The Language of Trees

by Steve Wiegenstein

  Praying did not come naturally to Sarah. Her parents had been freethinkers, so religious impulses were foreign to her. But in the last few months she had attended the Lord’s Barn on a few Sundays, shyly and out of curiosity, with Papa safely stowed at Penelope’s, and she found Brother Braswell’s sermons to be comforting though a bit strange. All this talk of Bible kings and prophets. She couldn’t keep them all straight. And when it came down to it, what did it matter what Hosea and Gomer did, or any of those Bible people of days gone by? This was the modern age they were living in, and the land of Israel was not her concern. Still, it brightened her to think of a caring God who spoke through these people and the words they had written so long ago. Brother Braswell seemed to know what they meant.

  Once the hubbub subsided, she took Papa inside and gave him his pipe.

  “Guess I put a scare into you, girl,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right.” She gave his arm a reassuring squeeze.

  “There are times when a man just has to be by himself for a while.”

  “I know that. Just let me know beforehand, all right?”

  “All right.” And with that he settled into his chair by the window, and in a quarter of an hour he was gone, wrapped up in the passing of people and birds outside, and Sarah knew that the whole incident would be forgotten by supper. It would be a handy skill, this obliteration of unpleasant memories, if it could be turned on and off and didn’t include the obliteration of everything else. It was like watching a sunset with the knowledge that the sun would not rise again.

  A soft knock at the front door brought her out of her meditations, and Sarah found Charlotte Turner standing in the yard with a pensive expression on her face. “How’s he doing?” she said.

  Sarah shrugged. “He’s fine. We’re the ones upset. Give Papa another hour, and he will have forgotten the whole thing.”

  Charlotte nodded in understanding. “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “I know looking after your father takes everything you’ve got, but I need your help.”

  Unused to being singled out, Sarah blushed. “What is it?”

  “When I was about your age, I started learning the medicines of plants and roots from an old woman down in French Mills. We called her a ‘granny woman.’ I’m no granny, but I’m old, and I need to pass on this knowledge.”

  “You’re not old, Mrs. Turner.”

  “I don’t feel old, but the calendar says otherwise. If I’d had a daughter, I’d teach her all I know, but I don’t. You’re the sort of woman I like to think my daughter would have been.”

  “But what about Papa?”

  “He can join us. We’ll only go out in the woods for an hour at a time and then come back here to prepare and store everything.”

  The invitation both pleased and surprised Sarah. Before she could think, the words were out of her mouth. “Why me? I’m not that smart.”

  Charlotte laughed. “Doctoring the sick is not for the faint-hearted. You care about people, and you’re not easily rattled, from what I can see. You don’t have to be smart, just attentive.”

  “All right. When do we begin?”

  “I expect we’ve had all the excitement we need for today. How about tomorrow? What time is John Wesley at his best?”

  “Mornings. After lunch he naps, and after the nap it’s hard to predict.”

  “All right, then. Morning. This time of year we collect berries and roots. In the spring, it’s shoots and flowers. Bark in the summer.” Charlotte turned to leave but stopped. “Are you getting enough help from your sister?”

  Sarah thought about telling her that was none of her business, but since Charlotte was Penelope’s mother-in-law, perhaps it was her business to some degree. “Oh, yes, we’re fine,” she said, although it wasn’t entirely true. She did wish for more help from Penelope, but Penelope had a husband and a house, and now a hired orphan boy, so she never felt comfortable asking.

  “That’s good,” Charlotte said. “I had a sister. I don’t know if you knew that.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “She died when I was young, but she’s in my mind almost every day. So I think a lot about sisters. Hope I didn’t overstep.”

  “Of course not. I’m so sorry.”

  Charlotte waved her hand as if shooing a fly. “It’s not her dying that I think about. We all die. It’s the times we had together that I miss.” She turned to go. “See you tomorrow.” And then she stopped and turned back to Sarah. “Cherish your sister.”

  Sarah stepped inside and sat across from Papa, who now seemed as energetic after his brief rest as she was suddenly tired. “Mrs. Turner came to call, eh?”

  “Yes,” she said. “She wants to teach me her medicines.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “Somebody in your generation needs to know these things.”

  “Did you know her sister?”

  “Oh, no. That was back in Kansas, before we all came here. Heard about her, though. Died in childbirth.”

  “She didn’t mention that part.”

  Wickman nodded. “Childbed fever, we called it back then. Babies were scary business in those days. Your mama was crazy with fright when she had you girls. Thought she was too old, and with twins to boot. But Charlotte brought her through it. She did that for about everybody in the valley.” His next words tumbled out. “Even her husband’s bastard child.”

  Sarah tried to act nonchalant. The older ones never talked about those days. “You mean Josephine?”

  “That’s the one. Just about broke up the community when it happened, too. If Charlotte hadn’t stood by him, we’d have ended then and there. Frances wanted to leave, but I said, ‘Where would we go? We’ve got children in the cemetery.’ So we stayed.” He gazed out the window, meditative. “She was to blame as much as him, of course. But he was the leader. He should have been able to control himself.”

  “You mean Charlotte was to blame?”

  “No, honey, the girl. The Mercadier girl.”

  “Marie.”

  “Yes. Can’t fault the man his tastes, though. She was a pretty thing. Not like her daughter, with a face to drive men mad, but pretty.”

  Sarah had never thought much about Marie’s looks, she was so much older, but she had always been jealous of Josephine, whose effortless beauty made her the object of every eye, the center of every conversation. But it was strange to hear her own father talk about it.

  “That’s why that girl needs to marry, and fast,” Wickman added. “Until she does, we’ll have nothing but turmoil.”

  His gaze drifted toward the window again, and Sarah knew she would soon lose his attention. Perhaps some gentle teasing, the way she and Penelope had done when they were small, would keep him with her a little longer. “Oh, Papa, what do you know about mad passion? You and Mama were the most placid pair I ever saw.”

  He frowned. “I know what goes through a man’s mind. Watch Newton Turner at the next weekly meeting. You’ll see what I mean.”

  “But he’s—”

  “Her half brother. I know that. But you watch. He’s like his daddy, can’t keep Jack out of the pulpit. You can see it in his eyes.”

  “Papa! That’s disgusting!”

  “It sure is. Doesn’t mean it’s not true. Daybreak couldn’t take another scandal like that.”

  Sarah walked to the door, needing fresh air. Newton Turner couldn’t be such a fool to give way to unnatural impulses, even if what Papa said was true. To be sure, she didn’t know much about the minds of men, their urges and desires, but she had grown up with Newton. He was a sensible man, surely. Papa’s imagination had run away with him, that’s all. But she couldn’t suppress a shudder at the suggestion. Had she ever seen a sign of any such thing? Nothing came to mind. A sneeze came out of nowhere, as if to expel the shadowy thought.

  She glanced back to see that her father had resumed his vigil at the window. Always the birds. At least he didn’t need anything exotic; the merest of sparrows could
interest him as much as the brightest tanager. Some sort of comfort lay in that.

  Chapter 21

  Charlotte had an appreciation for windows. She remembered when they had first come out to Daybreak, how they had to stretch oilcloth over the crude rectangles they had cut in the cabin walls and mount shutters on the outside, so that the only choices for the women who worked inside all day were the darkness of the closed shutters or the dim illumination of the oilcloth, which let in the wind and cold along with the light. So when the colony finally saved up enough money to buy windows for the houses, real sash windows that could open and close, the addition felt like a victory of outsized proportions.

  In the old days she had used a chink between the logs of the house as a safekeeping place for letters, the ones James and her father had sent her during the war. When they had framed up the walls and put in the sash windows, that hiding spot had closed over. So Charlotte kept the jamb on one side of her kitchen window wedged in place without nails, allowing her to pop it out and read the letters whenever she had a mind. Charlotte was not one to look backward, but occasionally she went through the stash of letters to remind herself of who she had been, and still was, although not everyone saw it anymore.

  And there were new letters to add to the stack, now that Mr. Gardner had decided to take up the pen. It was a little silly, since they saw each other most Sundays at Mrs. Bone’s, and he stopped by to sit on her porch once a week or so. No matter. Receiving a letter was always a pleasure, even if the sender had been by to visit in the meantime.

  Today’s letter to be tucked into the pile contained more food for thought than usual, as it included an invitation to visit his cabin, what he liked to call his “estate,” after their Sunday lunch. No respectable woman, whatever her age, would visit a man’s house unaccompanied, but Charlotte found herself considering just that. She told herself it was not so much desire for Ambrose Gardner, but curiosity about his mountain aerie, that led her. She certainly didn’t want to draw scorn as a Woodhullite.

  A worry for a later day. For now the community needed care. After months of conversation and debate, they had not reached consensus on the company’s offer to buy their timberland, and they would have to take a vote soon, an avenue she didn’t like but couldn’t see any way around. The whole idea of living in community was to avoid the kind of petty politicking and appeals to self-interest that plagued the world outside. But here they were, and the best she could do was try to make the vote as open and respectful as possible in hopes that the losing side wouldn’t have hard feelings.

  She punched the window jamb into place. For no reason she could think of she felt suddenly angry, frustrated at the world. A woman her age hiding letters like a thirteen-year-old. In the old days she needed the hiding place because raiders could use them to scout out which side you were on, and being a shade of blue when you needed to be gray was enough to get your house burned. But nowadays who cared? And yet here she was, bound to old habits like a dirt farmer.

  From her window she could see a man on foot coming down the main road from town. He had passed the turnoff to Daybreak and appeared to be headed on south, but when he reached the spot across from Charlotte’s house where the Daybreak road came in again, he stopped and looked back, rubbing his face. He was a small man, wearing a wool coat that was far too large for him and too heavy for the weather, a wool cap cut from the same cloth, and he carried a valise.

  After a moment the man turned toward her house. She opened the door before his knock, and he took off his hat. At least he was that much of a gentleman, anyway.

  He looked to be around twenty-five, with close-cropped red hair and bleached-out blue eyes. He squinted up at her from the doorstone. “That the commune up there?”

  “It is,” she said. “And here too. We cover this whole valley.”

  His look was dubious. “You don’t hardly look like what I expected.”

  “What were you expecting?”

  “I don’t know. Something more commune-looking, I guess. This just looks like a bunch of houses.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Oh, I ain’t disappointed, just surprised.”

  Charlotte put her hands in her apron pockets and waited. The young man squinted in the direction of the village. “I need a place to stay for a while. Think you all could put me up?”

  “We’re not a hotel, and we’re not a stop on the Grand Tour.”

  “I know that. But I have similar aims as you folks, and I have work to do around here. Thought I might find a room to sleep in while I go about my tasks.”

  “And what might these similar aims be?”

  He shrugged. “I’m starting to wonder if you’re a safe person to talk to.”

  “And I the same. Talk or don’t talk, I have work to do.”

  “All right,” he said. “Sorry, force of habit. Where I come from we have to guard our speech.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Chicago,” he said. “And by similar aims, I mean the empowerment of the working class.”

  “Ah. I’m sorry to disappoint you a second time, but in Daybreak we don’t talk about people as ‘classes.’ We aim for the empowerment of everyone.”

  “You may not talk about it, but you do it just the same. When’s the last time a rich man went off to join a commune?”

  “I take your point. Where did you hear about us, anyway?”

  His forehead furrowed. “In a book, I think.”

  “Mr. Nordhoff’s, I imagine. Keep in mind, that book is a dozen years old or more.”

  “So you’ve given up your ideals?”

  “I didn’t say that.” She paused. “I see you can hold your own in a debate. Chicago man, defender of the working class. I take you to be a union man.” He didn’t answer. “Were you in that mess in the Haymarket?”

  “Depends on what you mean by ‘that mess,’ ma’am. I was there, and I took my lumps, and gave a few too. But I will swear to you right now that neither I nor anyone on our side fired a shot.”

  “Or threw a bomb.”

  “Or threw a bomb. We lost innocent men that day, and we lost more innocent men in the phony trials that came after.”

  “Don’t waste your time talking to me about innocence,” Charlotte said. “I’m not your prosecutor.” She pointed down the road to Pettibone’s house. “One of our members lives there, and he’s also a deputy sheriff. If you’re on the run, keep running. We don’t harbor fugitives.”

  “Ma’am, the only people looking for me are the railroad goons, and I take that as a badge of honor.”

  “I suppose that explains why you are on foot.”

  He nodded. “They’ve got our pictures behind the counter at every junction station in the country, after what we did to the Gould lines a while back. Struck ’em down cold, we did.”

  “I hate to tell you this, but there aren’t twenty railroad men to organize in the entire county. Somebody’s sent you on a rabbit chase.”

  “Did I say I was here to organize the railroad?” the man said, his eyes narrowing. “I don’t remember saying that.”

  “Well, enough banter,” Charlotte said. She nodded toward the village. “You’ll need to talk to our president about a place to stay. Fourth house in on the left. Ask for Newton Turner.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” He replaced his cap and picked up his valise, then set it down again. “I forget myself. Reuben Pierce.” He extended his hand.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Pierce. I’m Charlotte Turner, Newton’s mother. You can tell him I sent you.” She shook his hand, and as she watched him trudge up the road, Charlotte felt a pang of sadness. Another idealist, off to cure the ills of the world, no older than she had been when she came out to Daybreak. Another set of grand ideas for the betterment of humanity, another life thrown into the struggle. So now it was overthrowing the bosses that would lead to the new era, not altering human nature.

  He called over his shoulder. “And you can tell your deputy
friend to look me up. Nary a warrant in any state of the country.”

  “I may just do that, Mr. Pierce,” she called back, although she was less concerned about Charley than about his boss, Sheriff Pomeroy, who had demonstrated little regard for the finer points of the law in his dealings with Mr. Gardner, and who could be expected to do the same with this young man.

  “Of course,” she said aloud. She should have realized it immediately. This Mr. Pierce had come to organize Crecelius’ men. Well, good luck with that, she thought. He’d have no luck at all at the sawmill. Those men were all locals and could no more be organized than a field full of mules. He might have better luck at the mine, where some of the workers were immigrants brought down from the city, but even there she wouldn’t bet on it.

  And he wanted to stay in Daybreak, an idea that bore the stamp of trouble as bright as a brand. Why couldn’t he stay in town and perform his heroics from there? Because he had no money, that was plain. And any hotel or boarding house that put him up would be hounded out of existence by the company. She sighed. So this could be interesting. Well, they’d harbored abolitionists before the war and somehow managed to survive. If this pale-faced fellow was the new image of social reform, so be it.

  And what kind of name was “Reuben Pierce,” anyway? German, Jewish, English? This man looked to be none of those. Probably an alias. More cause for misgiving.

  Charlotte felt a powerful need to talk to Ambrose Gardner, to sound out her impressions of this man Pierce. She rarely doubted her own judgment, but for some reason she did now. Perhaps she should have turned him away. Why risk alienating people who were, after all, their neighbors, for a red-haired stranger who strolled into their midst? But that thought felt like a rationalization the moment she considered it.

  She walked to the barn and saddled one of the good riding mares. She rarely used her sidesaddle these days, since she usually took a wagon whenever she headed to town, but with the saddle she could make better time by cutting through the country. One of the villagers was feeding and brushing down the horses, and he gave her a look of idle curiosity. “I need to be gone for a few hours,” Charlotte said to him. “If anyone asks, tell them I may not be home till after dark.”