He was breathing sharp and hard then. I felt his heart jumping against my back. He moved his hand down my belly and stroked lower, so I felt itches and sparks around my thighs and groin. The itch was so bad the skin stretched sideways and prickled.
“Hold me tighter,” I said.
I felt something soft on the back of my neck, something hot and damp and knew it was his lips. He ran his lips from the edge of my hair to the top of my shoulder. And he pressed his lips to the back of my neck. I didn’t know what I was going to do next, but I leaned harder against him.
“I don’t care,” I said.
What happened then is hard for me to say, for it was as if a colored smoke covered everything. There was no light in the cabin but the dying fire. I think he took off my shirt and then took off his shirt and trousers, and we got under the blankets in his bed. I remember how I giggled when he put his hand between my legs. The soreness was all gone there, but the itch and tickle were worse. It was the itch of swelling I felt.
“Where have you come from?” John said before he kissed me. He ran his lips along my upper lip and then along my lower lip. He moved his lips across my cheek. I kissed him back. I kissed the short whiskers on his upper lip and around the ends of his mouth. When he shaved he had missed some whiskers there at the corner. I kissed the dimple of his chin.
John moved his mouth down my chin and neck. His kissed my breast and I felt his tongue on my nipple. Is this what love is all about? I thought. I’d always wondered what it was about. What will happen next? I wondered.
When John got on top of me I could feel his weight. He was slim and tall, so much bigger than me. I remembered Mr. Griffin’s weight, and the hog shite smell on the ground, and for an instant I was scared. I almost screamed and started to push John away. But he was too big and strong to push away. And after a second I remembered I didn’t want to push him away.
When John pushed me open and put himself inside it hurt a little, but not like it had when Mr. Griffin attacked me. It hurt a little, but mostly it felt numb, hot and itchy and numb at once. And then it was like I was being stretched, and the stretching hurt but felt good too.
“I don’t care,” I said out of breath.
But John didn’t answer. In the dark he moved up like he was crawling over me, and then backed away and crawled again. I closed my eyes because I couldn’t see anyway, and felt through my skin. It was as if I could see with my skin where he touched me, where he brushed my shoulder and my breasts. In the dark I could see with every part of me. And what I saw was everything stretched out and swelled up and sparkling. Everything was soft and washing in waves. I was turning to syrup and melting all through me. My legs were trembling and my belly was washing around.
And it felt like my bones were turning into June apple jelly. I saw I had to push myself against John down there. I had to aim myself and push myself. I was soft as jelly and sweet as jelly, but I had to aim myself and press firm.
“Where are you going?” I said out of breath. For it seemed to me John was traveling somewhere. He was about to go somewhere far away.
I smelled the blankets around my head, and they smelled like him. They smelled like the powder he put on his face after he shaved, and they smelled of his breath. The bed smelled of wood smoke and powder and coffee, and a little bit of sweat. And I smelled my own hair and sweat too. I smelled my own breath.
John rose higher above me and fell. This is what I have wanted, I thought. Even when I didn’t know it, this is what I always wanted. I aimed myself at him and pushed myself. My skin all over had turned to honey. I was yellow honey and red honey with the sun on it.
And then I saw my skin was light and clean, faint as sourwood honey. I think I hollered out, and there came a buzzing in my ears. The buzzing got louder and I knew something was going to hurt. Something was so sweet it was going to sting.
John spoke to me right in my ear, but it was like he was a long way off too. For he was big as a mountain above me, and he reached out long as the farthest ridge. His shoulders were bigger than the oak trees, bigger than houses. His shoulders reared up like mountaintops.
“You have come to me,” he said in a whisper. “You have been sent to me.” But the whisper could have been a shout that filled the sky. The buzz I heard rose, like wind on a mountainside, or a waterfall during a flood. And it sounded like heavy rain was falling. And I thought water would rub away the sweetness from my skin and from my belly.
But it was too late to stop, for John was pushing. He was driving something that reached a secret place, and when he hollered out it felt like something touched my heart and licked my heart with a hot tongue.
We lay breathing in the blankets as if we were frozen in our sweat. We lay in the dark too weak to move a finger. I didn’t want to say anything because there was nothing to say. Whatever there was to say had already been said.
NEXT MORNING JOHN was already up when I woke. He had started a fire and was boiling water for coffee, and he was crushing coffee beans between two rocks. I got up and put my hands on his shoulders, but he didn’t look at me. He just kept on crushing the beans between the stones.
“Good morning,” I said, trying to sound like a wife greeting her husband. I got dressed and combed my hair. I felt sore as something that has been stretched, but I felt wonderful too. John made porridge, and when we sat down to eat hot porridge and drink coffee he finally spoke.
“What we did last night was wrong,” he said.
I knew if I said it didn’t feel wrong to me, he would just argue and quote Scripture. So I didn’t argue.
John looked at the fire and he looked at his mug of coffee. He nodded his head and looked at me. He was the most eloquent preacher I’d ever heard, and yet he found it hard to say what he was feeling.
“The Lord has sent you to me,” he finally said.
“And the Lord has sent you to me,” I said.
“The Lord has sent me a helpmeet and a partner,” he said. “But we must be married.”
I was thrilled and scared, for after what Mr. Griffin did to me, and me to him, I was unworthy.
“We can be married,” I said.
“We can’t be married,” John said, and shook his head. I saw he’d thought it through already. During the night he had waked up and studied on it while I was sleeping.
“Why can’t you marry me?” I said, and swallowed.
“All my flocks think you’re a boy,” he said, and looked hard at me.
He’d thought it through and figured it all out. I’d been so excited the night before I’d forgotten that everybody thought I was a boy named Joseph. Everybody thought I was John’s assistant.
We talked about John’s letter after breakfast. We talked about moving farther west into the mountains, and about moving down to South Carolina. We talked about me leaving to go to South Carolina, and John said he wouldn’t let me go. I asked him why not, since we were in such a pickle.
“Because we are married in the sight of God,” he said. And then I saw a light in his face like he had gotten an idea.
“We must perform the ceremony ourselves,” he said. “Our wedding must be kept secret for a season.”
He said he would perform the ceremony now, but that I should continue to wear boy’s clothes. There was no other way for us to be together. At some time in the future, it would all have to come out. I didn’t argue with him, for it was the best plan I could think of too. I was happier than I ever thought I could be.
John got out the little prayer book that he carried in his coat pocket. He had me stand beside him facing the fireplace as he read from the little book.
“Dearly beloved: We are gathered together here in the sight, and in the face of this community, to join together this Man and this Woman in Holy Matrimony; which is an honorable estate, instituted by God in the time of man’s innocency, signifying to us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church: which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence and first mira
cle that he wrought in Cana of Galilee, and is commended of Saint Paul to be honorable among all men.”
John read from the book a long time. I’d been to a wedding of a cousin once, but I didn’t remember so many words and such a sermon at that ceremony. I looked at John as he read.
“Josie,” he said, looking at me, “will you have this man to thy wedded husband; to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him and serve him, love, honor and keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”
“I will,” I said.
And then John read the same thing to himself and answered himself. He read some more. We didn’t have any rings to exchange, but he read that passage too. He read the whole sermon in the little prayer book. It was such a pretty ceremony I had tears in my eyes.
“Send thy blessing upon these thy servants, this man and this woman, whom we bless in thy Name; that, as Isaac and Rebecca lived faithfully together, so these persons may perform and keep the vow and covenant betwixt them made . . . Amen.”
John said the words like they were coming from the heart, as if he was thinking of them for the first time. When it was over he leaned down and took my cheeks between his hands. He looked into my eyes and kissed me. As his lips touched mine he closed his eyes and I closed mine too. His lips were firm and soft at the same time. He ran his tongue over my lips.
I was wearing Mr. Griffin’s clothes and my old shoes, but I felt happy as a bride wearing white lace and satin. If I had been standing in a great church, at the altar, with perfume and incense and two hundred people watching, I could not have been more thrilled. John’s kiss made me feel I was whirling around, that I was dancing, even though I was standing still. His kiss made the air lavender and pink. I was sixteen years old, and I was married to a tall preacher man, and we were standing in our own cabin in the woods of Pine Knot Branch.
There was no wine to drink, no infare party, no fiddle music for dancing. But we did sing a song by the fireplace, that cold morning, as we held hands and looked into each other’s eyes. We sang “Joy to the World” because it was the song that came to mind, and it seemed to fit the way we felt and what had happened between us.
THE NEXT FEW DAYS were the happiest I had ever known. In the night we loved, and during the day we worked around the cabin. We cut a supply of firewood for the winter, and we mixed mud and straw for mortar to chink the cabin walls. We took long walks in the woods and sat on a hill to watch the clouds. We lay in an orchard and sang and John played his flute. We gathered chestnuts under a grove on another hill and roasted them by a fire. We had a picnic by a creek.
One day John remembered we had to go over to the meeting house at Briar Fork. Those folks were expecting him in the evening, and I had to go along as his assistant as usual.
“We do not choose to deceive,” John said. “And all is plain in the eyes of God.”
I dressed up as usual and put on Mr. Griffin’s gray coat and a heavy wool cap of John’s. But in my heart I knew I was Mrs. John Trethman. That’s who I was in the eyes of God.
Though we had no wine, John had a jar of medicine whiskey in the cabin and we had a cup of that to celebrate before we started out. We drank the strong liquor and it burned my throat and brought tears to my eyes. But it warmed my belly and thrilled my blood, like the last few days had thrilled me.
TO GET TO BRIAR FORK we had to cross Bee Water Mountain. It was a long steep running ridge, and the trail ran along a kind of shelf about halfway up the mountain. It was a long walk and we had got a late start. We would have to hurry. It had been dry that fall and the dirt along the trail was dusty as chalk. The creek we passed was dried up to a thread of water.
I reckon we’d just gotten to the foot of the mountain when we smelled smoke. The wind had been behind us, and we hadn’t noticed the smoke before. It was the smell of burning leaves and burning trees, of scorched sap and roots. We saw the smoke and smelled the smoke, but we couldn’t tell exactly where the fire was. Smoke drifted through the trees, but we couldn’t see just where it came from.
John stopped and looked around. “Where is the wind coming from?” he said.
I licked my finger and held it up. I’d always heard you could tell where the wind was coming from by which side dried first. I looked at my finger, but it was hard to be sure. John said he thought the wind was from the south.
“I don’t want to walk right into the fire,” he said.
The trail ran west over Bee Water Mountain. I asked if there was any other trail to Briar Fork, but John said he didn’t know of any. If the wind was coming from the south then the fire was on our left.
“We’ll have to hurry,” John said, and we started walking again, faster. The smoke burned my eyes a little and I coughed as I breathed deeper. As we started to climb I hoped we’d get away from the fire. But the farther we went the less we could see, because the smoke got thicker. There were rocks leaning over the trail and big oak trees. But we could have been in a fog on a rainy day for all you could see. There was nothing to do but hurry on to get away from it. I’d never seen so much smoke. It smelled like the whole world was on fire.
“We can turn back if you want to,” John said.
“We can’t be late,” I said.
The trail ran along about halfway up the mountain. The ground fell away so steeply on the left I didn’t want to look down, and the ground rose so steeply on the right I didn’t want to look up. Looking up at the steepness made me dizzy, made me feel I was falling away. In the thick smoke the mountain seemed like a place in a dream. The ridge above was steep as dread. My chest was sore from breathing the smoke.
Something flushed across the trail in front of us and I saw it was the white tail of a deer. And then I saw a raccoon and a rabbit run up the side of the mountain ahead of us. Another deer bounded past and didn’t pay any attention to us.
“They are running away from the fire,” John shouted.
But instead of running out the trail to the west, the animals were climbing straight up the mountainside. I wondered if we ought to be following them. But the ridge above had cliffs and thickets. It looked nearly impossible to climb.
We walked along the trail even faster, but the smoke was getting so thick you couldn’t see anything. It was a brown dirty smoke that made you cough. My eyes were watering, but my hands were full. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands. I bent lower, hoping to get my face out of the worst of the smoke. We came around a bend where the trail ran near the head of a hollow and I heard a roar.
“What is that?” I yelled. John stopped and listened, but I already knew what it was. There was crackling and popping and a whooshing sound. But we still couldn’t see anything except the smoke. Smoke was so thick my throat burned.
The roaring sounded behind us, and then it seemed ahead of us. A polecat ran across the path just ahead.
“We must keep going,” John shouted.
Just then we saw the flames. I don’t know if the smoke cleared a little or the wind changed, or the fire got closer. But we saw a flame here and we saw a flame there in the woods below us. Fire was jumping from limb to limb and from tree to tree. It looked like there was fire behind us and fire ahead of us.
And then I felt the heat. Before that moment the smoke had been cool. But suddenly the air was warm, and then it was hot. It was like the air just in front of a fireplace, or a blacksmith’s furnace. The fire was climbing up the ridge below us and sending its heat and smoke ahead. Burning leaves and pieces of ash flew by us. The blaze was throwing rags of fire ahead. The air was hot enough to scorch you.
“Where can we go?” I screamed.
We looked ahead and saw fire already on the trail at the head of the hollow. Flames jumped from bush to bush up there.
I’d never felt anything like the heat coming up the mountainside. It blistered my face just to look that way. The fire was behind us and below us, and the fire was i
n the treetops. There was a wall of fire crawling and leaping up the mountain. It was a thousand different fires jumping sideways and straight up. Fire shot ahead and fell to the ground. The ground itself seemed to be on fire.
“Lord help us,” I hollered.
“We must climb straight up,” John said.
We had to drop the lantern and our bundles. John slipped his Bible and songbook inside his shirt. He gave me a push up the mountain which was steep as a road bank. I grabbed hold of trees and saplings and pulled myself up. I clawed the leaves and grabbed fistfuls of dirt. I crawled on my knees and gripped roots and rocks. John reached back and pulled me over a log.
But the fire was getting closer. I felt the heat on my backside and on my feet. The soles of my shoes were hot. Burning leaves and twigs fell around me. A pine bush burst into flame. I reckon the air on the mountainside was so hot things were just kindling all by themselves.
I figured if we could reach the top of the ridge we might get away from the fire. The fire would slow down at the ridge comb and we could drop down to the cool north side. But there didn’t seem to be anything but laurel bushes and rocks and oak trees above us. We were a long way from the top of the ridge.
John looked back at me and yelled, “Take your coat off.” Mr. Griffin’s gray coat had caught fire on my back and I burned my hands a little jerking it off. The tail of the coat was burning and I beat it out on the ground. John grabbed my hand and pulled me up the steep slope.
But the worst thing was when I looked ahead and saw fire up there too. The fire had leaped over us and the mountainside above was already burning. Other fires were starting around us and in the trees above us. And the big wall of fire was just below us. The air was so hot I smothered and coughed and couldn’t see anything. This is what hell is like, I thought. This is the devil’s torment.
John turned to the left and he turned to the right. He stumbled backward and pulled me with him. I thought he’d gone crazy. The heat was so bad and the smoke was so bad I couldn’t tell anything anymore. We ran sideways but the fire stopped us. The fire had us hemmed in.
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