more than I could ever say if you would give us your blessing.”
Never, Connie wanted to say. She felt her fingernails dig into the seat cover with the strain of trying to fight out the word. But she could not speak. Something clenched at her throat.
Dawn watched her face with the same sad wisdom she had brought with her to the car. She opened the door and stood, then leaned back over and said, “I love you with all my heart, Aunt Connie.”
She sat and watched this stranger who once had been her heart’s delight walk away. She watched as Dawn entered the home which was not hers and never would be. And she felt a thousand years old.
Eleven
The evening was impossibly loud.
Nathan sat on Poppa Joe’s front porch and watched crickets and lightning bugs fight for space in the still air. The temperature was more suited to September, comfortable even this late into evening. Little fluttering shapes suggested there were bats about, but they kept their distance and flew so fast Nathan could not be sure. Then there came a rending screech, like a foot-long nail being pried out of steel. Nathan demanded, “What on earth was that?”
“Horned owl. Makes some kinda racket, don’t it? You listen, now. The mate’s around here somewhere.” Just as the words were spoken came the equally loud response. “There you are. Them owls, they mate for life. They’ll get apart a ways, and screech back and forth like that, trying to scare prey toward one or the other.”
“You know these woods,” Nathan observed. The words sounded lame, but were so full of truth they had to be spoken.
“Like the back of my hand.” No boasting there. A simple agreement to all Nathan could not express. The chair squeaked with the sound of his turning. “Guess it’s kinda like you and your doctoring.”
“I know my field,” Nathan agreed.
“They’re folks up these parts, they figure if you don’t know the hills, why, you don’t know nothing. I’m eighty-two years old and I ain’t never been farther afield than Charlottesville, and only been there once. But I know folks who speak thus are just plain wrong.”
“It’s easy to think the world ends at your doorstep,” Nathan said, awash in memories.
“Son, you just spoke some kinda truth.” Poppa Joe leaned forward, a shadow of movement as he spit over the rail. “Folks is always comforted by what they know, and scared by what they don’t.”
Nathan felt no need to press the conversation, which was unnatural. Silence had been a hated foe since the day. That was how he thought of it now—the day. It was easier than trying to recall all the time before and after. Gather all the horror of his nighttime ghosts rising to take over his daytime world, and package it into a single small unit, measurable and manageable. The day.
There were too many stars for just one night. Nathan leaned over far enough to see beyond the porch’s edge. A silver river ran in eternal stillness overhead. Even without the moon, the light was enough to wash the meadow in ghostly white.
When the old man spoke again, it was as though the pause had only been for an instant, and not the better part of an hour. “Them same folks, now, they’re the ones who go to the doctor for the birthing and the dying and never once in between. You ever met the like?”
“Not me. Where I’m from, if somebody gets the sniffles, they’re calling for an appointment.”
“Well, that right there’d be a problem, now, since most of them hill families don’t have no phones. They’re a dying breed, though. Less of ’em every year.”
“Hard to believe there are still people out here without telephones.”
“No phone, no electricity, no light except maybe a kerosene lamp. ’Less they got themselves a Coleman. You know what a Coleman is, son?”
“No idea whatsoever.”
The old man hacked a laugh. “I like you, son. There ain’t much foppery to your thinking or your talking. You strike me as a straight-walkin’ man.”
“Why, thank you, sir.” Nathan was genuinely touched. “I take that as a compliment.”
“Back when I was a boy, a Coleman was the cat’s pajama
s. Burned coal dust. You’d pump the gauge, build up a pressure, then light the lamp. First time I ever did read the Book after dark was the night my pappy brought home a coal-dust Coleman.”
“Sounds like a bomb in the making.”
“Aye now, it was that. Get a crack in the base, that thing’d go off like lightning. Lost a few families in the valley, we did. They took to sleeping with the light left on, thing got too heated up and took ’em straight to Glory.”
A shadow drifted by, with wings impossibly long. “Owl. Big’un. Must be headed off for the other side. We’re talking overloud for his liking.” Poppa Joe paused, then picked up the thread of his earlier thought. “The ones who don’t hold to doctoring, now, they carry on with a passel of home remedies. Good’uns, by and large. Stood the test of seeing a dozen generations and more through the trials and tribulations of this world. Nettle poultice, you ever used that one?”
Nathan had to laugh. “Can’t say that I have.”
“Good for young’uns what laying with the wet chest. Draws it out. You ever coated a body’s throat with tincture of merthiolate?”
“I believe I’ve heard of that being used.”
“Dead straight it’s used. Best thing there is for the strep.”
“This is like I’m sitting here listening to the last century come alive again.”
“Ain’t the last century, son. Ain’t even last year. This is the here and now talking to you.”
“And what happens when these home remedies don’t work?”
“They die, son. They die. Lot of that going around these parts.”
Nathan waited for the wheezy laugh, and when it didn’t come, felt the weight of his own lost battles. “Lot of that everywhere.”
“Them folks, you know what they call the doctor? The Gatekeeper. You ever heard tell of that before?”
“No.” The night drew in around him. The night and a thousand hillside nights before. “No, I haven’t.”
“Yessir. Gatekeeper, he comes riding up on his big horse, with the specter in the black robe nigh on behind. That’s the way it was in the high country, I reckon, for most of our people’s time here. The village Gatekeeper, he might protect the young’un from the grim reaper for a little while yet, but not often, and more seldom still for very long.”
Nathan felt as though the night had slammed the breath from his body. All the quiet mockery, all the silent derision he had felt for these country ways since his arrival, all was punched from his mind by the old man’s words. In that instant, he felt closer to those strangers in the hills than anyone else on earth.
While he was still recovering, Poppa Joe rose to his feet, his joints seeming to creak with the floorboards. “Time we was getting a’bed, son. Dawn’ll be rising us before you know it.”
Nathan overslept, which was a very bad thing. The hour before dawn, when his guard was lowest, the nightmare came and captured him.
It was the same dream he had known ever since the breakdown, the image that had finally become a part of his waking world. Tiny arms reached up, tiny voices crying for help, and he was helpless to do anything at all. He stood trapped and unable to move, his feet embedded in concrete, struggling to act and reach and comfort and heal. And when it seemed that he might finally break free, the voices started going quiet. One by one they simply went away. The noise died, and with it the children died as well. His children. All of them turning to ghosts before his very eyes.
He awoke with a gasp so strong the intake raised him to a sitting position. Nathan sat there, trying to bring his heart rate down to a sustainable level. He heard the thump and creak of footsteps, and he raised his eyes. For the longest moment he could not remember where he was.
Then the door moaned its way open, and Poppa Joe Wilkes stood in the doorway, a steaming cup in one hand.
“You make more noise wakin’ up than a bear at first thaw.” He walked over and offered Nathan the cup. The hand shook so that the steaming liquid sloshed over the sides. “Figured I might as well come on in and say hidy.”
He accepted the mug without meeting the old man’s gaze. “I overslept.”
“Don’t matter none. World’s still out there, dawn’s moving slow as ever. Come on out when you’re ready, I’ll fix us some grub.”
Nathan drank the coffee as he dressed. When he entered the main cabin, he found Poppa Joe busily stirring an iron skillet. “Coffee’s in the pot there. I’m just fixing up a mess of grits and eggs. Thought mebbe we’d get ourselves an early start.”
Nathan walked across the scarred plank floor. The ceiling was higher than he had expected, built to fit the man at the stove. The coffee pot was an ancient affair and smoke-blackened. “I’m not much on breakfast.”
“Use that rag there to pour the coffee, save yourself some skin.” He kept patting at the skillet’s contents. “Need something solid in your gullet, son.”
“My gullet.” The towel was as black as the coffee pot. Nathan wrapped it around the handle and lifted the pot from its position at the corner of the wood-burning stove. The coffee poured out treacly-thick. “I’m not certain I could find that on an anatomy diagram.”
“Now you’re funnin’ me. Sit yourself down over there.” Poppa Joe ladled out eggs onto a metal plate, then added a spoonful of grits from an elderly pot. He set the plate down in front of Nathan, went back and made another for himself. He eased himself down into the chair.
Poppa Joe folded his long hands and brought his forehead down to meet them. The action was so fast and natural that Nathan almost missed the fact that Poppa Joe was about to pray.
“Lord in heaven, bless us and bless this day and bless this here food. We thank Thee, Lord, for all that is. Amen.”
Poppa Joe raised his eyes in time to catch sight of Nathan’s discomfort. He nodded once, picked up his fork, and pointed at Nathan’s plate. “Get yourself into that lot there. Biscuits and bacon’ll wait till we’re back.”
Nathan lifted his fork and patted the scrambled eggs. They were drier than hospital eggs that had rested in an overhot steamer through morning rounds. He felt Poppa Joe watching him, so he tried to scoop some up. They scattered across his plate like oddly shaped yellow marbles. “Back from where?”
“You’ll see. Got something I want to show you.”
Nathan knew he was being watched, and he did not want to disappoint his host. He plucked an edge from the glutinous lump of grits, and used that to glue some eggs to his fork. He chewed once and swallowed quickly. The mixture was pretty awful, but the coffee was bitter enough to mask the flavor. He ate with grim determination, chasing down each mouthful like medicine.
Poppa Joe eyed the empty plate with approval. “That’s the spirit. Young feller like you’s got to eat right.”
Nathan pushed himself erect with both hands. His belly felt like he’d swallowed a bowling ball. “Where are we headed?”
“Here, put this on.” Poppa Joe handed him a patched and ancient hunting jacket. When Nathan hesitated, he smiled and said, “Don’t you worry none. Been washed since last year, and all the fleas that bit me done died an awful death.”
“It’s not that. I just don’t know if I need something this heavy.”
The grin broadened to reveal teeth too brilliant to be false. “You done forgot what I told you yesterday.”
“What, oh yes, about the north wind. No, I didn’t . . .” Nathan watched as the old man stumped to the door and flung it back. He stepped over, took one look, and gasped aloud.
Poppa Joe moved away. “Got you some wool socks and boots warming by the stove.”
But Nathan could not move. Nothing in all his days had prepared him for what he was seeing.
The entire world was frosted silver white. What yesterday had been a late autumn meadow was now a frozen mystic wonderland.
Sunrise was still a good half-hour away. Orange and rose hues colored the eastern hills. Each delicate taste of color was reflected in perfect union by the meadow, for the field itself now had
no color. Each blade of grass, each tree, every post and thistle and branch was captured by a coat of winter. The white sea was singing in silent unison with the empty sky and the coming light.
A gentle hand rested on his shoulder. Nathan turned to find Poppa Joe studying him with the silent intent of somebody who long ago had learned to look beneath the surface. “First time I laid eyes on you, I thought to myself, now here’s a man who’d be touched by the dawn. Ain’t many left on earth who know the value of a sunrise.” The hand rose and fell. “Glad to know I was right about you, son.”
Hurriedly he dressed and followed Poppa Joe from the house. The old man closed his front door with a simple wooden latch. If there was a lock, Nathan could not see it.
Poppa Joe moved with the stiff angular grace of an aging stork. He picked up each foot and set it down carefully, working his way across the field at a surprising speed. Nathan tried to walk in the old man’s footsteps. The silence was so complete, the beauty so perfect, he felt one unwise step might shatter the sanctity of what he was witnessing.
They left the meadow and started up a trail which led them deeper and higher through a steep-climbing forest. The trees were elm and poplar and highland fir, all burdened by their own winter coating. Each leaf was frozen into place, the frost etched in tiny veins across the surface. The pines bore billions of white needles, each one unmoving and breathless with wonder.
They walked long enough for the light to strengthen into morning. Nathan’s breath came strong and comfortable, the puffs leading out before him in frosty plumes. The air bit comfortably, the movement warmed him. The boots and the woolen socks gripped the stones, and the old man led him silently onward.
Where the path took a cramped left-hand jink, the trees moved in to embrace him. Nathan found himself pressed up tight against the rock outcrop they were circling.
Then the path straightened, and the trees fell back in unexpected welcome. And for the second time that morning he cried out loud.
The sun had crested the hills to his right, a lancing blade so brilliant it stabbed at his eyes. Before him rested a mountain lake, silver and smoking in the winter morning. The mist rose like beckoning hands, opening to unveil the mystery of every morning, every new beginning.