by James Scott
Elspeth thought of Jorah’s countless hours reading to the children, schooling them, teaching them the ways of the world as best he could. He practiced long into the night in the living room—she could hear him parsing out the passages of the Bible, the thin pages crackling as he turned them. Caleb didn’t figure into those memories; he’d been in the barn, where his small bed took up a tiny fraction of the huge building, alone in the loft, the hay heaped around him, thick and thin by season.
“You should get back to your wife and children, and I should get back to my son,” Elspeth said, and rose unsteadily from her stool. As she left the tavern, she heard Charles slam down his mug and call for another drink.
CALEB HURRIED TOWARD the Brick & Feather—hoping to reach their room before his mother—but his head spun with lack of sleep. Breathless, he sat on a windowsill to rest when he saw Frank on the other side of the thoroughfare. Caleb shook at the prospect of crossing the street, loaded as it was with horses and men and all their implements. He collected his courage and ran across the road, passing between two carriages, one holding a young couple, and the other loaded with firewood.
“Hello, Frank,” Caleb said as he caught up to the man’s long strides.
Frank, grim, tipped his hat but said nothing. He stopped in front of the barbershop. A horse whinnied from the post, and Caleb stroked its mane. The horse nuzzled against him in the crook between his neck and shoulder. He wondered how his animals had fared with the doors to the barn open, the weather invading, and the food scarce. “I’m sorry,” Caleb said.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
The horse nipped playfully at Caleb’s ear, and he ducked his head away. “I mean, I think you’ve got things wrong.”
“Do I now?”
“I was raised on a farm, just me and my family. Some man in the woods told me to go to the Elm Inn, so I thought I should go.” Frank glanced into the street in a manner that Caleb took for caution at being seen with him. “It’s terrible,” Caleb said, and he meant it. “Frightening.” He next used a phrase his father had reserved for the worst the boys could do—like when Jesse broke the girls’ dollhouse fighting with Amos, or when Amos had persuaded Caleb to jump from the loft door using only Elspeth and Jorah’s pillows to cushion his fall. Caleb’s deepest memory of the words, however, occurred when one night Jorah had told the story of the tower of Babel to the girls, who had said it reminded them of Caleb. Usually this sort of application pleased Jorah, who would praise the girls for finding the Bible in their lives. But this time he went quiet. They asked why they couldn’t understand Caleb and he couldn’t seem to understand them. Then their father said that if they didn’t act, Caleb might be one of them. Outside the window, Caleb cringed at his words. “God help the heathens.”
Frank slipped the hat from Caleb’s head and laughed. “You cannot keep walking around looking like this.” He steered Caleb inside.
A bell sounded as they entered. In the center of the barbershop, a thin man slept in a worn leather chair next to the woodstove, a book in his lap. His sleeves were rolled to his biceps, and he wore black suspenders and red striped pants. He snored lightly. Caleb didn’t wonder why: The heat and the soothing smells in the room made his eyelids heavy as well.
Frank gave the man a small shake. “Teddy,” he said. The barber opened his eyes. He licked his finger and placed the mark in his book. “Have time for two?” Frank asked, and Teddy noticed Caleb for the first time.
“Who’ve we got here?” Teddy asked and stretched. With a yawn, he brushed the chair clean as Frank introduced Caleb. Teddy took the blade to the strop, sliding it back and forth, and asked after Frank’s wife.
“She’s as big as a house,” Frank replied. “But she’s well. She sends her love.”
“It’s going to be a boy, Frankie, I know it,” Teddy said, “and I’ve never been wrong. Have I?” He pointed a pair of scissors at Caleb, and Caleb shook his head no. “See, even the boy knows.”
“My wife is expecting,” Frank explained to Caleb, and answered his question before he could ask. “We’re having a baby. Cut the boy’s hair first, if you could.”
“Of course. It’s my policy to only nick the last shave of the day.”
“I must always be last then.” They laughed. Caleb liked how they talked and smiled at their jokes. Frank looked at ease as he held his palms out to warm at the fire.
Caleb hopped up into the chair. The barber put a sheet around him, and—as he got a closer look—asked, “Who did this to your head?”
“A nice old woman,” Caleb said, “that my father and I met on our way here.”
“She may have been nice,” Teddy said, “but she didn’t see too well.”
He splashed a liberal amount of oil onto Caleb’s scalp, passed his comb through it twice, very slowly, then began cutting. The hair fell in clumps onto Caleb’s lap. He used to stand in line with his brothers and sisters when his father—always on a rainy day—cut their hair. Sometimes he told them the story of Samson, others he would recite Psalms, “For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me,” or “They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: they that would destroy me, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: then I restored that which I took not away,” and tell the children with a smile that by cutting their hair he was ridding them of enemies and iniquities at the same time. It was one of the only jokes his father ever told.
The night his father had killed a man, he’d paused in the tall grass when he’d heard Caleb’s footsteps, and Caleb could see the clouds of his father’s breath slow and then stop as he listened, everything made silver by the moonlight. The rain washed the blood from the grass, but it didn’t erase what Caleb had witnessed. Two days later, the man dead and hidden away, Caleb walked about in a fever, and when he went into the house for lunch, his father was there, sharpening a knife. Caleb froze. He assumed his father knew he’d been the one in the woods with him.
“Shall I cut your hair today, Caleb?” his father asked, drawing the blade down the whetstone. Jorah did not ask questions in a manner that required an answer, but when Caleb said no, afraid of sitting under his father’s eye, beneath the knife he wielded so effortlessly, Jorah went back to sharpening the blade. That evening, frightened of his reaction when his father performed his nightly sermon, he pretended to be late and waited for the prayer to end before he entered the kitchen. His father had glared at him with fire. A moment later, however, his look changed, softened, as if Jorah understood him in some small way, yet Caleb’s fear never left.
“You okay, son?” Teddy asked. “You’re shaking.” Their voices faded. “Has he eaten today?”
He hadn’t since breakfast—Elspeth’s money had not lasted long—and being in the warmth of the barbershop with its pleasing scents and the rhythm of the scissors in his ears and the reassuring pressure on his scalp had made him groggy. The memories of his father were the last thing he thought of before he slid off the seat, dropping into a soft mat of hair.
ELSPETH CARRIED A small bag of licorice as an offering to the boy. The beds were made, and the room was cold; he hadn’t been there in hours. The man at the front desk, Wilkes—the very same who’d held Caleb’s shotgun—said he hadn’t seen Caleb all day. Then he said, almost under his breath, “Suppose he could be at the Elm Inn.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing,” he said, and smirked, but when he saw Elspeth’s face, he no longer found it funny. “Frank told me your son asked for directions to the Elm Inn. That’s when Frank took his gun. I figured you knew.” Wilkes coughed. “The Elm Inn, sir, is a house . . . A place where men meet women.”
He offered directions without her having to ask.
Obviously Caleb had listened to the man in the woods, with his rank breath and wooden leg. She ran despite the soreness from wo
rking the crane, the pain in her side growing and throbbing like a living thing. Though it slowed her, she didn’t stop. She took the steep steps two at a time, rushed past the scorched wood confirming she had the right place, and opened the door.
The doorman—his mass dwarfing the chair upon which he sat—merely tapped the money box on his lap. The dim room and smoky haze took a minute to get used to and the first thing she saw when her eyes adjusted was Owen Trachte. She knew him instantly; he possessed the stubbed features and square shoulders of his father. The thought of Phillip Trachte, Watersbridge’s only doctor twelve years prior, took Elspeth’s breath away as swiftly as the kick of a mule. Elspeth hadn’t had time to worry herself with being recognized, but her past had stepped out of the murk to remind her of her sins. The room grew hot and blurred, the details melting away.
“Help you, fella?” Ethan said, perhaps seeing the pallor on Elspeth’s face.
“No.” She collapsed into one of the upholstered chairs around the entryway. She loosened the scarf at her neck and tore the hat from her head.
The doorman looked at her sideways. “Ain’t no resting place.”
Elspeth’s breath raced away from her, faster and faster until her lungs squeezed shut and her eyes searched the room for relief.
“Hey, hey, hey,” the doorman said. He disappeared out of the clear center of Elspeth’s vision and into the smudged periphery. He came back with two glasses, one filled with whiskey, the other cloudy water. She drank them between gasps, the liquid escaping out the corners of her mouth. He told her how much she owed him for the whiskey and then asked, “You seen a ghost or something?”
Elspeth didn’t admit to him he might as well be right. Though she relived her sins daily, the memories had a gauzy quality to them, like a story she’d read a long time ago. Phillip Trachte had placed Caleb in her hands, but she’d lost many of the particulars to time. Owen hadn’t been there, though he’d been a constant presence at Phillip’s side. Owen’s mother had died when he was small, but his faint memories of her and their false promise gave the boy an unsettling edge. His rigid posture always carried threat. On the seldom occasions when he was not allowed into the room with his father, he would lash out, breaking a glass or plate or stealing something from the jacket of an expectant parent. Elspeth couldn’t recall how she knew this; she certainly had not witnessed it herself, but she figured that Phillip had told her of it. This adult Owen laughed, and she saw the gap in his smile where one of his friends had knocked his front tooth out with a fire poker. They’d been dueling—something picked up from a story Phillip had read to them. Elspeth had been in the office putting away an armful of supplies when she heard the roar of Owen’s temper, the clash of weapons, and then his small, surprised yelp.
She understood why Caleb had gone to the Elm Inn. For Owen Trachte could only have grown into the type of man that associated with thieves and killers, exactly the type of man Caleb hoped to find. Somewhere in the sound of the bells chiming, chips falling, cards shuffling, matches striking, men yelling, and glasses breaking, she could hear his laugh. It had not changed. It, too, carried a tinge of violence. She fled from the building, dropping whatever money she had into the giant man’s hands on the way out.
CHAPTER 5
The week passed quickly. More often than not, Elspeth vomited in the morning from the intensity of her soreness. But she grew used to the constant dull pain in her arms and the searing heat in her chest, and became unaware of their comings and goings. She and Charles developed a comfortable rhythm, despite his frequent tardiness to work and strange silences. Owen Trachte had not reappeared, and she convinced herself that he wouldn’t be able to see past time and her disguise to recognize her. Yet the expectation of punishment stayed with her always.
On Saturday, Elspeth bought a dusty used suit from the tailor in town. She couldn’t let him take her measurements—she said she was in a hurry—and so the suit did not fit well: It drooped from her shoulders like a wilted flower, but fit snugly on her hips when the jacket was buttoned. She hadn’t realized how much she’d enjoyed the freedom of a dress prior to the last few days. Pants were constricting to her, and she had altered her way of walking, keeping her steps short and choppy, as if she always trod on the ice beneath the crane.
Sunday morning, she took a well-needed bath. The tub was ringed with dirt and she filled it again with clean water and washed a second time. Her hair refused to believe she was a man and she cut it with a straight razor and a pair of scissors she borrowed from Frank.
The process of bandaging her wounds had become less arduous and less gruesome. Scabs had knitted their way over the punctures. She applied a foul-smelling salve purchased—along with her own pair of gloves—at the mercantile and wrapped herself in bandages, tight enough that her breasts were no longer visible. A small dab of shoe polish wiped along her chin and jaw and washed away gave the faint impression of a possible beard. The tie took most of her time. She’d asked the tailor if he knew of a good way to teach a young boy the various knots, and the tailor had kindly given her a small pamphlet with drawings showing each step with looping arrows that represented the movements. Even so, it took her half an hour before the tie looked presentable. At last, she pulled on the suit jacket, leaving it unbuttoned.
She didn’t ask Caleb to accompany her to church. She had always assumed Jorah knew the reason for Caleb’s lack of God, but she’d never asked. Perhaps next week, when she could describe the service to him, she would ask why he’d waited outside—even in rain or snow—until they’d finished their prayers and why he would stare at his plate or his shoes when Jorah recited scripture.
Her clean skin tingled in the cold air. She tromped along the walkway, the boards echoing under her boots—shoes being too expensive but the boots cleaned and shined until the leather looked presentable—alongside others dressed in their best approximation of finery, something always amiss: a dirty cheek, a torn jacket, pants too large, shirt too small. In the other direction came the sodden; one drunk weaved close enough to Elspeth that she held out her arms to fend him off, the loose sleeves of her suit flailing, but he veered away at the last second. She wondered how many had spent their night and their money at the Elm Inn.
At the end of the green, the church glowed in the early morning sun, white and radiant. The golden cross shined with a godly luster, and the townspeople marched toward it like columns of ants. Elspeth followed the man in front of her into the church, down the aisle, and into a pew. The bench whined under their weight. Inside the church was bigger than it appeared outside, forty feet from ceiling to floor. On either side of the pews, stained-glass windows depicted the stories of the Bible: Noah and the flood, Moses and the burning bush, the beheading of John the Baptist, and the transformation of water into wine. She found comfort in their presence, recollecting Jorah’s voice reciting the tales. The air heated with the congregants, who huddled in the front pews while the rear of the church remained empty. A balcony provided more unneeded seating. The organ began to play the processional and this calmed her enough that she shut her eyes. She sensed the choir, the deacons, and the minister shuffle past on the aisle.
A hand clasped her shoulder. Charles had made his way down the pew. People squeezed and shifted, and Charles sat pressed against her. “Morning, Jorah” was all he could say before the minister, an older man with intense green eyes, took the pulpit. Elspeth could smell the alcohol on Charles’s breath, but he watched the minister with great concentration.
Throughout the service, she stole glances at Charles—his skin peeling from the wind and cold, his beard tangled—but if he noticed, he avoided her gaze and maintained his focus on the pulpit. During a sermon that detailed the travels of the three kings, and the hardships one must endure to reach a destination, it was as though God talked to her in particular. When the minister stabbed the air with a finger to emphasize a point, she felt put upon, attacked. Charles grasped her hand. His quick pulse thudded against her fingers.
Frank was not at the front desk of the Brick & Feather and Wilkes always eyed him with suspicion, so Caleb ate breakfast alone. The eggs were tough and cold, and the bacon had been overcooked as well, crumbling in his fingers. When he finished, he slipped his hat on low, and stepped out into the busy world.
Frank had told Caleb that the only things open on Sunday—Caleb knew he would avoid mention of the Elm Inn—were the Brick & Feather, the church, and the mercantile, which was run by Jews. Caleb didn’t think he’d ever seen a Jewish person before and peered through the windows. A boy his age swept the floors. He looked normal, if a bit adult, dressed in an apron and neat clothing. A bell rang over Caleb’s head when he passed through the door. He slipped down one of the aisles so he could watch the boy at his work. The owner of the store, who sometimes ate breakfast at the hotel, a thickly moustached man with bulging arms and stout shoulders—in direct contrast to the long and elegant building that housed his home and his livelihood—stood behind the counter, writing notes in a catalogue. He wiped his moustache with a napkin. Caleb knew at first glance that this was the boy’s father—the boy was a moustacheless, smaller version of him. All the children, all of Caleb’s brothers and sisters, had looked different. When Caleb saw Elspeth, he saw some of himself. Jorah, on the other hand, bore no resemblance to Caleb whatsoever. Nor to his siblings.