Sweet Song

by Terry Persun

  “Coward,” Horace said.

  “Shit,” Walter said.

  Leon sat up slowly. It was quiet except for the snap of the fire. “You win,” Leon said.

  Horace bent down next to Leon’s ringing ear. “No, you lose.” Horace walked away.

  Walter patted Leon’s shoulder and shook him gently. “You all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Why’d you let him do that? You were right.”

  “Right or wrong wouldn’t change him,” Leon said.

  “I don’t understand you,” Walter said. “You should stick up for yourself and stop running.”

  Leon never thought that he was running, but now, in reality, he saw that was exactly what he’d been doing.

  CHAPTER 16

  The change in weather shifted slowly, then one day the sun felt hot. At night, the bunkhouse stayed warm longer. The soft morning air relaxed instead of sharpened the skin. Robins and wrens returned to the area and chattered in the morning. The odors turned organic. The creeks filled. Spring thaw and mixed rain and snow filled the runs to brimming. The water cut new paths into the soft ground.

  The men got grumpy. They tested one another. Leon found he couldn’t hide from the general din of anger and stayed out in the rain until many of the men fell asleep. It wasn’t so bad. He could do it for a while, but he felt he couldn’t stay in camp much longer. In private, he told Walter about his plan to leave.

  “So, up-river?”

  “Yes. I need to get to a bigger place where there are more jobs.”

  “I’m going back home. I need to get crops in. We’ll have one or two more snows at the best. Rivers will stay up, then floods will come.”

  “I know the routine.”

  “Now’s the time to cross,” Walter said. “Get to the other side of Bald Eagle Creek, stick to the river until you see a river raft. They’ll take you across for pay. But not when the flood comes.” Walter held out his hand. “Ever in White Deer, look up my farm.”

  Leon shook hands, the feeling of rough skin and raw muscle surprised him. Walter’s softer personality didn’t fit his rough body. “I’ll stop by for dinner,” Leon said.

  “I’ll make sure it’s a hearty one. None of these beans.”

  For reasons he couldn’t determine, Leon didn’t want to let go of Walter’s hand. He held tightly until they both became uncomfortable. Their eye contact and handholding turned suddenly from friendship to erotic, and then discomfort.

  Leon thought to tell Walter that he’d miss him and that he was sorry about Walter’s disappointment when Leon backed down from Horace. But he said none of it. That would have created too strong a bond between them. That would push against the handshake, the extended eye contact, the traditional way a man interacts with a man. The fragile connection could turn as easily into contempt or anger as it could deepen the friendship.

  Leon released his grip and turned to head into the bunkhouse. By morning, he would be gone.

  The sky darkened. It had broadened by the lack of forest. Its heaviness, too, had grown with the expanse and lay sadly over the clearcut.

  Leon rubbed his hands together. They too were rough and callused. A hundred splinters had been pulled from them over the winter. The numbness of his skin had allowed great holes to be excavated by the use of his knife. Tender meat lay exposed in the bared skin of his fingers and palms all winter without notice.

  Leon lay on his bedroll in the dim light. Heat from the dying fire spread through the bunkhouse. Walter had not followed him inside.

  Sleep came smoothly and quietly to Leon’s body that night. He awoke before the stir of another man, ready to go. Only his bedroll needed to be tied into a bundle, wrapped around the rest of his belongings. He paused next to Walter’s bunk. He almost reached out to touch his friend as a last goodbye.

  Outside, the touch of morning brushed against his face and arms. Leon knew the way. He had asked directions from several men over the course of the cut and held tight to the details. It was easy really: cross a creek, keep walking north, and cross a river. There were a few terrain problems that would take him away from the river, but north wouldn’t change directions on him.

  Leon passed several stacks of lath and shingles and had to stay above the log line next to the creek. They had cleared a lot of acreage, and it was hard to believe that the floods could carry that much timber without clogging and damming.

  Morning turned to noon, and Leon stopped to eat bread. He thought to fish, but the creek mud and fast currents kept him from doing so. He brought enough bread for a few days. He could eat mushrooms as well, and birch bark when he ran into it.

  The water ran beautifully and dangerously this time of year. Leon couldn’t see bottom in most places. The swift currents churned even the rockiest bed to brown. He ran across a deer that had gotten snagged by errant tree roots and drowned. It’s sinew and hide stretched downstream like a wiggling snake unable to escape. How many times had he seen that image in his life? The carcass was too many days old to be edible.

  He continued on and before long got to a place where a great pine had been toppled. Its branches held to another tree on the opposite side of the creek, not eight yards away. He’d have to climb up the slope of the trunk. It was either that or continue upstream and pray for an easier crossing. This might be his best chance. Being less than a day out, crossing the creek now would allow him to cut across to the river.

  Leon inspected the tree and then pushed against it to assure its secure hold in place. The branches at the top were tightly embraced with another tree’s branches, which would make the final transfer from one tree to the other the most difficult part of the crossing. The pine branches he used to keep himself stable were rough to the touch. The needles had already begun to dry. They poked at his hands and forearms and even through his trousers. Leon put his knife into his mouth in case he needed to excavate a few branches while crossing. His footholds became thinner forcing him to squeeze the side of his boot into tighter and tighter spots.

  The river raged below. The current rose and fell in great swells where huge rocks below the surface stood firm. He had no choice but to make it across. Each push through thick foliage got Leon more fatigued. The foliage was so thick that cutting the branches wasn’t a viable option after all.

  As he fought his way in and around the branches of both trees, something snapped. He held his breath. The tree dropped three feet and twisted before it held again. Leon gripped anything his hands could grasp without dropping his things. Luckily his foot shifted but didn’t dislodge from between two branches. His face got scraped badly and the knife, torn from his mouth, plummeted to the bank next to the brown water. He leaned out of balance and struggled to right himself.

  He had not thought about how his weight would affect the tree’s stability. He couldn’t make himself lighter, and was afraid to test the stability of the tree now that it had already appeared to be unsafe. The trees could twist apart from one another and dump him into the creek or drop him thirty feet to the rocky bank.

  He looked back to where he’d come from. Returning was not an option.

  Leon’s grip tightened. His palms hurt. He held with one hand as the other searched for a secure hold. He’d rather hang upside down than fall. In this hand-by-hand manner, Leon worked his body through the entwined limbs until he reached the trunk of the upright tree, at which point he hugged to its trunk and rested. Then he climbed down.

  His knife gleamed on the dead leaves and needles amid the dull colors. Leon retrieved it and took a moment, while standing on the embankment, to fill his mouth with bread to remind the rest of his body that the threat had ended. He walked Northeast, cross-country, toward the Susquahanna.

  A prideful success swept through him. He could have died there. Hell, he would have died fifty times over the winter, but he hadn’t. Living got easier after a few serious scrapes. It got sweeter as his journey edged on.

  Leon didn’t travel much farther before he
stopped to make camp. Trees stood all around him. Even after the cutting that had gone on there were thousands more still standing. While working in the camp, it was easy to assume that the rest of the state had been pulled up by the roots or cut short as quickly as the area that he worked. It appeared natural that a clear path would lead to the next town, the only obstruction being the hills between them. But there were still trees, acres of them, as if the trees had fought back by shear number. In the forest, a calm lifted from the ground, a blanket of security rose. In contrast, cut areas became abrupt and scarred. This was true even though farmers like Walter pulled the stumps, raked out the rocks, cleared and plowed and planted the ground. By harvest the graveyard of stumps would be turned into golden grain, then bread. Livestock would grow fat. One crop would replace another. Even as the people grew old and died, other people would bud and grow in their place.

  Leon traveled smarter than he once had. He built a small fire and boiled a tin cup of water. He collected peppermint leaves for tea and pulped them with a stick until the water turned dark. In it he dipped his bread for flavor.

  After his light dinner, Leon readied his roll and leaned back against a tree trunk where he gazed upward at an angle and watched, ‘The Lord’s sweet song into night.’ The colors streaked, depending on the density of the particular cloud the sun attached to. Amid the green of forest life melted the display of dusk. Eventually color faded, night arrived, and stars speckled the sky a sweet sugar between the clouds.

  Leon stoked his small fire and built it up to last halfway through the night. His stomach asked for another morsel, but he went to sleep knowing that morning food would be better used.

  His nightmares prevailed. They had become more regular through winter, but woke Leon quickly and with little noise to bother the others. Alone in the forest there was no one to bother. As if his dreams knew of his solitude, they allowed him to scream out. Leon awoke with the echo still reverberating around him.

  The fire crackled. It leaned toward failure, so Leon uncovered himself and built it back up. He sat close to it, facing away. Once his back warmed, he turned. He wasn’t tired. His stomach ached. He decided on one bit of bread and a small sip of water from the canteen he had bought early on in his employment. His bedroll, extra blanket, and wool coat kept him plenty warm while sleeping. The fire drove out the dampness. The trees provided a false security, the feeling of being closed in and safe. Leon slept once again and awoke to morning light and loud birdsongs. He had not dreamed a second time.

  After tea and bread for breakfast, Leon killed the fire, covering it with dirt, and packed to leave.

  Rather than travel directly over the hill between him and where he believed the river to be, he mounted a small ridge and followed it around the mountain.

  The bread was not supplying the energy he had hoped. When he ran across an opossum, he grabbed a fallen branch to use as a club and chased it up a tree where, after a short climb, Leon was able to knock the animal over the head. When it looked stunned, Leon stabbed the opossum in the back of the neck, held it with his foot and dragged the knife around to the soft tissue at the animal’s throat.

  He let it bleed out by knotting its tail around a thin tree branch. His mouth watered and his body got ready for the nourishment. Leon defecated in a hole he dug. The acid already building in his body to digest the opossum had given him a mild case of diarrhea.

  He built an early afternoon fire, aware that he was not making very good time. Eating meat would help to strengthen him for the next day’s journey.

  He skinned the opossum and buried the entrails along with the skin, head, feet, and tale. The fire spit flames up to meet the juices. The meat browned. Leon turned the hand carved spit and waited patiently for the meat to darken, for the blood to stop oozing when he poked at it, for the smell to turn from the raw scent of uncooked meat, to the sweet scent of a meal. He charred the outside. There were at least two days worth of food on the bones. That night Leon ate the heart and liver first. He disliked the taste, but knew it provided great energy and strength.

  The meat didn’t taste anything like the venison that often made its way into the beans at the camp. The opossum meat tasted sweeter and felt tougher than the venison.

  Leon lay the leftover meat into the fire to be sure it cooked thoroughly through. With a full stomach, he sipped at his tea. He sang while one more night bore down on him.

  The meat kept Leon warm all through the cold night. He awoke to see that a light snow had fallen, the last of winter, he was sure. He brushed his top blanket free of the snow. His body felt hot except for his face, which had poked into the air from the hood he had made of the blanket.

  Leon let the mid-March morning creep into his clothes as he prepared for his next day’s travel. He needed to continue around the ridge and eventually that path would lead him to a place that would overlook the river valley.

  Despite the onion snow, the whip-o-wills and chickadees knew that spring had arrived. They sang spring’s praises to the world. The deciduous trees would soon bead with new life, each day a million buds popping from the ends of branches like magic.

  But for now, the sky spread a dark blanket over the area. The air warmed inside the room of clouds. Rain would bring water to runs and streams, which in turn would produce runoff to accumulate in the creeks. As the ground thawed and the water level rose, the river would begin to fill with timber.

  Leon felt an urgency to travel faster, to make better time, but he didn’t know Indian paths from deer trails. Underbrush became dense at times, especially close to creeks. The forest breathed with alternate clearings and dense underbrush. Opening to another stump graveyard, Leon circumvented the camp by traveling barely inside the woods, up the slope, and around the workload.

  Leon stopped for a late afternoon meal. His legs hurt, and he breathed heavily from the near vertical climb he had been enjoying. He wiped his brow and hunched down to remove the opossum meat from inside his bedroll. He heard an eagle squeal, and peered into the sky.

  Although he couldn’t see the eagle, he noticed a thin tree line that indicated a ledge. Curious, Leon got up, grabbing his bedroll as he did so, and worked his way toward the opening. He stood in awe.

  PART III

  CHAPTER 17

  Even with the clouds obscuring far hills, the valley spread for miles in browns and greens, brilliant yellows. The textures varied from mounds of fields left fallow, to the softness of sprouting grains. The river reflected gray from the sky. A breeze through the valley drove south, cooling the air. A combination of forest grove and farm field alternated across the land. Then there were the towns, one small and to the south, the other larger, much larger, and to the north. The northern town perched at a bend in the river and spread to both shores.

  Leon sat on a rock and ate from his leftover meal. Alone on that rock, Leon felt relieved of his past for a while. The lying he had done fell away like caked dirt from his boot. His childhood, his father’s death, and his mother’s craziness, slipped over the edge of the long embankment, away from him, down, down toward the river to be washed away in a moment. His memories blurred and faded, replaced by the hope he saw in the panorama below. He wished desperately to be a new man. A white man perhaps. He had already taken on the lie for a year, why not hold onto it? Live with it? The longer he felt white, the easier he accepted the reality of it. And then there was his real father, his real blood, that meant his lie was already half true. Why hadn’t he seen that before? He could live that life. He could be white. He was as much white as black.

  Shale trickled down the embankment set loose somewhere below him. A chipmunk emerged, scurried into some brush and another trickle of stone rolled downhill.

  Leon rose from his perch and gathered his things.

  Before nightfall, Leon hiked a sloping ridge around and down for several hours, making little progress toward what he knew was his destination. Yet, somehow, before night came down hard, Leon walked into a flat clearing where h
e could rest for the night. The rain he had expected had not arrived. Even though the air had warmed during the day, the temperature dropped considerably after sunset. Leon built a small fire and bundled himself in his blanket before curling his body on its side to prepare for the cold.

  In the middle of the night, a light rain fell. Leon woke, dragged himself and his gear into a grove of pines where he felt better protected, even though it was away from the fire. The hush of raindrops falling throughout the forest soothed him. The trickling reminded him of his childhood, snug in his own corner, near the back door of the shack. The peaceful patter of rain helped him to dose once again.

  He woke several times to the warming air and stared into the night, listening, breathing slowly. As the light of day advanced, Leon finished the food he had left. The sun peeled layer after layer of fog from the valley floor, from the river, and from pockets of trees, which made it look as though smoke rose from the woods. In time, the sun hit Leon directly. The humidity stuck to him.

  At the base of the hill, the brush got thick, briars reached out to entangle and strangle poison oak, sumac, and choke cherry. Leon walked along that wall until he found where animals, probably deer, had created a tunnel through the brush. He could only hope that the cut-through went all the way to a clearing rather than end in the middle.

  He held his knife out and cut away small man-shaped areas where the briars encroached on the tunnel. Birds flitted all around him in and among the brush. The loudness of their voices kept out the sound of the wind.

  He proceeded for nearly two hours, wondering every fifteen minutes whether he should retreat and find a creek to follow. But he continued through, never slowing more than it became necessary for him to cut his way farther in. Leon followed the animal’s trail even though it turned and looped back more than once. He pricked his fingers often. His clothes got caught by the briars, which pulled on him like tiny hands trying to keep him from going on. But he broke through time and again until he poked his head, and then his body, through a final thicket to a grassy field, long and damp, leading to what he knew were trees lining the riverbank. Although the air had warmed the topsoil, under the dampness the ground stood frozen.