Slant of Light

by Steve Wiegenstein

  “Yes, sir.”

  Carr tipped the chair back and leaned against the wall.

  “In the Army we had this problem a lot. Hundreds, thousands of men, off in some lonesome place. Wives and daughters around, but always way more men than women. The rule was, go into town. Don’t find your satisfaction within the regiment.”

  Young Newton climbed down and began to explore the printing equipment. Ordinarily the shed was off limits to him, so he examined every item with great interest. Turner kept an eye on the typecases and the ink. As long as he didn’t get into those, he would be all right.

  “Didn’t work, of course,” Carr continued. “Human nature being what it is. Hell on morale. You’d get some lieutenant, thinks one of the men is after his wife, not a good thing. David and Uriah all over again. Challenges, duels, you could forbid it but they’d wait till later. Not good, not good.”

  Turner listened.

  “The key is, you’ve got the unit to think about. You can’t forget the good of the unit. That’s the commander’s job.”

  Carr walked over to the press and idly examined some of the proof sheets.

  “Cabot led the meeting last week, did a good job,” he said. “Very creditable. The ropemaking business went over pretty well. We’re writing to some merchants in St. Louis to see what they offer.”

  “Captain Carr,” Turner said. “What should I do?”

  Carr regarded him. “I expect you’ve run through all your choices in the past few days. You could run off, but I don’t have you figured for that big a coward.

  You could bluff it out, try to pretend it was all a big misunderstanding. But if I have raised my daughter right—and I think I have—she won’t let you by with that. And even if she would, I won’t.” He leaned forward. “And then you would have to decide whether you could shoot me, because by God I would intend to shoot you. Or you could do what you already know you need to do. Apologize. Her first, then Marie, then everyone. Apologize and make amends, try to patch the harm as best you can, although harm once done cannot be undone. What else can you do?”

  “I don’t know if I can face everyone.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, man. You’ve made a mistake. You’re a human being. Do you think you’re the first human being who’s made a mistake?”

  “But how can they trust me?”

  “They don’t trust you. Doesn’t mean you can’t regain it. What’s black turns to gray over time.”

  Charlotte walked through her days enveloped in a shell of silence. No one knew what to say to her, so they said nothing. And she had nothing to say in return. What was there to say? She had come upon her husband and the Mercadier girl engaged in the act of nature, and her world had spun down and crashed. And yet the world itself moved on at its own pace, children to care for, chickens to feed, cattle to milk. So she awoke in the morning and went to her duties, as if her life had not been blasted.

  It was his arrogance that came back to her again and again, his doing it in the shed not thirty feet behind the house. Evidently he thought everyone in Daybreak was a fool, or that he had been given the gift of invisibility. And the girl—Charlotte resented her, the silly thing, but could not bring herself to hate her for long. Not many years had passed since she had been the impressionable young woman, carried away by Turner’s grand ideas. She wondered about them, how long they had been involved like this, what he found in her that she did not provide. But she cast away those thoughts. Better not to know.

  And what was she to do now? The question haunted her. Run away? To where and to do what? She knew that was Cabot’s grand idea, to leap into the void and make a fresh start, although thank God he had been gentleman enough not to bring it up. She could read his thoughts in his face. The idea was tempting, if for no other reason than the escape from the present pain, but she knew it was not real. Duty called her here, duty to Newton and her father and Daybreak; it was not in her power to change that. Perhaps James would fly to a new life with his little squab. If so, Godspeed, and let them be merry. As for herself, she had a house to keep and a child to raise.

  Several days later, Charlotte was in bed, half-asleep, when she heard the latch on the back door click open. Turner took off his shoes and knelt beside the bed. She didn’t speak to him for a while. She could hear Newton’s soft snoring from the trundle bed on the floor.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said.

  “I won’t. I just want to tell you that I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, well. That solves everything.”

  “Just let me back.”

  She rolled over and spoke toward the wall. “You live here. You’re entitled to live here. I have nowhere else to go. Don’t expect anything.”

  He put on his nightshirt and climbed into bed, careful not to touch her. “I’m sorry.”

  “So you said.”

  At some point in the night Newton climbed out of his trundle and fell asleep in the bed with them.

  They did not speak for several days, although Charlotte could tell he wanted to. On the night of the weekly community meeting, he left the house early. Walking to the Temple of Community, Charlotte saw him standing at the Mercadiers’ door, hat in hand, while Emile raged. He arrived at the Temple a little later and sat beside her.

  “I’m trying to apologize,” he said. “To you, too.”

  “I know. But maybe we’re not ready to be apologized to.”

  The meeting was painful. Some people sat with their arms folded, averting their eyes; others glared. Some of the glares were aimed at her, and Charlotte realized that with Turner sitting beside her, people were assuming that she had taken him back. Cabot led the meeting, which came to a quick, strangled end.

  Afterward they walked home in silence, keeping a distance between them, until they reached their house.

  “Stars in heaven, I miss George Webb,” Turner said.

  Charlotte sat down on the doorstone. “Me too.”

  “How are we going to know when to butcher the hogs? And how deep to plow? And everything else George knew?”

  Charlotte looked at him. “The same way George knew it. By asking, observing, learning. George didn’t just come by all that knowledge at birth, you know. What he knew, you can learn. We all can learn.”

  “Thank you. You’re right.”

  “Of course I am.” Her old teasing smile appeared, but only for an instant.

  “I really do love you. I hope you know that.”

  She turned serious. “Say that if you want. But I don’t love you right now.”

  As winter approached, Turner discovered that he did indeed know more than he had thought. The wisdom of the many, which he had written about in Travels to Daybreak years ago, worked to identify the best time for bringing the hogs in. And everyone seemed to have a clear notion of how much wood needed to be cut for the cold days ahead, and where it should be cut. And it was while preparing the stall where the hogs would be driven and killed that Turner, scraping out manure with a shovel, hit a thick plank an inch under the dirt, lifted it, and beneath the plank uncovered George Webb’s other strongbox, with stacks of double eagles wrapped in oiled paper, lined up in neat rows, every dollar accounted for. The next week, Turner stepped up to take his usual place at the head of the community meeting, and no one objected.

  Adam Cabot did not speak again of leaving the colony to run for office. But he only talked to Turner when it was necessary, and Turner feared their friendship had come to an end. There was no Christmas dance.

  Charlotte let him stay in the house, although she was careful not to touch him in bed. But over time, the daily labor of parenting eased feelings between them; they found themselves laughing together at some silliness of Newton’s.

  In early January, she came home from the Temple after lunch cleanup and took his hand. “We need to go to Mercadier’s,” she said. “The women are talking. They say Marie is planning to leave.”

  Emile did not want to let them in, but Charlotte insisted. When Marie came into the
front room, the bulge of her abdomen made it clear what was happening.

  “Marie,” Charlotte said. She reached for the girl’s hands, but Marie turned away. “Where do you think you will go?”

  “Up into town, I guess,” Marie said, her voice soft. “St. Louis if I have to.”

  “And what will you do?”

  “What can I do? Serving girl, I hope.”

  Charlotte shook her head. “A serving girl with a little child? Are you dreaming? No one would take you in. The only way for you to find a place would be to leave the child in a foundling home and pretend it never existed. Even then you’d always be in danger of discovery. You could be turned out into the street at any moment.”

  Marie looked up defiantly. “Then it’s whoring for me, I suppose. Lysander Smith always used to say that French whores are big sellers up in the city. They pay extra.”

  Charlotte took her hands this time and did not let go. “You are going to do nothing of the sort,” she said. “You are going to stay right here and raise this child where it will have a grandfather to teach it.” She looked sidelong at Turner. “And where its father will support it the way an honest man should.”

  Marie began to cry. “I am so sorry,” she said. “I have made such a mess.”

  “No,” Charlotte said. “You’ve only helped make the mess. And you know the housewife’s lament, whenever there’s a mess there’s a call for a woman to come clean it up. A mother cannot just think about herself.” She looked intently at Marie. “You’re in a predicament, but it is not forever. Running off to town or St. Louis or wherever, and the life it would lead you to, is forever.”

  Marie wiped her face. She had not looked at Turner during the entire conversation. Charlotte led him to the door, but before it closed she turned back to Marie once more. “Come to dinner tonight,” she said. “The only way through this is straight ahead.”

  “Forgive me,” Marie said.

  “Not yet,” said Charlotte. “Let’s see what happens.”

  Turner did not try to speak to Marie at dinner that night, or for the rest of the winter and into the spring. The year began with a feeling of suspension, as if everyone was waiting for something to happen, although no one knew what that something was. On their trips into town, the talk returned incessantly to national politics. Would there be union or dissolution, would the dissolution lead to war, and if it did who would be to blame: everyone had an opinion, everyone had a prediction, although the opinions and predictions shifted week to week. The hanging of John Brown seemed to give everyone a sharpened sense of the stakes. Riding into town one day, Turner actually saw a fistfight come rolling out of a tavern, like a Hogarth engraving come to life. The colony, with its rhythm of plowing, planting, and hoeing, was a relief. Its demands were set by nature, not by the latest shipment of newspapers from the cities.

  In April Turner was walking to lunch from the fields when, passing the

  Mercadiers, he saw movement at the curtain, and Marie opened the door a crack. She gestured him inside. Her belly was large.

  “I don’t think it will be long now,” she said. “I’m afraid.”

  Turner took her hand. It was the first time they had touched since that day in October. “We will look out for you,” he said.

  “I know. But even so.. “ She was right, and he did not try to reassure her further.

  “Are you well?”

  “Yes. Tired. My back aches. But nothing else.” She bit her lip. “We should think about a name.”

  The thought had not occurred to him. “What was your mother’s name?”

  “Josephine.”

  “How about Josephine for a girl, then?”

  She smiled, her smile still as beautiful—and as rare—as he remembered. “And a boy?”

  “For a boy, something American. A good old American name.” He paused. George?

  “Yes,” she said. “George. I will tell my father. They will not ask you.”

  “I suppose not,” he said.

  Turner did not want to end the conversation. It felt good to be talking with Marie again, even though he knew they shouldn’t be.

  “Remember the time in the wagon?” he said. “A year ago?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m sorry for what I said then.”

  She frowned. “Don’t ever be sorry for saying something honest.”

  “But still. It was unkind.”

  “I like kindness. But I prefer honesty, if I have to choose one or the other.” She paused. “I know we can never be together. But I still love you, you might as well know that.”

  He smiled. “Isn’t it strange? I didn’t love you then, but I love you now. As if that did either of us any good.”

  She released his hand and held the door open a little. “Oh, it does us good. It does me good, anyway. Now go eat your lunch.”

  He stepped out into the street and walked to the Temple. At lunch Newton climbed up beside him to eat; he was at the age where he wanted to follow and imitate his father in everything. Turner put his arm around him as they spooned up their spring greens and salt pork together.

  Charlotte did not want to attend the birth, but she had developed a reputation for being good at deliveries. So when the call went around the settlement early one afternoon, she went. The delivery was not complicated, quite fast really, a black-haired little girl who began to squall almost immediately. She returned home after dark. Turner was reading a book by the lamp.

  “A girl,” she said. “Josephine. After her mother.”

  “And—?”

  “Both well.”

  He did not inquire further, and she was in no mood to talk. She put Newton to bed quickly, sat in the rocking chair by the window, and tried to read.

  “She won’t be able to baptize her,” she said after a while. “Surely she could find somebody,” Turner said.

  “Not a priest,” Charlotte said. “I assume they’re Catholic. I didn’t ask.”

  “Maybe that Irishman that was through here a while back. He seemed eager for work.”

  She looked up. “Don’t be flippant,” she said. “This could be important to her.”

  “We’ve never had Newton baptized.”

  “It’s not the same. We could have if we had wanted to.”

  “Yes.”

  The birth of the child only seemed to polarize the community further. A couple of families left amid comments about countenancing an immoral situation. Charlotte’s refusal to drive Marie away met with approval from a few and incredulity from most. But everyone—including Turner—was caught by surprise at the next weekly meeting, when Adam Cabot stood up. He calmly reminded everyone that they had forgotten to hold their annual elections as provided in the Daybreak Charter, without needing to mention that the reason for the omission had been the breaking scandal, and nominated Charlotte for community president.

  The outcry was even greater than when Turner had had to tell them about the missing money. Some insisted that a woman could not be elected to the office, but Cabot was ready for them with a copy of the articles of incorporation. Someone else nominated Turner, someone else moved that the elections be postponed for a week, and soon motions, objections, and simple shouts of confusion were flying.

  “Gentlemen,” Turner said, when quiet finally came over the crowd. “We organized ourselves on democratic principles, and we would do well to live up to them. Two nominations have been made and both are in order. Let us vote.” And Charlotte won.

  So there it was. Turner walked home from the meeting alone, stunned. He sat in the dark house, thoughts tumbling in his mind. Was he just to become another citizen of Daybreak, the child of his own mind? But how could he? Nothing made sense.

  Charlotte got home a half hour later, Newton asleep on her shoulder. “I didn’t put him up to that, in case you are wondering,” she said, lighting a lantern. “I suspected he was up to something, though.”

  “Charlotte,” Turner said. “It was my book. This whole place is
my idea.” He hated the petulant sound of his voice.

  “You could have spoken in your own behalf, you know.”

  “It wouldn’t have felt right. Let democracy take its course. But God! To have you be the agent of my humiliation. I suppose this must feel like sweet revenge.”

  Charlotte’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want revenge!”

  “Then why did you let your nomination stand? You could have refused.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I could have refused, if I didn’t mind dishonoring the principles of duty and cooperation you founded this community on. ‘Where there is division, let us bring harmony.’ Remember? You may have written the book, but you’re not the only believer. If the citizens of Daybreak want to elect someone else president, that’s their right. And you have no call to let your hurt feelings or personal ambition get in the way.” She paused, and a sheepish smile came over her face. “Oh, all right. It did feel like sweet revenge. But only for a minute.”

  She was right, and he knew it. And he had to smile back at her admission. “You think you can do the job.”

  “Of course.”

  “And me? What am I to do?”

  “I don’t know. I have a vague notion it might be good for you to see things from a different place. And believe me, I won’t forget that this colony was your idea.” she said. “Now what’s going to become of it?”

  “You tell me. You’re the new president. What are your big plans?”

  “What’s to say? Plant, harvest. Spread the word about the ropewalk. Publish The Eagle. Hold the community together.”

  “Your plans sound a lot like mine.”

  “And why shouldn’t they?” she said. “James, your dreams are my dreams too. Surely you know that.”

  He did know it, but felt bruised nevertheless. How did she know what was good for him and what wasn’t? He could decide that for himself. The fact remained that he had been voted out of office in his own community.

  For the next several days, he couldn’t help feeling angry about his ouster, but there was nothing to be done about it, and after a while he resolved to make the best of his life as an ordinary citizen of Daybreak. He took John Wesley Wickman to the side and handed him the strongbox.