The Reservoir

  Willie has not been there five minutes before he feels a tap on his back. He turns and sees Madison, standing there folding his arms across his chest. He appears not to have shaved for a week, his fringe of hair sprocketed at odd angles and his small beady eyes bloodshot. Despite his appearance he manages to fix upon Willie a look of complete concentration, his head back and low as though ready for a fight.

  “I was very sorry to hear about your daughter,” Willie says, offering his hand.

  Madison glances at the hand as if assessing its value. His thick lips spread into the suggestion of a smile. “You’re late,” he says. “You ready to discuss business?”

  “You have something you want to sell me, Mr. Madison?”

  The bartender comes in from the kitchen building and puts Willie’s stew down. “Thank you,” Willie says, turning his back on Madison. “Mr. Franklin, you’re the second main reason I stop here.” He takes a spoonful and blows on it. “And this is the first.” He swallows the stew, then turns back to Madison.

  “Matter of fact, I do,” Madison says. Willie waits, then returns his attention to his bowl. “Come on out to the Tayloe place and we’ll discuss it,” Madison goes on. “Me and the boys are going up there for a hen-pullin’. Not far down the road.”

  “I know where it is,” Willie says. “I know Mr. Tayloe quite well. I’ve done work for him.”

  “Then I’ll see you there. Or at my place. Suit yourself.” He goes back to his table, and Willie finishes and leaves without ever casting another glance Madison’s way. He is going past the Tayloe place anyway, to trade a hatchet for a bucksaw with a man who mangled an arm in a railcar coupling and has no further use for a two-handed saw. The fact that Madison can’t trouble himself to cross the river to issue a threat does not mean that he is going to forget about it. Willie knows men of Madison’s stripe, old men who have room in their minds for only one or two things, usually money and how to get it. A debt such a man felt he was owed would weigh on him like the thought of meeting Jesus.

  Willie decides it might be best to settle the matter now. He has become at twenty-four a man of few words, simple tastes, and unswerving reliability. If he says he’ll deliver a cart of hardwood timber at ten o’clock, he will not be there at ten-fifteen with three-quarters of a load of pine, though the delivery point is three hours distant, the roads muddy, and his partner sick; that is how he stays in business and how he tries to conduct his life.

  Willie turns up the narrow wooded lane that leads to the clearing where Madison and his friends are gathered. He is surprised that Tayloe allows any such foolishness on his property, but likely one of the men has some business relationship which confers hunting and other privileges—that, or Tayloe simply doesn’t know. When Willie gets there two men on horseback are stringing a taut line as high as they can reach between two trees. Madison acknowledges Willie with a curt nod, then rides to the middle of the line carrying a burlap sack. He reaches in and pulls out a plump chicken that flaps its wings so hard Madison nearly drops it. From a pocket, Madison produces a piece of string, with which he binds the chicken’s feet together. He then ties the feet to the overhead line.

  The men now arrange themselves some thirty paces behind the line. As the first man rides forward, Madison finally turns to Willie. “A goose works best,” he says, “but they’re expensive. With cats you have to be careful of the claws, and it’s more trouble than it’s worth since you can’t eat ’em.” The man canters past the hanging fowl, reaching for it but only grazing a wing; the hen nonetheless lets loose a terrific squawk.

  “Get in line behind me,” Madison tells Willie. “And have you a turn.” Willie says he’ll wait, then watches as the second rider grasps the hen’s head and gives it a short yank. The bird is still much alive as Madison, fourth in line, digs his heels into his barrel-bellied roan and trots forward. Gaining speed, he rises from his saddle, gives the neck a little twist, and watches over his shoulder as the hen circles the line like an acrobat. He rides back to the others, smiling as if he’d just performed at Mozart Hall.

  The men go through again, the bird with its neck stretched yet still able to move a wing. The idea, Willie realizes, is not to kill the bird, which is dead by the end of the second round. “Watch this,” Madison says, grinning with tobacco-stained teeth at Willie. He rides forward as fast as he can, reaches up with a practiced hand and snaps the bird’s head off. The carcass bounces up and down, spewing blood, and the men cheer. One of them goes and cuts the hen down and gives it to Madison, who then pops it back into the burlap sack with a satisfied look on his face. “Thank you, gentlemen,” he says, shaking hands. He excuses himself to tend to some business.

  Willie rides with him a short way back down the lane. Madison reaches into the sack and pulls the chicken out and examines it. Blood is still leaking from the neck, smearing the tawny breast. “Nice clean job,” he says. “I don’t need this. I just come for the sport. You can have it.”

  Willie shakes his head. “What was it you wanted to discuss, Mr. Madison?”

  Still looking at his prize, Madison says, “I reckon two hundred would do me fine.”

  “Two hundred what?”

  “Dollars.”

  “Two hundred dollars for what?”

  “For keeping my mouth shut.”

  “Keeping your mouth shut about what?”

  “About your brother. I know he was with my daughter at such and such a time. I can prove it. But I don’t have to say anything atall. That’s up to you.”

  “What do you mean exactly?”

  “I mean,” says Madison, fixing Willie with his squinting black eyes, “I can either say your brother studded my daughter, or I can hold my tongue. I cain’t do both.”

  Willie’s horse is impatient to get moving. Willie has to lean over and try to gentle it with quiet words. He sits back up, and in nearly the same quiet, firm tone says, “First of all, Mr. Madison, there’s unlikely to be a trial. And even if there is, there’s no guarantee you’ll be called. And even if you’re called, I don’t think you can prove something that isn’t true.”

  “I know for a fact it is. You probably do too.”

  Willie has to wait a minute so that he will not speak in anger. He thinks of his aunt’s little prayer, Forgive me, Lord. It’s suddenly so quiet he can hear pine needles ticking softly to the ground. “The final thing I have to say to you, Mr. Madison, is that Lillie must be turning in her grave. She wouldn’t hardly speak two words to you, and now I see why.”

  At this, Madison’s face bunches into a purple mask. Then it reassumes its normal, grasping expression, the small veiny eyes working out the solution to a difficult but not insurmountable problem. He touches a nine-inch hunting knife sheathed at his belt, then lets his hand dangle. “You think you’re too good for a free chicken, boy?”

  “Good day, Mr. Madison,” Willie says, turning his horse and starting it into a walk. He listens carefully behind him.

  “I know everything about you and your brother,” Madison shouts. “You’re both sacks of shit, and you’re gonna pay.”

  • CHAPTER TWELVE •

  FOR THE FIRST three months that Lillie was away Tommie was able to avoid seeing her. Although he had business that took him to King William town, not far from the house of his uncle John Walker (Lillie’s grandfather), he stopped overnight in Manquin with an aging aunt. After he passed the bar examination, Mr. Evans had him represent a poor farmer against a private lender; he lost the case and told Mr. Evans he should stay closer to home. Mr. Evans told him not to be hard on himself overmuch. So back across the river he went, every two or three weeks.

  Aunt Esther had a habit of asking Tommie to do unpleasant chores that hardly needed doing. It was more that she felt something was owed her for letting him stay with her and since she refused to accept money she took her payment in the form of pointless tasks. He didn’t mind replacing a bad hinge or toting in enough wood for the week or painting the barn door, though she did have a ma
n for such jobs. And her boarder, a Mrs. Eulalia Bogg, was ever, within Tommie’s hearing, complaining about his appearance—“His eyes are like a bird’s eyes”—and his manner—“He doesn’t ask after my health,” “He’s too polite, I don’t know if I can trust him.”

  Tommie decided the next time to stop with his uncle. He lived in what remained of a house that had been burned during the war. His servant, Sam, had been the property of Lillie’s father, but after the war had decided to come work for her grandfather. Sam, gone gray and rheumatic, greeted him at the door and took him back to the dim little sitting room. Uncle John was sitting on an old sofa that leaked horsehair; he tried to get to his feet with two canes, but Tommie insisted he remain sitting. He asked Tommie to repeat himself and put a little trumpet up to his ear. Then he took a pinch of snuff from a leather thumbstall around his neck—it had once protected his thumb from cannon vents, but nothing had protected his ears.

  In his most stentorian voice, Tommie asked him about the price of white corn and what his thoughts were on the Chinese immigrants. Uncle John was more interested in a train that had derailed in Albemarle with a man who was on his way to be tried for murder. “Killed the prisoner. Trial by ordeal is what they used to call it. But turns out they had the wrong man. You’re a lawyer. What do you make of it?”

  “Clear case of mistrial by ordeal, Uncle John,” Tommie said. He had to repeat it, and then the old man laughed and spat into a pewter cup.

  Presently Tommie’s cousin George came in, wiping his hands on his overalls. He was thin yet potbellied, and had a shaggy beard like his father. He greeted Tommie impassively and Tommie wondered if he were not taking a proprietary interest in Lillie. But George had always been quiet and somewhat backward. He stood, clutching one elbow behind his back, while Tommie filled him in on the news from Little Plymouth.

  It was not until they sat down to supper that Lillie appeared. Her hair was gathered into a tight braid down her back, and she wore an apron with a floral motif along the border. She seemed more thoughtful and mature since Tommie had last seen her, more settled in her mind. Her waist was as tiny as ever, though her face seemed more angular and he noticed faint lines around her mouth when she smiled.

  She was the lady of the house, treating him like an honored guest and old friend, making sure he had what he needed, ordering Sam to refill the beer and water glasses while she served and passed the food. Nola could not have done better, Tommie thought, but it was as though Lillie were playing a part. She said very little during the meal, and afterward she disappeared outside. Tommie finally excused himself and went out to the kitchen house to find her.

  She was washing dishes, up to her elbows in a steel basin of soapy water. She smiled and said that she had missed him. “You could write,” she said.

  “I did,” he said.

  “One letter. After I wrote dozens.”

  “They weren’t to me personally. They were to all of us.”

  “I didn’t know if you wanted a personal letter.”

  “I expect you have plenty of young men to write to. You don’t need another.”

  “They’re just boys from camp meetings and Sunday school. They don’t mean anything to me.”

  “You know Willie is still moping around. He can’t understand why you came up here, and I’m not going to tell him.”

  “It’s your fault. You kissed me. And you meant it.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. It wasn’t the proper thing to do.”

  “Don’t talk to me like a child, Tommie,” she said. “You’re not like that, always doing the proper thing. You pretend to be proper, with your suits and your fancy talk, but I know better. I know you, Tommie.”

  “What do you know?” he said. The mocking call of a whip-poor-will ricocheted through the evening air.

  She pulled her hands out of the water and dried them on her apron and brushed a lock of hair from her face. “I know you’re in love with me, and you don’t want to be.”

  “I am not,” he told her firmly. It disturbed him that she would stand there like a little kitchen maid and tell him how he felt, but even more upsetting was how accurate she was. He didn’t like her having any such claim or power over him. He gripped her firmly by the arms, his muscles tensing so that she shook in his grip. She looked up at him with fierce brown eyes.

  He went out and hurried down the yard past the coops to a meadow, and leaned against the shaggy bark of a hickory tree, silently cursing himself. The sky was darkening to indigo. She came down and stood beside him, pressing against him for warmth. “Why did you come here?” she asked.

  “I wanted to see you,” he said.

  “I sinned with your brother,” she said. She said it again, and he slapped her face. She slapped him back so hard he nearly fell down. Then he wrapped his arms around her so tightly he thought he might squeeze the life out of her. She lifted her face to his, and her rose perfume and the softness of her lips made him drunk with desire. He clung to her and kissed her hard on the mouth. At first he didn’t feel the rat snake slithering over his shoes. When he looked down its tail was moving away in the grass. He held Lillie tighter, feeling as though he couldn’t breathe unless his mouth was on hers.

  “I’m not a pure and spotless girl, Tommie,” she said. “But there’s nothing I can do about it now. That’s all I’ll say.”

  The chickens and ducks were making nervous complaints, and Lillie started off to get George. “I’ll do it,” Tommie said. “Just get me a shovel.” When she came back, he took the shovel and struck the snake as it was nosing along the coop. Lillie bent to pick up the wriggling body, then walked down to the woods and flung it. When she came back she still had the rank oily smell on her hands, and he kissed them and felt something strange working inside him. The whip-poor-will called again as the light of day winked out.

  He tried not to think of her, of the gleam of her eyes when she was angry—that color, was it the color of burnt walnuts? of Heartquake Creek?—as he was drifting off to sleep with George snoring beside him. He’d decided he would try to get engaged to Nola again. Wasn’t that the best thing to do? Yet then he’d picture Lillie’s tiny waist and the way she went up on tiptoe to kiss him that time. It began to seem inevitable to him that they would become lovers in some way, a way that he could not clearly see—he only knew that he wanted her with every cell of his body. God, how she possessed him. He almost hated her for it. Why was God’s plan so murky when it came to women? He would lie awake at night trying to puzzle it out. He tried to think about Maddalena instead, and her warm, bare skin, her hips, so much more ample and solid than Lillie’s. He had a good ear for voices and music, and sometimes he would try to hear Lillie’s voice and be relieved when he could not. But other times, for no reason, her voice would sound in his mind: “I do like you, Tommie.” And he could hear her bright laughter, like rain on the water.

  He had to get up with bowel trouble in the middle of the night and go outside, and he looked up toward her window wondering if she were still awake. In the morning he left before she was up, and he didn’t come back for another two months. He kept giving Mr. Evans excuses why he should not cross the river to King William, until he worried Mr. Evans might think him lazy and lacking in ambition. It was January when he went back. He could have stayed with his aunt, but he elected to stop at Uncle John’s.

  He and Lillie took a blanket out to the meadow and spread it on the frosty ground. “Deer lie here,” she told him. There was a nearly full moon in the early evening, and doves were still making plaintive coos.

  In the spring he visited many times, often bringing little gifts for Lillie—lipstick in a paper tube, perfume from Richmond, a jar of persimmon preserves. She always had something for him as well—a bouquet of wildflowers, a tin of biscuits, or some other homemade treat. Once he brought her a curious little skull. “Randall Croxton gave it to me,” he told her. “He said it was a colored baby, from the anatomy laboratory. He called it a memento mori—to remind you of mort
ality.”

  She held it at a distance, turning it in her hands. “Thank you, Tommie,” she said, “but you keep it. It gives me the shivers. I don’t want to be reminded of mortality.”

  Tommie took it back. “He said people used to keep a skull to remember how short life is and that you should eat, drink, and be merry. But I don’t think I like it either, if you don’t.” He pulled back and threw it off into the woods.

  “Tommie, no.”

  “It’s too late.”

  “You oughten to’ve. I don’t think that’s right somehow.” They went down to the woods looking for it, and after a few minutes Tommie suggested they go for a walk. But Lillie was determined to find the little skull and they kept looking and looking. “It’ll turn up,” he said, “and if not, it won’t be missed by anybody.”

  “Don’t, Tommie,” she said, a hand on his arm. “Be respectful of the dead. Especially of a dead child.”

  “I don’t believe in haints, but I’ll be respectful for your sake.”

  They kept looking for a while, Lillie not wanting to quit. But they gave up when it was too dark to see.

  In the evenings after supper Tommie would tell his uncle he was going out walking, then circle around to the meadow where she would be waiting on the blanket. Their amorous sessions were short and filled with passionate kisses and caresses. He was too polite to try to press for more. Then one night he said, “Why won’t you do what you did with my brother?”

  “You never asked me,” she said.

  “Will you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But why?”

  “Do you think it’s a sin, what we do?”