Beneath a Thousand Apple Trees

by Janie DeVos

  So, as life would have it, the good and kind Samuel Harold ended up spending twenty-one years in Salisbury Prison for the slaying of the vicious and cruel Malcolm Holton. And those years had been spent at hard labor and enduring endless abuse. There were days he wished to God that some angel from above would come down with that hangman’s noose, after all, just to free him from the hell he’d been sentenced to. Constant beatings, little to no food, a cell that was either as hot as a coal furnace or as cold as an ice cave eventually wore Sam down to the point of fracturing. He’d been able to hold it together longer than most, but was nearly driven past the breaking point of both life and sanity the day he’d been beaten about the head and body with a lead pipe for helping a man whose legs had turned to mush from working a twelve-hour day laying railroad ties in ninety-seven-degree weather. The man had been sixty-one years old, and suffered from poor health as it was. But there was little medical help for convicts, and even less compassion, so many of those sentenced to hard labor—which was the majority of them—died from being worked to death. The state turned a blind eye to the mistreatment for there were plenty of others to fill the bunks of those that had departed for their heavenly reward, or, as most believed, to begin serving a far harsher eternal sentence in a place that made Salisbury, North Carolina in July feel like Fargo, North Dakota in January.

  The only things that brought comfort to the man who had saved my grandmother’s life were the letters they wrote to each other. Those had been his saving grace. And though it might have been less torturous to just move on since the pain of knowing that he would never have her cut like a knife, there was nothing for him to move on to. The road ahead looked as endlessly bleak and desolate as the train tracks, he thought, as he gazed down the steel and wood path, while eating his noontime ration of deer jerky and hardtack. Though he knew the tracks led to many wonderful somewheres, they never would for him, at least not until he was old and gray. And that terrible realization broke his spirit down as thoroughly and painfully as the prison guards’ beatings broke down his body.

  Finally, after twenty-one years, two months, and seventeen days, Sam was awakened by one of the less malicious guards who told him the state parole board had figured his sentence had been justifiably served. Sam was handed the clothing he had been brought in wearing (which was now about four sizes too big), a brand new silver dollar, and the door to freedom. And even though it was a door he’d been longing for, he wasn’t quite sure what he’d find on the other side of it. Fortunately for him, he found his cabin still standing, though many new tenants of the furry and venomous sort had long since taken up residence. But after some serious cleaning and repairing, Sam settled back into his old home place and returned to his old way of life of hunting, trapping, and mining.

  All had been going along fairly peacefully, until one particularly dark night, when there was absolutely no moon, and he’d gone out to see why his mule, horse, and cow were making such a ruckus in the barn. As he’d hurried across the yard, he saw the soft white outline of a free-floating . . . something. His head told him it couldn’t be a man, but the shape of it told his eyes different. And to make things worse—much, much worse—his eyes told him that the white, gliding shape looked eerily like Malcolm Holton. As much as he wanted to forget the man, his image would stay forever burned into his memory. He figured it had something to do with the fact that he’d killed him, for that, in and of itself, still haunted the gentle Samuel Harold. It mattered not that the man had left Sam little choice, that Malcolm would have killed Willa that day by the river. No matter how justifiable Sam’s actions had been, he’d paid a dear price for them, and continued to do so, for there was no harsher judge and jury for his actions than Sam, himself.

  Grandma had asked repeatedly why Sam hung crescent moons in his trees, and Sam had repeatedly refused to tell her, until the time Grandma swore she wouldn’t come back to see him unless he did. That greatest of all threats finally broke Sam’s resolve never to tell her, so he finally admitted to seeing Malcolm numerous times; adding that it only seemed to happen when there was no moon. So Sam began to make and hang moons. And he noticed that the occurrences became less and less frequent as his trees became fuller and fuller of the bizarre lunar works of art. I asked Grandma if she believed Sam’s crazy-sounding tale, and she said that it really didn’t matter what she believed; Sam believed it and that was all that mattered. “Could be,” she’d continued, “that guilt haunts him more than any spirit does.” I asked her if his guilt was why the two of them had never gotten together—never married and started anew. She’d said it was, but Sam also felt that being married to a convict was almost as bad, if not actually worse, than being a convict.

  Another hurdle was the fact that my mother hated Sam. She hated the man who had killed the father she’d never known. It didn’t matter that Grandma tried explaining how cruel and brutal Malcolm had been, or that if she’d been raised by Malcolm, chances were that she would have suffered the same abuse as Grandma. Nothing she said made a difference in Mama’s stubborn opinion. She’d convinced herself that if her father had had the chance to know his daughter, he’d have been a changed man. After repeated attempts to make Mama understand the painful truth of the situation, Grandma gave up. And by doing so, she knew that she was also giving up any chance at a future with Sam. However, it wasn’t just a matter of changing Mama’s mind; it was also a matter of changing Sam’s. And after years of trying unsuccessfully to do so, she’d given up and let things be.

  After all, she figured, the best years of their lives had come and gone. And her daughter was a force she just couldn’t combat. There were two facts about Mama that Grandma had to come to terms with: Mama would never, ever accept Sam, and Mama had inherited Malcolm’s unstable mind. But while Malcolm was cold, brutal, and calculating, Mama was easily frightened, fragile, and weak, and could easily slip into the kind of darkness that was destructive to both herself and her family. I felt a physical coldness penetrate my body as a reaction to my grandmother’s painfully honest words. But the sad truth of the matter was that I understood her assessment of my mother for I had experienced the depth of that black hole that she could crawl into. I’d seen just how bottomless it could be. And I prayed to God that I wasn’t cut from that same dark cloth.

  As we got closer to home, Grandma grew quiet. The book of her past was gently closed, and we both stared silently ahead, watching for our house to come into view. We didn’t need to remind each other that Mama would be watching for us, and that knowledge made us stop looking at the past and start thinking about the possible ugliness of the immediate future. I had to admit that I’d worried about Mama’s reaction to my going with Grandma. After all, she’d had no say in it and had only learned of my going through Merry’s sketchy recitation of my even sketchier message. As if reading my mind, Grandma mumbled something to the effect that Mama would be madder ’n a cat in a full bathtub. She would know the story had finally been told to me, and she would be none too happy about it. But when we finally walked into the house that evening, Mama wasn’t standing by the window as expected, but was sitting in a living room chair instead, seemingly unconcerned with our whereabouts and quite involved with some embroidery.

  “I took your supper off the stove, or it would have burned up by now. It’s waitin’ on the table,” she said, hardly glancing up from her sewing.

  “Thank you, daughter,” Grandma responded, as we both walked straight toward the kitchen door without looking too closely at her.

  “You had a visitor,” Mama said casually. Grandma stopped short and I ran into her back.

  “Who did, Anna, Rachel or me?” Grandma turned to inquire.

  “You did. It was Lydia Harris; that woman whose husband has the orchard now. She had her daughter with her. Harriet—that’s her name—has a mess o’ warts on her left hand, and Miz Harris was told you’re the Wart Buyer ’round here,” Mama said, still not looking up from her needlework.

  “Well, did you tel
l her to come back tomorrow?”

  “No, I told her you’d gone off somewhere, and I didn’t know when or even if you’d be coming back,” she answered, finally looking up from her task and pinning us with a hard, cold glare.

  “That’s silly, Anna. I hope you told her you were teasing.” Grandma forced a chuckle.

  “Old woman,” Mama venomously spat, suddenly standing up and forcefully throwing her sewing into the chair. “Don’t you come in here a-tellin’ me what I ought to be tellin’ anyone else! You’re a crazy ol’ fool. And if you’re wantin’ to go a-gallavantin’ around the countryside on a fool’s errand, then be my guest. But next time you do, you leave my daughter behind!”

  “I’m old enough to go where I want, Mama, and I wanted to go with her,” I interjected, disliking the fact that I was being discussed in the third person. I also felt the need to defend Grandma’s decision to take me with her. “And I’ll go again. I like Samuel Harold.” And with that bold declaration, the room went deadly silent.

  “Rachel,” Mama started in a low, deep voice. It was a voice I’d heard before, and a chill began to creep up my spine. She took three steps toward us, and though she stood much taller than either Grandma or me, she seemed especially tall then. Her dark eyes flashed. “If you ever speak the name of that servant of Satan’s again, I swear on everything I deem holy, I’ll cut that tongue out of your mouth, and you’ll never speak his name or anyone else’s again!” And with that terrifying oath, she closed the distance between her and my grandmother, and leaning down into her face until their noses almost touched, hissed, “And I’ll cut more than that out of you!”

  Without another word, she crossed the room to her bedroom, and upon opening the door, I caught a glimpse of my father snoring away in ignorant bliss on their bed. Then, turning around to quietly close the door behind her, Mama looked up at Grandma and me, and her mouth turned up into the eeriest wisp of a smile. Beneath it was a blackness, born of anger or illness, which I wasn’t sure, and I couldn’t breathe for a few seconds. Apparently, Grandma had been witness to it before, though, for she sounded amazingly composed and firm, even motherly, as she calmly replied, “Get some sleep, Anna. You’ll feel better in the mornin’.” Then she put her hand firmly on my shoulder and turned me toward the kitchen, murmuring something about eating our supper before it got any colder. As I numbly moved through the kitchen door, I suddenly realized with an awful clarity that I knew exactly what my grandfather must have been like, and looked like, for I had just seen the incarnation of the father in the daughter.

  CHAPTER 28

  News from the Orchard

  Mrs. Harris had returned the Saturday following our trip to Sam’s, and had Harriet in tow. Since there was no school, Papa had taken Prescott with him to the sawmill. Mama had been in the garden burying cabbages upside-down to keep them from spoiling until we needed them, and Grandma, Merry, and I were busy sorting turkey feathers when our visitors arrived.

  We’d starting raising turkeys several years before, when things had been at their leanest. And even though our household finances had drastically improved, we still had turkeys a-plenty. Grandma had learned how lucrative the turkey business could be while raising my mother, and had continued with it until the grandchildren came along. Then she got busy helping to raise us.

  We sold the majority of our turkeys at Thanksgiving, of course, and did so at ten to twelve cents per pound. And we also made money by selling their feathers. Mrs. Sweetser ran a millinery in town; making hats of all sorts and sizes, and she loved using both turkey and peacock feathers for the trimming. So, we sorted feathers by size, color, and quality. The poor quality feathers were used to stuff pillows and mattresses, and any we had left over after filling our own immediate needs were sold to Mr. Taft for stock in his store. We also sold him turkey eggs. But we sacrificed one of the fattest birds of the bunch for our own Thanksgiving dinner. I never could stand to watch the execution, but the following morning, while feeding the survivors who’d been thin enough or fast enough to escape the axe, I quickly figured out which poor tom or hen had been the centerpiece on our bountiful table the afternoon before.

  We heard our latest dog, Alfie (a bloodhound mix), barking up a storm, then heard Mama’s muffled voice telling the dog to hush, followed by muffled conversation. Merry and I went out to the porch and looked off to the side of our house where our garden was, and saw Mama with the new arrivals standing on the edge of it.

  The woman and girl looked familiar to me, and I knew it must be Mrs. Harris and Harriet. “Let’s go in,” I heard Mama say. “She’s inside, and will be glad to help y’all, I’m sure,” she finished, undoubtedly referring to Grandma. All three turned toward the house, and saw us standing on the porch, watching them.

  The young girl was about ten like Merry, but the woman’s age was far more difficult to gauge. Common sense told me that she couldn’t be that old, with a child that young—two, actually, though I hadn’t seen the boy for a couple of months. Last time was outside the Methodist church, and one other time as he came out of the feed store with a couple of sacks thrown over his shoulder. I’d been riding out of town with Papa after running some errands when I saw him. My stomach dropped just a bit, and I wished we were just arriving. I wondered what I might have said or done to get a conversation started between the two of us—Jack was his name, I remembered. Perhaps I’d have said something amusing and he’d repeat that same smile he’d flashed at me on my birthday, the year before. I’d try almost anything to see that smile.

  Now, here were Jack’s mother and sister. Why couldn’t the boy have had the warts, I thought. What a golden opportunity it would have been to start a conversation, take a walk, or, most importantly, get him to smile at me again.

  “Rachel, Merry, this here’s Miz Harris and her daughter, Harriet. Harriet’s right ’tween you two in age,” Mama informed Merry and me. I softly said my hellos, while Merry, without a second’s hesitation, brightly jumped from the porch and said to Harriet, “You wanna see our new horse? She was born four days ago!” And after a soft “Okay” from Harriet, the two girls ran off and disappeared into the darkness of the barn.

  “C’mon in, Lydia,” (apparently their muffled conversation in the garden had put them on a first name basis with each other). “I just made an applesauce cake last—” Mama abruptly cut off her words and stopped walking, realizing she’d just put her foot in her mouth. Where she’d blundered was offering her guest a piece of a cake that had been made with apples that had not come from Mrs. Harris’s orchard. Mama looked properly embarrassed. I’d never seen anyone go from white to red so fast, and I wondered if she might faint.

  “I’m sorry, Lydia, I didn’t mean to . . . I have oatmeal cookies or . . .”

  “It’s fine, Anna. It’s all right. If we had some good apples to sell then I might be a touch out o’ sorts with you for not buyin’ ’em from us. But with the orchard so run down to begin with, and that freeze on top of it, why it’s no wonder we ain’t got anything worth eatin’, much less sellin’. Don’t you go feelin’ bad about gettin’ apples at Taft’s, if that’s where you’re gettin’ ’em. Don’t know of any place closer ’n that, do you?”

  “No, that’s about it, not countin’ a few apples someone might grow for themselves. How long y’all figure ’til you get things growin’ good again?” Mama gently inquired. It never ceased to amaze me how much more sympathetic and soft she could be with other people than with her own family, the ones most affected by her emotions.

  “We’re thinkin’ next year’s crop may be all right. But I don’t know if we can make it another year without some return. Honestly, I don’t rightly know how we’ve been able to make it through this one. Somehow we have, though. The Lord is good is ’bout all I can say,” Mrs. Harris finished quietly. She stopped looking at Mama and glanced down at the ground instead as if suddenly self-conscious that she’d told us so much about their dire situation.

  Grandma came out of the house a
t the perfect time to change the subject. She joined me at the porch railing as Mama and Mrs. Harris started up the steps. “Mornin’!” Grandma greeted.

  “Mornin’!” Mrs. Harris returned cheerfully, looking relieved. “I’m Lydia Harris, Mrs. Holton. I heared you was the Wart Buyer ’round here.”

  “Yes’m,” Grandma confirmed. “Who’s needin’ to be rid of ’em?”

  “Harriet, my girl,” Mrs. Harris said. “She’s gone back with your granddaughter to see your new pony. I’ll call her—”

  “No, now, let the young’uns get a little acquainted. If you’ll set a spell, you ’n I’ll do the same. I been wantin’ to meet you folks. Sit down, sit down,” she insisted, after taking a seat herself in one of the wooden rockers. “I want to hear what’s been goin’ on at the orchard; how y’all been gettin’ along, and who all you got over there workin’ with you.”

  Mrs. Harris began by telling us about her husband, Gilbert, being a veteran and the trouble he’d had getting a job once he was back from the war. Then how serendipitous it had been when they’d heard about the orchard needing someone to take it over. “It was like a sign from God. We figured Howlin’ Cut was where we needed to be,” she declared, glancing skyward toward “He who’d made it all possible.” She talked about what bad shape the orchard was in. The first reason was obvious; it had been totally neglected for a good year, and it was just as obvious that little care or upkeep had been given to it prior to that. Grandma quickly pointed out how miserly the previous owner, Mr. Lomax, had been, and that he’d never hired enough people to help with the running of the place. Mrs. Harris agreed that his extreme frugalness had harmed the orchard greatly, with the irony being that the man who was too tightfisted to let money go had ended up robbing himself of much to be gained. Vines had taken over many of the trees, so they only produced a fraction of what they were capable of. And the apples that were able to grow appeared in the treetops in a never-ending battle to escape being strangled out.