Nahoonkara

by Peter Grandbois

  She folded the napkin in her lap into smaller and smaller squares.

  “What was it Keats said,” I asked, not really sure where I was going, but trusting in it just the same. Any lawman learns to rely on intuition early in his career. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

  “Yes, I believe that’s it,” Henry replied. “I like that.”

  “I do, too,” I said. “Except, I think Keats had it wrong.”

  “A poetry critic as well,” Henry replied, feigning surprise.

  Elizabeth’s face betrayed nothing.

  “It makes for a pleasant poetic illusion, but there’s no truth in such simple equations,” I said, feeling on more solid ground. “If anything, beauty acts like a gossamer curtain, or like green eyes,” I ventured, pausing. “For a brief moment it gives us a glimpse into what lies beyond, but just as quickly, it distorts that glimpse, its shimmering surface refracting the light until we are no longer sure of what we see at all.”

  “I didn’t know your knowledge included literature and philosophy,” Henry said. “You are an accomplished man.”

  Elizabeth placed the napkin she’d been folding in her lap on the table. “If you know so much,” she said, her voice taut, “what are you doing in a little mountain town lost from civilization?”

  I smiled. She had heard everything. “The difference between knowing and doing,” I replied, “is greater than the space between stars. Greater even than the vast distance between one person and another. I believe that’s the truest thing I’ve learned yet in this life.”

  As if in answer, one of the folds in her napkin sprang open.

  THE CITY OF MY SOUL

  Eli | Colorado

  I had not expected the town to be so big. People stirred everywhere, kicking up the dust from the dry spring road. I walked through that dust as if into a new life. And there standing before me in the middle of town was Henry. He’d had word of my approach and waited in his best suit, now brown with the road dust, a smile stretched across his face like he’d known all along I’d be coming, as if he expected it was the only thing I could do.

  We embraced, and the people stopped milling about and whispered of the stranger who’d arrived and walked into the mayor’s arms. He wanted to know what I’d been up to these many years, but how could I find words to tell him? How do you describe the transit of the soul?

  He told me of his accomplishments, the mine, the burgeoning town, and the latest schoolteacher, who’d actually agreed to stay on for another year. And I told him of my journey across the Great Plains, of my time with the Hutterites.

  “Eli, you’ve made me very happy,” Henry said as we walked toward his home along the river. “The town will finally have a preacher.” He put his arm around me then. “And I will have both my brothers.”

  I stopped and stared straight eyed at my brother. “I’d heard you took Killian with you when you left, but I didn’t believe it,” I said, wondering if Henry was still the same boy I used to go fishing with, the one who would make me put the worms on his hooks.

  “He’s our brother,” Henry replied, his arm firm about me. “Mother would have wanted us all together.”

  “He killed our Mother,” I said, stepping out of his grasp. “He threw her in the river when she lay sick, when she still had breath in her body and hope of recovery.” I spat upon the ground before my brother.

  “They don’t know what happened,” Henry replied. “Uncle Frank told me himself. No one knows.”

  “Killian does.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “They found her body on the bank near Stratford.”

  “They questioned Killian. He didn’t know anything.”

  “The Lord knows what happened,” I said. “And he will judge Killian for it one day.”

  Henry looked askance at me, perhaps wondering if he’d made the right decision to invite me to his town. “Our house wouldn’t get on without Killian,” he said. “He runs it the way Mother ran the house when we were young.”

  “You have children, Henry, and a wife?” I asked, realizing only then how long we’d been apart, how many things had changed.

  “Yes,” he said, smiling once again. “Come, you’ll meet them too.” And with that he turned and walked toward home, assuming I would follow. I did, but not as closely as either of us would have liked.

  Three of God’s blessings, two boys and a girl, ran to greet us at the door.

  “Children,” Henry said, taking each one before me.

  “This is your Uncle Eli.” Killian hovered in the background, dressed in the same style of overalls he used to wear years ago, his hands in his pockets.

  Silence settled upon us. The kids, having a true sense of when things are not what they seem, looked back and forth between Killian and myself. All except little Molly, who waddled over to Killian, only to be scooped up in his big hands. Henry stepped back, hoping we’d settle things in our own way.

  “What are you doing hovering in the background,” I said to Killian. “Come give your long lost brother a hug.” I didn’t know what made me say it. I told myself it was the Christian thing to do. Killian was my flesh and blood after all. Yet I sensed a deeper reason, one I couldn’t admit.

  Killian didn’t move, and I wondered if, like the children, he sensed things too. We stood there, waiting. No one saying anything. I almost asked after Henry’s wife, but then Molly bounced up and down in Killian’s arms impatiently, and he let her down.

  I stepped toward him, hoping to reassure him or, perhaps, myself. And then he came forward, slowly, giving me a big hug. At first I stood stiff, but then I remembered Mother holding me that same way, her long, broad arms like home. And it was as if I could see her face before me. It was too much, and I laughed, making a joke that Killian was getting bigger than a bear and stronger too. The kids laughed at that, like they knew something I didn’t. And for a moment I thought they were all mocking me. I tried to push Killian away, but he just kept on holding me. And the more he held tight, the more I began to panic.

  “Killian!” I shouted. “That’s enough!” I pried one arm loose and pushed and pulled, shaking him. That was when Henry forced his hand between us. “Killian!” I shouted again. “Are you some sort of devil?”

  Henry looked at me then like he wished I wouldn’t have said that. He’d driven his body between us now. The two youngest, Webb and Molly rushed to Killian, each grabbing a hand.

  “I’m sorry, Eli,” Killian said, his head low. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry for what?” I asked, though I knew he was talking about what he’d done to Mother. I knew it even if he didn’t.

  “You’ve nothing to be sorry for, Killian,” Henry said.

  “We are all sorry,” he said.

  Henry and I sat in the salon as the children played around us, and Killian occupied himself stirring the beef stew in the kitchen.

  “So, where’s this wife of yours, Henry?” I asked as he poured himself a glass of wine.

  “I don’t suppose you drink, being a man of God and all,” Henry said.

  I paused before answering, wondering if Henry’s diversion was intentional. “I’ll have a glass, thank you.”

  We talked of his accomplishments in the town, and my brother was quite proud, but I couldn’t help notice his attention turning toward the staircase every minute or so, and I wondered if he was as proud of his wife.

  The upstairs floorboards creaked. For a moment, the children stopped their play and listened to the back and forth movement above. Then, just as the aroma from the stew wafted through the house, a light footstep sounded on the stairwell, clear but distinct. A pair of feet covered in bedroom slippers came first into our view. Then the woman, entirely dressed in a luxurious, silk bathrobe, but a bathrobe nonetheless. Her brown hair was unkempt and matted on one side, as if she’d just risen from sleep. She didn’t appear to notice me until Henry said, “Elizabeth, dear, please say hello to
my brother, Eli, who has come to us after living among the Hutterites.”

  Elizabeth stopped dead at the bottom of the stairs. “Why didn’t you inform me earlier, Henry?” she asked, forcing a smile.

  “I didn’t want to disturb your sleep,” Henry replied. “Besides, his arrival was unannounced.” For a moment, there passed between the two of them a look not unlike hatred, though that would be too strong of a word. Rather, it was the earsplitting look that passes between two people when they both acknowledge that they are tired of all each has to offer.

  Elizabeth immediately regained her composure and joined us in the salon as if nothing was out of the ordinary, taking a glass of wine, sitting opposite me on the sofa, and adjusting the folds of her robe. It was then my body burst into flame.

  “I’m sure your brother is very tired, my dear,” Elizabeth said. “Perhaps he’d like to lie down before dinner.”

  Sweat beaded my brow. I set aside my wine glass and slid my trembling hands beneath my legs.

  “Eli is going to be our preacher,” was all Henry said in answer. His words, too, burned me, and I wished he would take them back.

  Elizabeth’s face angled ever so slightly, unreadable. “Well,” she said. “A preacher.” She rolled the stem of her wineglass between her thumb and forefinger. I felt sure I would be consumed at that very moment. “I wouldn’t have picked him as a preacher,” she continued. And though her hands remained bare before me, it was as if I could sense her fingernails digging into her skin, as if she wanted to tear away the outer layer of herself, the same way I had mortified my own flesh for the impure thoughts that had sometimes crossed my mind. I lay awake all night that first night in the bed they’d made up for me in the guest room just below their own bedroom.

  I lay awake thinking back to that moment in the salon, the moment Elizabeth and I were joined by hatred of our own flesh, and I knew that someday I would give in to that flesh, that someday I would have to see her if I didn’t leave the town the next morning. I spent all night thinking of how I’d run from home after the horse, how I’d tried to escape the weight of my father and the burden of my sick mother’s love. I thought of how I’d run from the Hutterites and kept on running across the plains.

  And then I remembered the words of the Lord in Joshua eight: For they will say, ‘The Israelites are running away from us as they did before.’ Then you will jump up from your ambush and take possession of the city, for the Lord your God will give it to you. Set the city on fire as your Lord has commanded. You have your orders.

  And I knew I could run no longer unless I too would be like the Israelites. Instead, I would keep myself from burning. I would take possession of the city of my soul.

  WHAT LOVERS SHARE

  Henry | Colorado

  I lie back upon the bed, cover my eyes so that I no longer have to see the dying light as it strips the heavy makeup from her face, as it sheds the purple boa from her neck. She kneels down before me, takes me in her mouth, this woman who is not my wife.

  I lie and wait for the feeling that will tell me why, how a body can fall away from a home only to land in the bed of another.

  “Henry, can I have a word with you?” Will Markey said, standing below the entrance to the “Meg.”

  “What worries you, Will?” I asked, pretending I didn’t understand.

  Will tucked his goose-bone pipe in his belt, something I’d never seen him do. I’d always assumed he went to bed with the thing in his mouth. “I’d rather we talk behind the stamp mill,” he said, already walking in that direction.

  It was a five-stamp unit, with beams three times as tall as a man, and it was going full bore, the cam lifting the stamps and letting gravity pull them to the earth. It was clear enough Will didn’t want anyone to hear what he had to say. The dust billowing from the earth choked, and I covered my mouth with my handkerchief.

  “It’s not easy to confront someone,” Will began the moment I rounded the machine. “It’s the hardest thing in the world to admit when something’s wrong.” Forgetting it was not there, he reached for the pipe at his mouth. “I mean it’s not in our nature to admit when we’ve been had, Henry. For a man proud as you, I mean.” He rested his hand upon his pipe, as if fighting the urge to take it.

  I waited, expecting him to say more. The drumming of the stamps shook straight to my marrow. It seemed to work at him, too, as he finally pulled the pipe from his belt and filled it with tobacco from the pouch in his back pocket.

  “What are you getting at, Will?” I wanted to make him lay it out for me, not because I’d imagined he’d been one of them but because he’d known and not said a thing for so long. He was my foreman after all.

  “The men are digging where they shouldn’t be, Henry,” Will Markey said after a time. “They’re stealing what’s yours.” Then he lit his pipe and puffed until the smoke between us was good and thick.

  “Why do you think that is?” I asked, honestly wanting an answer. The stamps grew louder until it seemed my body shook with them.

  “I reckon when a man loses respect for another man, he’ll do just about anything,” Will said. “And if that other man doesn’t respect himself, he’ll take just about anything.”

  This was not the answer I expected.

  Will puffed awhile longer, then turned and walked down toward the sluice.

  “Does that include you?” I shouted out on impulse. Will Markey turned, looked at me askance, assaying what kind of man he worked for. He shouted back an answer, but I couldn’t make it out. I didn’t ask him again.

  That afternoon, I walked to the top of La Nana, looked out over the town of Seven Falls and beyond to where the river joined with the Blue heading north through the fertile valley. For a moment, I thought about following that river, about starting over without the worry of a town.

  At dusk, I came down and stood at the entrance of the “Meg,” saying good night to the men as they left the mine for the night. Something I hadn’t done in a long time.

  I entered my home only to find Elizabeth rising mothlike from beneath her sheets and into the night. She sat at her dresser combing her hair while I stood staring at her, wondering at her nightly metamorphosis. Still, I could not bring myself to speak, to give voice to the body’s knowledge. It was only when she turned away from me, when I saw how the slow curve of her neck had changed, how the smooth lines of her back now looked like deep striations, that I forgot myself enough to speak.

  “I would like you to stop,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

  Her arms fell to her side. She sat upon the bed, and I waited, aware that if I was not careful, I would become the moth and fly to her.

  “I’m not sure I can,” she said after a long moment. And that was all she said.

  “Can’t you see who you are?” I asked. “When you look at yourself don’t you see all that we’ve made together?” But I doubted myself even as I asked it. I had not known I would be capable of ignoring so many things, of enduring the lack of respect from my men and my wife, until now.

  “I’ve never had that sort of clarity of vision,” she said. “I don’t know who I am until I act, and even then it’s all so murky.”

  “That part I understand,” I said. “Your actions have made my vision cloudy as well.”

  The faintest hint of a smile fell across her lips.

  “I ask you again. Will you please stop, for both of our sakes?”

  She said nothing, but poured herself a glass of water from the nightstand. I needed so badly to go to her, to hold her in my arms and forgive her everything, but instead I said, “For God’s sake, then, please be discrete.”

  The light is gone, and her face with it. I close my eyes for I do not want to see as this woman rises and spits my fluid into the bedpan sitting on the wash table.

  “I’m thirsty,” I tell her.

  She washes her face. With her mascara and lipstick gone, this woman smiles grotesquely and tells me she has just the thing.

  “Wh
iskey,” she says, sitting beside me on the bed. Her dank smell repels, yet I let her take my head in her hand, lay it upon her upper arm and feed me the drink. “It quenches your thirst no matter how parched you think you are.” She takes a sip after me, and we both lie there in silence.

  Normally, I wouldn’t drink from a glass that has touched the lips of another, particularly someone of her calling. I allow her to give me sip after sip.

  But no matter how much I drink, my throat remains dry. And I know Elizabeth and I share that much.

  THE SCENT OF DESPAIR

  Eli | Colorado

  It was most difficult at night, for at night I could scent the pith of her floating down from the room above. I covered my head with the pillow, recited the Lord’s Prayer, then Psalm 23:4: Yea though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me. I tore my sheet and pressed the strips into the cracks in the floorboards above, sealing the space under the door with my coat and still the smell suffocated me.

  I was preaching now, giving my sermons from the schoolhouse until the church was built. The people of Seven Falls entrusted me with their souls, and I would not disappoint them. I talked of temptation, how we are, all of us, tempted by the devil, and they believed because they felt the tremor in my own voice. I talked of how we are put upon this earth to help one another, but that sometimes, though we fight against it, we will do our brothers harm. And they nodded their heads because they, too, had felt this duality in themselves, the desire to do good, the need to do evil.

  And each night I lay awake fighting both the scent from above and the beast inside me. Sometimes, to distract myself from my torment, I would play the game of guessing at the nature of her smell. Cinnamon, no. Honey, no. Not sweet. The smell of an autumn sunset. Closer. But each time, just as I thought I could describe it, wrap words around it, the scent faded, and I was left only with what it did to me.