Face the Winter Naked

by Bonnie Turner

  Daniel pulled off his cap and wiped his sweaty head. The last thing I want to do is dig a well.

  "Yes, ma'am, I've dug me up some wells in my lifetime."

  She let out a whoop and grabbed his arm. "You're coming with me. The well we got now is going dry. We're hauling water from the pond, and if it don't rain, the pond's going dry, too."

  "Well now, I don't know."

  Bess wouldn't take no for an answer.

  "C'mon now, Mr. Daniel. You can meet the old man and the rest of the bunch. Ezra started digging a well 'fore his back give out, but he couldn't find no water."

  Daniel hadn't witched in ages—did he dare get her hopes up?

  "I've dowsed some," he told the husband a short time later.

  Ezra was probably not as old as he looked—his body showed the ravages of the Depression and he walked with a hickory cane. Hard times took a lot out of a man, and he looked like he was down to his last wish.

  Daniel's own family had fared well—at least before he left, the situation hadn't gotten that bad. What they were doing now, though, he was afraid to guess. But he counted on Clay and LaDaisy's family to take care of the Tomelin brood till he got himself together.

  Daniel Tomelin was embarrassed to find himself in the company of such poverty: an empty-eyed, unsmiling young women in a dress held together by safety pins nursed a scrawny boy of about a year old, him taking all her strength as he pulled at her flat, sagging breast.

  Three filthy children of walking age leaned against one another on an old davenport, staring at the stranger with deep, hungry eyes, one with a thumb in her mouth. Birthing so close together had pulled all the meat off their mother's frame.

  Another man, who Daniel guessed was the young woman's husband, snored on a bed seen through an open doorway. On the wall over the bed hung a framed marriage certificate—in plain sight, lest someone thought the couple lived in sin. But it made no sense. If God looked down at this poor family, he wouldn't find sin, but instead hunger and dejection.

  Now Ezra nodded at Daniel.

  "I'd be much obliged if you could help me dig. If the sow she ever comes back, you can have one of her babies for pay."

  Daniel could just see himself swinging along a country road with Buttercup's baby in one arm, a banjo on his shoulder, tools spilling out of his clothes, seeing and hearing things that weren't there.

  "It's worth a try," he said, and they went outdoors together, Ezra prodding the ground with his walking stick.

  Daniel spotted the diggings immediately and went over to examine the hole.

  "You did a lot of work already. Not a drop, huh?"

  "Nary a drop."

  "Did you dowse first?"

  "I don't have a gift for dowsing," Ezra said. "There was a man come by a couple years ago offering to dowse, but I sent him away. We didn't need him then. Now my dang well's going dry and the new one smelt like rotten eggs after digging down a few feet."

  "Sulfur," Daniel said, nodding. "Now you watch. I'll see what I can do. It's been a long time since I done this, but I'll try to find you some clean drinking water."

  "Be nice to stop bringing water from the crik." Ezra glanced at his wife as she came over. Bess looked at Daniel, and Daniel guessed she was the one who carried the water.

  "We'll be blessed if y'all find water," she said, nodding her head.

  "And that's just what I'm going to do, good woman, God willing."

  Daniel found a forked branch from a huge weeping willow in front of the house. He surmised that for a tree to grow as big as it had, its roots had to be near an underground stream. He took out his pocketknife and trimmed the branch to a Y shape that stuck out stiff as a young man's pecker.

  The whole family—minus the snoring husband—came out on the porch and watched solemnly as he walked slowly around and around the yard holding the dowsing branch out before him by both handles, with the point facing straight ahead. While he walked, he concentrated on the water he knew was there—he'd seen the full moon a few days before, and some dowsers believed the moon pulled water from the earth.

  About thirty feet from the tree, the pointed end of the branch quivered suddenly and made a nosedive at the ground. Daniel looked up and grinned.

  "Right here's your water, folks."

  Ezra hobbled over and looked to where the twig pointed.

  "Nah, I don't think so." He squinted at Daniel in the bright sunshine. "A county agent said I wouldn't find no water here. Said it's on the other side of the house."

  "County agents are wrong sometimes. Your water's right here or my name ain't fiddlesticks."

  The sun was a blasting furnace whose rays penetrated his hat and shirt—even now sweat trickled down his sides into his underwear, and he already stunk so bad he'd never get clean again. This was no time to be digging a well, but seeing the long faces of the folks on the front porch, he turned to Ezra.

  "Bring me a shovel, a pick, and a steel rod, if you got any. Get a shovel, dirt bucket, and stout rope for the young man sleeping in there. I can't do this by myself."

  He went back to the porch and removed his tools from the pockets and loops of his overalls, laying them next to the gunnysack. Then he uncapped his water jug and poured some down his parched throat, careful not to spill any. He nodded at the young woman sitting there, thinking he should share his water, but knowing there wasn't enough to go around.

  "I've got a family of my own," he said, "and I wouldn't want them to thirst. So I'll dig you a well." Putting his jug away again, he turned to the child staring up at him with big, brown eyes. "I reckon you're about the same age as my own little girl. Her name's Catherine, what's yours?" When she didn't reply, he patted the top of her head and went back to where Ezra waited with the tools.

  From inside the house came Bess's high-pitched voice.

  "Get up, William, you lazy cuss. There's a man here to dig a new well. You're gonna help, so get up."

  Daniel heard the man swear, but after a while William came outdoors. He stared suspiciously at the stranger who ordered his family around like he owned them, then came over to the spot Daniel had marked. Ezra produced two short-handled shovels, one for Daniel and one for William. An old five-gallon bucket sat on the ground near a long steel rod and a rope coiled like a rattlesnake.

  "Ain't no water here," William said, rubbing the back of his neck.

  Daniel picked up one of the spades and looked the younger man squarely in the eye. He reminded himself to go gently with William. From the looks of the unshaven, hollow-eyed man, he belonged in the old graveyard he'd passed a few days ago.

  "There sure as shootin' is water here, and not too far down, neither. Now, if you'll grab the handle of that there shovel, you can help me bring it up."

  Daniel turned up the cuffs of his pants, and William helped him shovel dirt and rock from a hole barely wide enough for one man to maneuver with pick and shovel, let alone two. William didn't speak, and to his credit he didn't complain. He worked as hard as his partner as they broke through the rock with their picks and scooped it up with a shovel.

  "There's more rock than dirt down here," Daniel said.

  He stopped to wipe sweat off his brow. Growing too warm now, he unbuckled his overalls, pulled off his shirt and threw it up out of the hole. Securing his straps again, he commenced working shirtless. A wave of dizziness washed over him momentarily—from the heat and from hunger—and for one horrible moment, he imagined he was digging a trench back at the front. With great effort and his head spinning, he forced himself back to the task at hand. There were no wild poppies growing outside this hole. He'd almost slipped back into the nightmare, but had caught himself before the sandbags blew up and caved in on him.

  This is Missouri, not France. I'm not Shine and William is not Frank.

  He turned to his helper. "Much obliged for your work, William." But the man didn't speak.

  When the well got too deep to throw out the dirt, William climbed out and lowered the bucket on the rope
for Daniel to fill, after which he pulled it back up to the top and emptied it on the ground beside the hole. This action he repeated time and again as daylight passed into evening. The mound of dirt beside the hole rose higher. The heat of the day had lessened somewhat as the sun began sinking over the western hills in a blaze of color, ready to disappear till morning.

  Inside the hole, Daniel was cooler than he'd been all day. He loved the damp mineral smell of the dirt as he used the pick to pry out the rocks. When William lowered the bucket, Daniel often had to load it with all rock, instead of dirt. The work was backbreaking and dirty.

  Layer after layer of rock and dirt went up as the shaft grew deeper. Daniel had now made it square so the prop-boards could be positioned to keep the sides from caving in.

  Bess dragged over some boards from an old barn, "still good and clean," she said, and William tipped them into the hole and slid them down to Daniel.

  Daniel filled bucket after bucket, each time shouting up to William, who would lower the bucket again. When it was too dark to see—and the hole deeper than Daniel was high—he grabbed hold of the last bucket of dirt so William could pull him to the top as he walked his feet up the wall. Outside the hole, he sat on the ground catching his breath and mopping his sweaty body with his shirt before putting it back on.

  William emptied the bucket and went back to the house as Ezra came over and looked in the hole.

  "Not sure you're going to find water down there," he said. "But for the hard work, you deserve a meal. We don't have much, but you're welcome to share what we have."

  Daniel rolled down his pant-legs and shook the dirt out of the cuffs. He brushed the dust from his cap before replacing it on his head.

  "Much obliged. I think water's close, so I'll just bunk on your porch and get it out in the morning, unless William don't get up that early."

  "William ain't been right for weeks. He caught sick last winter and it done something to his head."

  Daniel nodded. "A little more food and a pleasant attitude will help."

  "Well, he's got neither, so he's out of luck, same as the rest of us."

  Ezra gave Daniel a hand and helped him up, and together they limped back to the house.

  Daniel squinted at the old man with one eye when he stopped to drink from his water jug.

  "What are you doing for food?"

  "Oh, we get a few commodities from the county when they have any. Flour, sugar, lard, grits, and beans, sometimes canned milk, which goes to the kids. Lord knows they can use more. The ol' lady can cook up a meal if she's only got flour and lard, but we run out long 'fore it's commodity time again. Our neighbor over yonder brings us wild game if they shoot enough to spare. Big family—seven grown boys, all good hunters. Lazy as sin otherwise."

  "God bless those folks." Daniel's mouth watered for a good home-cooked meal.

  "But there's no meat tonight," Ezra said, "just watered-down milk and hard bread."

  "Good enough," Daniel said. "I won't eat much, so the kids and their mama can have it."

  Daniel stayed for three days, digging the well and eating bread soaked in a glass of thin milk with a little sugar in it. Evenings, he played the banjo and made up songs for the kids, hoping to get a smile or chuckle out of them. But their faces remained frozen into hungry, miserable stones. Then, if things weren't bad enough, another banjo string snapped; he dropped it in his gunnysack to fix later and continued playing with the remaining three strings. The music didn't sound as good, but nobody cared.

  Each day seemed hotter than the last. Clouds came. Winds came, too. But not a drop of moisture fell.

  When will it come, when all the cows turn to shoe leather? When mankind wrings out the last cool drop of water from a well gone dry? Or the little mother in there tries to pray but her words are all dried up?

  Daniel thought of LaDaisy and his own children when he looked at each of these little ones who had no hope for a better life. When he thought of his family, his heart damn near broke, just like the banjo string.

  On the fourth day, his pick went through a layer of rock at the bottom of the well—now about nine feet deep—and a stream of water spurted up from the earth, flooded the bottom of the hole and kept rising. He yelled to William to lower the bucket one more time, and when it came down empty, Daniel sent it back up half full of brown gold. The rust didn't matter. It would clear up as soon as it filtered through the rocks and the mud settled.

  William let out a whoop.

  "Water, Ez! We's got water. Ol' Daniel he found water."

  "Lord a mercy," Bess said, and called the children over. "He found water. See down there? Now don't get too close."

  Daniel, standing in water over his shoes, looked up the shaft and saw the faces grinning down at him. "I ain't done down here yet, ma'am. How's about some more boards to box in the walls? She's about to cave in and bury me alive."

  More lumber slid down the hole and Daniel wedged the boards in place. Tomorrow would tell how much water the good Lord had planted in the new well.

  When he was done, William helped him out of the well for the last time and they placed an old wooden door over the hole so the kids wouldn't fall in.

  Daniel slept on the porch another night, and the haunted face of the young mother inside the house filled his mind with worrying thoughts of LaDaisy and the kids. Out of the blue they came, and never in all his born days did he have such foreboding. Deciding it was only the stress of the last few days, he rolled over on the hard porch and fell asleep with his head on his gunnysack to the music of locusts in the woods.

  He awoke to find William standing over him, eyeing the banjo and gunnysack. He raised himself on an elbow.

  "Git lost, William."

  William gave him a dirty look and went back inside, slamming the screen door behind him. Daniel immediately reached inside his bib, felt the money purse and sighed with relief. His entire savings to date were still safe.

  He rose and went down a path to relieve himself in the outhouse, and when he came back he saw Ezra and William at the new well, moving the cover to peer down inside.

  "G'morning, Ez." Then he nodded at William, trying not to think how near he'd come to being robbed while he slept. But William, sullen as ever, pretended not to notice him.

  Daniel looked inside the well and saw the water rising. He turned to Ezra and grinned.

  "Did you think it dried up in the night?"

  "Nope."

  "They do sometimes. But this one ain't going to. This here's a good well. The water's coming from an underground spring." He turned to William. "You might even have enough to take a bath come Saturday night."

  William tied a clean pail to a rope and lowered it down the hole without comment, and soon he pulled it up full of brown water.

  The day was already hot and muggy, and Daniel hadn't seen a cloud overhead for days. He re-buckled his suspenders and collected his tools as Ezra removed his battered straw hat and spoke.

  "You gave us a miracle, Daniel, and we're thankful."

  "No, the miracle of water came from the Lord." Daniel gazed off to the south. "Well, I'd best be hitting the road again."

  Ezra followed his gaze. "Where y'all going next?"

  "Springfield, I hope. Maybe I'll find work there. Which direction is it from here?"

  "Just follow the sun and you'll bump into it. But it's a long ways to walk and you're not likely to find work."

  Daniel smiled gently. "The Lord walked, and if He could, Daniel Tomelin ain't no better. I believe the good Lord also provides for his own. If there's work, I'll find it."

  Ezra turned toward the house. "Come and eat."

  "Don't mind if I do. I can say good-bye to the family while I'm at it."

  "It's the least we can do." They walked to the house together and Ezra opened the screen door and stepped aside so Daniel could enter. "Daniel's leaving now." He leaned his walking stick beside his chair and sat down heavily. "Give him some food to tide him over."

  Bess
came over and shook Daniel's hand. "Gonna miss you, Mr. Daniel."

  "Find the pig yet?"

  "Not yet," she said. "I'll send William and the kids out looking for her. She can't be far."

  "Sure she could." Ezra said. "She could be in Arkansas by now. Or maybe someone's having pork chops for breakfast. Never can tell what a sow might do."

  "Or people, either," Daniel added.

  "Sit, Daniel," Bess said. "I'll get you something to eat."

  "Just a bite of bread and milk, thank you."

  The kids stared at him. He winked at them as Bess brought a cracked mug of diluted canned milk and set it on the table in front of him. She sliced a crusty heel from a loaf of homemade bread. "Cocoa's good on bread and milk," he said. "If you got some, it'll be right tasty."

  Bess handed him the bread and opened a cabinet door that was falling off its hinges. "We did have some. Here it is." She brought out a dusty cocoa tin and pried off the lid. "Empty," she said. "Dang it all, who put this empty can back in the cabinet?"

  Daniel broke his bread in small pieces, dropped them in the milk and mashed them down with a spoon.

  When he'd eaten, he felt in his overalls' pocket for the coins he'd put there while out in the privy. Then he rose and went over to the young mother, sitting solemnly with her sleeping child on her shoulder. The suffering and hopelessness in her eyes wrenched his heart as he drew out the coins and placed them in her hand.

  She looked at the money—two dimes and one nickel—and started to shake her head "no."

  "Go ahead," Daniel said. "It ain't much."

  Her eyes glazed over as she stared up at him. "You—you don't have to—"

  Daniel lay a hand on her shoulder as her fingers curled around the pathetic few coins. "I do have to, miss. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't."

  The dam behind her eyes broke and flooded her face as he removed his cap.

  "You take care of them youngins' now, you hear?"

  He reached out and gently touched the little boy, thinking it might feel good to hold a child again. But no, he couldn't trust himself to hold the tyke without breaking down. His Adam's apple was already trying to strangle him as the mother's eyes burned into his mind; for the rest of his life, those eyes would haunt him.