The Land Breakers

by John Ehle

  “Near the road,” Verlin said. “He was nigh that far rock when night come.”

  “Go find him, boy. Don’t let him bolt off.”

  “How do you hold him?” he said.

  “Talk to him, act calm,” Jacob said. “I’ll come over and talk to him in a little while. Don’t move fast amongst them, while this storm threatens.”

  Verlin went off looking for the boar, but he got lost in the fog. The fog was deceptive, was over everything and changed the size and appearance of everything. Another bolt of thunder rolled in from the west valley, and a tough wind followed, billowing the mist and whining against the rocks and trees. A flutter of protest went through the turkey flock, which was back a ways on the road.

  Mooney and Nicholas appeared, and Verlin stopped nearby, wondering how serious the storm might be. He listened as the two men calmly talked, discussing if they should move out the drove now and leave the turkeys roosting, or if they should try to hold everything there in the same place for a while longer. “I don’t want to be parted,” Nicholas said.

  “No,” Mooney said, “but the drove will need to move now, or they might bolt down the hillside.”

  The crack of thunder sounded again, came in louder this time, and the drove began moving about, seeking the trail. It was as if the thunder had decided for the men what they would need to do, and at once Mooney told Verlin to go bring the stock to the road. As if in answer, the boar appeared, and two big sows waddled onto the road and sniffed at the air, which was heavy-misted. The ox began to move, pulling the cart. The flock of geese appeared, Ernest Plover not even with them, and began to walk down the road, mingling with the swine drove, and suddenly out of the valley came a flash of lightning, then a crack of thunder that startled them all, and the boar and the other members of the drove began to move away. Mooney ran fast through the mist to reach the boar, and he passed the place where Mildred was standing, her horse’s reins in her hand, staring before her as if she were witnessing the end of the world.

  Down the road a piece, Tinkler Harrison’s stock was milling about, ready to bolt, so he gave the order to move out. He told the Negro men to take charge of the sheep and horses, and he took his customary place at the head of the beef herd. “We’re not far from the Watauga road, air we?” he said to Grover.

  “We’re not nigh it yet,” Grover said

  “We’ll move on anyhow,” Harrison said, speaking over the rumblings of the storm. “I’ll not wait for them others. Drive the steers atter me.”

  Grover pulled to one side of the trail and let the noisy, scared cattle pass. He fell in behind them, driving the laggards on. A steer bolted from the herd and went off through the woods; he let it go. It was better to lose one, or even a few, than the whole herd. Down the trail, moving toward the river, he and the herd and his father rode, moving dangerously fast, seemed to Grover, until as last they came to the bottom rim of the storm and he could see well ahead, and could even see the river valley far below with the river winding about in the forested country. The danger was over, or so he sensed at once, and he reined in.

  “How ye doing with the sheep?” he called toward the rear. The Negroes had the harder task, he knew, for there were only two men and two boys of them, and they had sheep and horses and carts to bring. “Hello, back there,” he called.

  Doubtless they would need a hand to help, he thought, and certainly they would want to know the heavy mist did not control the road all the way to the river. He started riding back toward them.

  He rode uphill for a long way, and, as he became more worried, he rode through the fog more recklessly, seeking the others. Suddenly the sheep were upon him. The ram was right before his horse, and terror came into the eyes of the ram and the ram bolted off the trail, went through the woods. “Hey, hey!” Grover shouted, but he only scared the ram all the more, and the flock followed, he could not block off the flock from following. “Damn you!” he shouted, and beat at them with his whip, but it did no good. One of the Negroes appeared, gasping for breath, for he had been running after the sheep, and he stared bewildered at the flock.

  Rain splashed against them. “We got to fetch them,” Grover said, and he spurred his horse and rode into the woods, the other man following.

  The rain was slapping at the tree trunks and a wave of air came up from the valley floor and sent it hurling upward, sweeping up the side of the range. Then the rain began pelting downward again.

  The horse abruptly stopped, reared up, and Grover saw that the trail he was on dropped there so steeply that the horse was balking. He could even see the valley now far below, so he was almost below the cloud. He dismounted and ran down the path anxiously. He came to the under edge of the cloud and saw clearly the valley floor where the rain was beating down on the treetops.

  The Negro man stopped beside him. “Where the sheep?” he said.

  “On down some’ers,” Grover said. “There,” he said, pointing.

  The sheep appeared below, making their way over the face of the rock cliff, approaching the edge of the rock, running on toward it.

  “My Lord help us,” Grover said. He heard the Negro gasp, and at that moment saw the ram leap. It was leaping at a patch of cloud floating near the edge of the range. The ram leaped into the patch of cloud and fell through it, gracefully dropped toward the valley.

  Each sheep leaped into the cloud, and each in turn appeared below the cloud, falling out of the cloud into clear space below, falling gracefully, not fast, falling rather slowly, all falling at the same speed, into the trees of the valley. All of this soundless; there was no crashing, no crying, no baaing, no bleating. There was only the leaping, as if inevitably they must leap, as if the sacrifice had been planned this way. Below him fell the white ram, the white ewes, each falling to the death of each, and there was nothing to be done.

  Sometime later Grover rode onto the river valley and saw his father sitting on a big rock, sitting there with his horse and two steers grazing on river grass nearby. He knew Grover was approaching, but he didn’t hail him. He gazed at the broad river, where the water was rushing along, filling the banks to the top so that for two days or more there could be no fording it.

  Grover tied his horse near his father’s and walked about a bit to limber up.

  “Where’s the remainder of the cattle, Grover?” the old man said.

  “Scattered, Papa.”

  “Why are they scattered? Wasn’t you driving from the rear?”

  “Until the storm stopped.”

  “So you let them scatter. I see, I see.”

  “There’s cattle all over that range,” Grover said simply.

  The old man nodded. “Where are the sheep?” he said.

  “They’re down in the valley already, Papa.”

  Harrison cocked his head to one side. “They didn’t pass me.”

  “Yes, they did,” Grover said. He didn’t care now; he was beyond caring. Damn them and the valley and the settlement and himself for ever having cared, for ever taking part in such a calamity.

  “How did they pass me when I occupied the trail?”

  “They went down the side of the range partway,” Grover said, “and jumped.”

  Harrison didn’t move. Nothing moved except his white hair where the wind ruffled it. “Jumped?”

  “They’re in the valley some’ers,” Grover said. “They rained down on the trees up that east cove. They’re in a pile probably five foot deep, if you want to go see them. They’re all over there some’ers.”

  The old man sat studying the river. “You lost them sheep?”

  “I told ye,” Grover said.

  The old man made no reply. It was all beyond him now. God had done it, he supposed. God and Grover had lost both cattle and sheep, yes, and no doubt God and others had lost hogs and fowl, horses and oxen and carts. It wasn’t the easiest matter in the world to believe, but a man did well to admit to what he had seen, and with his own ears heard.

  Grover mounted and rode of
f up the trail, going somewhere—Harrison didn’t know where or why, and didn’t care. He had not thought the drive would prove successful; he had not expected disaster, but here it was; it had come and would need to be accommodated.

  * * *

  Off in the woods the wolf packs were moving, and there on the trail Mooney could see now and again a horse, an ox, or some other brute crossing, fleeing. Through the woods the creatures fled, as panic increased everywhere. All of it, as he saw it, was like the final judgment and was more awesome than judgment in a courtroom; it was judgment in a high place, and it must be God as the judge sitting behind the cloud up there, for who else would dare to give out so many sentences so swiftly? Or maybe it was that Tinkler Harrison was the judge, as he was the symbol of their disunity, which had played a part in all of this, or maybe he, Mooney Wright, was judge, for he had put this drive into motion but had not been able to keep it organized, so now he, standing alone on the trail, could witness the end of it, not in Old Fort or Morganton, but here in the highest part of the wilderness.

  It was more mournful than death, he thought, for it was a living thing knowing of its own death. It was not that a living thing knew of the death of a dead thing; the living thing became aware of its own death.

  He saw Verlin hurrying down the trail, two pigs scattering before him. In his face was fear more than anything else; not surprise so much as fear. He stopped nearby, and Mooney saw that tears were in his eyes. He asked nothing, but his expression was one of bafflement and asking, his body stance and all about him asked to know what had happened and what it meant.

  Mooney couldn’t bear to look at him. He shook his head and tried to indicate that the boy shouldn’t feel so distraught, but even as they stood there, way off, somewhere in the valley judging from the sound, a brute began a shrill cry, that of a captured animal that is close to death, and the cry went on for a long while.

  Mooney tried to make a fire, but the wood was wet. He used the last of his powder and, failing finally, he stretched out on the damp trail, tired beyond all thought, and rested his head on his hands. Up above him the clouds were parting and he could see the stars. At least, he could see a few stars.

  Verlin sat nearby, hunched over. He was a steady boy, ordinarily; he counted on his plans working out properly. He had much confidence in work, and he believed that a man could do what he wanted to, what he planned to do. He had been ill prepared for such a catastrophe as this.

  “We lost might nigh all of it, boy,” Mooney said, “except the breed stock that’s to home. Come way up here to lose it. Save it from the bears back home; drive it up here and lose it.” The boy moaned, and Mooney guessed the boy had never known a soul pain as deep as this one. “What you going to tell your mama? Tell her how your real papa come home and offered to take you out west, to flat land, to rich soil, to a settlement; but we stayed back in here. Tell her how it was we chose wrong.”

  Verlin stopped moaning and listened. Way off they heard a pig squeal.

  “That’s how it was a long time ago,” Mooney said. “Imy and me was coming into this country, and a pig got caught in the river and went washing off downstream. Sounded like that.”

  Before morning Grover arrived, too. He sat down and talked about the losses. He got a fire started, and all of them huddled around it. Pretty soon the Negro boy found them and warmed himself, too. He had been lost in the woods, he said and the stories he told were of killings he had seen, of carcasses left bleeding while wolves went on to some other butchering.

  Soon after dawn Tinkler Harrison arrived. He was carrying a pack of personal possessions, and he was going home, he said. Nobody said anything to him. He went through the camp, and behind him the two Negro men came, each carrying a few cooking utensils, and behind them came three pigs and two horses that were following along, and a steer, and down the road came another steer. When the second steer had passed, Mooney pushed himself up from the ground and stared down the hill, as if considering what he ought to do; then he turned and followed in the direction Harrison led.

  A few pigs came out of the woods to follow along.

  Up near the crest of the ridge, they came upon Fate. He was listening to Mina, who was standing beside her horse, calming it, and was watching the passing company. Fate joined Mooney, and Mina fell in beside Mildred, who rode toward home with the same forlorn and prophetic face she had shown on leaving it. Along the crest of the ridge they went, as sorrowful as a funeral procession, now and then somebody stopping and eating a piece of bread, or eating chestnuts.

  It was sunny now; for the first time since the drive started, it was warm.

  “There it is,” the big Negro said toward nightfall. He was the first to see the valley, the cabins sending up columns of smoke, and to see the little river. “There it is,” he said again. “We’ll be home soon.”

  He and Harrison stopped partway down the ridge, near the lookoff that once Lacey Pollard had used, and waited for Grover to catch up with him. Then they went on. Mooney and the boys moved in the dust they created, and behind them, not far away, Mina walked, leading her horse, and near her a few pigs came along, and a steer, and behind her Mildred rode on her thin horse, and the Germans came along, and so it went on back up the line of walking ghosts, for each was a ghost, Mooney thought, and they were going into the ghost valley with the ghost stock and the ghost hopes and with the ghost stories from the drive.

  Down past the webbed starting of the river, a dog was there; it had come out from the German’s place to meet them. “The German’ll be along,” Mooney said to the dog. “He’ll be along soon, for he has no stock to drive.” They walked on past the German’s house. His wife was at the door, her bonnet on even though it was evening, and she looked down at them wonderingly. They were dust-coated; they were gray and tan beasts walking, nothing else or more. She saw her husband coming along, tired out and dejected.

  They went past the Plover place, and the little girls came out to line up alongside the road and stare perplexedly at so sad a company, which seemed so ridiculous now and had only a few days before seemed so powerful and grand. Harrison, without speaking, walked past them and led his men and the little bit of stock that had followed down his trail toward his own house; Belle came to the door of the house to watch him. “It’s all over,” he called to her gruffly. “We lost it all. It’s all gone now.”

  Mooney was in the lead now of the diminishing company, and he walked slower than had Harrison. When he and the boys reached a branch, the one that separated his land from Ernest Plover’s, he stopped and washed his hands and splashed water on his face. “I first saw the bear nigh here,” he said, and he heard the boys stir, for they always perked up interest at the mention of the bear.

  Fate came to the branch, knelt down and washed. Then Verlin came.

  “It’s not proper to come home so empty of goods,” Mooney said. “I meant to come home with white sugar, as well as brown, with a candle mold, with cloth for a dress, with wheat flour. I saw myself coming home with all manner of kingly stuff, and what do we have? The same worn horse we left with.”

  The boys huddled nearby, quiet as sleep.

  He roused himself at last. He crossed the branch and started along the trail. He came to the path that led to his cabin, and he was no sooner on the path than Lorry appeared, coming from the direction of the milking log. She saw him, and she stopped there, surprised, her hand shading her eyes from the low sun. She must have known then; she must have decided on seeing the three of them that they were there for a reason of defeat and losses, and maybe of tragedy. She started toward them, walking faster as she came, and Mooney walked faster to meet her, and they came together and embraced each other, each sensing loss and needing the other, and he said, the words choking him so that he could scarcely speak them, “We lost it all, Lorry, we lost it all, and never even come in sight of the river.”

  * * *

  It was not that night; it was the next one when those who had been on the drive, or m
ost of them, at least, for some reason began to gather at Mooney’s house. Maybe it was to listen to Mooney and to Jacob, for he was usually there, or maybe it was to tell about their experiences, or maybe it was to find out who was leaving the valley and when they were going, and who was staying on in spite of poverty and the toughness of the life there.

  Nobody said why they had come to the house, but they came to make company, of course, Jacob and Florence first, then Frank. The cabin was crowded enough; then Grover arrived; there was a bedful then, as well as the chairs full, and the boys were on the floor. There wasn’t more than room to breathe in, as Florence said, but two more arrived before long—the German and his son, and everybody went outdoors.

  A fire was made out there, and they stood around it, talking. They told stories about the drive, each one talking as if nobody had been present except himself, as if nobody had heard of the drive before. They told stories of surprise and danger and death and losses and terror such as they had not known before. They wanted all the happenings told, as if telling them to the fire would record them, or as if telling them to so many others would record them. Mina arrived, and she told mostly about her horse, about the courage of the horse, and then about its falling in the storm and spraining its leg, and about how she had helped it back home and wouldn’t let it be shot, even though her father had wanted to shoot it.

  The talk remained serious, as the drive had been serious. Somebody said the valley couldn’t survive a year without lowland supplies, and nobody said anything different.

  “It’s easier by far to farm in the lowlands,” Frank said, and everyone agreed.

  “It might be better in the Cumberland,” the German said.

  “Be better to go on south to another valley,” Grover said, “or leave the mountains entirely.”

  “Go out West,” Frank said.

  They formed a circle around the fire and talked about the drive and leaving, and nobody seemed to know when he was leaving. It was as if all of them knew they were leaving but were not certain yet, and hoped a miracle as meaningful as the miracle which made them want to leave were to happen to make them stay.