The Language of Trees

by Steve Wiegenstein

  Gardner seemed lost in thought as he climbed into the wagon alongside her for the trip home. He didn’t speak until they had crossed the West Fork on their way east. “I’m grateful to you,” he said. “I just hate that you felt the need to lie.”

  Charlotte considered what to say for a mile or so. “I’ve loved two men and lost them both. I didn’t want to take a chance on a third.”

  “But it’s not in your nature.”

  “Turns out I’ve got more sides to my nature than I knew about. Maybe I’ll take up lying for a hobby.”

  Gardner’s laugh, true and deep at last, was a welcome sound.

  Charlotte thought about the road ahead. “It’s a long ride from here, and dark comes soon,” she said. “We may have to sleep in the wagon along the way. We’ve got a stack of blankets in the back.”

  He took her hand. “Can’t imagine a finer accommodation.”

  Chapter 35

  The wagon bed had been hard and cold despite their mountain of blankets, and both Charlotte and Gardner ached and stretched the next morning, trying to work out the knots of the night. She had stopped the wagon as soon as they crossed the East Fork, as night had been coming on swiftly and she had no desire to press further in unfamiliar territory. The fords were tricky enough in daylight.

  Gardner built a fire while Charlotte walked the horse, warming it from the chilly night before hitching it up. By the time she returned to the wagon he had boiled some coffee to share.

  “Still prefer jail food?” she teased.

  “No, but the beds are equally hard. I’ll be glad to sleep in my own tonight.” The road south followed the river for several miles, and the cold morning air caused a thin mist to rise from it in a low serpentine trail of fog. Finally they ascended to the ridge.

  Gardner seemed lost in thought as they drove. “You’re a good woman,” he said at last. “I don’t deserve you.”

  His statement caught her off guard. She didn’t know how to answer. “Oh, I think you do,” she managed.

  “I mean it. You’ve put your position at risk for me, come all this way to testify for me, stood by me every minute. And what have I done for you in return? Not too damn much, far as I can see.”

  “I don’t think of us in terms of an exchange. Maybe that’s a bad habit of mine.”

  “I didn’t mean it as tit-for-tat. I just don’t know what you see in me. Whatever it is, I’m just grateful that you see it.”

  “You make me laugh, and you make me think. And I get to be plain Charlotte Turner when I’m with you, not Mrs. Turner the figure of significance. That means a lot to me. I feel like I’ve carried around a weight of expectations for thirty years, and I like having that weight off me when we’re together.”

  “I’m happy to hear that. And I’ll agree to everything but the ‘plain.’”

  She tucked her arm under his. “You know what I mean.”

  “I do. But I didn’t want to miss a chance for a compliment.”

  There were few farmsteads on this road, and at each one they passed the family came out to the roadside to greet them, staring at Charlotte with frank curiosity. At one house a ten-year-old boy blurted out, “Hey there, Mr. Gardner. Did you go and get you a wife?” His parents shushed him, but Gardner guffawed.

  “Ain’t popped the question yet, Billy. Not sure if she’ll have me.”

  The road descended into a narrow valley and ran alongside the spring branch. They passed a grove of butternut trees, where Gardner jumped out and collected a hatful while Charlotte kept the wagon moving at a slow walk. When the road turned uphill again, he climbed into the seat beside her.

  “You can pop the question if you want,” Charlotte told him. “I don’t know what I would answer, but I’m no shrinking maiden, as you well know.”

  “You don’t know what you’d answer?”

  “That’s the plumb truth. You’re a good man, and we’re a good match. But we both may be too set to blend.”

  He rubbed his chin. “You’ve got sense, I’ll grant you that. Whoever it was that claimed men are the more practical sex was a liar.”

  “And a man, too.”

  At the last house before Gardner’s turnoff, a solitary farmer came out to the road. “I figured you’d sold out and left,” he said. “Ain’t seen you for near two weeks.”

  “You didn’t hear about the trial?” Gardner said.

  “Oh, I heard about that, but I knew it was all trumped up. I just thought you might have decided to chuck it all and take the money.”

  “Do I look like the money-grubbing sort?”

  “No, but—” The farmer looked down the road. “Just seemed like a lot of activity down your way.”

  “Activity?” Gardner said, but the farmer turned away. Charlotte popped the reins over the horse’s back, urging it out of its slow pace.

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” she said.

  Even before they reached Gardner’s property line, they could see the deep ruts from wagons that had gone up his road. A chill went through her as they drove further.

  All the big pines were gone, the saw marks still fresh on their stumps and their tops scattered over the hillside. Gardner said nothing as they rode through the pocked landscape. Charlotte, incredulous, said nothing as well.

  They reached the house, which had somehow escaped destruction despite the toppling of trees all around it. Gardner climbed down from the wagon, looked back at the path they had come down, and then trudged to his back porch, shoulders slumped. Charlotte followed and took his hand as they sat.

  George emerged from under the porch and crept between them, his tail dragging. Gardner absentmindedly scratched the dog’s head, his lips pursed and his eyes half closed. His silence was nearly unbearable, but Charlotte was determined to let him decide when to break it.

  At the crest of the ridge, the grove of pine trees was gone, and Charlotte could see the gouged trail where they had been skidded to the river. All along the slopes, broken saplings marked the path of their descent.

  Gardner let out a breath from so deep within that it sounded as if it had to be torn out. “I’ve never believed in any sort of great balancer to the world, God or whatnot,” he said. “But it’s hard to deny this truth. I took a man’s life, and now I lose my precious spot on Earth. Maybe there is a set of scales after all.”

  “God didn’t cut down your trees,” Charlotte said bitterly. “Men did. And not on behalf of Lon Yancey either, if they even knew him. Selfishness and greed is what’s at work here, not cosmic justice.”

  His gaze toward her was a mournful mask. “It’s the nature of the divine to hide itself. If we can’t see the pattern, that doesn’t mean it don’t exist. Just that it’s too big for us.”

  “The hell with the divine,” she said.

  Charlotte stood up and walked into the house, unwilling to speak all her thoughts. She felt unbearably sorry for this man, whose healing refuge had been stolen from him, and yet angry at him for not himself being angry. But she didn’t want to blurt out her own anger for fear of piling onto his stack of troubles, which was great enough already. So she did what she had always done and diverted her emotion into action. She poured a gallon of water from the crock into a shallow pan and took it out to the horse.

  While the horse drank, she looked out over the way they had come, taking in a wide view at last. She hadn’t dared look around as they had driven up, afraid the sight would make her break down, but now she felt strong enough. Slowly she turned her head from left to right as though to memorize the scene, the broad stumps oozing sap, the tangles of waste branches, the gouged-out places where a log had mired, the skid paths down to the river. Sure, it would grow back. It might be beautiful again. Long after they were dead.

  Gardner came up behind her, quiet as a deer, and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Something I need you to do,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I need you to go to the sawmill. I know that’s not easy.”


  Her face twisted in grief. “What for?”

  He gestured to the woods. “The men who cut this. It had to have been wildcatters, or maybe the company didn’t believe my letter about spiking the trees. Either way, there’s logs at the mill with railroad spikes in ’em. They need to be warned.”

  She saw the sense in what he said, although at the moment she would have preferred to burn the mill rather than warn the workers. “And you? Why don’t you do it?”

  His face was the color of clay. “I need to stay here. I need to clean and repair, and maybe spend a day talking to George. And besides—” His voice grew thick. “I don’t trust myself. I’ve done enough without putting myself in a situation where I might kill someone else.”

  She nodded and climbed into the wagon without another word. What made him so sure she wouldn’t kill someone herself? Faith in her forbearance, she supposed. But it was a faith she thought he might have misplaced.

  Chapter 36

  A nearing rainstorm chased Charlotte for the last quarter mile, but even as she urged her horse to a trot for the final two hundred yards to the stable, she sensed that something was wrong. Then it came to her: the mill was silent, the endless droning of the saws and chuff of the steam engine both still. The quiet seemed eerie, although Charlotte reflected that it was merely the sound of Creation itself, the sound of every other hill and hollow in the county.

  The stable was empty. Charlotte unhitched her horse and led it to a stall with feed and water. She could find a boy to brush it down later. For now she needed to find out what was going on.

  She walked onto the front street as the patter of raindrops started to pick up. The company store was two buildings up the way. Perhaps knowledge could be gained there.

  As soon as she opened the door, Charlotte knew she had arrived too late. Three men were laid out on the bloodstained floor, two of them groaning and twisting in pain, the other still and breathing shallowly. Another dozen men stood around them, a few trying to stanch the wounds but most just gawking and murmuring. J.M. Bridges paced the floor, wringing his hands.

  “Mrs. Turner!” he cried when he saw her. “You’re a woman of medicine. Thank God you’ve come. Help us.”

  Charlotte walked to the worst of the three and knelt beside him. A young man, his hands bright red, was pressing on the side of his neck.

  “This here’s the sawyer,” the young man said. “He was riding the log when the blade caught the spike. Blew it into a million pieces. He was right behind it.”

  She nodded. It wasn’t hard to see that a piece of the blade had pierced the neck artery. The man’s eyelids fluttered.

  “What’s his name?” she said.

  “Hump Corum.” To her quizzical look, he added, “Given name’s Humphrey, but we all just call him Hump.”

  “I’ll stick with ‘Humphrey.’” Charlotte leaned close to the man’s ear and took his hand. “Humphrey, we’re with you. We’re all right here.” She felt a faint squeeze in return. “Are you his friend?” she asked the young man, who shook his head.

  An older man stepped out of the group, pulling a younger man by the sleeve of his jacket. “We are, ma’am,” he said. “We church with Hump over at the Primitive Methodist.” The young man edged forward nervously. “Come on, he won’t bite.”

  “Thank you,” Charlotte said. “I think Mr. Corum needs to hear the voices of friends.”

  “Can he hear us?” the man said.

  “Oh yes.” Their eyes met, and Charlotte knew she needn’t say anything else. “What shall I say to him?”

  “Anything. You go to church together, sing a hymn.” She gestured to his reluctant young companion. “Here. You hold his hand while I tend to the others.”

  She let him take her place and turned away to the next victim as the man cleared his throat. He sang, the younger man joining in a high harmony.

  My latest sun is sinking fast,

  My race is nearly run.

  My strongest trials now are past,

  My triumph has begun.

  The hymn was slow and mournful, not the sort of song she would have chosen, but so be it. The man before her now lay on his side, with an eight-inch gash in his calf and a piece of the saw blade embedded in his back. Charlotte examined it while the man tending him looked on anxiously.

  “I didn’t want to pull it out,” he said. “I was afraid.” He lifted a pair of pliers as if to show her that he had been ready.

  “That’s good judgment,” Charlotte said. “Hasty effort can do more harm than good sometimes.”

  “Am I going to die, ma’am?” the injured man said, trying to look over his shoulder.

  “Do us all a favor and hold still. You’ll die eventually, but not from this.”

  The man tried to say something more but lost his breath. In his moment of distraction, Charlotte took the pliers.

  “Now when I take out this piece of steel, there’ll be some bleeding, but that’s to be expected.” She pressed the skin around the blade and felt no buildup of fluid. “Get a rag,” she said to the helper, who was more pale and shaky than the wounded one. “This will hurt, but honestly I’m more worried about your leg,” she said in a low voice. “Keep it washed out with clean water and stay off it. Otherwise you’ll walk with a limp at best, and lose the limb at worst.”

  I’ve almost reached my heavenly home,

  My spirit loudly sings.

  The holy ones, behold they come,

  I hear the noise of wings.

  While she spoke, she also gained a firm grip on the blade with the pliers, and now she leaned back, laid the flat of her free hand on the man’s back, and pulled out the jagged fragment. As she suspected, it had lodged firmly into his rib. She had to grit her teeth and pull harder than she would have liked.

  The man shrieked in agony, but Charlotte held him still, with the proffered rag pressed against his back. “There you go,” she whispered. She laid the twisted triangle of steel on the floor beside him. “You can keep this chunk of metal. Put it on your fireplace mantel. What a story to tell your grandchildren, eh?”

  The man whimpered, but made no sudden moves. Charlotte relinquished the task of pressing the rag to the wound to the man standing nearby, and then stood to find the third victim, but he had moved to a chair where he sat, both arms wrapped in makeshift bandages torn from sheets. He waved her off weakly. “I ain’t bad,” he said. “Tend the others.”

  “Company’ll dock you for them sheets you ruined,” someone said to him.

  “Wouldn’t surprise me none.”

  The hymn-singing stopped. Charlotte looked across the room.

  The older man, Hump Corum’s churchly friend, straightened up and removed his hat. Everyone else did the same.

  “It’s time for his home-going,” he said.

  Silence fell over them all as they listened to the rasping of Corum’s breath, ever lighter and shallower until it hung at the edge of audibility. One minute, two minutes, more. They all stood. The breathing stopped.

  Charlotte felt out of place in a roomful of men who worked together, roomed together, and now suffered together. She stepped onto the front porch to let them have their time, just as the man began to pray.

  The rain came down in earnest now, steady and slow, with no wind to drive it. Charlotte stood under the awning and watched it form puddles in the packed dirt street. She would need to head home soon if she wanted to make Daybreak by nightfall, and Lord knows she didn’t want to spend the night here.

  A minute later J.M. Bridges joined her on the porch. They stared out at the rain in silence. She could tell he wanted to say something, but his lower lip trembled. He waited until he had regained control of himself.

  “I got that letter from the man, Gardner,” he said. “I never believed he’d do it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. At the time it made sense. Why spike your own trees? It’s like putting sand in your own flour. But now it seems . . . ” He waved his hand in the air
as if words could not capture the madness of his choice.

  And perhaps that was true. Charlotte thought over the many choices that had led to this moment—Ambrose Gardner’s spiking of the trees, Bridges’ disregard, the men who stole the timber, the checker who knowingly paid them. The entire network of selfishness and irresponsibility that led them here, to a dead man on the floor and a widening circle of turmoil.

  “It was my blindness killed that man,” Bridges said. He turned his head away and started to cry.

  Charlotte knew she was supposed to comfort him, to tell him that it was all right, that he wasn’t to blame. But words of comfort eluded her. They all bore blame in abundance. Someone else could provide comforting falsehoods.

  Her hands and arms were bloody, and she held them out into the rain to rinse off. “I’ve a mind to spike our own trees when I get home, and you’d damn well better believe me if I tell you I did.”

  His walleyed, tear-filled look was almost too much to contemplate. “I had nothing to do with that piece of business,” he said. “I want you to know that. They don’t trust me anymore. Especially where Daybreak is concerned.”

  “Whether you knew it or not, it happened. And now I’m off to deal with the consequences. Explanations don’t interest me right now.” She turned to leave, but paused. “You need to send someone to his family,” she said. “Or go yourself.”

  “I’ll go. They deserve that much.” He faced her again. “I’m sorry for throwing you into this. But good Lord, I was glad to see you. We sent for a doctor, but he’ll be half a day arriving.”

  Charlotte didn’t answer. If she couldn’t give him the solace of a spurious absolution for his part in this disaster, she could at least avoid compounding his misery by not telling him that she had been on her way to warn him against this precise event, and that if she had arrived half an hour earlier—