Gabriel stood back a little, watching the man calculate their bill. He looked over his features, settling on the man’s thick and unpleasant eyebrows and the slightly sinister curl of his mustache. He was cordial in the way of whites to blacks, joking with Solomon and asking after the health of his family, wondering whether they were turning much soil, assuring him that this plow would indeed help their progress, and saying that Solomon was lucky, as this was the last one he had in stock.
This statement, casual as it was, caught the attention of another man, a small fellow with reddish skin and ears that craned forward, rodentlike, as if to pick up just such information. He approached the counter, watched the goings-on for a second, then spoke. “Did I hear you right, Howe? Is that there the last of them new blades?” Howe answered that he had heard right. The man thought this over, his eyes fixed hard and suggestively on the storekeeper’s. “Don’t you remember I asked you to set one of those aside for me? Just the day before yesterday, came right in here and asked you explicit not to sell the last one except to me.”
Howe slowed in his work and drew himself up, his eyes finally meeting the other white man’s and joining in some optical discourse. Before long he began to recall just such a conversation. “Hal, damned if I didn’t forget all about that.”
“I thought you’d remember, though,” Hal said, letting a smile tilt his lips. A trickle of tobacco juice escaped the corner of his mouth and blended into the reddish hair of his chin. “I had your word, didn’t I?”
“That you did.” Howe hung his head for a moment and considered the sad state of these events, then looked up at Solomon. “Sorry, Solomon, looks like this here plow blade was on hold, just like Hal says. I can’t sell it to you.”
Solomon was slow in answering. Across his face passed many emotions in rapid-fire succession, not the least of which was anger. From where Gabriel stood, he could see the man’s fingers grip the gray boards of the counter as if they would pierce through them and rip the wood asunder. The boy waited for what words or deed would come, as surely some must, for this was the man who had so lamented the pain of dreams deferred and cried the virtues of the freedom of honest work.
“You can’t?” Solomon asked, as if no other words would come to him.
“Naw, he can’t,” the customer said. He reached over and took the blade from Solomon’s things. As he turned to resume shopping, he murmured, “It’d be wasted on you anyway, damn nigger farmer.”
Gabriel followed the man with red-hot eyes. They fixed on the man’s ears, on the scrawny tube that was his neck. He looked back at Solomon, his face for once characterized not by a look of loathing but beseeching instead, longing for a wrong to be righted. Solomon held his gaze for a second but made no communication with the boy, turning instead and settling the bill.
Outside, the two loaded up the wagon in silence. Solomon patted the boy on the shoulder, turned, and climbed onto the seat. Gabriel watched him, sour-faced. “That’s what you call being a free man?” He said it quietly, just a whisper, but clearly, so that his stepfather could hear it.
The man paused before seating himself, thought for a moment, then let himself down onto the blanket. When he spoke, his voice was honest, half defeated and far from proud. “Naw, I don’t reckon we’re all the way there, but we’re on the way. Things could be a lot worse than somebody taking your plow. We’re still finding the course to better things.” He motioned for the boy to climb aboard.
Gabriel looked around, considering other options and none too sure that the wagon was the best one. He eventually climbed in and settled himself, facing the back. He crossed his arms and sat in silence as the vehicle began its slow, creaking progress home.
THE SKY THAT SUNDAY EVENING began calm and still. No breeze blew across the grass, and even the coyotes were silent, their familiar cacophonous calls absent from the night. Hiram sat beside a tallow candle, in its warm, flickering light, and read from the Bible, from the old tales of the pharaohs and the Israelites. Egypt seemed an incomprehensible land, and Gabriel could scarcely conjure images of that strange country and the deeds performed there. Hiram spoke of Moses and Pharaoh, he who spurned God’s wishes, of how Pharaoh was punished with miracles beheld by all, how he became repentant and wished to release the Jews. But each time Moses returned, God would turn Pharaoh’s heart hard and make him refuse and thereby bring upon his people a new plague. This they repeated time and again. Gabriel couldn’t help thinking that God was a cruel God, one who would toy with the souls of men and make them suffer against their wishes, who would choose one race of people over another and so mete out his curses.
Hiram found the words moving to the core and soon turned the evening’s reading into a full-blown sermon. He spoke not as Hiram to his close kin but as preacher to a greater audience, with a fervor that made Eliza smile. He began by recollecting their distant homes in the South. He talked of that warm and humid land, of the beauty in its tragic history, and he spoke of the troubles of that place, the hardships they’d all known. They’d come here to escape some of that suffering, hadn’t they? They’d come to make a new life for themselves, to prosper, grow, and multiply. Wasn’t this so? He paused when they answered in the affirmative, and then said that they might escape many things in this country, but there was one force from which they could never escape. “Do you know what I’m speaking on, all of you?” He looked at the boys, who affirmed that they did. Hiram seemed to doubt this. He closed his eyes and stated, as if to a loved but naughty child for the hundredth time, “Ye cannot escape God’s laws, God’s sight, God’s blessing, and God’s judgment.”
He went on to tell the story of Jesus’ life, summed up and abbreviated, stressing his love for the poor and devotion to the common man. With his own upheld arms he painted a picture of Jesus nailed to the cross, dying once again before their eyes, for their sins, so that man would not be destroyed but could live to be tested further. And later, with quiet words that caused the listeners to crane forward, he told of the man’s resurrection. His body became stiff and unwieldy, dead and frozen, and only gradually did he regain life, as the Lord breathed the spirit back into him and Jesus both.
In the end, Hiram turned their eyes back out toward the fields. He read from the hundred and fifth psalm, verses forty-two, forty-three, and forty-five, and painted a picture of the prairie blooming like a giant rose, a sweet-smelling thing of beauty and delicate refinement. “Are you looking for the Promised Land?” he asked. Eliza’s voice, singsong and light, said that they were. “Well, behold, you’ve found its location. Now farm and reap and thank God for the gift of life.” By the time he’d finished, there was little doubt as to the bounty of this land or the blessed rightness of their decision to journey here. Gabriel alone lacked enthusiasm, a fact that he tried hard to demonstrate with his twisted countenance.
They bedded down a couple of hours later, Hiram wishing all a fine rest and heading out to his half-completed room. It was just after the house had fallen into silence that the wind kicked up. At first it just tickled the prairie, caressed the house as a benevolent hand pets a loved old dog. But as the night grew darker, so the wind grew bolder. Before long a tempest howled against the sides of the house like a Fury intent on utter destruction. Gusts tore through chinks in the walls and cracks in the door, creating a whirling dance within the cabin. Gabriel pulled his cover up over his head and lay listening.
“You hear that?” Ben asked.
“I don’t hear nothing. Go to sleep.”
But sleep had been blown away by the wind. Both boys lay with ears alert. The storm soon became a living thing running across the prairie. Far off they heard the pounding of footsteps, a steady bass over which the wind played. It grew louder, like a stampede of cattle, coming on hard and furious. It hit the house with a force that seemed to rock it. The window shook in its pane and the door bucked against its hinges. But the pounding was no herd of maddened beasts, no creatures of the apocalypse. It was rain.
A few
seconds after it began, water started leaking through the roof. It dribbled down at first in a single trickle, then two. Then a section of the ceiling, which had been so faithful in lesser rains, caved in. Water pelted onto the table and floor in a torrent, some liquid, some tiny balls of ice.
“Damn,” Ben said. He jumped to his feet. “The roof’s broke!”
Gabriel looked over his shoulder but only half took in the scene. He turned away and curled close to the wall. “Who cares?” he mumbled.
Solomon emerged from behind the curtain with a lamp in hand. The light illuminated the downpour and caught the erratic bounces of the hail, like jewels thrown about the table. A second later, Hiram tumbled through the door. The light caught the surprise on his face as he stepped from one downpour into another. “You can’t escape the flood!” he yelled, finding sudden humor in the situation.
Solomon was more serious. “Ben, see to Raleigh and the mule. See they don’t get too spooked and are tied up properly.” Ben jumped into action immediately, reaching for his boots and coat. He was out the door in the space of a few seconds. “Hiram, we gotta mend this roof.”
“Directly,” Hiram agreed.
“Gabriel, go fetch some of the cut sod. We’ll layer it over top as best we can.” He and Hiram lifted the table and chairs out of the way. Eliza appeared with the quilt from her bed. She tossed it across the floor, covering the larger part of the rain-soaked area.
Gabriel went so far as to sit up and survey the chaos. He blinked and said, “Let the damn roof leak, for all I care.”
Solomon had just set the table down. He swung toward the boy. His hand came up and flew at Gabriel, so fast neither of them seemed to know it was happening. He smacked the boy open-palmed across the cheek, snapping his head around and sending him sprawling back against the pallet. Gabriel was up in a second, chest thrown out and fists at the ready. Solomon met him head on. “What the hell’s wrong with you, boy? What kind of creature you got eating at you?”
“Nothing’s eating me except being here.”
“You’re a fool, Gabriel. You’re a damn fool child. If you would put away that anger, you’d see we’re making a life here.” A fresh gust of wind tore through the open door and around the room and fled through the roof, rocking them all where they stood. But Solomon kept his gaze on Gabriel. He spoke just loud enough to be heard over the noise. “I’ll accept you into this home like a son. I’ll love you like one if you let me, but I ain’t gonna tolerate you forever. You can make it with us or not. I don’t care. You can be damn sure we can do it without you.” He turned and shoved the door aside, Hiram following close on his heels.
Eliza eyed Gabriel angrily. “Get out there and help.”
Gabriel pulled on his boots and strode out into the rain without even a jacket to protect him. Ice balls pummeled his back and shoulders, sending his muscles into convulsions that he overcame by turning them into a full-tilt run. He could barely see the ground before him, and he ran with his arms outstretched, feet kicking out in a clumsy, stiff-legged gait. He stumbled over the sod before he knew he’d reached it and landed flat on the slick earth. He jumped up with all the speed of a man who’d tripped over a dead body, but then he stood, gasping, forgetting his mission and staring back at the spectacle that was their home. A jagged line of white lit the sky and a foul, misshapen world flashed into view, outlined in blinding detail. One could have mistaken the soddy for a dinghy afloat in a raging sea. The prairie’s contours were suddenly waves, moving with a slow and ominous bulk. The moment passed and all went black. There followed the slow rumble of thunder, a sound that in its breadth and depth overcame all other sounds, like God clearing his throat.
This spurred Gabriel back into motion. He felt for the sod with his hands and feet, found it, and shimmied his fingers under a block. He hefted it up, sank beneath it, and let the dead weight lie on his shoulder. His footing was loose and sloppy as he struggled toward the house. By the time he reached it, the two men had leaned a ladder against the wall and Solomon had scaled it. He was hard at work on the roof, sorting through the material with some plan that Gabriel could scarcely conceive. Hiram greeted the boy but motioned him to stand back. He began handing short pieces of wood up to Solomon.
Gabriel stood with soil running down one half of his body, rainwater washing down the other. It was only then that he noticed the hail had stopped. But to make up for it, the rain fell much harder. He could just hear the commotion coming from the barn. Raleigh and the mule were anxious. The roar of the wind and rain made it hard to hear what was going on over there, but Gabriel could make out brisk whinnies and hoofbeats, intermingled with Ben’s soothing voice, his explanations that all would be well.
Gabriel jumped when Hiram called him. He helped the man push the block of turf onto the roof. Hiram climbed onto the ladder and Gabriel held it as best he could, but the crooked wood shifted and bucked and rocked precariously as the men worked.
Eliza appeared in the open door and stood silhouetted there, her eyes hidden until the sky flashed again. Then Gabriel saw that she was looking at him. Her face went black again before he could read it. Solomon called for another block. This time Gabriel headed off without delay, so consumed in the work, the elements, and the electricity in the air that he didn’t even consider any further protest.
THE NEXT MORNING THE FAMILY SURVEYED THE DAMAGE with somber eyes. If the house had once been an ogre, now it was that ogre’s diseased and feeble grandfather. Inside, mud clogged the floor and seemed to have climbed up objects of its own accord, staining clothes and beds and even worming its way into the sealed trunks. The door was propped open to promote drying, but this succeeded only in merging the mud inside with the puddles outside. The wildflowers so patiently nurtured by Eliza had been pummeled to naught, both by the downpour and by the men’s frantic feet. Their patch job cluttered the roof like rubbish that has collected at the bend in a river—sticks crooked and cross-hatched, chunks of sod thrown over them every which way, like finger bandages over a gunshot wound. Looking at it, all agreed it was a wonder the house had sheltered as well as it had.
The fields were flooded, knee-deep in mud and more like the rice paddies of the Far East than Kansas wheat fields. It was impossible to say whether the ground might hold the seeds still or whether they were likely to float away and sprout in some distant spot, or whether they would just drown outright. Hiram speculated that the better part of them would be just fine, but nobody else voiced an opinion on the matter. Raleigh and the mule seemed largely unaffected, if a bit bedraggled. The sow was not disturbed at all, slogging about in the mud with obvious pleasure.
Solomon took it all in impassively. He shook his head but said not one downhearted word. Once the survey was complete, he shrugged his shoulders and met the earnest gazes of the others. “Let’s get this place cleaned up,” he said.
The others nodded and went silently to work. Gabriel helped his mother clean out the house, watching her for some sign that she saw the futility in all this. One storm, he longed to say. One storm and look at the place. He yearned to name the plagues that would follow, as if they were Biblical prophecy preordained and unavoidable. He would have asked her if she’d had enough yet, if this wasn’t proof that the land could wreak upon them any whim that took its fancy, save that he knew she would not allow him questions. He would have fallen to his knees and begged her to see reason but that he saw no reason himself and was sure that reason no longer played a part in her decisions. So he aided her efforts in silence, watching for any indication that she might be swayed.
Yet again, Eliza gave no sign of regret. She simply went to work, shaking her head in an almost amused manner, as if somebody had played a joke on them all and she couldn’t help but acknowledge the humor in it.
GABRIEL WORKED HARD OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS. Nobody commented on the outburst of that stormy evening, but it hung over the homestead like a cloud that would neither rain nor blow on. It lingered in Eliza’s reproachful eyes,
in Hiram’s exhaled breaths and in the slow shake of his head at his internal dialogues, and in the polite, distant manner in which Solomon spoke to the boy. Gabriel even saw something different in his brother. It seemed that the younger boy had stepped away, looked back and found his older sibling deficient in his role, no longer one to look up to unquestioningly. Gabriel sometimes wanted to rage at them, to take them on, stir the fire and have at it—anything other than the purgatory of the wary looks and quick sighs. But no one spoke, and the week wore on, uneventful and tiresome, until James arrived.
He found Gabriel and Ben at work around the house. The day was sunny and bright, June’s beauty having returned in its blueskyed glory. The boys had dragged many of the house’s contents out into the sun and were spreading them on the ground to dry. James surveyed the damage with wide-eyed wonder. “Damn, you all did get whupped,” he said. Once his initial surprise faded, a new look came over his face, an anxious quiver that told Gabriel he had some news to deliver but for some reason dared not do it in front of Ben. He worked with the boys, unfolding sheets and laying out linens with clumsy hands, creating a patchwork of fabric, furniture, and clothing that from above must have looked like a giant, ragged quilt being sewn on the prairie.
It was only when Ben went into the house to fetch the waterskin that James grabbed Gabriel by the wrist. He waited till Ben was inside and then finally exhaled his words close to Gabriel’s ear, and loud. “I might have got me a job, and you too if you want it!”
Gabriel pulled away from him and looked over his shoulder toward the house. They were surely out of earshot, but still he silenced James with a hand. A second later he asked, “What’re you talking about?”
“I talked to Mr. Hogg.”
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