The Language of Trees

by Steve Wiegenstein

  “Thanks, no,” she said. “I should be—” She had nothing with which to finish the sentence, so she simply stood up, brushed off her skirt, and walked away without speaking. Better an awkward silence than a polite lie.

  Instead of returning the way she came, Josephine walked away from Daybreak, south to where the road brushed the bluffs alongside the river and then opened out again into a new valley.

  What she wanted, she thought as she walked, was neither to be envious nor envied, both low goals at best. What she wanted was to have done something worthy of being envied. Just one big thing to mark her life, or to make her mark on life, and be able to say, “There. I was a part of that.” Charley Pettibone, Charlotte Turner, even her mother, all had the founding of Daybreak and then the war. Whatever they thought of the war, they had been there, and it was their experience, and no one could take it from them. Scolding a couple of money men over a day’s loss of water hardly matched up. Not that she wanted a war—just something, anything, that would make a milestone in the endless line of days, months, and years. Was she born to live and die in Daybreak? It wasn’t the worst of fates, but if it was to be hers then she hoped for something of significance to come of it.

  Before she knew it she had walked halfway to French Mills, and there was Masterson’s farm, with its newly painted barn and that preacher, Braswell, out in front of it setting up a second hitching rail beside the old one. She had not meant to walk this far, but here she was.

  “Young miss,” Braswell called. “Coming to church tomorrow?”

  “I think not,” Josephine said.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because I think not,” she answered.

  “I recognize your voice,” Braswell said. “You’re the woman who guided us across the river in the darkness when we first came here. Josephine, they call you. I’ve been praying about you.”

  “I didn’t guide you across the river, as you’ll recall, although it makes for a fine retelling.”

  He faced her and laid his hammer on the crossbar of the hitching rail. “The Lord’s Barn gets fuller every week. Several of your townsfolk come for the message. Some come to mock and stay to praise.” He gestured to his tools. “I spend the week making benches and fixtures.”

  “Bully for you,” Josephine said.

  He leaned toward her. “Why so cynical, miss? People are hungry for the Word. Is that such an offense?”

  Josephine blushed. He was right. What had this man ever done to her to make her feel so suspicious? Still, the notion of being prayed over by a complete stranger felt invasive. She turned to leave.

  Braswell moved closer. “I have been given the gift of discernment. I didn’t ask for it, but it was given to me nonetheless. And here’s what I discern.” He closed his eyes, and his muttonchops bobbed up and down as he worked his jaw. Josephine looked away, but the spectacle of him entering his trance, or whatever it was, compelled her gaze. When he opened his eyes again, it was with a look so fierce, so intractable, that she almost felt afraid. But she was not going to flinch, whatever it took.

  “You have been given the gift of beauty in face and figure,” he said in a soft tone. “And you have been given the gift of a bright and inquisitive mind. But the sons of men, being low and base, see only the beauty of form and not the inward brightness. This failure of spirit has made you hard and suspicious. But I want to tell you, sister—”

  He reached out and took her by the shoulders. The movement was not surprising, but it was altogether too familiar, and Josephine wanted to tell him to let her go. But she didn’t.

  “God has a plan for you,” Braswell continued. “Perhaps that is what I was led here to reveal. But you have to be open to it. Be open and ready in prayerful waiting. God’s plans are never frivolous.”

  Josephine turned away from him and walked up the road to Daybreak, walked at a pace that was nearly a run, and didn’t look back. She didn’t want this strange and unsettling man to see the tears in her eyes and the fear on her face.

  Chapter 10

  Downstream from the river crossing was an expanse of flat ground, a quarter of a mile long, with sandy soil and a stand of cottonwoods eighty feet tall or more. In the old days, they had operated a hemp mill and ropewalk in that shady grove, until everyone went to Manila hemp and the market dried up. And downstream from the ropewalk was the old slave cemetery, lovingly tended by Dathan and then by Charlotte when Dathan grew too infirm to cross the river regularly. And downstream from there lay a large slab of limestone, dropped or washed from God knows where, that sloped into the river at a gentle angle, and which Charlotte thought of as her own special spot, where she came to think, to plan, and to decide. The slab was thirty feet long and a dozen feet wide, and its slant was so smooth that passing boatmen had more than once mistaken it for a landing.

  Thirty feet that she could see, anyway. She knew that the smooth expanse of gray stone extended far into the river, well beyond sight. She could feel it under her feet when she waded out. Garfish knifed by just below the surface, and occasionally a small fish, chased by these predators, would leap from the water and flop onto the rock.

  But today all was still as Charlotte sat, chilled, with her wool coat wrapped around her knees to keep out the wind. She felt in her coat pocket. It was in there, the letter she needed to answer.

  Across the river lay the empty tract of land where Josephine and Marie had lived, the house now gone, the pasture overgrown, scrub trees in the sandy soil. Perhaps they should sell off that tract. What use was it to them? Rabbit hunting and county taxes. Lord knows they could use the money.

  But what good would selling the land do? The company didn’t want sycamores and cedars, witch hazel and greenbrier. To them the only purpose of the land would be use as a logyard, a staging point from which to cable the logs together and float them down to the rail crossing at Greenville. It would end up a mess of pottage and a permanent disfigurement across the way, hardly a bargain to celebrate.

  She had seen Josephine Mercadier marching out of the village on some sort of constitutional, and now here she came again, walking even faster, her hair an uncharacteristic tangle and her face bearing a look of distress. For a moment she thought to let her pass. The girl was all edges and points, and Charlotte hadn’t the mood for a testy exchange. But something in the younger one’s expression made her call out.

  “Josephine.”

  The young woman stopped in the road and looked around, bewildered. Charlotte stood up so she could see her through the weeds.

  “Over here. Come sit.”

  Suspicion, uncertainty, fatigue, relief, all passed in quick succession across Josephine’s face. She paused a moment longer, then found the path through the underbrush and came to Charlotte’s side.

  “Will you sit with me a while?” Charlotte said. “I spend quite a bit of time contemplating things from this spot.”

  “Everyone knows about your sitting spot.” Josephine offered Charlotte a weak smile. “We should give this place a name.”

  Charlotte laughed. “Turner’s Point, you think? A pretty fancy name for a big gray rock.”

  Josephine’s face softened. “Why should the old settlers get to name all the landmarks? We should get to erase the map and write new names every so often.”

  Charlotte sat down, and Josephine took a spot beside her. “I named Daybreak Ridge, believe it or not,” she said. “I’m not sure you were even born yet. A man came along and asked the name of the hill. Turns out nobody had ever named it. It was just ‘the big hill behind the village.’ So I called it Daybreak Ridge, and there it stuck. I guess that makes me an old settler.”

  “Makes sense, though. Daybreak, so Daybreak Ridge.”

  “Actually, I wasn’t even thinking about the town. I was thinking of the way the pine trees light up at first light. Like—”

  “Like great candles,” Josephine said.

  “Yes! Exactly.”

  Josephine gathered her knees to her chest. “
When the sun breaks over the mountains to the east, and their shadows begin to recede, there’s that moment when just the tips of the pines catch the light, like great candles all in a row. It’s the best moment of the day sometimes.”

  Charlotte nodded. “Many a day.”

  To her surprise, Josephine’s face worked as she fought not to cry. “How can you stand it?” she burst out after a moment, and Charlotte saw her ferocious determination as she pushed the tears to some deep well within her. When her demeanor settled, she waved a dismissive hand at everything around them— river, forest, village. “I know this is supposed to be a bucolic paradise, but mercy, it seems like nothing but work and drudgery, and to think that a moment’s light on the tops of some trees is the best thing that happens to us! Is that it?”

  Charlotte sighed. What could she say? Even if she had wanted to argue, she had to admit that the same thoughts had passed through her own mind, not just once but often. Many a day, she asked herself, is this all there is?

  Carefully—as if she were touching a captured animal, one that might startle or bite—she laid her hand on Josephine’s shoulder.

  “What do you want?” she said softly. “To become rich? To see the world? To marry?”

  “All of them!” Josephine cried. “Well, not so much the part about rich. But I want to be something and do something. I don’t know what, but I want to be and to do. Something.” She turned her head away and wiped her cheeks.

  “Then do it,” Charlotte said. “You’re young, but not that young. I was not your age when I came here, and I’ve not regretted it. But if this place is not your destination, then you must choose another.”

  Josephine faced her again, her eyes hard and glittering. “And my mother? Just leave her?”

  Charlotte knew that she could answer yes, just leave her, leave her and the community would take care of her, as it had others who had grown old alone among them, but she knew that this answer would not do. So she stayed silent and dropped her eyes.

  Josephine stood. “Then I must make my peace with what I have.”

  Charlotte felt a rush of anger and stood as well, blocking her path. She held her face close. “Never make peace,” she whispered. “You were born to fight. Never make peace. Never, never, never.”

  They stood a moment, eyes locked. Then Charlotte stepped aside and let her leave.

  Charlotte briefly considered leaving herself, but decided to stay. Of course work waited to be done at home, but when didn’t it? Josephine was right. The world was full of work. But that was something to be accepted rather than despaired of, and besides, she had come out here to think. She settled back down on her rock.

  She had imagined leaving the community in her darker moments. Everyone had, probably, except John Wesley Wickman and old Mercadier, Josephine’s grandfather, and the other old settlers who had cast their lot with Daybreak at first founding. Maybe them too. Who knew what went on in the minds of others? For herself, thoughts of leaving were always balanced out by the sense that this was her place, the ground in which she had been planted. Though the avenues by which she had arrived there as a young bride, swept away by the power of her husband’s enthusiasm, might not have been entirely rational, once planted she had taken firm root. She might just as well have imagined herself becoming Chinese.

  She thought of the heady days when she and Turner had barnstormed the country on their lecture tour, Turner just back from the war and far too unsteady of mind to engage in it properly, and how she had been compelled to step into the limelight instead. No denying that she had enjoyed the thrust and parry of the debate, the excitement of potential confrontation at every stop, but when they returned to Daybreak, she felt so much at home that she knew she never wanted to leave again. A failure of her imagination, of her will to aspire? Perhaps. But also a victory for her ability to recognize what she wanted for herself instead of what would gain her the most acclaim.

  For twenty years she had lived the life she had chosen. Home, family, community. And that was good, that was enough. But now with this company, this upsetment, her choices felt inadequate somehow. Perhaps she should have been more like Josephine, restless and unsatisfied.

  She sighed. What sane person had ever sought dissatisfaction?

  The letter in her coat pocket felt heavy beyond all common sense. Just her imagination, no doubt. She took it out and read.

  MADAM.

  We met by coincidence and under peculiar circumstances, to be sure, as I imagine you are as unaccustomed to entertaining aged troublemakers being escorted to another jurisdiction as I am to being one. Yet in those curious circumstances your politeness was sincere, your conversation involving, and your presence welcome. I find myself rehearsing our interlocution and enjoying it in memory almost as much as in the actual moment. “With thee conversing I forget all time,” &c.

  I hope you are not disturbed by compliments. I have more of them, but shall wait to hear whether they are not unwelcomed.

  Although I live a bachelor’s existence out here in my fastness, it would delight me to come down to Mrs. Bone’s house in Annapolis for lunch on Sunday if I knew you would be there. It would be a considerable surprise to me if a handsome and accomplished woman such as you would have an interest in an old scoundrel such as myself, but I have been surprised before. If you don’t know Mrs. Bone’s house, it is a respectable place that takes boarders and serves a fine Sunday lunch. It is easy to find as it is the only house in Annapolis that doesn’t look as if it might blow away.

  Most sincerely yours,

  AMBROSE GARDNER.

  Charlotte folded the letter and returned it to her pocket. More complications, but she smiled at the words. An old scoundrel indeed, and one who loved big words, even if he didn’t always get them right. She had only been in love with two men in her life, her husband and Adam Cabot, and by the dice-roll of chance she had loved them both at the same time, so that she could only have the one and had to love the other across a broad and painful divide. At this moment of her life she could joke that the joys of love were nothing compared to the pleasure of a decent shade tree and a properly brewed cup of tea. But did she believe that? She wasn’t sure. She was sure that her heart was not dead, that feelings could be awakened in it, but that she was not about to open that door to just anyone. If she were to love again, she would only love someone worth loving, not just some stray goat with charming ways and a need for caresses.

  Very well, Mrs. Bone’s on Sunday.

  Chapter 11

  February 1888

  In February the orphan train came through, and Bridges strolled to the siding to watch the commotion. Mason had urged him to contract for a few boys for the mine—”wiry lads who could get into the narrower reaches” was how he had phrased it—but Bridges had refused. There was the moral aspect to consider, and besides, between the lumbermill and the silver mine he had plenty to occupy him without having to play Mr. Bumble to a bunch of urchins from the coast.

  A long line of farmers in wagons sat alongside the tracks. Some of them had dressed in suits, although many wore their everyday overalls, and in many wagons wives and children were along for the occasion, the wives clutching their letters from the Children’s Aid Society and the children playing in the brush between the track and the creek.

  “Keep those kids off the rails,” Bridges told one of the workers. “When that train comes, we want it to add to the population, not subtract.”

  The preacher, Braswell, was there with his entourage. Bridges walked up to his wagon and shook his hand. “Getting a hand for Masterson’s farm?” he said.

  Braswell shook his head with a quick dart of his eyes to the women seated behind him. “I don’t believe I’ve ever introduced you,” he said. “Mr. Bridges, this is my wife, Mattie.” He gestured to the woman beside him on the seat, wide-shouldered and flat-faced, whom Bridges guessed to be in her mid-thirties, about Braswell’s own age. She was wrapped in a man’s overcoat against the chill and lifted a gloved hand
in greeting. “And these are my congregants, Lily Breeze Jessup and her sister, Rose Rain,” he said, waving to the two women in the back of the wagon. Rose Rain looked to be in her early twenties and her sister a couple of years younger. Both had long, narrow faces framed by straight dark hair parted in the middle. They grinned at him.

  Bridges tipped his hat to them all. “Good morning to you, ladies.”

  “The women have sent off for a house girl,” Braswell said.

  “We’re not used to so much housework,” Lily Breeze said.

  “We had a maid when we were growing up,” added Rose Rain.

  Bridges had seen the Masterson farm plenty of times on his trips to the Daybreak colony, and he couldn’t fathom how the old farmer’s house could create enough work for three women and, now, a girl, but he held his tongue.

  “Those are some unusual names you girls have,” he said.

  “Brother Barton let us change our names when we were born again,” said Lily Breeze. “So we each took a favorite flower and a favorite weather sensation.”

  Once again Bridges found himself with nothing to say.

  “We hear you’re courting the Mercadier girl,” Rose Rain said.

  “She’s no girl,” said Lily Breeze. “She’s older than Rose Rain. She’s almost as old as Mattie!”

  “Shush, child,” Braswell said. “Charity envieth not.”

  “I’m not envious, just stating a fact,” Lily Breeze said. “Nothing to be envious of, as far as I can see.”

  Bridges wasn’t sure whether he could say he was courting Josephine Mercadier or not. After the first Sunday dinner, he’d been back two more times, and each time felt more like a fencing match than a courtship. Josephine could debate better than any lawyer he’d ever met, and so far their conversations had never touched on the personal. Did it count as courtship to sit for two hours arguing whether American politics were hopelessly corrupted? She’d not yet let him hold her hand. But still he returned every few weeks, though the invitations came from Marie, and Josephine tended to glare at him like a cornered fox during dinner. Perhaps she was not the woman for him after all. If that realization came to pass, it would not be for want of effort.