Len stood up too. “Yes, sir.”
Taylor dropped a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be a fool, Len. Think it over.”
“I will.” He went out, feeling sullen and resentful and at the same time convinced that the judge was talking sense. Amity, marriage, a place in the community, a future, roots, no more Dulinsky no more doubt. No more Bartorstown. No more dreaming. No more seeking and never finding.
He thought about being married to Amity, and what it would be like. It frightened him so that he sweated like a colt seeing harness for the first time. No more dreaming for fair. He thought of Brother James, who by now must be the father of several small Mennonites, and he wondered whether, on the whole, Refuge was very different from Piper’s Run, and if Amity was worth having come all this way for. Amity, or Plato. He had not read Plato in Piper’s Run, and he had read him in Refuge, but Plato did not seem like the whole answer, either.
No more Bartorstown. But would he ever find it, anyway? Was he crazy to think of exchanging a girl for a phantom?
The hall was dark, except for the intermittent flashes of lightning. There was one of these as he passed the foot of the stairs, and in its brief glare he saw Esau and Amity in the triangular alcove under the treads. They were pressed close together and Esau was kissing her hard, and Amity was not protesting.
9
It was the Sabbath afternoon. They were standing in the shadow of the rose arbor, and Amity was glaring at him.
“You did not see me doing any such thing, and if you tell anybody you did I’ll say you’re lying!”
“I know what I saw,” said Len, “and so do you.”
She made her thick braid switch back and forth, in a way she had of tossing her head. “I’m not promised to you.”
“Would you like to be, Amity?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Then why were you kissing Esau?”
“Well, because,” she said very reasonably, “how would I know which one of you I like the best, if I didn’t?”
“All right,” said Len. “All right, then.” He reached out and pulled her to him, and because he was thinking of how Esau had done it he was rather rough about it. For the first time he held her really tight and felt how soft and firm she was and how her body curved amazingly. Her eyes were close to his, so close that they became only a blue color without any shape, and he felt dizzy and shut his own, and found her mouth just by touch alone.
After a while he pushed her away a little and said, “Now which is it?” He was shaking all over, but there was only the faintest flush in Amity’s cheeks and the look she gave him was quite cool. She smiled.
“I don’t know,” she said. “You’ll have to try again.”
“Is that what you told Esau?”
“What do you care what I told Esau?” Again the yellow braid went swish-swish across the back of her dress. “You mind your own business, Len Colter.”
“I could make it my business.”
“Who said?”
“Your father said, that’s who.”
“Oh,” said Amity. “He did.” Suddenly it was as though a curtain had dropped between them. She drew away, and the line of her mouth got hard.
“Amity,” he said. “Listen, Amity, I—”
“You leave me alone. You hear, Len?”
“What’s so different now? You were anxious enough a minute ago.”
“Anxious! That’s all you know. And if you think because you’ve been sneaking around to my father behind my back—”
“I didn’t sneak. Amity, listen.” He caught her again and pulled her toward him, and she hissed at him between her teeth. “Let me go, I don’t belong to you, I don’t belong to anybody! Let me go—”
He held her, struggling. It excited him, and he laughed and bent his head to kiss her again.
“Aw, come on, Amity, I love you—”
She squalled like a cat and clawed his cheek. He let her go, and she was not pretty any more, her face twisted and ugly and her eyes mean. She ran away down the path. The air was warm and the smell of roses was heavy around him. For a while he stood looking after her, and then he walked slowly to the house and up to the room he shared with Esau.
Esau was lying on the bed, half asleep. He only grunted and rolled over when Len came in. Len opened the door of the shallow cupboard. He took out a small sack made of tough canvas and began to pack his belongings into it, methodically, ramming each article down into place with unnecessary force. His face was flushed and his brows pulled down into a heavy scowl.
Esau rolled back again. He blinked at Len and said, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Packing.”
“Packing!” Esau sat up. “What for?”
“What do people usually do it for? I’m leaving.” Esau’s feet bit the floor. “Are you crazy? What do you mean, you’re leaving, just like that. Don’t I have anything to say about it?”
“Not about me leaving, you don’t. You can do what you want to. Look out, I want those boots.”
“All right! But you can’t—Wait a minute. What’s that on your cheek?”
“What?” Len swiped at his cheek with the back of his hand. It came away with a little red smear on it. Amity had dug deep. Esau began to laugh. Len straightened up. “What’s funny?”
“She finally told you off, did she? Oh, don’t give me any story about how the cat scratched you. I know claw marks when I see them. Good. I told you to keep away from her, but you wouldn’t listen. I—”
“Do you figure,” asked Len quietly, “that she belongs to you?”
Esau smiled. “I could have told you that, too.” Len hit him. It was the first time in his life that he had hit anybody in genuine anger. He watched Esau fall backward onto the bed, his eyes bulging with surprise and a thin red trickle springing out of the corner of his mouth, and it all seemed to happen very slowly, giving him plenty of time to feel guilty and regretful and confused. It was almost as though he had struck his own brother. But he was still angry. He grabbed up his bag and started out the door, and Esau sprang off the bed and caught him by the shoulder of his jacket, spinning him around. “Hit me, will you?” he panted. “Hit me, you dirty—” He called Len a name he had picked up along the river docks and swung his fist hard.
Len ducked. Esau’s knuckles slid along the side of his jaw and on into the solid jamb of the door. Esau howled and danced away, holding his hand under his other arm and cursing. Len started to say something like “I’m sorry,” but changed his mind and turned again to go. And Judge Taylor was in the hall.
“Stop that,” he said to Esau, and Esau stopped, standing still in the middle of the room. Taylor looked from one to the other and to the bag in Len’s hand. “I’ve just spoken to Amity,” he said, and Len could see that underneath his judicial manner Taylor was in a seething rage. “I’m sorry, Len. I seem to have made an error of judgment.”
“Yes, sir,” said Len. “I was just going.”
Taylor nodded. “All the same,” he said, “what I told you is true. Remember it.” He looked keenly at Esau.
“Let him go,” Esau said. “I’m staying right here.”
“I think not,” said Taylor.
Esau said, “But he—”
“I hit him first,” said Len.
“That is neither here nor there,” said the judge. “Get your things together, Esau.”
“But why? I make enough to pay the rent. I haven’t done any—”
“I’m not sure yet exactly what you have done, but much or little, that’s an end to it. The room is no longer for rent. And if I catch you around my daughter again I’ll have you run out of town. Is that clear?”
Esau glowered at him, but he did not say anything. He started to throw his things into a pile on the bed. Len went out past the judge, along the hall and down the stairs. He went out the back way, and as he passed the kitchen he caught a glimpse through the half-open door of Amity bent over the kitchen table, sobbing like a wildca
t, and Mrs. Taylor watching her with an expression of blank dismay, one hand raised as though for a comforting pat on the shoulder but stopped in midair and forgotten.
Len let himself out by the back gate, avoiding the rose arbor.
Sabbath lay quiet and heavy on the town. Len stuck to the alleys, walking steadily along in the dust. He did not have any idea where he was going, but habit and the general configuration of Refuge took him down to the river and onto the docks where Dulinsky’s four big warehouses stood in line. He stopped there, uncertain and sullen, only just beginning to realize that things had changed very radically for him in the last few minutes.
The river ran green as bottle glass, and among the trees of its farther bank the roofs of Shadwell glimmered in the hot sun. There was a string of river craft tied up along the dock. The men who belonged to them were either in the town or asleep below deck. Nothing moved but the river, and the clouds, and a half-grown cat playing a game with itself on the foredeck of one of the barges. Off to his right, further down, was the big bare rectangle of the new warehouse site. The foundation stones were already laid. Timbers and planks were set by in neat piles, and there was a sawmill with a heap of pale yellow dust below it. Two men, widely separated, lounged inconspicuously in the shade. Len frowned. They looked to him almost as though they were on guard.
Perhaps they were. It was a stupid world, full of stupid people. Fearful people, thinking that if the least little thing was changed the whole sky would fall on them. Stupid world. He hated it. Amity lived in it, and somewhere in it Bartorstown was hidden so it could never be found, and life was dark and full of frustrations.
He was still brooding when Esau came onto the dock after him.
Esau was carrying his own belongings in a hasty bundle, and his face looked red and ugly. His lip was swollen on one side. He threw the bundle down and stood in front of Len and said, “I’ve got a couple of things to settle with you.”
Len breathed hard through his nose. He was not afraid of Esau, and he felt low and mean enough now that a fight would be a pleasant thing. He was not quite as tall as Esau but his shoulders were wider and thicker. He hunched them up and waited.
“What did you want to go and get us thrown out of there for?” Esau said.
“I left. It was you that got thrown out.”
“Fine cousin you are. What did you say to old man Taylor to make him do that?”
“Nothing. Didn’t have to.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He doesn’t like you, that’s what I mean. Don’t come picking a fight with me unless you mean it, Esau.”
“Sore, aren’t you? Well go ahead and be sore, and I’ll tell you something. And you can tell the judge. Nobody can keep me away from Amity. I’ll see her anytime I want to, and do anything I want to with her, because she likes me whether her father does or not.”
“Big mouth,” said Len. “That’s all you got, a great big windy mouth.”
“I wouldn’t talk,” said Esau bitterly. “If it hadn’t been for you I’d never left home. I’d be there now, probably with the whole farm by now, and a wife and kids if I wanted them, instead of roaming to hell and gone around the country looking for—”
“Shut up,” said Len fiercely.
“All right, but you know what I mean, and not even knowing where I’m going to sleep tonight. Trouble, Len. That’s all you ever made for me, and now you made it with my girl.”
In utter indignation, Len said, “Esau, you’re a yellow-bellied liar.” And Esau hit him.
Len had got so mad that he had forgotten to be on guard, and the blow took him by surprise. It knocked his hat off and stung most painfully on his cheekbone. He sucked in a sharp breath and went for Esau. They scuffled and banged each other around on the dock for a minute or two and then suddenly Esau said, “Hold it, hold off, somebody’s coming and you know what you get for fighting on the Sabbath.”
They drew apart, breathing hard. Len picked up his hat, trying to look as though he had not been doing anything. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mike Dulinsky and two other men coming onto the dock.
“We’ll finish this later,” he whispered to Esau.
“Sure.”
They stood to one side. Dulinsky recognized them and smiled. He was a big powerful man, run slightly to fat around the middle. He had very bright eyes that seemed to see everything, including a lot that was out of sight, but they were cold eyes that never really warmed up even when they smiled. Len admired Mike Dulinsky. He respected him. But he did not particularly like him. The two men with him were Ames and Whinnery, both warehouse owners.
“Well,” said Dulinsky. “Down looking over the project?”
“Not exactly,” said Len. “We—uh—could we have permission to sleep in the office tonight? We—aren’t rooming at the Taylors’ any more.”
“Oh?” said Dulinsky, raising his eyebrows. Ames made a sardonic sound that was not quite a snicker. “Of course. Make yourselves at home. You have the key with you? Good. Come along, gentlemen.”
He went off with Whinnery and Ames. Len got his bag and Esau his bundle and they walked back a way up the dock to the office, a long two-story shed where the paper work of the warehouses was done. Len had the key to it because it was part of his job to open the office every morning. While he was fiddling with the lock, Esau looked back and said, “He’s got ’em down there showing ’em the foundations. They don’t look too happy.”
Len glanced back too. Dulinsky was waving his arms and talking animatedly, but Ames and Whinnery looked worried and shook their heads.
“He’ll have to do more than talk to convince them,” said Esau.
Len grunted and went inside. In a few minutes, after they had gone up into the loft to stow their belongings, they heard somebody come in. It was Dulinsky, and he was alone. He gave them a direct, hard stare and said, “Are you scared too? Are you going to run out on me?”
He did not give them time to answer, jerking his head toward the outside.
“They’re scared. They want more warehouses, too. They want Refuge to grow and make them rich, but they don’t want to take any of the risk. They want to see what happens to me first. The bastards. I’ve been trying to convince them that if we all work together—Why did the judge make you leave his house? Was it on account of me?”
“Well,” said Len. “Yes.”
Esau looked surprised, but he did not say anything.
“I need you,” said Dulinsky. “I need all the men I can get. I hope you’ll stick with me, but I won’t try to hold you. If you’re worried, you better go now.”
“I don’t know about Len,” said Esau, grinning, “but I’m going to stay.” He was not thinking about warehouses.
Dulinsky looked at Len. Len flushed and looked at the floor. “I don’t know,” he said. “It isn’t that I’m afraid to stay, it’s just that maybe I want to leave Refuge and go on down-river.”
“I’ll get along,” said Dulinsky.
“I’m sure you will,” said Len, stubbornly, “but I want to think about it.”
“Stick with me,” said Dulinsky, “and get rich. My great-great-grandfather came here from Poland, and he never got rich because things were already built. But now they’re ready to be built again, and I’m going to get in on the ground floor. I know what the judge has been telling you. He’s a negativist. He’s afraid of believing in anything. I’m not. I believe in the greatness of this country, and I know that these outmoded shackles have got to be broken off if it’s ever to grow again. They won’t break themselves. Somebody, men like you and me, will have to get in there and do it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Len. “But I still want to think it over.”
Dulinsky studied him keenly, and then he smiled.
“You don’t push easily, do you? Not a bad trait—All right, go ahead and think.”
He left them. Len looked at Esau, but the mood was gone and he did not feel like fighting any more. He said, “I’m going
for a walk.”
Esau shrugged, making no attempt to join him. Len walked slowly along the dock, thinking of the westbound boats, wondering if any of them were secretly bound for Bartorstown, wondering if it was any use to go blindly from place to place, wondering what to do. He reached the end of the dock and stepped off it, going on past the warehouse site. The two men watched him closely until he turned away.
He was perhaps not consciously thinking of going there, but a few minutes more of wandering about brought him to the edge of the traders’ compound, an area of hard-packed earth where the wagons were drawn up between long ranks of stable sheds and auction sheds and permanent shelter houses for the men. Len hung around here a good bit. Partly his work for Dulinsky required him to, but there was more to it than that. There was all the gossip and excitement of the roads, and sometimes there was even news of Piper’s Run, and there was the never-ending hope that someday he would hear the word he had been waiting all these years to hear. He never had. He had never even seen a familiar face, Hostetter’s face in particular and that was odd because he knew that Hostetter went South in the winter season and therefore would have to cross the river somewhere. Len had been at all the ferry points, but Hostetter had not appeared. He had often wondered if Hostetter had gone back to Bartorstown, or if something had happened to him and he was dead.
The area was quiet now, for no business was done on the Sabbath, and the men were sitting and talking in the shade, or off somewhere to afternoon prayer meeting. Len knew most of them at least by sight, and they knew him. He joined them, glad of some talk to get his mind off his problems for a while. Some of them were New Mennonites. Len always felt shy around them, and a little unhappy, because they brought back to him many things he would just as soon not think about. He had never let on that he had once been one of them.
The Long Tomorrow Page 9