Beneath the Apple Leaves

by Harmony Verna

  At the table, young Will wrapped one hand around his fist and cracked his knuckles. The noise brought her shoulders to her jaws. He switched hands and cracked the other.

  “Will!” Eveline’s shout jumped everyone at the table. “How many times have I told you to stop cracking those fingers?” she scolded.

  Will folded his arms and tucked his hands away sullenly, embarrassed by the direction and strength of her wrath.

  “Leave him be, Eve,” Wilhelm ordered. “Boy didn’t do anything wrong. Christ, you’re testy today.”

  Eveline beat a mash of potato and egg in her hand and tossed it in the hot oil. The burning grease jumped and bit her arm. She pinched her lips while the heat extinguished. Leave him be! he says. Not listen to your mother. No, simply leave him be! Testy today.

  She poked at the spluttering cakes. She was testy, couldn’t help it. Everything about Wilhelm bothered her: his voice, his gait, the way a few hairs sprung from his ears. She’d been testy since she woke. Some dream or another interrupted by her husband’s snoring and she spent the last hour of night staring at the ceiling trying to remember what she had dreamed, what had made her want to smile in her pillow and sleep forever.

  “Aunt Eveline’s right,” offered Andrew to his young cousin. “Shouldn’t crack your knuckles. Makes a man’s hand ugly.”

  Eveline stirred the cakes slowly now, listened with both ears to his words.

  “Huh?” Will questioned.

  “Yep. Makes the joints all gnarled and sore when you get old.”

  “No, it don’t,” argued the boy.

  “Yes, it does.” Andrew got up from the table and went to the counter for the applesauce, poked his aunt playfully. “Knew a man back in the mines who cracked his knuckles since he was a kid. His hands ended up looking like bear claws.” He stretched out his hand like a grizzly to demonstrate. “Even when he dropped his shovel at the end of the day, his hands were so twisted it looked like he was still holding the handle.”

  “Just from cracking his knuckles?”

  “Yep.” Andrew dropped a spoonful of sauce on Will’s plate, watched as the boy inspected his fingers under the table, stretching them out and then balling them into a fist, analyzing whether there could be truth in the statement.

  Eveline brought the plate of potato pancakes to the table, served Andrew before Wilhelm. She smiled at the young man. He was good through and through. There weren’t many men built like Andrew, strong in form and sensitive in heart.

  “Where’s the meat?” Wilhelm asked.

  “Didn’t make any.”

  “Why not?”

  She held the plate in one hand and put the other at her hip. “Because I didn’t feel like making any, that’s why.”

  Wilhelm rolled his eyes. “Must be that woman time,” he murmured.

  Eveline took the empty plate to the sink. No, she thought, Wilhelm would never be one of those men, rare as they were. Andrew was one. Frank was one, too. A clear image and thrust of feeling entered. And suddenly she remembered what and whom her dream had been about. She blushed to her hairline, caught sight of Wilhelm forlorn and eating his bland cakes, and she shook with guilt. She brought out the sliced ham and started cooking the side me at.

  * * *

  Once Lily arrived, Eveline headed down the creaking steps to the fruit cellar with the lantern hanging from her fist, only inches from her face. At the bottom, she put the other two lanterns she had carried on the earthen ground, lit one and then the other, the three forming a triangle of light with her in the center. The cobwebs hung thick with dust blanketing every corner and hung in strings across every shelf. The temperature was temperate, not too cold, heavy to the nose with the mustiness of dust and dead rodents. The space did little to lighten her mood. For a moment, the task appeared too much to tackle and she just stood within the light unable to decide where to start.

  Lily followed down the steps, her boots echoing dull and hollow against the stone walls. “Biggest fruit cellar I ever saw!” she exclaimed. “Hasn’t been touched in forever, I think.”

  A line of jars, some cracked, some with indistinguishable green or yellow blobs, crowded two of the shelves, the metal tops swollen and humped.

  “Food’s no good.” Lily, oblivious to the cobwebs, inspected some of the glass containers. “Would poison a goat. Not a good one in the lot.” She brushed another cobweb out of the way and wiped the sticky webbing across her skirt. She pulled out some empty jars from the back. “These ones are good, Mrs. Kiser. Come see. Not a crack in them.”

  Eveline inspected and, sure enough, they were solid and would be good for pickling after a hot soak and cleaning.

  “I’ll run up and get some boxes so we can sort,” said Lily. Her eyes sparkled with the project and Eveline smiled, the enthusiasm contagious. She liked the girl very much, reminded her of herself when she was young. Though the young woman held something behind the eyes, a haunting to every smile.

  When Lily returned, the women worked sweeping and wiping down the shelves. The old cloths blackened with dead flies and dust with every swipe. Eveline stopped for a moment and watched Lily work. She was small boned and tiny but not weak. And her face so soft and pretty, it could have belonged to an angel. “You’re a hard worker, Miss Morton.”

  “Been working my whole life, Mrs. Kiser. Cleaning up cobwebs as long as I can remember.” Her voice dropped then and fell away. She turned to Eveline and looked about to say more but stopped.

  “What is it?”

  “Just wondering why you moved out this way. Seems like you had a nice life in Pittsburgh. Frank’s been there a lot. Says where you lived was beautiful.”

  Eveline remembered their brick house. The comforts, the warmth in winter from the fireplaces that made January no different from summer. She remembered the cook and the cleaner who came every day at noon. She remembered the proximity to town and the women who would come for tea. The memories brought a weariness to her chore, for she remembered Wilhelm’s face during that time, the pride that nearly blasted out of his skin, the way children and men stared in reverence as if he were a star from vaudeville. And she compared that image to the face she knew now and her chest hurt with the contrast.

  “I guess it’s in my blood,” Eveline shared. “Working and living on the land, I mean. Wanted my boys to grow up out of the city, where the air was clean. Learn to work and respect the land.”

  Eveline stood up quickly and took the broom to the corner, a sudden urge to move the demons out. Lily took the cue that the subject was dropped and took her broom handle to the ceiling and twirled the cobwebs like cotton candy.

  Eveline dry brushed the dirt floor, pulling piles of dried wasps, leaves and other disintegrating objects from the corners. Abruptly, Lily dropped her broom, stared at Eveline as if she had seen a phantom.

  “What is it?” Eveline asked.

  Lily slowly bent down for the broom, her sight holding tight to Eveline’s shoulder. She moved slowly toward her and whispered, “Don’t move.” With a blurred motion, she knocked something large and black from the woman’s shoulder.

  Eveline saw the stunned glossy black spider by her shoe, the red hourglass on its back, and jammed her boot heel into the spider. The long limbs rose and twitched until she ground it immobile.

  Eveline held her heart, the pounding thumping in her ears. The room darkened and their eyes drifted to the one window flush with the outside ground. The leaves piled thick and deep and the natural light strained to enter. She looked back at the dead, smashed spider, stepped back with disgust and horror. But it was not proximity to a creature so noxious that made her whimper; it was the one fact she knew about the black widow—the females mate with the males and then eat them alive.

  And Eveline Kiser shivered to the core.

  CHAPTER 28

  The air bulked with the scent of the turning season. Nearly overnight, the remnants of a dying summer’s breath expired, leaving in its wake the crisp chill of autumn. The vibrant
hues of dying leaves darkened and browned, and the leaves fell from gray limbs and gathered in mounds that crackled beneath boots. On days of sun, the sky held an iron light, bright without warmth; and on days of clouds, the air rubbed like steel wool against the chin and cheeks.

  Through the night, the rains lashed against the old farmhouse, revealing the roof spots that still needed repair. Metal pots and kettles dotted the floor of the room where the water dripped from the heavens, worming through the shingles, and splashed upon the dishes. The endless dripping continued to morning even after the sun replaced the rain.

  Wilhelm sent Will and Edgar to the chicken coop to collect eggs and clean out the feed basins. Come spring the boys would be in charge of raising all the new chicks, and so they got to work cleaning out the highest shelves where the heat could rise and warm the hatchlings. And the boys didn’t complain, happy to spend the day in the warm confines of the coop until Fritz could come over to play.

  In the barn, Andrew screwed nails shallowly into the wood planks and then hammered the heads firmly to hang the chains and harnesses. Outside, Wilhelm fiddled with the crank of the car. “Ford’s not working,” he accused, hollering into the barn.

  Andrew put down his hammer and peeked in the right side of the raised hood. “What’s the problem?”

  “How the hell should I know,” Wilhelm cursed. “I look like a damn mechanic?”

  Andrew ignored the tone. “I could ask Frank to take a look at it.”

  The man grunted. “I’ll figure it out.” Wilhelm slammed the hood closed. “Help me get this wagon mended.”

  The old wagon had been left by Mr. Anderson, the iron bolts and center spoke rings caked with rust. Andrew sanded down the gritty red steel, squirted oil on all the moving parts. They tested it with the horse. Wilhelm held up the shafts while Andrew backed in the horse and buckled the holdbacks. When they were satisfied, the men unhooked the horse and backed her off. Then one of the axles heaved and the front of the wagon landed against Wilhelm’s thigh and pinned him, sending him shouting in pain. Andrew did his best to shimmy his shoulder under the wood and lift so his uncle could crawl out. The man’s pants were torn and a large red gash swelled his thigh.

  Wilhelm limped in a circle, stopped and fiercely kicked the wagon with his boot. He pointed at Andrew. “Told you not to leave the car outside! Now the whole goddamn engine’s waterlogged.”

  “I didn’t leave the car outside,” Andrew said flatly.

  “The hell you didn’t! I told you we were getting rain. Stood right here and told you to put the damn car away!”

  Andrew waited inertly in the cold barn and faced his uncle, the air coming from Wilhelm’s nostrils white. “I put the car away,” Andrew insisted, his voice clear. “You moved it back out when you fixed the cobbler bench.”

  Wilhelm had opened his mouth to retort when the words settled and took effect. He kicked the wagon again with a dull thud and this time he motioned to the house. “I want those damn pigs off the porch. You hear me?”

  Andrew nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Sick and tired of tripping over them, hearing them squealing all hours.” He rubbed his cut leg and grimaced. “It’s a house, not a goddamn pigpen.”

  Andrew let his uncle vent. Having never heard him so upset made Andrew watch the man carefully—a ball of twine unraveling.

  Wilhelm’s face steadily contorted in anger, his teeth bared. “Got to do all the damn work around this place myself.” He made a gesture at Andrew’s missing arm and spit into the ground. “But nobody pitying me, are they? Nobody expects anything outta you. Nobody’s going to expect the cripple to turn this piece of shit property into something, but they expect it of me, don’t they?”

  Andrew’s insides turned. The reproach burned hot in his cheeks. He walked past his uncle to the wide doors.

  Wilhelm suddenly turned mournful, clutched his hair with two hands. “I didn’t mean that.” He rubbed his eyes hard as if he’d been asleep. “I’m sorry, Andrew. I didn’t mean a word of that.”

  But Andrew forged ahead, went to the house to move the pigs.

  * * *

  Pieter Mueller placed a pitchfork in the pigs’ slop trough and mixed the old potatoes, apples and parsnips Andrew dumped in. “I can’t believe you saved those hogs,” Pieter confessed. “Thought they were goners.”

  Andrew scooped the pig waste with the shovel, tossed each scoop into the manure pile behind the sty. The sting from his uncle’s insult still fresh and biting.

  “Quadrupled your stock, just like that,” Pieter continued in disbelief. “Word gets around, you’ll be called to every farm in a hundred miles.”

  Andrew stabbed his shovel into the ground and twisted his jaw. “You done?”

  Pieter balked. “Excuse me?”

  “Trying to pump me up.” Andrew pried the shovel back up and stepped forward in challenge. “Don’t stroke me, Pieter,” he warned. “I don’t need your pity.”

  Pieter scratched his head. “Pity?” he faulted in disgust. “You hit yourself in the head with that shovel?”

  Andrew glared at his neighbor. “Just drop it.”

  “Sure,” Pieter agreed, but the man stiffened, his features hard and instigating. He filled one of the pails from the water pump and stepped past Andrew, bumping him roughly and splashing his pants with frigid water. “Sorry about that,” he said curtly.

  Andrew grimaced at his sopping pants. “Watch it!”

  Pouring the water into the pigs’ pool, Pieter gave a quick look to his friend. “So, you give any more thought to joining the team?” he asked lazily. “Pitcher just enlisted. Players dropping like flies.”

  “No.” A hog plowed to the trough to eat, nearly knocking Andrew from his feet, the mud wet and thick from the overnight rain. “Christ, these pigs.” He turned back to the question. “Got too much to do here.”

  Pieter chuckled, began whistling as he checked the ears of one of his former runts.

  “What’s so funny?” The smell of the hogs stuck to Andrew’s skin and he couldn’t wait to get in a hot tub and scrub off.

  “You’re a sissy,” Pieter announced loudly. “Anyone ever tell you that?”

  Andrew stepped forward, the muscles in his stomach contracting under his shirt. “What did you say?”

  “Said you’re a sissy.” Pieter stepped forward in equal stride.

  The space between the men simmered. The hogs grunted, moved together in one lump to the other side of the pen. “Better watch your mouth, Pieter.”

  The German spit to the ground, the saliva splashing a spot near Andrew’s mud-soaked boot. “Make me, Dutch boy.”

  Andrew tossed the shovel, put his face square in front of Pieter’s. “Get off my property.”

  “Your property?” The young man laughed at this before his lip curled. “Don’t give yourself so much credit, Houghton.”

  Pieter challenged him nose to nose, pushed him hard in the shoulder.

  “So help me.” Andrew readied a fist. “I don’t want to hit you, Pieter.”

  “Hit me?” Pieter threw his head back and laughed. “My little sister could hit harder than you.”

  Andrew’s bones grew rigid with restraint. Pieter Mueller poked him hard in the chest. “Your property? Face it. You’re just a hand-me-down, Houghton. Nothing but a crippled son of a poor coal miner.”

  Andrew’s fist smashed into the side of Pieter’s face, knocked him stumbling into the mud. Pieter shimmied up, charged at him, ramming him in the chest with his shoulder and sending them both upon the filthy ground. The two men rolled and punched, their fists slipping futilely against their slippery, grimy skin.

  Edgar and Will ran to the fence, stared at the battling men, climbed upon the rail for a better view. “Get him, Andrew!” yelled Edgar joyfully. Inspired by the fight and not wanting it to end, Will hollered over his brother, “Get him, Pieter!”

  Andrew’s and Pieter’s muscles sagged and rebelled even as their balled hands still fought to connect wi
th a rib or a jaw or a nose. Beneath his muck-plastered face, Pieter began to howl, laughed so hard that he let go of Andrew’s shirt and held his sides.

  Andrew spit the filth from his mouth, shook his head, his friend’s jabs finally clear with original intent. Pieter rolled over and pulled himself up, extended a hand.

  Andrew squinted at the sun above Pieter Mueller’s head. “You’re a son of a bitch, you know that?” He grinned and grabbed the hand, his bottom sucking against the fluid ground.

  Pieter blindly patted his friend on the arm and calmed his hysterics. “Finally done feeling sorry for yourself?”

  Andrew rotated his shoulder, sore after the thrust of useless punches. Every inch of his clothing caked and tightened stiff with drying sludge. “Yeah, I’m done.”

  Pieter threw a muddy arm around Andrew’s neck. “You’ll join the team then, you big sissy?”

  “Yeah,” he surrendered. Even covered in muck, he felt cleaner and lighter. “I’ll be there.”

  Pieter gave a hearty wave to Edgar and Will before bowing gracefully before the crowd. “Enjoy the show, boys?”

  They clapped and hooted while Pieter rubbed his bruised jaw, shifted the bone left and right to make sure it wasn’t broken. “I’ll tell you what,” he said to Andrew. “You pitch anything like you hit and we might win a game yet.”

  CHAPTER 29

  At breakfast, Andrew handed the letter to Wilhelm. “Could you mail this when you go to Pittsburgh today? Get there faster coming from the city.” He had written his mother. The letter bland, a quick outline of life on the farm. He made no mention of his missing arm or the accident. If he didn’t acknowledge it, maybe she would forget.

  “You can mail it yourself,” Wilhelm said. He drank his coffee black, finishing in nearly one gulp, and pushed the empty mug onto the table. “I’m taking you to Pittsburgh with me.”

  Andrew stopped mid-chew. “Me?”

  “Yeah, you.” Wilhelm grinned affably and Andrew had to look over his shoulder to see if he were talking to someone else in the room. “Finish up and we’ll head out. Take us most of the day as it is.”