“I heard it was ten dollars to go up in one of those things.”
“I know it, but I’m saving up. I can get ten cents a gallon for picking blackberries, and I can dig up some ’sang there in the woods and sell that to the root collectors for fifty cents an ounce. Then I can take me a ride and see this valley and all creation just like a hawk does.”
“That would be a fine sight,” she said. “Especially when the leaves have turned. But I’ll stay here on the ground and watch.”
“You’re not scared, are you?” He squeezed her hand. “Afraid I’ll crash?”
She shook her head. “No, Randall. You’ll be all right in that airplane, and the ones to come.”
She could have told him to save his money. He would see enough of the earth from the inside of a plane in seven years’ time, as the turret gunner in a flying fortress over France. But if Nora Bonesteel knew what was in store for Randall in the years to come, she never said. Just as they never talked about what was past. About Fayre.
CHAPTER FIVE
It is Never to Late to Do good. [sic]
—DANIEL BOONE
Breakfast began with a platter of rubbery scrambled eggs, peppered with forced pleasantries from the women about the weather and duties of the day and consumed in a strained silence by the Stargill brothers. Kelley had decided to let her daughter sleep late, so that the adults could have an uninterrupted breakfast. Lilah, still in her turquoise caftan, bustled about the kitchen, fetching a salt shaker and napkins, and asking if anyone wanted seconds. Thirds? But no one seemed much in the mood to eat. Even a jar of homemade jelly, marked Merry Christmas from the Jessups, had failed to whet their appetites.
They drank coffee and stifled yawns. Clayt, who had driven to the convenience store down the mountain at six to restock the egg supply, was beginning to feel his lack of sleep; otherwise, he might have thought of something to say to these strangers with whom he shared breakfast—and bloodlines.
“Well, I guess we ought to plan today’s schedule,” said Lilah, as she poured the last of the new pot of coffee into Robert Lee’s half-full cup. “Tell us what you guys will be doing, and when you want to be fed. Meals for eight people don’t just happen in ten minutes, you know.”
“First I thought we’d go out to the barn,” said Clayt. “Garrett wanted us to take a look at some rosewood that Daddy’s had stored out there in the barn loft.”
“What about the hospital?” asked Robert Lee.
“Visiting hours are in the afternoon,” said Clayt. “But they might let you in any time, seeing as Daddy’s so ill.”
“I called at five, when I got up,” said Garrett, who was still in the T-shirt and sweatpants he had worn running. “They said he’s in stable condition.”
“But not conscious?” asked Charles Martin.
“No.”
“If you all want to go to the hospital later on, I could stay with the little girl,” said Debba.
Everyone turned to look at her. It was the first thing she had said all morning, besides “please” and “no thank you.” She looked pale and tired.
“Or I could cook something while you were out.” She twisted her hands in her lap. “It’s just that I hate hospitals,” she said.
“I don’t think there’s any need for all of us to go,” said Kelley. She had felt as much relief as pity seeing Debba’s stricken look, because she didn’t think she had any business going to the hospital as if she were a member of the family. Why, she hadn’t even met old Mr. Stargill. It was one thing to come along to give Charlie moral support, but quite another to overstep her bounds as a guest and a stranger. “I’ll be glad to stay with you, Debba,” she said. “Hospitals don’t much care for crowds around the very ill. I’m sure there are things we could be doing here.”
“Well,” said Clayt. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask all of you, since you didn’t hear us talking about Daddy’s list last night. This is as good a time as any. Do any of you know what a scripture cake is?”
He got only bewildered looks in reply. “I guess it’s a custom from Daddy’s childhood, or something. New to me. Well, some old lady from the church is bound to come by, and she’d be the likeliest person to know. Just remember to ask about it, will you? The next thing is more difficult. Do you do any sewing? Especially quilting?” He addressed the question to Lilah.
Kelley said, “I was taught when I was a little girl. My grandmother used to make quilts, but I never did one myself. Just sewed seams for Mamaw sometimes.”
“What is it you want done?” asked Lilah. “My sewing is more of the mending variety. It was never something I cared to do.”
“Debba does needlepoint,” said Garrett. “She did us a cushion once.”
His wife ducked her head. “Oh, it wasn’t very good. My fingers get so numb.”
“Are you thinking of the burying clothes?” asked Lilah. “I guess Daddy Stargill’s suits are all too big for him now that he’s taken so ill. If you’ve got a sewing machine, I guess I could take them in some. Passable enough for a viewing anyhow—not to wear on the street.”
Clayt shook his head. “That coffin Daddy wants us to build—we’re going to need a lining for it.”
“I never did anything like that,” said Kelley. “But it doesn’t sound real hard. Is it like a blanket?’
“I expect so,” Lilah said. “They could measure the inside of the box, and we could make a quilt big enough to cover the entire inside. The boys could tack it down around the edges so that it wouldn’t slip or bunch up once it was in the casket.”
“I think we could do that,” said Kelley. “I’ll be glad to help out all I can.” She smiled over at Charles Martin. “Is there a piece goods shop around here?”
Charles Martin sighed. “That doesn’t seem right, somehow. Buying new, fancy material to fit out a homemade coffin. I mean, if we’re going to abide by Daddy’s wishes, we may as well do it properly. Store-bought just doesn’t fit the traditional burying he seems to want.”
“I suppose next you’ll be wanting a glass coach pulled by black-plumed horses,” snorted Robert Lee. “We have to be practical, folks.”
“It might be practical,” said Clayt. “I wonder if those old trunks are still up in the attic?”
“Scraps?” asked Kelley.
“All kinds of stuff. See, our family has lived here for nigh on two hundred years, and none of our people were big on throwing things away. They didn’t waste much in the old days. So there’s old trunks up there with old baby things, outgrown clothes, raggedy quilts. We used to root around up there when we were kids. No telling what you might find.”
“Unless Daddy cleared it all out after Momma died,” said Garrett. “Still, you could have a look.”
“You want to line Daddy’s coffin with rags?” Robert Lee stood up from the table, shaking his head. “That’s not showing any kind of respect.”
“No. Wait,” said Charles Martin. “There’s a lot of sense to this. Clayt didn’t suggest using the family cast-offs to be stingy. If Daddy wants a traditional burial, it seems to be that he’d want as many family connections as he can get. What better way to finish a coffin made by his sons than to line it with a quilt made from the clothes of his loved ones? A piece of Mama’s wedding dress, scraps from our baby clothes, or a square of his mother’s shawl. Remember that black embroidered shawl, Clayt?”
“I think it’s a beautiful idea,” said Kelley. “Like that Dolly Parton song, ‘The Coat of Many Colors.’”
Charles Martin frowned at her so fiercely that she wondered if she had just killed a new song idea for him. He was always trying to mine real life for things to put into his music, but he never seemed to be able to think up things out of the blue. He only knew a song idea when he heard it on somebody else’s lips. Like the quilt discussion: he had probably been thinking up tunes while they were still talking about it. Even when it was his own father dying, Charles Martin seemed to look at life through a plateglass window—lik
e he didn’t take it all personally, she thought. Part of him always stood back and watched. He had stopped looking at her now, so Kelley went back to pushing spongy egg fragments around her plate, and resolved to keep her mouth shut and stay out of his family business.
“Well,” said Lilah, collecting plates from the table. “Sitting around here all morning isn’t going to get any work done. You guys go out to the barn, and let us see what we can find in the attic, and get started on the quilt.”
When Lilah started clearing plates away from the table, the men set off for the barn to see about fulfilling their father’s last wish. It was a fine day, temperate for March between gusts of wind off the ridge, and Clayt cast a longing look at the field and the woods beyond as he led his brothers from one enclosure to another. A cabbage butterfly flickered past his line of sight, and he was tempted to follow it, but a glare from Robert Lee pulled him back.
The barn had been there as long as any of them could remember. It figured in sepia family snapshots dating back to the twenties. Even then it had been a weathered structure, mud brown, without a trace of paint, but the doors had been kept in good repair, then and now, and the patched tin roof kept out the rain. The barn looked none the worse for wear, although it had outlasted its usefulness. No livestock lived here, and no grain was stored in its corncribs.
“This place sure brings back memories,” said Charles Martin. “I keep seeing a whole bunch of different scenes in my mind, all superimposed, like one of those music videos where things flash by almost too fast to register. I smell fresh hay, and I see Grandmaw out here in an apron feeding chickens, and that brindled calf Robert Lee took to raise one year. Oh, lord, and the hayloft. Why, that would be a whole video in itself. Remember the time Garrett jumped out, playing paratrooper, and got a tine of the pitchfork stuck in his leg?”
“I still have a hell of a scar from that,” said Garrett. “But I count myself lucky. It was just a deep flesh wound. If I had landed just a little bit to the left, or a little bit harder, it would have killed me.”
“You didn’t cry much, though,” said Charles Martin. “What were you, then, about eleven? The main thing I remember is seeing that big black point sticking through your thigh, and being surprised that you weren’t screaming bloody murder.”
“He was probably in shock,” said Clayt.
“No,” said Garrett. “I’m always like that. People tell me I have a high threshold of pain. But I always figured that hollering about being hurt didn’t accomplish anything, except maybe throw your rescuers into a panic. And we were always around blood on the farm. Hog blood—people blood. What’s the difference?”
Robert Lee said, “I don’t remember that incident. It must have happened after I left home, which is just as well, because it sounds terrible. Surely, Garrett, you have better memories of the hayloft than that.”
Garrett grinned. “None that I want Debba to hear about.”
His older brother reddened. “I don’t want to hear about them, either, thank you! Didn’t we used to have a rope swing in the loft for playing Tarzan?”
“I remember that!” said Charles Martin. “Now that would make a good visual, I think, for a number built around barn memories. Milking cows … kissing girls … sitting on a bale of hay, practicing the guitar.”
“Will you forget your goddamned singing career, Charlie? Remember what we’re here for,” said Robert Lee.
“Now you need to be quiet in here,” said Clayt, yanking the barn door open with a rope slipped through the hasp. “There’s at least one red bat living up in that loft now, and I don’t want to disturb it any more than I can help.”
“Bats?” said Robert Lee, even more exasperated than he had been with Charlie. “Well, damn it! Can’t you just shoot them?”
“I can’t, Robert. No. Because they do a lot of good. They eat a ton or so of insects a year, which is more than I can say for—” He shrugged, and turned away. “The light switch is over here.”
The unspoken insult hung in the air, and Robert heard it as plainly as if it had been shouted. “… More than I can say for car salesmen.” He set his jaw, and walked on, without hazarding a glance at any of the others.
“Do any of you still do any carpentry?” asked Charles Martin.
“I’ve put up some bookshelves, and mended a fence or two. Nothing as fancy as what Daddy wants,” said Clayt. “I’m willing to try, though, if the wood is any good.”
“Should be, if it was stacked right,” said Garrett. “Long as it stayed dry up there in the loft.” He looked up at the vertical wooden ladder, nailed to the wall of the barn. “Looks like it’ll hold us. Guess I’ll go first,” he said. “I can handle the trapdoor. Clayt, why don’t you go last, in case Charlie gets a splinter in his manicured fingers, or you have to catch Robert Lee.”
Ignoring their protests, Garrett lunged for the ladder and shinnied upward, disappearing into the loft above. “It’s all right up here!” he called down. “The floor seems sound enough. And the wood has a tarp over it.”
Charles Martin, who had turned the small bedroom in his house into a weight room, had no trouble with the ladder, but Robert Lee took a good five minutes of hard breathing and tentative footing before his head poked through the opening into the loft. “I don’t see why we all had to come up here and look at a woodpile,” he said, his sides heaving with the extra effort of speaking.
“Because if the wood is all right, Robert, we have to get it down out of here,” Charles Martin told him.
Garrett, who had already removed the covering from the stack of wood, was studying the boards, running his fingers along them, and even sniffing at them. “It’s stacked right,” he said. “One board lengthwise, then one crosswise, so that there are spaces in between to let the air circulate.”
Clayt emerged from the trapdoor and wandered over to look at the sleeping bat in the rafters, but he saw nothing except the tattered web of an orb weaver, strung from one beam to another and studded with dead flies encased in gossamer. On another beam, the papery white of an old wasps’ nest stood out against the shadows, but he saw no insects hovering around it. Too early yet, and too cold for them. Clayt went to inspect the woodpile. “Rosewood,” he said, tapping the end of a board. “You can’t even get this stuff anymore.”
“I’ve seen it advertised,” said Charles Martin. “In Mexico, I got Kelley a little hand-carved jewelry box—”
“They call the new stuff rosewood,” said Clayt. “But the wood products described by that name nowadays are actually made from the wood of the cocobolo tree.”
“You mean it isn’t wood from rose bushes?” As soon as he said it, Charles Martin grimaced. “No. I guess not. Look at the size of those boards. They can’t be cheap. Why do they call it rosewood, then?”
“Color,” said Garrett.
“Looks brown to me.”
Clayt nodded. “Those boards are untreated. They’ll turn a deep reddish color when they’re sanded and finished, same as your Mexican jewelry box, but it isn’t the same wood. The old rosewood—these boards here—was a rain forest tree. It is now an endangered species, and it is no longer harvested. Certainly it’s illegal to bring it into the U.S., even if you could get hold of some.”
Still short of breath, but interested, Robert Lee said, “So this stack of boards is valuable?”
“Maybe a couple of thousand dollars,” Clayt told him. “Hardwoods grow slowly. An old walnut—say, twenty feet tall or so—can fetch as much as five thousand bucks. I’ve heard of people going off to church and coming back to find the old tree in their front yard chopped down and hauled away by timber rustlers.”
“If it’s so valuable,” said Robert Lee, “why did Daddy let it sit here in the barn all these years? Anybody could have broken in and taken it.”
“It’s been here a good fifty years,” said Clayt. “Maybe longer. I’m not sure when real rosewood started getting scarce. My guess is that Granddaddy Stargill bought it to make a wardrobe or a table f
or Grandmother, and he never got around to it.”
“And it was too good to use for scrap,” said Charles Martin.
“It wasn’t cheap, even back in the old days,” said Clayt. “You wouldn’t waste it on fence boarding or patching jobs. This lumber was meant for a piece of fine woodwork.”
Garrett tried to scrape off a sliver of wood with his fingernail. “Damn, this stuff is hard! We’re going to have a hell of a time trying to work with it.” To Clayt he said, “Have you been in the woodshop, lately? What kind of equipment are we talking about here?”
“Old hand tools, from what I remember,” said Clayt. “I haven’t looked at ’em in years.”
“Hand tools.” Garrett scowled. “You know how long it would take just to plane this stuff with hand tools?”
Charles Martin scratched at the top board and sighed. “’Bout as long as it took to grow it, I reckon, boys.”
* * *
Reverend Will Bruce was making his late afternoon hospital rounds, visiting his ailing parishioners. He had left the call on Randall Stargill until last. Someone from the rescue squad had remembered to call him to report Randall Stargill’s sudden illness, and, while he knew that the old man might be past knowing that someone had come by, he felt it his duty to come anyhow and say a prayer at the bedside. Besides, some of the family might be present, and he could express his sympathy and offer whatever comfort they felt in need of.
Will did not really feel like a pastor to old Mr. Stargill. His father—whom he sometimes still thought of as the real Reverend Bruce—had been the minister of most of Randall Stargill’s long life, and Mr. Stargill had plainly regarded the elder Bruce’s successor as an unnecessary modernization, inadequate to his spiritual needs. Will Bruce was more than forty years younger than the old man, and, although he had known him all his life, he felt no closer to this parishioner than he did to any stranger he passed in the hall. Randall Stargill had always been polite, but never more than that. His few utterances were seldom about anything more personal than the weather. He sat in church like a man waiting for an overdue bus.
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