Slant of Light

by Steve Wiegenstein

  She made five more trips to the shed, lining crocks of blood against the far wall. Adam had disappeared. Back at the oak tree, the men scraped hides, split heads, and cut off feet for pickling. The youngsters scooped out the brains and separated the internal organs into tubs.

  George Webb stopped her. “Seen our man Cabot?”

  Charlotte scanned the group. Nowhere. “Perhaps—”

  Webb raised his hand. “It’s all right. He’s a city boy, with a delicate stomach. All this bloodletting takes some getting used to.”

  Frances Wickman brought out a coffeepot as the fifth hog went into the scalding pot. As she walked among the men, handing out cups of coffee, Charlotte noticed something different about her shape, or perhaps it was her posture. There was a baby on the way, she felt sure. Another reason to be careful about Adam: only a fool would think to keep secrets in a community with this many watchful eyes.

  The men gratefully stopped to rest. After he had finished the killing, young Schnack had attacked the scraping with enthusiasm, eager to show off his strength, but even he was puffing for breath.

  “That’s a tough-hided old bunch,” he said to no one in particular. He pulled a couple of cold biscuits out of his coat pocket.

  Charlotte followed Mrs. Wickman back to the Temple after the coffee had been drunk. She helped her rinse the cups and waited until everyone else was out of earshot.

  “Frances,” she said, “Are you—?”

  Mrs. Wickman blushed, smiling. “Can you tell already? I think I’m only two months along.”

  “Just had a feeling, that’s all.” She embraced her. “And was this—”

  “Anticipated?” She shrugged. “Not exactly. I didn’t exactly try to avoid it either. We didn’t really talk about it, just … you know.”

  “Of course. I’m delighted.”

  Charlotte’s thoughts must have been easy to read, for Mrs. Wickman quietly said, “I know it’ll never replace Mary or Lucy. Wouldn’t want that. Not so sure about the Mister, though.” She looked mournful. “I think he just misses children being around, you know.”

  Charlotte left her with another hug and a promise not to tell. There was no time to stand and talk.

  By the end of the day all were exhausted, but the hogs were cut up and ready for salting the next day. The children had taken the bladders, tied off the ends, and were playing kickball with them. They raced around the fields with their new toys, returning to the lard kettle now and then to snatch hot cracklings. Schnack had sidled up to Charlotte and asked her to set aside some onions for his wurst recipe.

  “I’ll work it up tomorrow,” he said. “Just like mama used to make. You see.”

  Charlotte thought about telling him that her mama had never in her life made sausage out of anything, much less blood, but held her remark. She left Schnack sorting through the tub for the best lungs.

  Cabot had left the shed and walked to his cabin, thinking to wait a few minutes, circle the village, and return from the other side. Lysander Smith was sitting in his doorway, a copy of Travels to Daybreak in his hand, keeping his place with a finger.

  “In the book, you don’t work nearly as hard,” he said. “You should call it Backbreak, not Daybreak.”

  Cabot didn’t feel like talking but stopped anyway, his mind churning. So she didn’t say she loved him. All right. He understood why she couldn’t. But surely no one could kiss like that without love. Or perhaps one could, and he was a fool.

  “That’s why it’s a book. You could have helped, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “But you’re a paying guest, of course.”

  “It’s not that. I’m just—ah—intimidated, shall we say. Killing, chopping, all that.”

  “Perhaps you should have stayed in Philadelphia, Mr. Smith.”

  “Perhaps so. But back to my original observation.”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s so ideal about this place? It looks like just another work farm to me. I don’t see the point.”

  Cabot felt his color rise. “Mr. Smith, you do not see what we see. You see only the surface of things. Where you see toil, I see community. People building a small place in the world where status is not determined by wealth, where all are equal.” He felt surprised at himself for defending Daybreak so vehemently.

  He had come to the place as an outsider himself, and here he was, talking like one of the true believers at the Thursday night meetings. Perhaps he had become one of those true believers at last.

  “A pretty dream. I’ll take the world as it is, thank you.”

  “Really. You prefer the world as it is, eh?”

  “I didn’t say that. The world is a horrid place, and we both know it. I just said I’d take it, rather than trying to live in an imaginary alternative. You can have your pretty dream.” He paused and looked toward the hog-killing scene. “And next year you’re going to make rope. The fun never ends.”

  Cabot was about to make another comment but paused. “You’re right. We need to do something just for enjoyment. Any ideas?”

  “None that you would approve of.” Smith smirked.

  “You know what I mean. The cultural life.”

  “What, don’t you think Mr. Turner’s Sunday lectures are fun?”

  “How about a dance? I’ve heard you play, and old Mercadier knows quite a few airs and reels. A Christmas dance would be a fine thing.”

  Smith waved the book at him. “For God’s sake, listen to you! I thought you were more intelligent than to fall in with this troop of monkeys. Look at them, working like slaves, and for what? The common good, the community? Don’t make me laugh. You’re all intoxicated by the great ideas of the great man, and what has it gotten you?”

  “A community of fellow strivers.”

  “An island of dreamers in a sea of strife.”

  Cabot turned away, stung by the dose of truth in his words. Smith rose and put his hand on his shoulder. “All right, you’ll have your dance. If there’s any way to get my hand up that girl’s skirts, it would be to make music with her old dad.”

  “Mr. Smith, you shock me.”

  “Oh, don’t act so righteous.” Smith leaned close. “There is always a woman, isn’t there?”

  Cabot did not answer.

  The Christmas dance took place a month later. Smith and Mercadier had managed to work up some dance tunes, everyone emerged with their best clothes, and the tables and benches in the Temple were pushed to the walls.

  Marie, for once, lowered her shield against the young men and danced every dance, her cheeks flushed and a smile on her sober face. She even danced once with Turner, who showed himself to be good on his feet.

  Though the idea had been his, Cabot felt detached from the festive mood. Charlotte had given him no chance to speak with her alone since the encounter in the print shop. Every day he felt nothing but longing and ache for the woman he could not have, or could have if she would only allow it. He could not force gaiety into his gloomy manner, but tried to conceal it as best he could by keeping himself across the room from Charlotte and Turner, hugging the wall as the dancers swirled and stomped.

  He felt a shoulder rub against his. It was George Webb.

  “You’re the picture of fun,” Webb said.

  “Sorry. Somehow the mood isn’t there tonight.”

  “You should dance.”

  “As should you.”

  Webb snorted. “You never seen me dance. I’d frighten the children.” The music shifted from a heavy jig to an air, and the two watched the dancers shift position. “Besides, there’s an overage of men. Let’s stroll out.”

  Stars filled the clear winter sky, but the air was not yet the jaw-numbing cold of January. The men pulled their coats around themselves and stood on the steps of the Temple, gazing down the moonlit valley toward the river.

  “Two months ago, cornfields,” Webb said. “A year ago, pasture scrub. Five years ago, forest.”

  “And next year?”

&nb
sp; “Hell if I know. Hemp, so they say.”

  “So we say.”

  “So he says. Just hope it ain’t back to pasture scrub by then. Let’s walk down and look at this ropeworks.”

  They followed the rows of stubble down the slope to the main road. Across the road was the level ground where men had been clearing brush in a long, narrow line between the road and the river; the ropewalk had to be straight, and it had to be covered, so the hemp wouldn’t twist wrong or get wet. Cabot could see where the posts for the framing were to be set.

  “Hell of an operation,” said Webb. He pulled a flask of whiskey from an inside pocket of his coat and handed it to Cabot.

  “I didn’t know you drank,” Cabot said.

  “It ain’t my son’s product. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.” They gazed up and down the cleared path. “How did we get into the rope business, anyway?”

  “We took a vote.”

  “I suppose so. Still. We always take votes but they always come out the same. Mr. Turner gets a bright idea, and we all hop to say yes. Lecture tour, newspaper, this Smith fellow, and now a hemp farm. Weren’t supposed to be this way. Supposed to be a democracy, everybody with a say, everybody makes the decisions.”

  The liquor warmed Cabot’s throat. He handed the flask back. “Truly spoken,” he said. “Without equality in the decision-making, our equality of ownership means nothing.”

  “Truly spoken,” Webb repeated, taking a drink and returning the flask.

  The lights from the Temple shone across the empty fields, and from where the men stood they could hear faint music from inside. They stood in silence for a while.

  “There will be snow in a day or two,” Webb said. Cabot didn’t answer for a while.

  “So what do we do about this?” he finally said.

  They turned and strolled toward the Temple, sensing that their presence would be missed before long. A breeze from the north lifted Cabot’s hair and stung his cheeks a little. “Mr. Turner is a good man, and the idea is sound,” Webb said, choosing his words. “But forming the idea is different from carrying it out.”

  Cabot knew they were pausing at the threshold of a cabal, reluctant to cross over. “I’m tired of playing the junior lead in this drama,” he murmured, surprised that he had said the words aloud.

  “Rightly so,” Webb said. “You’re a sharp man. But I ain’t asking you to betray your friend.”

  “What are you asking, then?”

  “I’m saying you and me, when we get together before the meeting, we are half the group. If we keep ourselves together, we can block any foolish ideas, rein him in. Maybe over time the man gets the point that he ain’t the emperor.”

  “And with three votes, we can enact our own ideas.”

  Webb stopped at the foot of the Temple steps, startled. “You don’t think she’d vote against her own husband?”

  Cabot hesitated. “On the right issue, perhaps.”

  As if on cue, the Temple door opened. Charlotte stood in the beam of light.

  “There you are. Don’t tell me you two are out here nipping at the jug,” she said.

  “We just stepped out for a moment,” Cabot said apologetically. “We’ll be right back.”

  “And what draws you out here at this hour?” She walked down the steps to join them.

  “Just wanted to inspect the ropeworks, see how it’s going,” Webb said. They both wore embarrassed looks.

  “Ah, the ropeworks,” Charlotte said. She gazed across the fields toward the river. “That is quite a piece of work.”

  “You can say that again,” Webb said. They stood in silence in the moonlight. Suddenly Cabot felt emboldened.

  “Actually, Mrs. Turner, we came out here to talk,” he burst out. “And it concerns your husband.”

  He could feel Webb’s eyes on him as if he had just blurted out a state secret. “I don’t think this is such a good idea,” Webb said.

  Cabot turned to her. “May we speak to you in confidence?”

  “Go on. But if I am not comfortable with this conversation, I will ask you to stop.”

  Cabot nodded. The two men looked at each other again, and Cabot cleared his throat. “Mrs. Turner, we are beginning to worry.” She waited.

  He composed his thoughts. “One of the founding principles of this community is democracy, as you of course know.” A passage from Travels to Daybreak came to mind. “‘Some would say that the wise should rule. But who are the wise, and how do we know them? By their exercise of judgment. And how do the wise become wise? By the same exercise of judgment. And the wisdom of many is greater than the wisdom of one.’“

  “You have a prodigious memory,” Charlotte said with a smile.

  “Go on, go on,” Webb said, now impatient.

  “In any event. We are concerned that Mr. Turner is forgetting this principle. We began noticing small things. How duties are assigned. Whether others’ opinions are recognized. Then we received Mr. Smith without warning or consultation. And now this rope manufacture, which, yes, we voted on, but with less than complete understanding.”

  “But why meet like conspirators?” Charlotte said. “Why this moonlight trip to the woods?”

  “Fact is, ma’am,” Webb said, “we’re not sure how your husband will take it if we were to talk to him directly. He’s been acting touchy.”

  “Then treat him like your leader.” Charlotte’s face glistened with sweat from the dancing; she shivered in the chill night air.

  “One thing, Mrs. Turner,” Adam said.

  It felt formal and strange to call her “Mrs. Turner.” Even with his own feelings set aside, their friendship was such that they could use first names. But he knew George Webb would hear the change, and wonder.

  “Yes?” she said, her voice steady.

  “Could you talk to him? Nothing too serious, just let him know that there are people who are concerned about our democratic principles?”

  She nodded, but with a grimace. They walked up the steps to the door of the Temple, the men on each side of her. Light streamed out the windows, and the strains of fiddle music could be heard over the shuffling and clumping of feet and the random din of voices. The music stopped. There was a burst of applause.

  They stepped through the doors. Turner was leaning against the wall by the two musicians, watching the dancers. Charlotte walked straight across the floor to him and took him by the arm.

  “Dance with me, James,” she said. She turned to Mercadier and Smith. “Play to wake snakes.”

  And then it was the dead of winter, time for indoor work, repairs and mending, the cattle in the barn most of the time, even the hogs staying close. The ground froze too hard to dig post holes, so work on the ropewalk stopped.

  In late January the river froze over. Children scooted out on the ice, greasing the soles of their shoes so they could slide better. When he was sure that the ice would hold, Charlotte’s father organized a work crew. “Perfect chance to set up that water wheel,” he said. Tied together in case the ice broke, they chopped a hole in the ice eight feet from the bank. Carr peered down through the water. “Perfect, perfect,” he muttered.

  Some of the crew took a wagon up on the ridge and chopped down cedar trees, stripping off the limbs and leaving only the trunk. “Cypress would be better, but you work with what you’ve got,” Carr said. Then they drove the tree trunks deep into the riverbed, brutal work in the cold and wet; the men came in shivering at lunchtime with their pants encased in ice. After ten tree trunks were driven into the river bottom, Carr had the men bind them together with heavy rope. “Now for the rocks,” he said. “Biggest we can load.”

  For the next several days, crews took wagons into the hills, prying rocks out of the frozen ground or chiseling them from outcrops. Standing on opposite banks, the men used ropes to pull the rocks onto the ice and into the ever-growing hole. After a couple of weeks, Carr ventured out on the newly formed ice and gave the piling a violent shake in all directions. He declared it f
irm.

  “We’ll mount a keeper for the axle on top, and have ourselves a fine little wheel,” he said. “Not much power but enough for this job.”

  One evening Charlotte found the moment to speak to Turner about Cabot and Webb’s concerns, bringing the subject up without warning after dinner to see his response. “Do you think Daybreak has become less democratic lately?”

  “Sure,” Turner said. “Good thing, too. We’d never get anything done.”

  His casual reply surprised her. “Doesn’t that worry you?”

  “Why should it worry me? We’ll get more democratic once we’re self-sufficient. It’s all part of the plan.”

  “But what if others don’t see the plan? What if they want more say now, not later?”

  Turner puffed a sigh. “Everybody wants perfection. Why can’t they be happy with improvement?” He looked at her suspiciously. “Why? Have you been hearing something?”

  “Just odd comments, that sort of thing. You know how people talk, especially the women.” She felt uncomfortable concealing the names of Cabot and Webb.

  “I hope you stood up for me. I need you to stand up for me on this.”

  “It’s not an issue of standing up or not, sweetheart. It was just talk, the general mood of people. So I wanted to ask what you thought.”

  “Here’s what I think. I think things around this community improved quite a bit when we got rid of Cantwell. So if we have some new complainers, maybe it’s time to clean things up again.”

  “James! If I had known you were going to make such a fuss I never would have brought it up.”

  “Oh, I’ll make a fuss all right. The last thing this community needs is another bunch of malcontents stirring up discord.”

  Charlotte let the conversation go. She hardly knew what she could tell the men. But she felt obligated to pass along something, so one morning after breakfast she found Cabot on the street and took him by the arm. “Where does your work lead you today, Mr. Cabot?”

  “Nowhere in particular. I thought I might go out to the barn and see if I can be of use. Wickman is supposed to be mending harness. I don’t know any more about that than he does, but we can be ignorant together.”