by Jeffrey Lent
Barefoot, he went down to the kitchen. The room was hot from the day, the cold supper laid out: roast chicken cut to quarters, a loaf of bread, wax beans doused with vinegar and chopped dill, new pickles, a bowl of blackberries and cream. Becca stood across the table now, hands resting on the uprights of her usual chair. Her face yet stern upon him.
He sat in his place and said, “Harlan’s off on an errand of some sort, I do believe. For Mr. Hopeton is my guess. Now, why don’t you sit and eat also.” He took up three of the beans and ate them, their crunch almost meaty, liquored with the cider-bite, the sweet smack of the dill.
She remained rooted where she stood. “What did the judge say when he got him?”
“Becca, sit and eat. Harlan’s not locked up; there’d be no sense in that. He’s on some bit of work that needs doing. That’s all, I’m certain of it.”
“What makes you so sure? A hour ago at the barn you told me you could only guess at what was happening. You’re not being square with me. My stomach’s sick with worry. None of this makes sense to me.”
He sighed, propped his elbows on the table, and rested his hands before him. “Becca,” he said. “Of course you’re worried. I’m trying to tell you to let me shoulder that care. I needed that hour in the barn to ponder all this. And I realized Harlan’s safe as can be and the rest, we just need to be patient a day, maybe two. Now, please eat and I’ll tell you what I can.”
She took a step forward but kept her arms crossed as if clutching her worry close. She said, “He’s truly safe? You swear?”
Holding calm he said, “I’ve never painted a lie in my life. You should know that.”
She regarded him a beat longer, then pulled out her chair and sat. She poured herself a cup of buttermilk from the pitcher and filled his cup as well. She said, “Busy as we been I forgot to tell you we’re most out of sugar. Those blackberries might have wanted a good pinch more but I guess they’ll do. So then, what would you have me know, all this mystery?” She commenced to reach from platter to bowl and filled her plate but then sat, bright-eyed upon him, her face lit with heat sheen, strands of her hair loose from the knot behind her head and tangling down about the sides of her face. Her mouth parted, waiting, the sleeves of her blouse pushed up so her summer-brown forearms lay either side of her plate. Likewise the waist of her skirts had been rolled and her bare feet and calves were naked as the heat of the day.
He drank buttermilk, wiped his mouth and as he did she tore a hank of bread and slathered butter, ate it and nibbled at a thick chicken wing, neat workings of her teeth as she held her eyes, waiting.
He ate a handful of the beans and tore his own bread, careless of the butter and ate that and then said, “I don’t know everything, Becca, but what I do know makes me not care much for it. It’s not Harlan and not even Malcolm Hopeton I’m speaking of, here. It’s others, mostly the judge and Enoch Stone—now wait. You asked, I’ll tell you what I can. They have this deal cooking, with David Schofield as the central part of it. To ask clemency for Malcolm Hopeton. I don’t believe they care much about Harlan.”
She spooned pickles onto her plate, tore more bread, slathered butter and said, “Why not?”
“Because they might believe they’ve got their play sewed up tight and think he’s harmless.”
“You don’t think he’s harmless though, do you?”
“All I know, the only truly important thing to him these past years, has been Malcolm Hopeton. Who has done a terrible thing, by accident or design it comes to the same end. Word has it Hopeton is not happy with the mercy being offered him, less so the way it’s constructed. I wouldn’t hope to know what Hopeton does want, but if your brother can help him, I’m sure he will. We’ll see, is what I say.” He picked up a drumstick and ate the dense meat off the bone.
“You know a pile more than you’re saying.”
He nodded, his mouth full and grateful of it. And, his own deep belly hunger shared, she reached and ate a handful of wax beans, then speared a breast from the platter. Again she hefted the earthenware pitcher and poured buttermilk for them both.
“He’s my brother. You don’t have the right to keep anything from me.”
August swallowed, drank and swallowed again. Wiped his mouth with the flour-sack square folded neat beside his plate. He said, “It’s simple and wrong as this. Tell me, anyone, anyone at all, drives in here this time of year looking for me. Saying they’re looking for me. But I’m way out in the fields cutting oats. Who is the first person they’re going to see?”
“Well, me. What’s wrong with that?”
“Mostly, nothing. But say it was a man seeking Harlan—”
“The judge, you mean? Like yesterday?”
“Sure, say him. Or the sheriff or even Enoch Stone. Or someone you nor me ever laid eyes upon. Whoever it might be. They come in and you’re the first one they talk to. Those men, most all of em, maybe each and every one, they’ve spent their lives learning to say a thing that sounds like one thing when it really means another. What I’m saying is they could trick you to telling them something they wanted to know and you not even knowing you’re telling it to them, thinking you were only helping your brother. And so, what I don’t tell you, you can’t tell anyone else. Can you now?”
“You think I’m stupid?”
“You’re clever as can be. But I also know I’ve maybe been stupid a time or two so far with all this and don’t intend to be that way again. For the sake of your brother.” He paused and then said, “I guess Malcolm Hopeton as well.”
She was quiet, mopping bean and pickle juice with more bread. A slaughter-spread of chicken bones upon her plate. His also. Talking, the end of day hunger had taken them. Finally, tentative, she said, “Brother Stone?”
August stood. “I have nothing to say about that man, this night. I’m going out to the porch. I’m in desperate need of peace.”
She looked up in the now full dark, the lamp quavering on the table. She said, “The blackberries and cream?”
He walked to the shelf and lifted down a new cheroot and said, “Leave me a bowl. I’d eat them before I sleep.”
He sat in the gloam, one knee crossed over the other, smoking and watching the red-and-white forms of his cattle work their slow way across the night pasture, milling more than grazing, aiming for the spots where they liked to bed. The tip of his cheroot an orange glow extended from his fingers, flaring red light against his face when he inhaled, the smooth smoky ropes of pleasure drifting outward, upward, quickly gone in the falling night. From the door open behind him he heard the rush of water from the kitchen pipe into the deep soapstone sink, the rattle and swish of crockery being washed, a pale oblong of lamplight now extending down the hall and fading on the porch from where she worked. Hot as it was, high summer, yet dark earlier than a month ago. He listened to Becca cleaning up and considered how quickly he’d grown comfortable with her presence: Only weeks earlier she’d already have left for her walk down to Malin’s, a year ago during this same season of long days she might’ve been hurrying to finish the job, the walk still stretching before her. And now she washed up, then was done, all done for the night. He smoked, unsettled, unsure why.
She stepped soundless from the hall onto the porch, hauled a chair a bit closer to his and also to the rail, settled into it and propped her feet upon the rail. There was a waxing moon up now, caught by its lower edge by the barn cupola. Not for long.
“I don’t know how you smoke those things. They smell like a chimney fire.” Her voice light despite the commentary.
“If they offend so badly there’s other places to take the evening air.”
“No. I like it here. I love watching how those cows buckle themselves down upon the ground, almost like they do it in sections at a time.”
“Maybe if you had four legs you’d find the same problem. Or maybe it’s not a problem at all, for the cow. It’s just how they get the job done.”
A host of bats came out of the barn cupola
backlit by the moon, then were gone as they spilled down within the orchard after food.
Becca said, “You really think what Bro—what Enoch Stone is trying to do is wrong? To save Malcolm Hopeton?”
August smoked on for a bit. Then said, “It’s not what Enoch is trying to do, so much as how he’s doing it. And his reasons. I mistrust all of that.”
“You think he should not stand as a guide for the community? He spins a clever homily.”
“The Friend made no such provisions. I believe she showed uncommon wisdom in that failure. We shall stand or we shall fall. But it’s up to us. Recall, Becca, The Friend never made any such claims for herself, the only gift she had was to preach well and that was bestowed by Christ and the Father, not a choice she made. So no, to answer your question. Enoch Stone should not proclaim himself as a successor to that rare being, and there are no reasons he can offer that will change my mind on the matter. Clever homilies aside.”
“But The Friend left Time almost forty years ago; surely the world today is not one she could have imagined.”
“I’ll offend you, but such thinking is the province of youth, who believe the world is made anew for them. But The Friend knew that while the decorations might change, the elements of life do not.”
“There’s sadness in thinking so.”
“Time to time. Then the day turns and glory is before you once again. Nothing could be finer on this earth. Nothing at all.”
She was quiet then. He smoked, studied his cheroot in the dark and saw it was less than half gone. No hurry with that; the shroud of fatigue had lifted with supper in his stomach and now the cooler night air, a desire to not end the day so quick as he’d wanted only an hour before.
“August?” She queried, unable to hide the tremor in her voice. He noted the tremor and felt a pang unbidden and surprising.
“What is it, Becca?”
“I’ve been a steady worker for you, these years? Enough to please?”
“I couldn’t imagine what I’d do without you.”
“Truly?”
“Very much truly.” He paused and blew smoke and said, “I know your concern.”
“You do?”
“If the scheme works, we might lose Harlan back to Malcolm Hopeton. I confess I’ve grown fond of Harlan and would hate to see him go, though would be happy for Hopeton. Also,” he paused and smoked again and the pause extended, drifted outward as a smoke of its own toward the night, the orchard, the now-bedded cows. The moon lifted above the barn by a three-hand span as seen from where he sat. From where they sat. The lamplight from the kitchen having gained with the dark and joined the moonlight to show his crossed legs, the lap of his belly within the clean shirt; as well as her skirts spread with the dark shanks of her calves and her feet pressed against the porch rail, her knees up, arms resting upon the arms of her chair as she rocked gently, steady on the tipped-back chair. The lights of coal oil and moon struck opposing sides of her face, making a luminescent glow, her steady-ahead gaze sharpening her profile against the night, her forehead near-hidden by her hair, her nose, the dark flare of her nostrils, the open purse of her lips, jut of chin. He could hear her breathing, knew she was waiting for him to speak more.
He delivered himself simply. “Also, I’d not be happy to see you return to that stark room above Malin’s.”
“If I may?”
“Yes.”
But she did not speak. From the orchard came a last movement as the final hidden cow settled herself. There came also the delicate scent of cut onion and he was distracted, wondering if wild onions were growing in the pasture, tainting the milk and butter with that hot scent, thinking come morning he’d need to walk out and see what he could find. Then Becca spoke, a small voice in the still night, “You were content with that arrangement for years. Why be unhappy with it now?”
Just like that he said, “Why Becca Davis, surprised you should ask. I’ve gotten easy having you around. You fill my house, in a way I never expected to have it filled.”
Her response was to stop rocking back and forth and drop her feet from the rail and then rise and walk down the porch to the end, where she stood looking out toward the barn and the night sky now salted with stars, her back to him, the solidity of her in the porous warm night almost a surprise. He uncrossed his legs and eased straight upright in his chair, smoked and waited.
She turned and walked back halfway, just enough so he could make out her face.
She drew herself up, almost lifting on tiptoe, and said, “That’s all right. I done it before, I done it for years. It’s not such a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing at all. And, and these weeks here ’round the clock, well, I learned better how things work. That would help me do even a better job, coming and going. Don’t you fret about me. Just now we best be putting our hopes toward Harlan and whatever he’s up to. And having that all work for the best.”
He sat silent a pause. He’d forgotten the strength of women. And in that reckoning he’d also forgotten his own strength and the idea came and bloomed in his mind. He smoked and sat watching now back out over the night, the dark misshapen clumps of the apple and cherry trees, each one known to him clear as if by daylight or of a full winter moon off snow. He looked back to her and saw what he guessed she could not know he might; her face torn and awkward as if her mouth was skewed sideways with the effort of her words.
“Becca,” he said. “Come sit. I have a thought.” When she did not move he leaned and patted the rush seat of her chair and again looked away. This time to give her the moment to compose herself, to take the step forward. Meanwhile the idea gained upon him. He was smoking with great energy, jets of smoke and the red end of the cheroot grown long and pointed, a hot tip arcing as he jabbed it toward the night darkness. She stepped and settled in the chair.
“Sometimes,” he said, “I fail to comprehend the range of my own convictions. I suppose that’s a good thing, as it means the world may surprise me over and again. And also that my own mind, my faith and heart, reveal themselves at a pace undetermined by myself but by a greater force. Which is a grand thing.” He flicked the stub of cheroot into the grass where the dew was already down to make a sizzle as it landed.
She said, “I’m not understanding you.”
“I strive for clarity.” He paused, considered again the moon and dropped his gaze to her half-lit face, now leaning toward him slightly, lips just parted. He said, “Be patient, Becca. It’s a fraught time for us all but more so than needs be. Now then. We have no idea of the outcome of events for Mister Hopeton. All these rumors don’t make a conclusion. This effort put forth by Enoch Stone and, I presume, also for his own reasons by Judge Gordon, may well come to naught. That web appears cleverly strung but the thing about webs, is even the best constructed creation may be destroyed by some clumsy beast wandering through. Such a person, hardly conceivable to the spider. Do you see my meaning?”
“That Malcolm Hopeton might still hang for his crimes and Harlan will have no choice but to return here?”
“I doubt he’d hang, even if their scheme falls apart. And that is not my point, not what I wish to address. Becca Davis, should circumstances fall in Malcolm Hopeton’s favor and Harlan return to assist that tortured soul, as he would, there’s no reason for you to return to Malin’s, to that daily tramp back and forth that we’ve learned deprived both of us so greatly. There’s no reason for you to do a thing but remain here. As you are now.”
She twisted her hands in her lap, twisting them as she worried a corner of her lower lip with her teeth, and finally said, “You’re saying the two of us? Without Harlan? Alone together under your roof ?”
“I am.”
She lifted her feet to the bottom rung and smoothed her skirts over her knees. Her ankles and bare feet showing. She looked down at her twisting hands and said, “But August. What would people say? What might they think?”
He nodded and said, “For those that matter, those that know us, nothing at all. For those
inclined to titter and cast idle rumors, why I’d guess they’ve worn themselves out of that habit by the years we already spent together. The two of us stand together, unimpeachable in the eyes of all that know us. The true wonder is that it took your brother being brought to us in his hour of need, to understand the essential truth. Years ago I should’ve stepped up and put a stop to your tramping back and forth to Malin’s. Your duties here should fairly include hearth and home, a bed and a roof. And the pleasure such leisure time would allow, the greater ease with which you’d undertake the job of work, that while I may rarely voice it, I fully understand to be a heavy yoke upon your shoulders. Put simply: Why should you trudge an hour both ends of the day for no good purpose?”
Her voice low but heated, she replied. “In the years I was at Malin’s you were never there when I went to the market or those times you carried me to town with my list and set me free to obtain the goods we needed. Or not even, most of the time, when peddlers or the meat wagon come by and it was me out in the yard to dicker with those men. Men, all of em, wherever. Not to mention whoever was gandering about while I done my trades and heard the sly comments or the eyes of em running over me, all asking ever so polite how you was. You were not there for any of that. And I never said the first word to you about em. Any of it. For what purpose? You say it so easy and clear but you don’t know what you’re asking of me. And how could you?”