Slant of Light

by Steve Wiegenstein

  He tipped his hat and left, whistling a snatch from Traviata she vaguely recognized. Charlotte went inside with her bowl of beans, upset with Smith, upset with Turner for having brought Smith here, and upset with herself for having let Smith get on her nerves. She couldn’t stand the man’s cheek. How could he have been so forward? Was it something about her? Had a brief encounter with Adam Cabot put “loose woman” on her forehead for all to see?

  She pushed these ideas away and went back to work.

  Smith’s claim to culture wasn’t entirely a lie. A few days later, the sounds of a violin emerged from his house after dinner. He was playing that same aria he had hummed earlier. Listening to it as she passed by, Charlotte remembered: it was the lament the heroine—what was her name?—sings in the middle, giving up her true love at the pleadings of his father. Violetta, that was it. She stopped and rested her palm against the wall of a house. She and her father had gone to see that opera, the two of them, back in New York, when she was just a girl. She remembered this moment, how she had wanted to cry out, Don’t do it! He is your one true love! from her seat. She could see the tragic turn the story would take, how he would misunderstand, even though she thought she was doing a good thing for a good reason, giving up her happiness to save his family name. Or perhaps the tragic turn came earlier, before the story even starts, when she went astray in the first place, with all the suffering and sadness growing out of that decision.

  Now she believed the tragedy came from simply being born of woman, few days and full of trouble. Here she was just twenty-four herself, and she had already suffered all the loss she thought she could stand, a sister lost, a mother lost, the pain of childbirth. The most melancholy part of it was that her troubles were no more than the ordinary, no more than others had to bear, much less than some. So this was the price of being alive. But why did it have to hurt so much? Why did the simple facts of living and dying cause so much pain? For a moment she wondered if people grew inured to the struggles of life as they aged, but then she thought of the Wickmans and reconsidered.

  After the opera, they had stayed in the city, and the next morning her father had allowed her to visit Mr. Waters’ store and buy a collection of tunes from it. At home her mother had bid her to play the tune at the piano and sing it as best she could. She had complied, in the parlor twilight, though her talents were hardly up to the task, and her mother had cried at the beautiful sadness.

  All of a sudden the loss seemed fresh again, almost too much to bear. And here she was out in the woods, where no one else would know the song, know where it came from, know what it meant. She looked up the dirt street to her father’s house. Was he hearing this music? And was he remembering it? Was this the place she was destined to live from now on?

  This was no time to cry. This was nothing to cry about. She was not going to cry.

  Lysander Smith kept his eccentricities to the outside world. Inside the cabin, he was peaceable, even restrained. Cabot learned his true mission at Daybreak in less than a day.

  “And what brought you to this wretched locality?” Smith asked. “You don’t look like the De Re Rustica sort to me.”

  “Driven from Kansas but didn’t want to go back East,” Cabot said. “Or at least not yet.”

  “Not want to go East? What, you’re a flagellant? Or perhaps you’re a miniature Wordsworth. All this nature just annoys me.”

  “But surely you understand the power of a higher call.”

  Smith sniffed. “Hm. I’ll admit, the notion of fighting slavery has its draw. But like you, I am a refugee as well. I raised a cloud of dust in Philadelphia and had to be out of reach for a while.”

  “Didn’t kill anyone, I hope.”

  “Do I look like the killing type?” Smith asked with a laugh. “If I do, then you’re the one who needs spectacles, not that pretty little French girl who is always squinting her way around.”

  “Does she? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Not your type, eh. Not mine, either. I could have guessed you would prefer a brood mare to a filly. Kansas, you say?”

  “Yes, Leavenworth. I met Mrs. Turner there, and she persuaded me to join the group.”

  “The lady but not the man?”

  “Yes.” Cabot was increasingly uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation.

  “Well, then. Trés convenable” Smith laughed. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. Besides, she’s not my type either.”

  “I don’t know what you mean about a secret. And what would you say is your type?”

  “Come with me to Memphis sometime, and I’ll see if I can find you a specimen.”

  Cabot left him to his reading and stepped outside. Surely there was work out here that needed doing. There was always work. He walked toward the barn, thinking about Smith, of all people the least likely to be engaged in the cause of abolition. By all signs Smith was a talker and not a doer. But here he was, advancing the cause in some small way, while Cabot stood to the side. Who was the true abolitionist and who was not?

  And even Smith, a complete stranger, could see that he … that he.…

  That he was in love with Charlotte Turner.

  He had never voiced the words to himself, even silently, but when he did so he could not deny their truth. And what was he to do about this fact? An honorable man would leave the colony immediately, manufacture some family concern, a father in failing health, a mother in need of assistance. But he knew he had no intention of doing any such thing.

  Evidently he was not an honorable man.

  He had kissed her, and she had kissed him back—twice—and all the careful slip-stepping since then could not erase that. He would do it again, if ever given the chance. And he would go further, he would steal her away from his friend, he would make her his. He was certain of it.

  “You’re looking deep this morning.”

  Turner’s voice made him leap. “Lord, you startled me.”

  “Sorry. Planning your next campaign?”

  “Something like it.” He paused in his walk. “Listen, I know why Smith is really here.”

  Turner eyed him without speaking.

  “He told me almost as soon as we shook hands.”

  “I should have known he couldn’t keep a confidence. What exactly did he tell you he is here to do?”

  “Scout routes for the Anti-Slavery Society, identify likely spots for a future escape effort.”

  “But not to conduct slaves northward himself?”

  “No.”

  “Good enough. That was his promise.”

  They resumed walking to the barn. “But why not?” Cabot said. “Why not use this colony as a station? We’re isolated, we could travel at night, Mississippi and Louisiana through Arkansas to here, from here a day’s travel to Illinois, a week’s more to Canada.”

  Turner seized his shoulder. “Don’t speak a word of this again. If anyone needn’t be told of the danger of abolition work, it should be you. We have a great work a-building here, and I’ll not have you or anyone else endanger it with schemes such as that. Even a hint of Kansas over here would have men with torches after us in a week. You heard what Harley Willingham said.” He sighed and watched a hawk circle the ridgetop. “The real problem is how to keep this Smith from opening his mouth again. Thank God he spoke to you, and you can be trusted. But if he blabs his business in some whiskey den in town, we’ll all be lucky to get out of the county alive.”

  Turner’s gaze dropped from the circling hawk to Adam’s face. “I said you can be trusted. You can, can’t you?”

  “Of course,” Cabot answered. Every word they spoke now seemed fraught with extra meaning, and Cabot felt as though all his phrases began and ended with “I love your wife.”

  “Then act like it. See if you can put this Smith on a leash and keep him on it.” He spun away toward the Temple of Community, leaving Cabot on the path, flushed, angry, guilty, and with nowhere in particular to go.

  Lysander Smith wrote regularly to
Hiram Foltz but assured Turner that he wasn’t revealing anything incriminating in his letters. “I’m not quite that great a fool, to trust the discretion of a backwoods postmaster,” he said. But when a mention of Daybreak appeared in the New York Weekly Tribune, Turner knew the source.

  “Do you like it?” Smith cried, gleeful, when Turner showed him the copy of the newspaper, which Mercadier had received in the mail from a friend in St. Louis. “I knew my little tendril would find a crevice.”

  Word has reached us of yet another experiment in social reform being carried out deep in the forests of Missouri. “Daybreak, “ its founders call it, and daybreak it surely represents to the souls who inhabit it. The community is founded on principles of common ownership and complete democracy, and we understand it has no particular religious bias.

  We fervently hope that the principles of equality and justice represented by this community will serve as a beacon to its neighbors, residing as they do in a state where these qualities are denied to many of its inhabitants. Turner had to admit that he liked the recognition. But the glancing reference to slavery wouldn’t be helpful with the local folks. Sure enough, a month later came a piece from the New York Herald, clipped out by someone and sent anonymously in the mail.

  Our friends at the Tribune report that more sprouts of one sort and another are appearing in the Western states. We remind our friend that sprouts only grow to maturity in their home soil. Many the sprout that flourished at daybreak has withered by sunset.

  But there was little time to think about newspaper arguments. The wheat needed to be harvested and stored. The new reaper lived up to its claim. It clattered through the fields in a quarter of the time it would have taken the men, or less; everyone followed behind, tying up shocks of wheat and propping them together to dry.

  Charlotte had seemed a little peculiar to him ever since he had returned. Turner didn’t inquire into it, thinking it might be one of those women’s moods people whispered about. Perhaps she needed to get out of the colony for a day. So when it came time for the trip into town, he arranged with Marie to watch

  Newton for the day and surprised Charlotte with the idea of accompanying him the night before.

  They were up before dawn, their breath hanging in the air, the wagon loaded with clothing for Grindstaff’s general store. Charlotte had their list in hand. With the harvest coming in, this was a light week. Once they had all the wheat onto the threshing floor and then into the granary, they would need to haul it to the mill, wagonload after wagonload, but for now there was food in the storehouses, and this trip was more a luxury than anything.

  As he double-checked the harness on the farm wagon, Turner noticed Adam Cabot, on foot, disappearing around the bend in the road past Webb’s house.

  “Now what do you suppose he is up to?” he said to Charlotte.

  She cleared her throat. “I believe he has some morning religious practice.”

  “He would,” Turner said, adjusting the hames.

  They forded the river in the cold morning and were past the Indian camp before sunup. No smoke rose from the huts and no signs of life could be seen, but the place still had the sense of being inhabited. Charlotte sat close to Turner on the wagon’s spring seat, her body warm against his side. He shifted the reins to his left hand so they could clasp hands under the lap blanket.

  Grindstaff stepped out onto the platform in front of his store as they approached. “Well, if it ain’t the outlanders,” he said, “or auslanders as them goddam Germans say from up north of town, excuse the swearing ma’am, bad habit I know, but habits once entrenched are harder to remove than a chigger. How the hell you all doing down there on the river? Excuse me, ma’am.”

  “Well and good,” Turner said, stepping down from the wagon and shaking hands before helping Charlotte down.

  “Listen, I got to tell you something,” said Grindstaff. “I’ll pay you for this order of clothes, but I can’t order no more this week. It may be a while before I order any more too.”

  Something about the way Grindstaff looked—his leathery face and chaw of tobacco—reminded Turner of Willingham, the sheriff, and he was immediately suspicious.

  “Can’t or won’t?” he said. “Maybe you just don’t like the way we live?” Charlotte laid a quieting hand on his arm.

  “Hell, I don’t give a goddam how you live, excuse me ma’am,” Grindstaff said. He spit into the street and led them in the store. “You seem like good people. Hell, at least you can speak English, unlike them goddam Germans, in here all the time muttering and shit. ‘You take fifty cent? We give you fifty cent,’ buncha cheap bastards. And the Polacks or whatever the hell they are, don’t know what they eat, but damn it makes their breath stink.” He paused. “Excuse me ma’am.”

  Grindstaff waved a hand at his shelves. “No sir, here’s my problem. People ain’t buying.” The pants and shirts from last week lay on the shelf in neatly folded stacks. “I sold one shirt and one pair of pants from last time. People are going for these goddam factory-mades, they’re a little cheaper but not that much, and yours are a damn sight better made, I tell ‘em hand-stitched last longer, but they don’t seem to care. Things are looking up, people got a little money in their pockets, all of a sudden they don’t want homemade stuff, they want things with a label from some goddam place back East.”

  “Then why do you stock those factory-made shirts in the first place?” Turner asked.

  Grindstaff looked at him as if he were a madman. “I’m a businessman, friend. I put stock on my shelves and hope to sell the damn stuff. Stock that sells, I put more of it on.”

  Turner blushed. “Of course. Foolish thing for me to say.”

  “Don’t let you hunt or fish on their land, either, the Dutchy sons of bitches. Time was, you didn’t have to ask, you just went hunting. Nowadays, half the time they won’t even let you if you ask. Sons of bitches. Excuse me, ma’am.”

  They made their purchases, left the new clothes, and hurried out. Turner was embarrassed at their lack of success. All those women, cutting, sewing—for what? It would be hard news to break. And the lack of exchange items meant that Grindstaff’s ticket would be rising faster than ever—he would soon be wanting hard cash for his goods.

  “Let’s not hurry back,” Charlotte said. “We have the day.”

  They rode south down the Greenville road at a leisurely pace. Charlotte had packed a lunch, so they stopped along Twelvemile Creek and let the horse drink while they spread their food out on the wagon gate. The day had warmed enough to let them take off their coats.

  “I guess it’s time for a new plan,” Turner said.

  “And what is this new plan going to be?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  They chewed their ham in silence.

  “I have an idea for the next issue of The Eagle” Charlotte said. “Should have mentioned it to you earlier.” Turner waited.

  “It’s been ten years since the Seneca Falls Declaration. I’d be interested to read your musings on what kind of progress we’ve seen since then.”

  Turner groaned. “I thought we agreed not to confuse the issues in people’s minds yet. Economic equality and equality of the sexes are separate matters.”

  “We didn’t agree. You said ‘no’ and I acquiesced.”

  He knew she was right, but that didn’t make it any easier. “I can’t endorse the thing, I hope you know that. We would lose too much support.”

  “I didn’t ask for that. I just said it would be interesting to read your thoughts.”

  “But if I don’t endorse it.…”

  “If you don’t endorse it I’ll be intrigued to see your logic.”

  There was no way out. Might as well surrender. “All right then, I’ll take that as a commission. Now let’s see if we can find a track that will take us back home.”

  Sure enough, there was a wagon trail that cut toward the west less than a mile later. It ran along a creek bed for a while and then turned abruptly up a hill. It gr
ew rougher and rockier, and for a while Turner thought he would have to admit defeat and turn around, but then they passed a lone cabin with a couple of kids scuffling in a bare space under the trees, what passed for a yard. A thin man with a peppery beard came out on the porch and watched them silently.

  “This road go through?” Turner called out.

  “Yeh.”

  “Well, where does it come out at?”

  “Any place you want, if you take it far enough, I reckon.”

  Turner held back a retort. Comedians. “Where does it come out close by,

  then?”

  The man looked down the wagon track as if he were following it in his mind. Finally he spoke. “Take it straight, you get down to the river ford at Trace Creek. But there’s a cutoff a mile or two before that, takes you back to Cedar Bottom and up that way.”

  “Okay, thanks.” Turner chucked the reins. Even the horse seemed impatient to move on. The man watched them out of sight, but the children never stopped rolling in the dirt.

  The wagon trail was just as the man said. It followed the ridgelines, and when he took the right fork it came out near the Indian camp, empty as before. Turner had never noticed the trail before—it was just a couple of indentations emerging from the trees—and supposed it had probably been an Indian trail once. The sun was starting to get low in the sky when they reached the rocky outcrop that overlooked Daybreak.

  Turner stopped the wagon and tied the reins to a little oak. He wanted to look at the colony for a while. They sat on a ledge at the edge of the bluff.

  They couldn’t see the river crossing from where they sat—it was hidden in the woods below them—but they could see the main road all the way to the end of the valley, the Daybreak road branching off to the right, the rows of houses along both sides. There were thirty houses now, a village to be proud of, from the Temple at the north end down to Turner’s house at the south, where the Daybreak road rejoined the main one. The broad fields between Daybreak and the mountain were dotted with stacks of wheat, and closer to them, the corn shimmered deep green in the low slant of evening sunlight. People were walking to and fro, tiny, seemingly aimless in their movements although Turner knew that each one would have insisted on the significance of their movements. But from high above, they seemed in random motion, like ants on a hill.