The Land Breakers

by John Ehle

  Belle arrived soon after that. She said Grover had gone to inform the Germans and the Plovers, and that she herself had called the news to Mildred and Amos across the river. She went into the cabin and shut the door firmly.

  Soon Grover rode up, only a little while ahead of the cross-river people, who came trooping in, carrying guns and food, the children strung out along the valley road. “Is it borned yet?” Frank asked as he stalked up through the field.

  “Well, look a here,” Amos said, impressed by the work that had gone into Mooney’s clearing. “You have a prosperous place started here.”

  Mooney, murmuring, walked over to one side and looked at the cabin door.

  Charley Turpin tied his horse. “Lord, looks like everybody’s here,” he said. “Where’s the women—inside the house?” He walked about, limbering up. “Is the baby going to live?”

  “Lord knows,” Harrison said.

  “If it lives, it will be a good sign for Mooney Wright, won’t it?” Charley said.

  Harrison, frowning, glanced at Mooney. “And a bad sign for Lacey.”

  The Plovers arrived with their brood, and Inez went at once into the cabin.

  Charley Turpin went around saying hello to everybody. He even shook hands with the children. Then he walked across the clearing and set up several pieces of gum bark on tree limbs. “Anybody want to try his hand at shooting?” he asked.

  Amos answered at once that he did, and Ernest said he would, too. The three men made small wagers, then fired at the bark. “You want to try your hand at it, Mooney?” Charley Turpin called.

  “No,” Mooney said solemnly.

  Every time a man would hit a piece of bark, he would let out a whoop. Belle opened the cabin door and said to make less noise out there, but the men didn’t pay any attention to her. Tinkler Harrison walked up the hill and made a wager. He fired carefully and won his bet, for he splattered the piece of bark all over that part of the woods.

  The men went on shooting, but Harrison’s powder got low, so he came back to the cabin, for he was not one to borrow anything. “Is she about through?”

  “Nobody appears to know,” Mooney answered.

  “If it don’t live, most likely she’ll be going back to Lacey. You know that don’t you? It’ll be God’s will, clear and simple.”

  Charley took aim and fired at a chip of bark, and struck it dead center. He let out a cry. “Ain’t that something?”

  “It was the closest bark,” Amos said dryly.

  “That’s all right. I hit it. You too nervous to try, Mooney?” Charley said.

  The Germans arrived and Nicholas proved to be the best shot. This so irritated Charley Turpin that he suggested there be a change of sports to wrestling. Nicholas said he had never wrestled, but no excuse would do. There was a wrestling bout, which Charley won.

  Nicholas’ loss so irritated the young German, Felix, that he asked for a bout with Charley himself. Charley said he thought that was as funny as a story told by a woman, and he went to his horse and got some whiskey to wet his throat, to prepare, he said. He came back up the hill, calling for Felix to look to himself afore he got hurt. When he was close to Felix he suddenly spat whiskey in the boy’s face. Before Felix could get his sight, Charley got a grip on him and tried to throw him to the ground.

  The boy stayed on his feet. Charley jabbed his knee into Felix’s groin, but the boy would not go down. Charley bit the boy’s arm, but like a stout tree Felix stood there. “Damned Dutchman,” Charley said.

  Felix got a hold on him; his big arms closed around him. Charley’s eyes got bigger and bigger as he tried to keep from crying out. Felix lifted him. Whiskey and dirt were in his eyes, were matted there, but he could see well enough to lift Charley from the ground and hurl him down, then fall on him. Charley bit him, but Felix held him down until Charley said he was whipped. Then a cry went up from Nicholas, and laughter went around.

  Charley got up from the ground and walked about, angry and frustrated, claiming that Felix had cheated him. “I’ll race ye and beat ye at that,” he said, spitting dirt out of his mouth. “You big bastard, I’ll beat ye at that.”

  “Here’s ye the jug, boy,” Frank said. Felix tilted it to his mouth and drank until tears formed in his eyes. It was one of the few drinks of whiskey he had ever had.

  Fate had been amazed by the goings-on. How anyone could shoot and wrestle while a person was suffering was beyond him. He wished he didn’t even know them, much less have to stay in the same settlement with them; he was so annoyed he went down to the spring and stayed off to himself until his worry about his mother made him come back.

  He walked back to the cabin and was about to ask if there was news, when Mina stepped out of the cabin. The dog looked at her and growled, for the dog was confused beyond his own power to reason or to know friend from enemy. Mina let the door lean closed against the frame. “It certainly is taking a long time,” she said. She smiled wanly. “That old woman ain’t doing nothing except praying, talking in foreign tongues like a witch.”

  Mooney murmured a few words.

  “What you say?” Mina asked.

  “Damn her, I said.”

  “I say the same as you,” Mina said. “If I was to have a baby, I expect I’d do it alone afore I’d listen to her. We made Lorry lie down, and that old witch got to complaining, but she let us do it. I said nothing mean to her, and Florence didn’t neither, because you never know when you’ll need doctoring your ownself. Anybody might catch an earache or a back suffering, and it don’t do it to irritate her needlessly.”

  Fate didn’t want to listen to them talk any more, for they seemed to believe it could all be understood. He walked up to where the dog was, and after a while he was able to pat her head without her snarling at him. “You see how it is?” he said to her.

  He heard his grandfather talking to the other men, getting louder as he talked. “They sent for Connie once in Virginia to come help a woman bear, and it was a lightning storm that night, and she got on a horse and I mounted one, too, for I didn’t know but that her horse would bolt. The storm was close above us, and the thunder would crash in our ears. The horse I rode would squat down and shake and tremble, then carry me on for a ways, but her’n never faltered, and she never fell from it, neither, though sometimes the horse moved faster’n the word o’ God. She looked far off into the distance and sat it.”

  Jacob shook his head irritably. “It appears to be strange,” he said.

  “There are strangenesses to all we do in birthing.” Harrison nodded knowingly. “She considers what she’s about. Did you know that when a baby’s born, it’s best to hold it upward by its heels and shake it?”

  “No, never heard tell that,” Jacob said.

  “Keeps the liver from growing to its side,” Harrison said. “Did you know that when a baby won’t come to life in birth, if you get a man other’n its father to blow into its mouth, it’ll commence to squall and unblue?”

  Jacob seemed to be none too impressed. “Imagine that,” he said.

  “She’s got the knowledge,” Harrison said. Even as he praised her, however, it was evident that he was annoyed. “She’s so old, that’s all, so set in her ways, and she don’t know nothing in the world but doctoring.”

  “She burned a page of the Bible,” Fate said suddenly. Harrison and Jacob turned and stared at him. Each man considered him as if from a long way off, then Jacob moved away, and Harrison turned slowly and looked at the cabin, both men ignoring what he had said, sensing the seriousness of his charges, and the boy felt a pang of wonder and fear at their strangeness.

  All that day the men waited. They ate what food they could get and shared what they had, and some of them spent the afternoon throwing rocks and wrestling. Toward evening, Belle came to the cabin door and all the men looked down that way; they were tired now and ready for the baby to be born so that they could have their supper fixed. Belle stood in the open doorway for a moment, swaying there as if about to faint. S
he came on out and let the door shut.

  Harrison said, “What’s happening?”

  “She’s bearing yet.” She leaned limply against the cabin.

  “Is it turned wrong in her?”

  Belle covered her mouth, but she was sick beyond controlling herself; her stomach threw up what it could, and she began to weep, she was so ashamed of being sick before so many men.

  “Oh, for God sake,” Harrison said, embarrassed. “Well, at least cover it up. If you’re going to make a shame of yourself, at least throw dirt over it.”

  “Let me alone, will you?” she said. “I never saw the likes of a birth afore.”

  “Well, you would a saw it if you’d not been sterile of womb, for you’ve had enough seed put to you. To come to my old age childless by a young wife is disgrace enough without her throwing up what she’s eat all over the yard. Fate, get that covered up.” He turned away from her and stalked up to the cornfield and walked through the rows of corn, looking at the tassels, as if they mattered one whit to him.

  Mooney stood apart, staring at the cabin door, and Fate sat off by himself watching Mooney, the men and the cabin, uncertain of what he might do or when he might get a chance to do anything at all. It was twilight when the door was opened again. This time Mina came out. She stood in the doorway for a little pause, looking at Mooney; then she nodded to him. He came forward quickly, as if she had called him. Fate heard him say, “Is it borned?”

  “Yes,” she said, “it’s borned.”

  “Is it alive?”

  “It is,” she said.

  Relief swept over Mooney. He turned to the men, and as he turned, old man Harrison took off his hat, threw it to the ground and stomped it. “Well, I’ll be damned,” Fate heard him say. Charley Turpin’s grin widened. “Why I knowed it would come in due time.”

  “It’s borned,” Mooney said.

  “What kind is it?” Jacob called.

  “It’s a girl,” Mina said.

  “I never heard of a girl taking so long,” Charley said.

  “It’s borned,” Mooney said again, assuring himself and them that it was so.

  * * *

  Florence pushed the heavy door open and let the fresh air come into the room. Fate stayed outside, but Charley and Amos went in at once.

  Florence came outdoors and looked about at the failing light. “Don’t you want to see your sister?”

  Fate shook his head. He hadn’t any need for her, he said.

  “She got a head full of hair, but she’ll lose it afore long. They always lose it afore they get their own.”

  He nodded as if he knew all about that.

  The midwife came out, the shawl wadded up and held in her knotted hand. She was weary and upset. She stopped outside the door and looked spitefully at the house; then she went to her hitching place and mounted the horse. She sat there on the animal considering the day, and either with meaning or without, she spat toward the house.

  She looked down at Fate, and a grim smile came to her face. “Did you learn what it’s like?” she asked.

  “Damn you,” he said.

  “It pains, don’t it?” she said. “The sin pains getting out. A woman’s birthright.”

  As she turned her horse to leave, he sprinted around in front and began to talk, words bubbling out. “Damn you,” he said, “damn you, you don’t care,” he said. “You want it to pain, you witch! You’re a witch!”

  The horse reared; it jolted down and the woman almost fell off. Fate picked up a switch and beat at her, struck the horse with it. The horse again reared, and the woman shouted shrilly for Fate to stop. Fate charged the horse again, and the horse wheeled and started to run, the woman bouncing up and down on the saddle; Fate started after her, but somebody caught him and he flailed about helplessly to get free. The man held him and he saw that it was Jacob and he knew he could not get free from Jacob. He stopped fighting then and began to cry, and Jacob held him close and said, “Don’t worry none about it, don’t worry.”

  Fate didn’t go into the house until his eyes were dry. Then everybody made way for him. He saw his grandfather watching him and his grandfather nodded, as if saying it was all right to scare his horse, and Florence turned away, as if she were about to cry, and he went to where his mother was, and the baby thing was sucking its supper, but he didn’t look at it or think about it. His mother held out her hand to him and he put both his hands in hers. She drew him closer to her, and she said gently to him, “Why, Fate, you’re all a tremble.” She pressed his hand, she who was not trembling at all now. “Don’t you know,” she said softly, “that the pain a woman has when a baby is born is the easiest forgot in the world.”

  19

  We going to dance?” Amos asked, coming down from the woods, weaving from drunkenness, belching and clutching at his stomach. “Play us a song, Ernest,” he said. He set a jug of whiskey nearby.

  They were over across the river now, where they could freely celebrate the birth.

  Ernest took up the jug and drank from it, letting the whiskey gurgle down his throat for a long while. He picked up his fiddle and pressed it to his chest. “Now I’m getting prepared,” he said.

  Fancy was there, sitting on a stump talking with two of the little boys. Charley Turpin went over to her and asked her for a dance. Amos’ wife, Mildred, came out of the house, and her brother-in-law, Frank, said he wanted to dance with somebody and winked at her. She winked back, then laughed in the hollow tones she had.

  Frank’s wife, Edith, got up from the log, where she had been resting. She was a tired-faced, frail woman with a faint beauty about her, and she smiled for the first time that evening. “You children stay back from the fire,” she said. Two of her boys started throwing firebrands about. “You set these woods to burning and you’ll get a hide-tanning.”

  Amos came up to her and bowed in courtly fashion. “You dancing?” he said.

  She guessed she was, she said.

  The music started, Ernest playing and singing in a forthright manner. The words and melody floated out, stirring the thoughts of the men, sending their feet to shuffling. The children went to dancing, or tried to dance, and moving shadows were thrown by the fire onto the trees and the walls of the cabin.

  As I come down the mountain

  I give me fiddle a bow

  You ought to have heard those pretty little girls

  Say, “Yonder comes my beau,

  My proud and handsome beau.”

  One cold frosty morning

  Amos trooped down the road;

  He had no shoes upon his feet,

  So the frost bit off his toes,

  All eleven of his toes.

  The children began laughing. Amos bowed to Ernest.

  Charley, he’s a nice young man,

  Charley, he’s a dandy;

  Charley is the very man

  To pull my Fancy’s candy.

  Or try to.

  Fancy looked flustered at such a comment from her own father, and Charley roared with laughter.

  Over the river to feed his sheep,

  Over the river to see Charley,

  Over the river young Fancy went,

  And fed the sheep on barley.

  When one song was done, he started another, the dancing continuing all the while.

  Oh, I went down to Mildred’s house.

  She was standing in the door

  With her shoes and stockings in her hand

  And her feet all over the floor.

  One of Mildred’s sons fell on the ground laughing, and his back had to be pounded to keep him from choking.

  The dance was long and exhausting; the dancers, as Ernest stopped fiddling, flopped to the ground, no strength for mischief left in them. The men took a drink of whiskey, and there was storytelling for a time, and efforts to pleasure the children with yarns about goblins and spooks. During one ghost story, Frank’s littlest boy got so scared he chattered his teeth; Amos’ oldest sneaked up behind him, his mouth fu
ll of river water, which was of course cold as ice, and sprayed it over the smaller child, who let out a scream and wet his pants all in the same panicked instant. That set everybody to laughing. The little boy was so upset he went off behind a bush to hide himself, but the memories of spooks and witches brought him back to the fireside.

  “There was a witch lived nigh Morganton,” Amos said. “She was an old hag, had no kindness to her. She would go out of door on moon nights and bark at the moon like a fox, or ary other distraught creature. She would invite little youngins into her house and feed them food she had put evil in, and for days after that the youngins would go around getting into mischief. One of the Caldwell youngins eat a biscuit she give him, and he went out in the field and cut the tail off a cow. You never saw such a mess as them flies gathering on that cow’s stub. Even a hornet landed there.”

  “God preserve us,” Mildred said, cackling out. She had heard the story many times, but she had never heard about the hornet before.

  Frank said, “I heard Henry Phillips, the old cuss that kept marrying whoever was standing nigh, got so aggravated with his wife one day he cut the tail off the cow and beat her with it.”

  “Flailed her, did he?” Amos asked.

  “They said he could slash that tail through the air like a bullwhip, for it’s got hair on the end to give it weight and presence.”

  “You women take care,” Amos said. “Mildred, hand me that there jug, or I’ll go get that cow’s tail and beat hell out of you.”

  “Get it yourself,” she said.

  He reached for the jug, but he couldn’t get it. All he did was break his pants belt. “Good lord. You hand me that there jug, Mildred.” He was angry now. “When a man tells his wife to do something, she should do it, God damn it. Look a there, I busted my belt.”