Behold, This Dreamer

by Charlotte Miller

  The door opened quietly and Henry’s mother entered the room—her mother, she thought, for she and Henry were long since the same. Deborah Sanders was dressed in a long cotton nightgown buttoned to the throat and wrists, her brown and gray hair hanging over one shoulder in a thick plait that reached to well past her waist, her round face kind and gentle as she looked at them, knowing they had not slept at all, and knowing it was only what they had to do. She walked to the side of the bed and reached to touch Janson’s forehead lightly, his cheek, and then to check beneath the bandages to the wound that had bled so freely earlier, as Nell and Henry rose to their feet at the side of the bed. Henry reached out and brushed Nell’s hand almost unconsciously, as he often did, and they waited.

  Henry’s mother came around the bed to them, placing a gentle hand first on Nell’s cheek, then on Henry’s, as she smiled at them. “He’s gonna be fine, jus’ like I tol’ you,” she whispered. “He’s jus’ got some healin’ t’ do, an’ restin’ t’ get his strength back. It ain’t gonna do him no good, you two gettin’ yourselfs sick. You need t’ get some sleep—”

  “We will,” Nell said, looking back to the bed, and to the young man who shifted slightly in his sleep as he lay there. “We will—” But she sat back down in the rocker, and Henry moved to sit again at her feet, lowering himself slowly as he leaned heavily on the arm of the chair, as he had not had to do in years past. He took her hand in his again and held it, intertwining their fingers securely. After a moment, Deborah Sanders shook her head and sighed, knowing there was no use in talking to them further. She turned and crossed the bare wood floor without another word, going out the door and closing it again quietly behind herself, leaving them alone again with their son.

  Nell watched as Janson slept, thinking of the baby she and Henry had made, the child she had carried within her, thinking that time had passed too fast, and that the years had been all too quickly gone. She looked down at Henry, remembering the tall and handsome young man who had so tenderly told her about love, and who had even more gently taught her; the same man who sat beside her now, his brownish-red hair streaked with white, the wide shoulders bent from age and work, the once-smooth skin near his eyes lined from years of smiles—but the green eyes just as alive, just as caring, just as full of love now near fifty-seven, as they had been at twenty-five. Life was too short for love, she thought, too brief for commitment; the years all too soon gone, but the love grown only stronger still—surely death could not end that, and life could not begin it. It had to be there, forever, for always. That was what they had taught Janson, and she had to believe it herself now—suddenly, she had to believe it so very strongly herself.

  She watched Henry, thinking of how he often spoke now of having grandchildren in the house, of Janson finding the right girl, bringing a bride to the land, giving them grandsons and granddaughters for the years ahead—but, as hard as she tried, Nell could not see that, could not see Henry with babies on his knee, babies with his green eyes and his caring, and that frightened her. There was an ache growing inside of her that would not go away, an ache even though she knew Janson would be all right and that his wound would heal—life seemed too short. So very short. And the sadness would not leave, no matter how hard she tried. She wanted to cry but would not let herself, for there was no reason. No—

  Henry’s hand tightened over hers and he looked up at her, and she realized with a start that he had been thinking the same things, feeling the same things, she had been feeling. She tightened her hand on his and smiled, nodding her head to tell him she was all right, and, after a moment, he looked away, back toward the bed, and to their son sleeping quietly there.

  Nell turned her eyes toward Janson as well, the tears finally coming, spilling from her eyes and down her cheeks. She knew that, as long as she lived, she would never forget the look she had seen on her husband’s face in that moment. Henry Sanders had been crying.

  2

  Janson’s shoulder was fully healed by the time fall came and the cotton bolls burst open, paining him only on occasion now, when the weather was bad, or on days when he worked it too hard in the fields. He had not once seen Lecia Mae or Buddy Eason, or their father or grandfather, since the day of the stabbing, and he found that he was glad—not because he was afraid, for he held no real fear of any man, but simply because there were more important things on his mind, more important things that had to do with holding onto the land, and with selling their crop again where it could bring them the most money.

  There was a surplus in the cotton market in that fall of 1925, more cotton coming in than buyers had a need for, and the going price per pound of lint had already dropped lower than it had been in either of the past two years—and the Easons were paying even less than that. There would be no more choice this year than there had been the last; they would have to sell out of the County if they were to hold onto the land, have to sell, and quickly, before there could be any further drop in price, a drop that could so very easily cost them the few cents per pound difference between being able to hold onto the land, and losing it.

  Janson found that he was glad to be out in the fields again in that first week of picking the cotton, glad to be doing something, and not just sitting and waiting for his shoulder to heal, as he had been doing for so long—but it was tiring work, long days of dragging a pick sack behind him, picking until his hands bled from the dry hulls and his back ached from bending among the cotton plants, until his shoulder hurt and his feet were tired and he wanted only to go home and rest. There was trouble coming and he knew it, could sense it as he worked in the cotton fields, could see it in his father’s eyes—Walter Eason could not let them sell their cotton out of Eason County this year.

  But there was no choice. There was so little choice left for any of them now.

  There were long hours in the fields that first week of picking the cotton, days that went from before sunup in the mornings until long after sunset at night, each of them dragging a long pick sack behind them down the never ending rows, Janson, his father, and his mother as well, for there was no money to hire pickers, and, even if there had been the money, there would also have been better uses for it as well. It seemed to Janson that those first days went on forever, days of emptying pick sacks into the cotton baskets he and his father had woven years before, tamping the cotton down, only to return to the rows again—after a few hours backs would be aching from the constant bending and stooping, fingers would be bleeding from contact with the dry hulls, and any neck not protected by hat or bonnet would already be painfully burned from exposure to the sun.

  By the end of that first week, Janson was sore and exhausted. He was glad now that he had turned down an offer to supper that night at the home of one of the girls from church; she was a nice girl, very pretty, with long blond hair down her back to her waist—but at the end of that first week of picking cotton, Janson was too tired to even really care. His shoulders ached from the weight of the cotton sack he had dragged behind him all day, its wide strap slung across his chest and oftentimes pressing the healed wound in his right shoulder. His fingers were sore, a deep scratch in his left thumb from one of the cotton hulls, and his back ached—all he wanted tonight was rest and sleep. Tomorrow there would be church and kin and dinner with the girl’s family after services—but tonight there was that old straw tick, and a rest he knew he so badly needed.

  As darkness began to settle in that night over red fields now thickly starred over with white cotton, Janson and his father dumped the cotton baskets one last time into the overloaded wagon and started for home. The night was quiet around them, the sound of a motor car miles away in the distance the only thing that broke the stillness. There was a full moon, lighting the cotton fields and the bare-swept yard that led to the house; the smoke coming from the chimney of the separate kitchen, and the kerosene light showing through its windows, the only signs of life in the darkness.

  Janson was ex
hausted as he sat beside his father on the seat of the old wagon. His mother had left the fields hours before to prepare supper for the family, but he wondered now if he would not be too tired to eat, stifling a yawn again as he stared toward the house and the old barn beyond. His pa was silent as he sat beside him, seeming to Janson somehow almost old for the first time in his life, his shoulders bent as he drove the team of mules—Janson knew he was thinking again of the work ahead, of the days of picking the cotton, and of the struggle that still might lie ahead to sell it as they knew they would have to. Things had been quiet around the place for the past several weeks; there had been no more broken windows, no slaughtered animals, but Janson knew it was not over yet. Walter Eason would know they had not been beaten so easily. Walter Eason would know, just as Janson knew. Walter Eason would know.

  Janson’s appetite returned as they entered the separate kitchen of the old house a short time later, the scent of baking biscuits and frying ham coming to him. There was good, strong coffee, potatoes fried in bacon grease, and turnip greens swimming in pot liquor, as well as fried apple pies for dessert—and Janson realized suddenly how very hungry he was, a hunger he had rightly earned from hours of hard work in the fields that day.

  When supper was finished, he sat tired and contented in the flickering light of the kerosene lamps in the front room they used as a parlor. He rocked slowly in an old split-bottomed rocker, his head leaned back, his eyes closed, his mind thinking, dreaming. His father sat nearby, reading silently from the old family Bible, its worn and cracked leather cover open in his calloused hands. His mother was across the room, bent over the foot-treadle sewing machine that had sat here in the parlor for as long as Janson could remember, her voice, sweet and clear above the sound of the machine, singing the words of a song he had heard both her and his grandmother sing time and again.

  On the floor beside her chair sat a specially sized and painted bow basket Janson had made and given to her on her last birthday, a basket now filled with assorted bits of cloth of odd shapes and sizes, quilt scraps she would soon be turning into warm cover against the cold Alabama winter nights. Her hands were busy at the sewing machine now, unable to be still even after the day she had spent picking cotton in the fields, her mind occupied with the remaking of an old shirt someone had given her—Gran’ma or Aunt Rachel, or maybe even Aunt Olive—remaking it into a shirt he or his father could use, and that the former owner would hardly recognize again once she was finished with it.

  Janson listened to a dog barking a half-mile or so away in the darkness; listened to the sound of a train whistle off in the distance, a train going almost anywhere—such a lonely sound. He listened to the night outside, feeling the heat of the fireplace warm on his face, smelling the scent of the oak logs burning there. He heard his mother singing, and the sound of the sewing machine as long familiar as her voice—he kept his eyes closed, not having to look at this room to see it, for he had spent every day of his life here in this house. He knew every step of the way from where he sat through the house and out over the covered walkway to the kitchen, to the icebox that leaked water on the floor, or to the temperamental old wood stove that sometimes belched smoke back into the kitchen. He could find his way through these rooms in the dark or without sight, for this was his home, as much a part of him as his soul was. He knew the red land that rolled into pine-covered hills and woods, and the cotton fields he had worked for as long as he could remember. He knew the rise of land across the road, beyond the beginnings of the fields and the small apple orchard, the rise where the old oak tree stood, the place he liked to go to be alone, to think, to dream, or to just sit and look at the house and be. He knew every step of the way from the porch to the barn, to the smokehouse, or to the old shacks that had held sharecroppers long before his father had ever owned the land—if there ever had been such a time. He knew the rutted clay road and the woods, and every step of the way from here to his grandparents’ house, or to the sharecropped land of any of his kin or neighbors, as well as to the Holiness church they all attended. This was his home. This would forever be his home.

  He sat with his head leaned back against the rocker, his eyes closed, his mind dreaming—he loved this land, this place, and he knew he would spend the remainder of his years here, working the red earth as God had intended man to do, even as his own father did now. Someday soon he would marry and have sons who would work this land as well. He would find a good woman, a nice girl from a Holiness family, for the Sanders were a Holiness people; a woman very much like his ma or his gran’ma, a woman a man could depend on, strong and level-headed and a good cook—and pretty, with a nice figure and long hair; not one of these modern girls with their bobbed hair and their smoking, their face-paint and short skirts and oh-so-modern ways that made them something less than ladies. He would marry a good, old-fashioned girl; they would have a family, and they would have this land—and someday he would buy more land, maybe the next farm over. And he would never sell at Eason prices again.

  He must have dozed, for he woke with a start at his father’s cry. Henry Sanders was suddenly on his feet, sending the rocker he had been sitting in crashing over onto its side on the floor, the old Bible falling from his hands—he ran for the door, a horrified expression on his face, and for a moment Janson did not understand. Then he smelled it: Smoke, not the scent of wood smoke from the fireplace, but something more. And his eyes caught sight of the light reflecting orange and yellow onto the front windows of the house. Fire—

  Within seconds he was out onto the porch beside his parents, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach as he saw the unpicked fields ablaze, the cotton going up—all that work, all that sweat, all that hope, gone for nothing. His father had grabbed up a quilt from where it had lain sunning over a chair on the porch during the day, and he was already running across the yard toward the fields—Janson did not know how the other quilt got into his hands, but suddenly he was running as well, stumbling, falling, only to get back to his feet and run again, almost unmindful of the sudden, sharp pain that shot through his left knee at almost every step.

  The fields were choked with smoke, with flying pieces of burning lint that singed his face and hands. He began to beat at the flames with the quilt, the thick smoke choking his lungs until he thought he would never breathe again, the sweat pouring into his eyes until he could see nothing but the heat and the fire and the hell around him. He gagged on the smell of the burning cotton, his lungs fighting for air until his chest hurt with the very effort to breathe. He was in hell and he knew it was lost, everything was lost, this field and perhaps the next—but still he fought on, beating at the flames with the quilt, only to see them rekindle again from the dry and burning plants nearby.

  His mother was a few rows away, beating at the fire with the beloved rag rug that had lain in the parlor all these years, the rag rug that had once belonged to her own mother, a mother she had never known, it burning already in her hands as she swung it over her head and down into the flames again. Her long black hair had come loose from its bun, hanging now down her back and past her waist, swinging with her movements. Her face glistened with sweat, something near absolute panic in her eyes even over the distance, her long hair and dress both swinging too close to the flames each time she lifted and swung the rug—he started to yell for her to get back, to warn that she was too close to the fire, but suddenly something in her face changed. She threw down the rug and started to run, and for a moment Janson thought she had caught fire, that she was burning—then he saw. His father, a distance away through the hell, was clutching at his chest, seeming to fight for air, for breath, a look of pain suddenly constricting his features.

  Janson threw down the quilt that was already beginning to catch fire in his hands and ran toward his father as well, a pain suddenly shooting through his left knee that was now too bad to be ignored. Fire shot up in front of him, moving down another row of cotton—but the cotton no longer mattered. Nothing
mattered. Nothing but his father. And Janson already knew that he was dying.

  Henry Sanders collapsed into his wife’s arms as she reached his side, and for a moment it seemed Nell Sanders would fall as well with the added weight—but suddenly she was dragging him from the field, her face showing the strain, the muscles cording out in her neck with the effort. Janson reached her side and began to help, taking his father’s other arm, hearing her voice, the same words, pleading over and over again:

  “God, don’t take him from me. God, please, don’t take him from me . . .”

  There was so much pain in his mother’s eyes, so much fear, a fear that matched Janson’s own as they reached the edge of the field and collapsed there, his mother’s strength giving out, his own giving way with the pain that now filled his left leg. Nell Sanders was crying as she drew her husband’s head onto her lap, her voice saying his name over and over again, her hands touching his face, tears streaming down her own—but Henry Sanders was already dead.

  The burning field nearby cast the world around Janson into a hell of heat and smoke and writhing black shadows. Tears ran from his eyes and down his cheeks as he stared into the face of this man who had given him life more than eighteen years before, this man who had given him the dream of the land. His mother rocked back and forth on her knees, his father’s head cradled in her lap, her face stunned, disbelieving, streaked with smut and tears and more grief than Janson had ever known before. He lifted his eyes from the nightmare before him, begging God to understand, to know why—