Nita looked at the dying trees. The Bee Man’s words blew through her, dry and dusty as the wind, full of gray shadows. She hadn’t ever thought of the land as something that could be alive or dead. Land was just . . . land. Dust or rock or bushes. Nita stopped. Two bees crawled over a small spike of fuzzy purple flowerlets that grew from a crack in the rock. Out here, all by themselves, the bees’ song was faint and hard to hear, but it comforted her. Nita scooped them gently from the flower. They buzzed in her closed hand, confused, not angry yet, searching for the vanished sunlight.
“I thought you’d be scared, after yesterday.” The Bee Man looked over her shoulder.
He was pleased with her again. His pleasure warmed Nita, drove away the gray chill of his talk about the dying land. Nita opened her hands and the bees zoomed away.
“There’s a wild nest at the top of this slope,” the Bee Man said. “I figure we might as well take it, now that the honey-bloom’s over.” He pulled two of the flimsy scarves from his pack, handed her one. “You always wear this veil, hear?” He draped it over her head, tucked it carefully into the neck of her shift. “Stings on your arms hurt. But you get one too close to your eye and you can go blind.”
The cloth made it hard to see, but Nita could hear the bees’ song as they got close. They darted in and out of a broken stump, singing contentment. She sang with them as the Bee Man built a small fire where the smoke would drift over the nest. The bees swirled up, confused by the smoke, angry as the Bee man chopped into their dead treetrunk home. Nita hummed the harsh note, changing it, soothing the hive’s distress until the comfort-hum wrapped her, thick as the warm honey-smell rising from the folded layers of golden comb inside the trunk. Fascinated, she leaned over the opened nest. Pulpy white larva filled some of the cells and others had been closed with waxy brown caps. She could see pale, half-formed bees beneath some of the caps.
“I hate to strip the nests like this, leave them to starve.” The Bee Man sighed as he brushed bees from a sticky slab of comb and sealed it into one of the plastic pails they’d brought with them.
So this nest would die? Nita stared at the shattered trunk. Brown bits of broken comb and golden honey stuck to the splintered wood and the bees settled on their ruined nest in a dark layer. Their song would end, because she and the Bee Man had smashed through the wood and taken the comb? When the Bee Man touched her shoulder, Nita jerked away from him.
“Nita?” The Bee Man followed her into the shade of a dying pine. “What’s wrong?”
Nita shook her head, wanting to tell him that it was wrong, that the bees’ song shouldn’t die. The words wouldn’t come. They stuck in her throat, hard and hurting. A bee landed on her hand, sipping at the sticky honey coating her skin. Nita closed her hand over it, crushed it. Slowly, she opened her hand, dropped the dead bee into the dust at the Bee Man’s feet.
The Bee Man sighed. “That nest would have starved out before the next rainy season. It wasn’t big enough to make it through the dry months. I take their honey so that we can eat. I take out the killer bee nests that compete with these.” He stared down the slope of the hillside. “Down in the valley, we grind up those test-tube shrubs, digest them into sugars and grow wheat cells or soybean cells or even orange juice-sacs in tanks. So we eat and we survive, but nothing else can grow down there. Just bushes. We can never go back to the way it was. We’re killing the land to stay alive.” He shook his head bitterly. “You keep running, and all you can do is stay one step ahead of the Dry.”
It had hurt him to take the wild nest, too. He loved the bees. Nita reached out suddenly and touched his hand.
He started a little, as if she’d pinched him, but then he smiled at her. “Let’s take what we’ve got and call it a day,” he said.
*
They went out every day to harvest a careful share of comb from the Bee Man’s hives and to strip the small, wild nests they’d found. The sparse flowers had dried up in the hot sun that seemed to get hotter every day, and no more honey would flow until next spring, he told her.
“I’ve never seen anyone handle bees like you,” the Bee Man said more than once. “I wish I had your talent with ’em.”
He was pleased with her.
When they took shares from the Bee Man’s hives, she sang them comfort and they buzzed gold and black and brown around their heads as they cut the slabs of storage comb free, leaving the larvae-filled cells behind. When they took the wild nests, Nita sang them a gentle song that was full of the Bee Man’s sadness at taking their honey, and the bees settled onto their comb in a dark, quiet layer.
The Bee Man talked to her. He told her how the bees lived, how a worker danced to show the other bees where flowers grew, and how the hive knew when to grow a new queen. He taught her how to live with the bees, how to melt comb into liquid honey and cakes of valuable wax, how to let the bees show her the tiny water seeps, what to eat and not to eat, how to survive in the dry hills.
He told her the names of the flowers; yellow bells and shooting stars down in the crevices, where water seeped up from the winter rains; lupine and desert parsley up high, where it was drier; fescue and wheat grass in tough, dusty clumps up on the ridges, where trees still cast a little shade. He didn’t feel scared any more, and that pleased Nita. He felt warm inside, peaceful as bee song.
His song and the bee song blended, seeping through the years of silence that filled her up, like water soaking into a field. When she was little, before Papa died, she had talked. Nita listened to the Bee Man’s words and wanted to tell him how the bees sounded. He loved the bees, but he didn’t hear them. She was sure of it, and his not-hearing surprised her.
But the words still wouldn’t come.
*
One afternoon, they walked clear down to the edge of the fields to check on the tree-trunk hive where they’d stopped on Nita’s first day with the Bee Man. The hive was gone, replaced by plowed brown dirt and the dusty green tufts of newly planted bushes. Soaker hoses gleamed in the furrows like basking snakes.
“They just ran the machines right over it.” The Bee Man shaded his eyes, squinting against the harsh light. “I should of moved it, never mind whether there were enough flowers up there for another big hive. Too late now.”
He didn’t talk much as they walked back up to the camp. His shoulders drooped and his toes dragged as he walked, raising salty dust that hung behind them in the still air. That evening, they melted the week’s small take of comb. Nita strained out dead bees and larvae, watching foam and liquid wax swirl on the surface of the simmering honey. The Bee Man was still sad, and she sat down beside him, close enough to feel the warmth from his arm against hers. He looked at her as she touched his hand, and smiled, blinking a little, as if he’d been thinking about something else and had forgotten that she was there.
“The fields keep catching up to me,” he told her. “Stick the plants in the ground and kill the ground with salt water. I don’t know.” He stared into the red glow of the coals beneath the iron pot. “It scares me, what we’re doing. I keep moving on, but it’s always right behind me. The Dry. The salty fields. It doesn’t pay to look back.” He rubbed his face.
“My father was a hard man,” he said. “There was only his way to do things, so I took off when I was about your age. I was lucky. I ran into an old beekeeper, who taught me about bees. After awhile, my father didn’t seem so impossible anymore, so I want back.” He laughed, a short, bitter note that made Nita wince. “They were gone. Dad, Mom, the whole town. The Dry had moved in, eaten up the fields, filled the streets with dust. I don’t know what happened to my folks. Someone told me that they went back east to find a cousin, and someone else told me that they went to Portland. I never found them. Maybe they’re dead.” He shook his head slowly. “It doesn’t pay to care too much. One day you turn around, and everything’s gone. Like that hive.”
Nita took his hand in hers, wanting to tell him that the bushes and the Dry were just things — just salt and plants an
d dry land — not killers that could chase you. He started to pull his hand away, then closed his fingers around hers, tight enough to hurt.
“You’re a good listener.” He got stiffly to his feet and lifted the honey pot from the fire. “I thought I was doing Alberto a big favor by taking you on, ruining my reputation in the bargain. I guess my reputation’s still shot,” he said, and laughed.
Nita didn’t understand, but she smiled, too, because he was warm inside again, like the bee song.
*
Nita woke in darkness that night, struggling up from nightmare to the dry rumble of thunder higher in the mountains. Lightning flickered across the horizon and Nita clutched the sleeping bag around her. Thunder made her remember the gunshots. She had been playing in the yard when they drove up. They had carried guns in their hands, had called her father by name.
Thunder boomed again and Nita sat up with a gasp. Cold wind gusted through the camp, shaking the tent, and the thunder cracked again. Hard drops stung Nita’s arms and face. Rain? She stumbled to her feet, but already the shower had moved on, riding the cold wind down the stream-bed. Lightning glared, searing Nita’s eyes with the stark image of the tent, woodpile, and the pot of cooling honey. Then the darkness rushed in again, thick as dirt on a grave, pressing down on her, smothering her. Shivering, Nita slipped into the tent.
The air smelled like plastic, honey, and the Bee Man; thick and comforting. He lay on his side, wrapped in a tangled quilt. The soft rasp of his breathing filled the tent, and he stirred, murmuring in his sleep as Nita curled up beside him. The thunder rumbled again, but it didn’t scare her this time. Maybe it was raining, somewhere. Nita closed her eyes and fell asleep to the soft murmur of the Bee Man’s dreams.
*
In the morning, Nita woke with the Bee Man’s arms around her. His breath tickled her neck, and the warmth of his body against her back made her breasts feel tight and tender. She wriggled closer against him, felt him wake up.
He murmured something, still half asleep, and his arms tightened around her. Nita felt the stir of of his desire — like Alberto and Theresa — felt an echo in her own flesh. It took her by surprise, made her skin go cold and then hot. She pressed back against his warmth full of a strange ache that came from everywhere and nowhere, centering between her legs like a second heartbeat.
The Bee Man’s eyes opened and he sat up, pushing roughly away from her. “What are you doing here?” he asked in a harsh, funny voice.
Scared. He hadn’t felt scared like that in a long time. Nita scrambled to her feet. He was staring at her, frowning, all muddy and mixed up inside, like a pan of wash water after the whole family has used it.
“It’s all right.” He forced a laugh. “You just . . . surprised me. That’s all.” He stared at her for the space of several heartbeats, then began to talk again, too fast. “This is market day, remember? We’re almost out of beans, so we’d better get started if we want to get there before the best stuff is gone.” He stopped, looked at her again. “It’s all right,” he said.
Nita ducked quickly outside.
It wasn’t all right. The Bee Man’s fear clogged the air as he strung full honey jugs together and loaded cakes of wax into the pack. He didn’t look at her, didn’t talk much. Nita kept her eyes on the ground as they made their way down the riverbed to town, hurt by his feelings, unable to shut them out. She didn’t know what she had done to scare him.
She felt the market as they climbed out of the riverbed, a babble of feelings like people shouting all at once inside her head. Alberto had never offered to take her along when he went, and Nita was glad. Ramshackle booths roofed with frayed and faded plastic crowded the parking lot of the old high school. The Bee Man’s muddy fear was almost lost in the clamor of so many people. Nita stayed close behind him as they threaded their way between the piles of greens and carrots, old clothes, oily machine parts, and battered electronics that formed the dusty aisles. If she closed her eyes, she would be lost, drowned in the blare of noise.
They unloaded their packs, set out the cakes of wax and the jugs of honey at a corner of the old gray school building, in a strip of shade. Nita squatted with her back against the wall while the Bee Man traded honey and wax for hard bread, beans, dried fruit, or grimy government scrip that you could trade for water or use in a government store. People called the Bee Man David. They laughed and joked with him, while their eyes slid sideways to look at Nita. They all looked at her. Some of them looked at her body, all hungry. Others looked from her to the Bee Man and got mad, like Alberto had gotten mad at the foreman. Nita hunched against the wall, dizzy and trapped.
The Bee Man didn’t look at her at all. Nita closed her burning eyes, trying to shut out the stares and the crowd noise. When she opened them again, Alberto was standing in front of the neatly lined-up honey jugs. “Hello, Nita,” he said in his too-loud, too-careful voice.
Nita looked past his thick shoulders. Mama was walking up the crowded aisles.
“How are you getting along?” Alberto was asking the Bee Man. “I haven’t seen you for awhile.”
“Okay.” The Bee Man turned a jug of golden honey slowly between his hands. “But I’m thinking of moving on again, so I guess Nita ought to go back home with you.”
Nita stared at him, Mama forgotten for a moment, stunned by his words. He wanted her to go, wanted it with an intensity that took Nita’s breath away, made her feel sick and empty inside. Nita’s lips moved, silently shaping the word to ask him. Why?
“You see?” Alberto turned to Mama, his temper flaring. “I told you this wasn’t going to work.”
“It’s not Nita’s fault,” the Bee Man said. “It’s nothing she did or didn’t do.” He looked past Alberto, straight at Mama. “She’s just a kid. You take her home, and you keep her there. Let her grow up.”
“Don’t you talk to me like that. “ Mama shouldered past Alberto. “You think I don’t know what you’re saying? You think I kicked my daughter out, sent her off to whore, maybe? Well, you think about what it’s like for us, mister. If we get kicked off the farm, where do we go? To one of the camps, to live on hand-outs with the no-good and the drifters? What do we do? Alberto said you’re a nice man, that you’d take her.” She clenched her fists, glared at the Bee Man. “You want to blame someone, you blame her father — you blame Sam. We had a good place, a good farm. It wasn’t much, but we took care of ourselves. And our kids.” Her voice trembled.
“He left me with the children to feed. So, now we got to scratch in the dust, bow to some strutting little rooster of a foreman who sniffs around my daughter like a dog after a bitch in heat! You want to blame someone, you blame Sam. Not me. Not my son!” She spun on her heel and stalked away, pulling her sun-scarf up over her gray hair.
“I apologize,” Alberto said between clenched teeth. “For my mother.” He had gone pale under his weathered tan. “Nita, get up. Let’s go.” He reached past the Bee Man, grabbed her by the arm.
“Wait a minute.” The Bee Man caught Alberto’s wrist. “What happened to her? Why can’t she talk?”
“She just stopped.” Alberto looked away. “She looks like Papa,” he said. “It’s scary, how much she looks like Papa.” His face twisted. “Mama didn’t mean that Papa walked out on us. It wasn’t like that at all. Papa was organizing a water strike, up in The Dalles. That’s where we lived. Two men drove up to the house one day and shot him, right in the yard. Just shot him down in cold blood. Nita was right there with him. She saw it all.”
Run! Mama had screamed, but he hadn’t run.
The Bee Man was mad, now. Not scared any more. Mad. Like Alberto. Like Mama.
Nita twisted out of Alberto’s lax grip and ran. The Bee Man shouted something, but she closed her ears to it, dodged around a pile of vegetables. Green squashes went flying and a woman screeched at her. Nita ducked her head as she darted through the forest of shoulders and hips, pursued by flashes of surprise and irritation. Her eyes ached as she ran, dry as the riverb
ed.
*
The Bee Man followed her. In the breathless heat of late afternoon, Nita heard him call her name as she climbed up a narrow, twisting creekbed high in the folded mountains. Too late, she looked back and saw the footprint she had left in a damp patch of creekbed clay. The thunder that had awakened her last night had meant rain somewhere higher on the slopes, and the runoff had come, quick and violent, down this bed.
She hadn’t thought he would follow her. Nita shrugged her small pack higher on her shoulder and scrambled upward, toward the rim of the creekbed and drier ground where her tracks wouldn’t show. On the other side of these hills lay the sea. The Bee Man had said so. The full water jug that she had taken banged her shoulder painfully. He called to her again, his voice hoarse, as if he had been shouting for a long time.
“Nita? Come back! You can’t just run away like this. You’ll die out here.”
Not true. Nita ducked down into the hollow left by a wind-felled tree. The tilted mass of roots and sunbaked dirt roofed the torn earth, and she crouched in the cool shadow, catching her breath. She would live with the bees. The Bee Man had showed her how. The bees would find water for her. They would sing to her with the sound of the Bee Man’s peace. Nita swallowed, her throat tight, peeking down into the creekbed.
He wasn’t down in the creekbed. He had climbed the bank, too, appearing only a dozen yards away, circling around a rocky outcrop. Nita squeezed deeper into her hiding place, holding her breath.
“Nita?” He cupped his hands around his mouth, looking up the creekbed as he shouted. “Damn it, Nita. Don’t do this!”
Anger.
It wasn’t his anger that she was hearing. Nita’s arms prickled with the memory of burning stings. Killers. Afraid to move, she peeked between the twisted roots of the old tree. There they were — a little farther along the side of the streambed. Nita’s heart beat faster at the sight of the bees darting in and out of a broken treetrunk. If she had gone on a little more, she would have walked right into them.
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