The Language of Trees

by Steve Wiegenstein

  “Thank you. It’s time for me to go. My work’s run out, and—you know.”

  “Know what?” Josephine said. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  Kessler’s eyes darted. “I shouldn’t speak of things I don’t know. But that man who died here—”

  “Pierce?”

  “Yes. Very troubling. Pierce was a big talker, something of a rabble-rouser to be sure, but he certainly didn’t deserve—”

  “You’re saying he was killed?”

  He raised his hands as if in surrender. “I can’t say anything for sure. Correlation does not equal causation. But the sequence of events makes one wonder. A man comes to work, he starts talking around, he holds quiet meetings out in the woods with the other workers, and the next thing you know he’s pulled from the river. Even if it’s not as bad as it looks, it’s bad enough. And now this business with you people and the County Court.”

  “The County Court? Whatever do you mean?”

  Kessler’s face grew bright red. “I have talked out of turn. I assumed you were here to lodge a complaint with Mr. Mason, or Mr. Bridges.”

  “About what? Dr. Kessler, you mystify me.”

  He threw on his hat and coat and dashed for the door. “I have no place to speak here. I am just an employee, one who overhears things but makes no decisions. Go to the courthouse.” And then he was gone.

  She wandered out of the building, uncertain what to do next and reeling from his words. The courthouse? What had happened at the courthouse? She thought about returning to Daybreak and gathering a group, but decided against it. She was already halfway there, and whatever this dark news of Kessler’s was, it sounded like something that needed immediate discovery.

  The muddy road made walking difficult, so Josephine was grateful when a doctor on his way home from a late-night call overtook her and offered a ride in his gig. She listened politely to his tales of breech births and galloping fevers as they bounced into Fredericktown.

  By the time she reached the courthouse, she had decided on the direct approach. Diplomacy and discretion had never been her strong points anyway. She walked into the county clerk’s office and waited while he roused himself from his desk, where he appeared to have been napping.

  “I’m here from Daybreak,” she said. “I’ve come to get the specifics on the county’s decision.”

  She waited, silent, while the clerk rubbed his beard and feigned uncertainty. “Oh,” he said at last, after she had stood in stony silence for half a minute. “That must be the property tax revision.”

  “So let’s hear about it,” she said.

  “Here, missy,” said the clerk, pulling out a bound journal from under the counter. “I’ll let you read the minutes. Don’t want to mix things up by telling from memory.” He plucked at the ribbon marking the last entry in the minutes and opened the journal to that page. “I must excuse myself. There’s a meeting I’m late for. Glad you came in or I would have slept through it!” He darted for the back door.

  Alone in the office, Josephine pored through the minutes, trying to restrain her dread. The language was obscure and legalistic, but finally she found what she was looking for.

  A motion and a second to revise the property tax rates for real and personal property held in common by state-chartered organizations. That would be Daybreak, and only Daybreak, as far as she knew. That from the date of passage of this ordinance, such property would not be taxed at the simple rate, but at such a rate per each registered member of such organizations. Motion passed unanimously.

  She read the words several times to make sure she understood. So each of them would be taxed for the total value of the community, or to think of it another way, the community would be taxed at a rate multiplied by the number of members. How many did they have now—eighty? Near ninety? Her eyes blurred.

  The Western District judge lived on the other side of Blue Mountain, and the Eastern District judge off somewhere near Marquand. But the presiding judge lived here, in a fine old house on the road to Mine la Motte, and soon Josephine was pounding on his door. No sound came from within, but she suspected he was hiding upstairs, unless that weasel of a clerk had run to warn him.

  “How much did they pay you?” she shouted. “How much? How much?” She slumped against the door. “What have you done to our Daybreak?”

  Chapter 33

  November 1888

  After a week of simple cloudiness and mild drizzle, rain began in earnest as October turned into November, driving the inhabitants of Daybreak into their homes for much of each day, darting out between squalls to tend the livestock. The news Josephine had brought had cast a pall over them, and although Newton had rushed to town and consulted with lawyers of their own, a sense of doom hung over the community despite the lawyer’s assurances of the strength of their case and his quotations from Daniel Webster. The cloud cover hid whatever moon might have been visible, so darkness came early, leaving little chance for evening work.

  Only Adam Turner seemed undisturbed, whistling as he went about his duties, returning home immediately after supper with a placid expression. He had stopped digging for silver on the mountainside.

  The chase for silver no longer interested him because he no longer saw the point. Given the mood of the community, if he found any they would all want the money thrown in the common pot. And if, as he suspected, the new tax scheme from the county resulted in their breakup, then he could choose the likeliest-looking acreage as his own and mine his own damn silver, or sell off the land for himself and pocket the proceeds. And besides, he had bigger things on his mind.

  He had decided to write the epic poem of the Ozarks. It would be called “The Song of the Hills,” and it would make his name once and for all. Every night when he rushed home, he worked late on it, outlining sections and writing stanza after stanza. It would start with the Osage, with great sheaves of material about the Spanish and the French, then the Louisiana Purchase and the coming of America, the early pioneers, and the ravages of the war. And then it would culminate in a song of the future, the vast and glorious future that lay ahead with the new century. No more little lyrics for occasional publication in magazines. It was time for him to rise up and assume a place in the literary world. No more holding back because of his backwoods obscurity. He had been reading about Mr. Twain and his books and his lecture tours. If a riverboat pilot and tramp printer could make his mark with a boys’ adventure book, he could do it with something far more ambitious.

  But to accomplish this, he needed more than grand ideas and ambition. He needed the freedom to work, away from the daily grind of the colony, where his mind could range and he could entertain the muse for hours at a time. And he needed access to a good library.

  By now he had almost fifty dollars tucked away in his tobacco tin, enough to rent them some rooms in St. Louis for several months. They could find a place close to the Mercantile Library, where he would work while Penelope took care of their correspondence and home life, and in the evenings they would experience the pleasures of the city. It would be good for them to get away from Daybreak for a time. And if his imagining played out as he hoped, and fame followed his labors, who knew what might become of them?

  But the depth of the change, and uncertainty about Penelope’s response, had held him back. Now, though, the thunderbolt from the company—for although no proof had ever been given, everyone knew that the company was behind the County Court’s decision—seemed to open all kinds of opportunities, if only the people in Daybreak would see them as opportunities instead of dangers.

  So in the night he told her, choosing his words, emphasizing the adventure of it all, the chance to create something new of themselves. They were putting on their nightclothes in the lamplight, the bulge of her pregnancy visible against the cotton of her gown, and she pursed her lips and turned from him as he laid out his plan. She lowered her head, deep in thought, and then walked to embrace him where he stood at the foot of the bed.

  “My darling, da
rling Adam,” she whispered. “Is it any wonder why I love you? You have such grand ideas.”

  Her belly was firm against him, the life within it like a knot of muscle in an unexpectedly soft place. She squeezed him with a grip that felt as if she wanted to leave an imprint of herself on him from shoulder to hip.

  Penelope whispered again. “I’ve loved you since we were children. You know that. And I will love you till I die.” She climbed into bed, pushing her socked feet deep under the quilts. “So remember that as I tell you what I think.” She turned down the wick screw on the lantern and sat up in bed, finding his hand with hers as he joined her.

  “I am so proud of the poems you write, and it brings me joy when you read them to me,” she said into the darkness. “But the truth is, I’ve read poetry all my life, just like you, and your poems are interesting and good, but they don’t have the mark of greatness on them.” She sighed. “You are a dear, but you have a wife and soon a child. We have family here. My father is declining. I can’t go to St. Louis to cook your meals while you write poems.”

  “But I can support us. All these magazines—”

  “Those magazines publish your poems because you’re exotic. ‘Bard of the Hills,’ and all that. But counting on them for your livelihood is not . . . not the sort of thing we should do. Another novelty poet will come along soon enough, and there we’ll be.”

  “Is that what you think I am? A novelty?”

  “It’s not what I think you are, but it’s how they perceive you. They see you as a nine days’ wonder who is in his eighth day.” She squeezed his hand. “Write your poems. Write your epic. But do it in the nighttime after a day’s work here. This is where we live. Don’t go to St. Louis.” She pulled the covers up to her chin against the evening’s coming chill. “Because if you do, you’ll have to go alone, and I would worry about you.”

  Chapter 34

  Ambrose Gardner was indeed bound over for trial, just as the Reynolds County sheriff had predicted, and Charlotte returned the following week to testify. The turmoil at Daybreak after Josephine’s discovery had affected her unexpectedly. Everyone else was anxious and fearful, but Charlotte felt an odd combination of mournfulness and determination. She imagined it to be something like the sentiment James had talked about of soldiers going into battle—the near-certain knowledge that their actions were not likely to make any difference, and the fear that all would be lost, but the need born out of something, whether discipline or habit, to carry on with the fight despite its evident futility. Newton had called the usual community meeting for Thursday, and she supposed that was his way of trying to calm everyone. He would show that they would not be made hasty or untrue to their principles. Yet an air of desperation reigned.

  Knowing that nothing would be done until the Thursday meeting, Charlotte left for Gardner’s trial with a clear mind. Over his objections, she had hired an attorney, a local man named Sikes, who had taken the case with a groan, and only done so because Charlotte had cash in hand. “Prosecutor’s going to ride you up one side of the valley and down the other,” Sikes said. “He’s not going to want to look weak right now.”

  She visited Gardner in jail in the afternoons, bringing him bread and preserves, anything to brighten his gloomy mood. The jail itself was an eight-by-eight square of hewn logs with a grid of iron rods over the windows that looked like they had been salvaged from a building site, and nails randomly studding the log walls, to discourage anyone from trying to saw through them, she supposed. As if anyone had the poor sense to saw through an eight-inch log in the middle of the courthouse square in a town as small as Centerville.

  Inside was a bunk with a bucket for his relief stored under it, a chair in the corner, and a small table. She swapped out the stack of books on the table with new ones she had brought from his house.

  “Glad you brought the Gibbon,” he said. “He matches my mood, plus he takes a long time to read.”

  “You won’t be in here much longer.”

  “Appreciate the thought, but you’ve heard Sikes. They want to make an example of me.”

  “That’s just the prosecutor. The jury will be people like yourself, fair-minded people.”

  Gardner shrugged and didn’t answer for a minute, his expression miserable. “I miss my woods. This is a good time of year to be in the woods. Lots of color, no ticks, fat deer everywhere.”

  Charlotte stood up from her chair and looked out the window. The trial was scheduled for tomorrow morning, whenever the judge arrived. “Are they feeding you properly? There’s trouble ahead for the cook if they’re not.”

  Her remark seemed to restore some of Gardner’s good humor. “Better than I’m used to! And it’s rich, too. Eggs and potatoes every day, and milk with the cream still in it. Sheriff Carter’s wife does the cooking, and you’ll not hear me complain.”

  There was a quiet tap on the door. “Ma’am, it’s time to leave,” a deputy’s voice said.

  “All right,” Charlotte said. As she turned toward the door, Gardner stood up from his bunk and embraced her. “Thank you for the bread and jam,” he said. “Between you and Mrs. Carter, I may not want to get out here.”

  She kissed him at length, holding the back of his head with one hand. “Oh, I think you will,” she said as they parted.

  “I expect you’re right,” he said with a smile.

  In the small room she had rented for the duration of the trial, Charlotte let her brave face drop. She had thought all that shooting and violence was behind them once life had settled down from the war and its aftermath, but here they were again, a new generation of guns and knives and killing. If only Ambrose hadn’t gotten caught up in it, but what else could he have done? Shout at the man? Flee?

  She slept little in the night amid the unfamiliar sounds, the barking of dogs, voices, the creaking of the house. But in the morning she felt refreshed and ready, despite her restlessness. In the anteroom she murmured to herself her description of the events of the night, trying not to overhear the voices from the courtroom through the door. And then it was time.

  The jurymen sat squeezed into their narrow jury box, twelve men mostly in jeans and brogans, although a couple of them with finer aspirations wore frock coats and pantaloons. Their glances bounced off her as she took the stand, as if they didn’t want to stare or seem excessively interested. She avoided Gardner’s gaze to maintain her composure.

  Sikes strolled toward her after she had been sworn in. “Mrs. Turner, you are a friend of the defendant?”

  “I am.”

  “And you were visiting Mr. Gardner on the date in question?”

  “I was.”

  “And did you see Mr. Yancey, the deceased, on that date?”

  “I did.”

  “Could you please recount how you came to see Mr. Yancey?”

  “Certainly.” She cleared her throat and glanced at the men, knowing that she needed to sanitize the experience to stay credible. “We had been visiting and realized that it had gotten too late for me to return home before dark, so Mr. Gardner gave me his bed and went out to make himself a pallet.” She decided not to mention that the pallet was on the floor beside her unless asked. “I fell asleep, but woke up later in the night. I think a noise was what woke me up.”

  “And what did you do then?”

  “I walked out to the front room to see what was going on. I wanted to ask Mr. Gardner whether he had heard anything.”

  “And did you?”

  “No. He was not there, but had gone outside.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I walked to the window and looked out, and that’s when I saw Mr. Yancey.”

  “You could see him clearly?”

  “Yes. The moon was bright, and he was standing in the moonlight.”

  Charlotte sensed herself going down a storytelling path as she spoke, one that tailored her story to her desired end at the expense of strict accuracy. This was how good people ended up as liars, she thought. The story harde
ns with each retelling, grows more pointed and inflexible, until every skirmish has become a pitched battle and every bystander a general.

  “Mrs. Turner?”

  “I’m sorry. Could you repeat the question?”

  “How far away from Mr. Yancey were you?”

  “About three feet.”

  “And was he doing anything?”

  “Yes. He was lifting the latch on the front door.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I heard Mr. Gardner call out to him. It turns out he was already outside, standing at the corner of the house.”

  “What did he say?”

  She paused. “Something like ‘What are you doing?’ or ‘What’s going on?’ I don’t exactly recall.”

  “And was he armed?”

  “Yes. He was carrying his rifle, cradled under his arm.”

  “Like this?” Sikes took a walking stick from one of the jurymen and tucked it into the crook of his elbow, with the end pointing toward the floor.

  “Yes.”

  “Very well. And how far apart were the two men?”

  Charlotte drew a breath. In for a sheep as for a lamb. “Six or seven feet.” She sensed Gardner stirring in his chair but avoided his gaze.

  “And what happened next?”

  “I saw Mr. Yancey turn away from the door toward Mr. Gardner, and he took one or two steps toward him. He was holding his knife about waist level, or a little higher. And a moment later, Mr. Gardner raised his gun and fired.”

  “Just the one shot?”

  “Yes.”

  The lawyer’s questioning continued, but Charlotte added little to her answers. The heavy work had already been done. After a few minutes of halfhearted questions from the prosecuting attorney, the judge gave the case to the jury, which took twenty minutes to return a not guilty verdict. If she knew anything about men, Charlotte thought with mildly morbid satisfaction, it was that none of them would ever countenance a threatening stranger at their door in the middle of the night without popping a cartridge into him. The sacred hearth and home, that was the watchword, and so what if she had played to that prejudice? All she had done was make the story a little more dramatic.