Slant of Light

by Steve Wiegenstein

  There were three cloth bags in the box, each with a number of gold pieces. Turner counted them out.

  “Two hundred dollars,” he said at the end. Cabot did not even bother to open the account book. They all knew there should be at least three thousand.

  “That ain’t much,” Harp said. “You people been working for three years and that’s all you got?”

  “Let me think,” said Turner. “I need to think about this.”

  “In case you want to ask,” Harp said, “I’m fine to tell you that money ain’t mine. It’s yours.”

  “Thanks,” Charlotte said.

  “I ain’t no thief.”

  “I know that.”

  “While I got the three of you here, there are some things I want to tell you,” Harp said. “First, let me ask you this. You know the difference between a warranty deed and a quitclaim deed?”

  “No,” Charlotte replied. Turner and Cabot looked at them curiously.

  “Well, you might ought to find out,” Harp said. “‘Cause what you got over there is a quitclaim deed, and now that the old man is dead you might find out other people got claims. Just ‘cause the old man signed off his interest in the property don’t mean you own it clear.”

  “Is this true?” Turner asked.

  “You ever seen your deed?”

  “No.”

  “Then go on up to the courthouse and take a look. And another thing. I own this house now, and that little fartknocker that’s been living here needs to go. You people want to take him in, fine. But from me, it’s time for him to root hog.”

  “But surely your—” Charlotte began.

  “Oh now, ma’am, you’re going to tell me what my father would have wanted? Here’s the thing. My daddy don’t live here any more. This is my house now, and I’ll run it how I want. “

  Charlotte shivered. “I didn’t mean to suggest—”

  “Here’s the thing,” Harp said again. “The old man was your friend, he liked people with big ideas, he brought you all here and cheered you on. But that dreamy shit is not for me, and you all just need to stay out of my way.”

  Turner tucked the strongbox under his arm and stepped down from the porch. Charlotte and Cabot followed. But then Cabot turned, stepped up one step, and extended his hand.

  “No hard feelings,” he said.

  “Right,” Harp said dubiously, shaking Cabot’s hand.

  “I hope you wouldn’t mind if we came back for a second look sometime.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  They waited until they were home before asking Cabot what he was up to.

  “Simple deduction,” he said. “Think about it. George Webb was a smart man and an honest man. Agreed?”

  “Of course,” Charlotte said.

  “He didn’t trust banks, because he’d seen them fail too many times. But he knew that keeping your money at home would attract robbers. And robbers could force him to show them where he hid the money.”

  “Right.”

  “So the money in the fireplace is for the thieves. The rest of the money is hidden somewhere else.”

  Charlotte saw the sense in what he was saying.

  “He didn’t tell Harp about the hiding places because perhaps he didn’t have the same level of confidence in Harp’s honesty that you do, Charlotte. And he didn’t tell us because, well, I don’t know.”

  “So you think—” Turner began.

  “I think there’s another box somewhere nearby with the rest of our treasury. It has to be close enough to get to, but not where it could be accidentally or easily found. Like I said, George Webb was a smart man.”

  Turner nodded. “A little too smart for his own good, or ours at least. But at least we know what we have to do.”

  “This news isn’t going to go over well with the community,” Cabot said.

  “Let’s not tell them,” Turner replied.

  Cabot grimaced. “I have to say this. George and I had grown quite concerned about the way decisions are being made. Too much keeping in the dark, too many things done without votes or discussion. And I have to say, I agreed with him.”

  Turner cast a look toward Charlotte. “Is this what you were trying to tell me about this spring? This is your talk-among-the-women?” She looked away. “Well, you can complain all you like about secrecy, but perhaps you should stop having private conversations with my wife.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cabot stammered. “We meant no—”

  “And don’t tell me you meant no harm. Those are words I don’t care to hear. Meaning harm and doing it are separate things.” Cabot turned to leave. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Turner took his arm. “Please,” he said. “Give me a day or two to find this other box, and then if I haven’t found it, we’ll lay it out for the community. I just don’t want to create a panic.”

  “Very well,” Cabot said, embarrassed. “And please understand, George and I didn’t want to involve Charlotte in our discussions. She just stumbled on us one day.”

  “Yes, your secret discussions. Let’s save that for another time.”

  When Cabot opened the door, Charley Pettibone was sitting out on the stepping stone, his bag on the ground beside him. He stood up.

  “Guess I’ll be on my way,” he said. “I ain’t had much success at sticking, I guess.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Cabot said. “You’ll share my house, if you don’t think it’s a bad omen to sleep in a dead man’s bed.”

  “Don’t believe in ‘em,” Charley said. “A man makes his own luck, good or bad. That feller didn’t want to get hung, he shouldn’ta been stealing people’s niggers, is my opinion.” He paused and looked nervously at Cabot. “Um, I guess you must be some kind of abolitionist, then.”

  Cabot smiled. “I suppose I am.”

  “Wellsir,” Charley said. “I don’t see why we can’t just keep politics out of it. People don’t have to agree on everything.”

  “Charley, you’re a philosopher,” Turner said. “Who would have thought it?”

  “Don’t know nothing about that,” Charley said. “But if you’ll put me up, sir, I’ll work off whatever rent you charge.”

  “That’s just it, Charley,” Cabot replied. “In this community, we all hold everything in common. I don’t own that house. We all do. And you’re going to be one of us.”

  Charley looked suspicious. “Do I gotta take a pledge or something?” Charlotte stepped into the yard and embraced him. “Just work hard and look out for the others.”

  Turner went to the barn after dark and found a slender iron rod, which he carried back to the Webbs’ house. Harp let him in without a word. For an hour he poked at the walls and floors, listening for hollow sounds, feeling for anything loose. Then he came outside with a shaded lantern and probed with the rod under tree roots and bushes. Nothing.

  Naturally, someone saw him, and two days later he had to admit to the community meeting that their savings had gone missing. Immediately half the men were on their feet, calling out questions and recriminations.

  “Harp Webb stole it, is what happened!” one man cried out.

  “We ought to just burn his house and then sift the ashes,” said another.

  “So we’re ruined? Is that what you’re telling us? We’re ruined?”

  Turner tried to calm the frenzy but the angry buzz continued.

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” he said. “We’ll keep looking for the money. It can’t be lost forever. And in the meantime Grindstaff will keep us on his ticket at the store. We don’t need the cash—”

  “And what about our taxes?” someone interrupted. “Think the county collector will keep us on a ticket?”

  The quarreling started again. Turner waved his arms in the air, vainly seeking quiet. Then Emile Mercadier stood up and walked to the front of the meeting. Except for Newton Carr, he was at least twenty years older than anyone else in the room. Everyone fell quiet.

  “When I was in France, I was a poor man,�
� he said. “I come to America a poor man. I come here a poor man. So what are you telling me? I’m a rich man now and I got to worry about losing my money? You all been rich men all this time?

  “Mister Webb, he done his best by us. He knows the banks, they take your money and they give you their notes. You try to spend the notes somewhere, everybody look at it like you printed it yourself. So he doesn’t tell anybody where he hides the money. Well, nobody ever thinks they going to die today.” He shrugged. “But sometimes you die anyway. In France, we had a saying: ‘Life is an onion. You cry while you peel it.’“

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” a man shouted.

  Cabot stood up. Since Webb’s death he had been tiptoeing around the community, rehashing his final angry words, blaming himself, tiptoeing around Charlotte, around Turner, afraid to meet their gazes for what he might see in Turner’s look and what he might not see in Charlotte’s. Who was he kidding? He was a thrown stone, a man already living on borrowed time. What power need he give to the looks and words of others? “It means we have had a setback, but we don’t just quit. We move ahead. Cry if you want, but peel the onion.”

  Mercadier’s comments settled everyone down, although heads inclined together from time to time and the sound of whispers and low conversations continued. But at least there was no rush to leave, although a young man named Trimble, a recent arrival, packed up and left a week later.

  On a late October afternoon, Charlotte was sweeping the yard when a wagon came up from the south, driven by a weathered man with a full beard. He stopped in front of their house, his gaze directed into the distance ahead, where the water wheel could be seen slowly rotating through the trees.

  “I hear you all got a rope mill,” he said, tilting his head toward the bed of the wagon. In it was a full load of hemp stalks, well retted, ten feet long or more. Two children were riding the load to hold it down. “How much you pay for a load? I got four more wagonloads at least where this come from.”

  Charlotte looked up at him. “We don’t have any cash to pay you right now,” she said, “but we’ll mill it on shares. We’ll give you half of whatever we get when we sell it up in town.”

  The man looked at her suspiciously for a moment. She could see him calculating in his mind. “All right,” he said. “Fair enough.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Coldwater.”

  “Your neighbors grow any hemp?”

  “Oh, some. Most everybody has a little. Farther south you get some good-sized patches.”

  “Drive on up the road a little. There are some men in the field who’ll help you unload your wagon. And when you go back to Coldwater, tell all your neighbors about the deal you got from us. For every one who comes up here with a decent crop and tells me you sent them, I’ll add fifty cents to your settlement.”

  The man grinned. “Name’s Atwell,” he said. “Just remember that when people show up and say, ‘Atwell sent me.’“

  She reached up and shook his hand. “Good to meet you, Mr. Atwell.”

  Atwell chucked his horses and drove off, the children bouncing in the back, and Charlotte waved at them as they rode away. About twenty feet down the road, the man stopped and turned around in his seat. “Hey, you remember that fellow Brown, caused so much trouble over in Kansas?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tried to start a nigger rebellion back in Virginia. Took over the arsenal and sent out a call to arms. It’s all over the telegraph.” He tried to think further. “Nothing to worry about, though. They got him cornered.”

  Charlotte waved her hand at him but did not know what to say in return.

  “Can you imagine a bunch of niggers with guns?” Atwell said. “What a world.” He started the wagon forward, but stopped and turned around again after another few yards. “Bet you’d get a better price if you took it to the railhead in Pilot Knob and shipped it to St. Louis,” he shouted back at her. “These local boys got some sharp teeth.”

  “I’ll look into that!” she called back. “Thanks!”

  Excitement grew in Charlotte as the wagon drove away. Of course! That was what they should have been aiming for in the first place. Not just making their own rope, but running a factory. There would be detractors, no doubt. She could hear them already, the men who would say that factory work was what they had left behind when they came to Daybreak, the ones who wanted just to live off the farm. And yes, it was hard work, harder than anything else they did. But James was right—their plot of ground couldn’t support a town. Once the money started rolling in, the criticism would stop.

  She should tell James. He would want to know immediately, even though he was working on The Eagle and did not like to be disturbed. He would want to greet Atwell, add his welcome, ratify the deal. And he would want to know this news from back East.

  She hurried to the print shed with the news and opened the door. And in the moment she saw everything—everything, the composing table with no type set out on it, the jobsticks still hanging from their pegs, Marie lying on the table with her dress up around her neck, and Turner above her, his pants thrown into the corner, the sound of his grunts, his bare legs tense and muscular, moving back and forth in that all-too-familiar motion—in that moment she felt her life, her world, her entire self turn as if on a pivot, a hard turn to the left and down, down into she knew not what. Then she turned away and shut the door behind her and ran back to the house.

  September 1859/November 1860

  Chapter 19

  The news spread through the village by sunset. No one had seen anything, but the combination of events—Turner carrying clothes and linens out to the print shed, Charlotte’s tear-streaked face as she strode to her father’s cabin, Marie’s sequestration in her house—made it all too clear what had happened.

  Charley Pettibone brought Cabot the story when he came in from the fields. “Now ain’t that the rinktum,” Charley said. “No wonder I never got no purchase on that gal. King rooster was keeping all the hens to himself.”

  A chill settled in the pit of Cabot’s stomach as he rushed to put on his coat. He would go to Charlotte, take her in his arms, offer his comfort, let her know that he would never have treated her like such a cavalier. He would take her away if she wanted. Or together they would drive out this man, this cad. He envisioned himself in confrontation, and the calm but fierce things he would say. James Turner was a big man, but even a tall tree might prove rotten when struck by a well-aimed blow. Cabot clenched his fists.

  Then he stopped and slowly removed his coat and hat. He hung them back on their pegs. Who was he to go out like Galahad, defending women’s honor? He was already a fool, no call to add “hypocrite” to his titles.

  What had possessed Turner to behave so rashly? How could he have wanted Marie when he already had Charlotte? Love? Lust? He thought of Charlotte’s hand in his as they sat by the river, the firm yet yielding press of her lips, her hands slipping around his back and pressing him to her. He remembered their frantic fumblings right there, on the bed of his own cabin. Love or lust—he could understand them both.

  For two days he composed what he would say to her when the time was right. He would doff his hat and bow respectfully, tell her of his concern for her happiness; he would offer his family home in Boston as a haven in her time of distress. He would not press her, but would make clear that she had an alternative to staying in Daybreak.

  And then he rounded a corner of his house the next morning and nearly bowled her over in the street as she was walking to the Temple for her day’s work.

  His careful words fled. They regarded each other in silence. “I’m terribly sorry,” he finally stammered. “I had no idea.”

  Her face closed into a frown. “Neither did I, obviously.”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “I’m … I want to be your friend.”

  She smiled. “You have always been my friend. I never imagined otherwise.”

  Then….

  Sh
e placed the palm of her hand flat on his chest, a gesture that felt both like a friendly touch and a message to stop. “Then be my friend.” She walked away before he could say more, leaving him baffled, his great speech lodged in his throat. He remembered to remove his hat, but by that time she was fifty feet away.

  Turner hid himself away in the print shed, unsure how or if he could show himself again. He thought of leaving in the night, heading west somewhere, ending the embarrassment and shame by an utter disappearance with nothing left of his memory but packets of money that would appear from time to time. But he knew such a move would solve nothing. Plates of food appeared on the step sometimes. Although he liked to imagine that Charlotte was bringing them, he doubted that was the case. He ate sometimes, and sneaked to the woods to do his business at night or during mealtimes, when he thought he could avoid an accidental encounter with anyone.

  From the window of the shed he could see the road, the people coming and going between their homes, the occasional horseman and wagon passing. The mill wheel turned slowly in the river. On the second day a couple of wagons appeared from the south, and on the third a half dozen, loaded with hemp. Turner recognized what was happening. Word had gotten around about their rope mill, and the farmers were bringing their crop, selling on the shares, no doubt. It was a fine thing—breathing room for the colony at a badly needed time. He guessed Charlotte was behind the idea.

  It was Newton Carr who came to see him, accompanied by young Newton, who climbed onto his lap. Carr settled into a chair by the door and looked at him with calm but unflinching eyes. Turner could not meet his gaze.

  “It’s a good thing they outlawed the code duello,” Carr said at last. “I’d have to try to shoot you, and from what I can tell you’re a damn good shot.”

  Turner didn’t know what to say.

  “Emile would like to thrash you with a stick,” Carr went on. “If I were you, I’d let him do it. You deserve a good thrashing.”