There Is a River

by Charlotte Miller

Buddy Eason snubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray on the massive oak desk, then exhaled a cloud of smoke. The three other men in the room, sitting in chairs or leaning against the wall, were also smoking and Buddy would have found it amusing that they were smoking in his grandfather’s office—except that it was no longer his grandfather’s office. Buddy had taken it as his own, and doing things here that his grandfather would have disapproved of had long since lost their flavor.

  The men with him were on the mill payroll, but they did little work for the mill. All three had been in prison before Buddy hired them. It had been amusing to bring them into the mill in the last year before the old man died; the old fool must have been slipping even then, or he would never have let Buddy hire any “peace keepers,” as Buddy had called them in light of talk of unions in the mill.

  Peace keepers had been right, but it was Buddy’s peace.

  Buddy was still pleased with his choice in each man. Keats had killed a man in a fight; Billings, with his Massachusetts accent, had done time for assaulting a teenage girl, and for almost killing the police officer who tried to arrest him; Mender had killed his wife’s lover, and, after he was released from prison, his wife, though her body had never been found. All talk of unionizing had died immediately after the arrival of the three burly men in their double-breasted suits. There had been no trouble since in the mill, in the village, or in town.

  People knew better. Buddy Eason was in charge now.

  “I don’t care what you have to do. I want him stopped,” Buddy said, lighting another cigarette. “Do whatever you want. But, if you blow his head off, I want to be there to see it.” He exhaled another cloud of smoke, staring at the three through the gray haze. “Sanders better not make it out of Eason County with a crop this year—or you better make sure I don’t ever find any of you.” He meant his words and tone to be threatening, but none of his thugs even blinked in response. “I want Sanders out of business, and I want him off that land and foreclosed on—and then he’s mine,” Buddy Eason said, and began to smile.

  It started slowly.

  Someone drove circles through one of the cotton fields late at night, leaving a path of destruction in his wake. Rocks were thrown through the front windows of the house. The windshield of the old jalopy was smashed.

  Then a cow was found slaughtered and mutilated in the pasture, one of the hogs was shot through the head, and Judith’s dog was poisoned. Elise was shocked by the deliberate brutality and senselessness of the acts, but she could see in Janson’s eyes that it was no less than he had expected.

  As the weeks passed, it worsened. Someone shot at the house one evening from the cover of the shed in the yard, but vanished before Janson could get to them, driving away in a black Chrysler that had been parked at the edge of their land. Henry smelled smoke one night and found a deliberately set fire on the back porch. The family returned from church the following Sunday morning to find the house ransacked, drawers dumped in the floor, mattresses and pillows ripped open, mirrors shattered, and red paint splashed over everything and inscribing profanities on the walls.

  The sheriff had been called out after each occurrence, but there was no evidence, no witnesses, no proof other than dead animals, broken glass, or scrawled profanities—they were on their own in Eason County, Elise realized.

  Catherine and Judith were packed up and sent to stay with kin. Henry refused to go—he would not be driven off by Buddy Eason or by anyone else, he said with as much pride and stubbornness as Elise had ever seen in his father. He was eighteen now and a man in his own right, looking so much like Janson that it sometimes made Elise catch her breath—but she worried over him as if he were still that stubborn two-year-old that she remembered so well.

  Janson tried to make her leave with the girls, but she refused. She was not going be driven from her home any more than their son would, and she would not leave Janson. She feared she would never see him alive again if she did.

  Suddenly the harassment stopped, and the very quiet worried Janson all the more. The cotton stood ready to be picked. Every cent they had was tied up in those once-green fields, now white with cotton. There was no money to hire pickers; they would have to do the work themselves in that terrible, quiet stillness that had settled over the place.

  Elise woke the night before they would begin to pick the cotton, finding the bed empty beside her. She got up without turning on a light and tied her wrap about her waist, then crossed the hall to the dark front room where Janson sat in a straight chair before the front windows.

  She placed a hand on his shoulder, then felt his hand cover hers, though he did not look up at her.

  “You couldn’t sleep?” she asked, softly.

  “It’s too quiet.” His eyes never moved from the view outside that window.

  “Maybe he’s given up.” But she could not believe it, any more than he could, so she fell silent.

  “He won’t give up.”

  The darkness hung between them. “It’ll be all right. It has to be.” After all they had been through for him to regain this place and have it for the children—it had to be all right. He did not speak but she felt his hand tighten over hers.

  A few nights later she lay awake beside him long into the night, knowing that he was also awake. She stared into the darkness, listening to his breathing, wondering and worrying with him, and also tired with him, from having shared the work, as they had shared everything over the years.

  When Janson, Henry, and Stan, had begun to pick the cotton, Elise had gone to join them. Janson stopped for a moment and looked at her when she entered the fields, had reached out and touched her hand, then returned to his work. He had not wanted her in the fields and had promised himself, though she had never asked it, that he would not have her picking cotton again once they were on their own land.

  Now he had the land, the dream, and to hold onto it she was picking cotton. But it was no longer Janson’s dream alone. It was hers, and it strengthened within her when she saw Henry working with Janson, knowing the dream was alive within her son as well.

  Henry was so much like the man she had met and fallen in love with nineteen-and-a-half years ago, the man who worked each day picking cotton a few rows from her, the man she loved more than even her own life. Elise had thought that many times before, but in the last months she had begun to know the full truth in those words—she knew she would lay her life down for him if that choice ever came.

  There was the sound of a car coming along the road, slowing as it drew near the house. Janson was suddenly out of bed, holding the curtains back in one hand as he knelt before the window, the other hand closing over a shotgun that had been leaned into the nearby corner. The car passed slowly then sped up, going on, but he stared out for a time, then took his hand from the shotgun and allowed the curtain to drop back into place.

  He turned to look at her, and rejoined her in bed without a word having passed between them. He drew her close and she rested her head on his chest. Neither spoke.

  They only held each other, listened, waited, and prayed for the waiting to be over.

  The waiting ended the evening Henry did not come home from a late trip into Pine. He had driven the old jalopy into town, and, when the hours passed and he did not return, Elise became worried. Darkness had come and it had begun to rain heavily—there could have been an accident, she kept telling herself. The car could have broken down—but Henry would have caught a ride, would have gotten word to them, would have walked the miles home if need be, and Elise knew it.

  Janson took the truck and went looking for him, leaving Stan with Elise. She fretted, pacing across the bare wooden floor in the front room, her wrap tied securely over her nightgown, her eyes going to the blinding downpour beyond the screen door and the open front windows. She tried to shut out the deafening sound of the rain on the tin roof.

  “Henry’s off somewhere, parked in that
car with Olivia,” she said to Stan, trying to bring a fussing note into her voice. She felt chilled and rubbed her hands together and hugged herself for warmth. Stan watched her from the rocker near the fireplace. Elise wished he would just say something, but the silence stretched out between them.

  “They’ve probably been drinking,” she said, a desperate tone in her voice that surprised her. She stared out at the driving rain, then turned away, pacing the room again. “That’s what some girls would do, get a boy drunk and get him to do something, then she’d be pregnant and Henry would have to marry her.” She knew she was rambling now, but she could no longer stop herself. “You know how girls that age can be if they’re not happy at home. You know—”

  Light flashed across the front windows, and the sound of an engine became audible over the rain on the tin roof. Elise pushed the screen door open, then tightened her hand on the hook until the sharp end of it dug into the flesh of her thumb as their old truck rolled to a stop before the house. She stepped onto the front porch and let the spring on the door slam it shut behind her as Janson got out of the truck and started around to its other side.

  The truck’s passenger side door opened as Janson reached it, and Elise felt relief flood over her as she realized it was Henry stepping down from the cab. He and Janson started toward the house, and Janson’s arm went around him. Henry’s head was down, his feet dragging, his steps weaving drunkenly. He stumbled as he reached the bottom of the steps, though his father held him up, and Elise felt righteous indignation well up inside of her—he had been drinking. He had stayed out late, had gotten drunk, had worried them all to death. Why, she would—

  Then they came into the light from the open front door and the windows behind her. Henry’s clothes were ripped and muddy, his hair was matted, and his shirt was torn, mud-spattered, and stained with blood. Elise’s heart leapt into her throat. She was suddenly at the edge of the slippery porch, reaching toward her son—dear God!

  Henry, feeling her presence, lifted his chin and tried to stand on his own, to pull away from his father’s supporting arm. “It’s not really that bad, Mama,” he said, his lip bleeding, the rain washing blood down his face, one eye swelled shut. “I’m okay. Don’t worry—” But his knees buckled and Janson caught him in his arms, and together he and Stan, who was suddenly down into the yard, picked him up and carried him into the house to his bed.

  Elise followed, gripping the iron footboard for support. She stood rooted uselessly to the floor as she watched her husband and her brother lay her only son on the dark blue counterpane. For an instant time folded back upon itself, back nineteen years to the night she had entered Mattie Ruth and Titus Coats’s house to see Janson lying in a bed, having been beaten so badly by her father.

  Not again—she found herself thinking—but this was her child, beaten, bloody. She made herself move to the side of the bed to brush the mud-streaked black hair back from Henry’s forehead—goddamn you, Buddy Eason, she told herself, the hatred that flowed through her slowly bringing strength back to her legs. Goddamn you—

  Henry had been on his way home from Olivia’s when a large, dark car had driven up behind the jalopy at a high rate of speed and run the old car off the road and into a ditch. Before Henry’s senses had cleared, the door of the old jalopy had been yanked open and he had been dragged from the car, then beaten by two men as a third stood by. Henry had been left lying in the mud listening to the sound of glass shattering, loud pounding—all the windows of the old jalopy had been broken out, the headlamps shattered, the seats ripped apart and tires flattened, and huge dents pounded into the already dented and rusting body.

  Janson had found Henry lying in the mud at the edge of a field not far from the ditch where he found the old car. He had been beaten bloody and then left as a message—give up and get out. You’re finished.

  But they were not finished. Elise had never seen Janson as angry as when he walked out of Henry’s bedroom. She followed him into the hallway and toward the front of the house, then stood in the open door of their bedroom as Janson took up the shotgun, broke it open and checked to make certain it was loaded, then snapped it shut. His eyes met Elise’s, then he was out of the room and into the hallway before she could do more than touch him, her fingers barely brushing the wet fabric of his shirt sleeve before he moved beyond her reach—this time Buddy Eason had gone too far.

  “Janson—you can’t. It’s what he wants,” Elise said, trying to step between him and the front door. “Janson, no—”

  “You stay here with th’ boy.”

  “You can’t—”

  He pushed her hands away. The calm that had settled about him was far worse than the anger of moments before. He would not be stopped. He would kill Buddy Eason tonight, or be killed.

  Then from behind them, “I’m not a kid anymore, Pa. You don’t have to defend me.”

  Henry stood in the doorway to his bedroom, and Elise could see he was trying to cover up the pain of the aching ribs, the bruises, as he walked out into the hall, as much pride in his bearing as she had ever seen in Janson.

  “He’ll kill you,” Henry said, walking slowly toward them, one arm pressed against his ribs. Elise knew he was trying not to show the pain, but it was evident in his voice, and his mother’s heart hurt for him. “That’s why Buddy Eason had this done, so you would come after him—all he wants is an excuse and he’ll kill you. That’s all he wants.”

  Henry’s hand closed over the barrel of the shotgun. Elise knew the look that passed between him and Janson was not meant for her, but she also understood what it meant—this fight would not be over as long as both a Sanders and an Eason lived in Eason County.

  But the end would not come tonight.

  The father and son—the two men, for Elise knew her son would never be a child again—stared into each other’s face, and Janson allowed Henry to take the shotgun from his hands. Elise shivered, hugging herself again as she watched the two men. They were so much alike—with that same pride, that same determination.

  And, now, the same hatred in Henry’s eyes that she had so long seen in Janson’s where Buddy Eason was concerned.

  Elise sat at the worn kitchen table with the family on a Sunday evening near the end of picking the cotton, her mind occupied with the scent and taste of the buttered chunks of potato on her plate. It seemed odd to worry over potatoes now, when she had been worried over so many other things for so many months, and she found herself dwelling on having something so trivial as scorched potatoes to occupy her mind. The day had been too good, the family together for most of the day, Catherine and Judith home from right after church until late in the afternoon when Henry had driven them back to Pine. The family had enjoyed dinner together after services, and the day had passed in peace, and now Elise had nothing to worry about but scorched potatoes for supper, not enough of a problem to ruin any family’s evening. There had been no trouble on the place now in days.

  She nudged a chunk of potato with her fork, pushed it about a bit, then cut it into two pieces and brought half to her mouth for another taste—definitely scorched. She was perfectly aware that she had never become more than a passable cook even after all these years, and that everyone in her family knew it. She had learned well enough how to feed them, and most of the time it was at least edible, but cooking was just not part of her make-up, no matter how hard she tried.

  She saw Henry wrinkle his nose at the scorched smell of the potatoes on his fork even before they reached his mouth, but still he ate them. Stan had not tried after the first bite, but she saw that he had helped himself to more butterbeans, and that he was making good headway on her biscuits and fried chicken. At least that was something she had managed to learn from Janson’s gran’ma through the many burned meals and fingers she had endured in the first months of her marriage. She could fry chicken and she could make biscuits as good as any Deborah Sanders had ever made—well, almost.
Janson proved that by asking for fried chicken and biscuits more often than for any other foods she cooked. Whether that was because they were his favorites, or because they were one of the few things she could prepare with mostly consistent results, she did not know, or really even care.

  She glanced at him as he sat at the head of the table, wondering if he had tried the scorched potatoes, and found him staring at her, in his eyes a surprising sadness, longing, a terrible need. He held her gaze, then stood without a word, stepped around his chair, and came down the length of the table to her. He took her hand and drew her to her feet. Then he led her from the room.

  His hands were gentle, but insistent, the bedroom door closed behind them. Elise found she was trembling, and she could not understand why. They had been together so many times over their nineteen years as lovers, but this time there was something in his eyes that made her want to cry. Then she was crying, but with pleasure.

  Hours later, after the house was quiet and Janson was certain Stan and Henry were in their rooms and likely asleep, he put on his overalls and brought back a plate of biscuits and cold fried chicken from the icebox. They ate by the light of the bedside lamp, naked, facing each other, enjoying a comfortable familiarity built from years together. He would not take his eyes from her, and, as she watched him, she knew how completely she loved him, how completely she would always love him.

  “Have you ever regretted marryin’ me?” he asked, surprising her at how different the question was from what she had been thinking.

  “No, of course not. Have you ever regretted marrying me?”

  “No,” without a moment’s hesitation. “You just gave up s’ much when you married me, an’ it seems like I ain’t never give you nothin’ but trouble for it.”

  Elise was startled that he could feel that way. “You’ve never given me trouble.”

  “Hard times. Worry—whatever you want t’ call it.”

  “You didn’t cause the Depression, or the War either, you know.” Elise smiled, and she saw him half-heartedly return the smile.