Ingathering

by Zenna Henderson

  Jareb sat down on Dab’s saddle he’d dropped by the door when he fled my wrath.

  “That boy,” he said casually. “He still comes down there.”

  “What boy?” I said, pacing my hammer to my words. “Down where?”

  “You know. The watermelon pond,” he said. “I saw him again yesterday. He gave me some more salt with the dusty stuff on it—that good.”

  “That boy!” My demon flared up explosively. I hit the bar so hard and awkwardly that I lost hold of it completely. It shot off the anvil and sizzled against my leather apron before it dropped to the cindery dirt floor. My wrist, banging against the apron, sizzled too. Rage roared up in every aching bone in me like a black fountain. “Take your lies somewhere else!” I roared so loud that Jareb flattened his eyelids like in a high wind.

  “I told him about Tally,” Jareb went on stubbornly. “He says it’s ’Cause she doesn’t get any good and for me to give her some. It keeps us from getting sick—Mamma and me. I could put it in a cup of water. It isn’t nasty. If her mother—”

  “Listen, Jareb,” I said, sagging against the anvil, waiting for my sight to clear and my heart to stop jerking my breath. I nursed my burned wrist in my other hand. “Leave Tally alone. Get over there and get those bellows to going. I’ve got this whole job to start over. Git!”

  And he got. Pumping the bellows, working up the heat again on the forge, I lifted the bar with my pincers and jabbed it down into the glowing, fluctuating center of the coals.

  “Long time ago,” grunted Jareb as he pumped, “he gave me this funny salt.”

  “Salt for a dickeybird’s tail!” I jeered sourly.

  “No, to put in the water pail.” Jareb flicked sweat from his nose. “He said the dust was the good that isn’t here.”

  “Jareb,” I said slowly from between clenched teeth. “Go—away!”

  “But you said pump—” He was bewildered.

  “And now I say go away. Go away with your frog boy and your dickeybird’s tail!”

  “But I—” he began, wide-eyed.

  “Go!” I roared.

  He went.

  I pulled down viciously on the bellows handle. Above the creak of the leather, I heard him call, “And in the water for the stock—and in the irrigation head gate, too!”

  The nightmare began closing in tighter and tighter after that. Nobody died, but they either stayed inside with their sufferings or were creeping, bent shadows in the sun, slowly moving. Sister Gail stayed up on the flat. How can you come down among the people when they look through you and don’t hear you and let the foodstuff you bring wither on the front step?

  Finally came the day I sat outside my smithy, too sick and worn even to pretend to work. I caught Jareb as he cut through the field on his way to the Bensons’. I sat on a tree stump in front of the smithy, flexing a dry pine twig in my two shaking hands.

  “Jareb,” I said, “remember you said that boy said good wasn’t here?”

  “Yeah.” Jareb was a bit cautious. This was the first time I’d ever started a “boy” conversation.

  “Did—I mean—” I snapped the twig sharply. “Why is it you and your mother aren’t ailing like the rest of us? Did that boy—I mean—”

  “You told me not to talk about it any more.” Jareb’s face reddened.

  “Talk now,” I said, tasting the subtle salt of my own bleeding gums. “Has he told you why we are all dying?”

  “Dying?” Jareb’s eyes widened. “Are we dying?”

  “Look,” I said. I held out my right hand—a smith’s hand with big knuckles and thick calluses and heavy tendons—made to grip and lift and use. And we both watched the increasing tremor that shook it harder and harder until I finally hid it between my knees.

  “Like I told you,” said Jareb. “He brought me some of that salt-looking stuff. That’s what it is—dusty salt. But he says the dust is the good.”

  “The dust is the good.” I sighed heavily. But then, had Jareb ever told me a lie that I could prove was a lie? “Go on.”

  “He said his Daddy said he could bring it to me. He said some was salty to use instead of salt when we eat, but some is just to put in drinking water for us and the stock and in the irrigation water.”

  “And then—?”

  “That’s all.” He spread his hands. “That’s all.”

  “Jareb,” I ran my tongue around my tender mouth, “have you got any of that salt with you?”

  “Sure,” said Jareb promptly. He fished in his pants pocket. “Here’s some.” He handed me a rag tied into a tight little bundle. “It’s what I wanted to give to Tally but nobody would let me. So I carry it around in case I find something to eat somewhere. You can have it.”

  “Your mother won’t care?” I asked, suddenly bitterly ashamed.

  “Naw!” scoffed Jareb. “She doesn’t care—we got plenty. I’da offered sooner but—”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m sorry I’ve been so mean to you, Jareb. And not just because you gave me this. I was sorry already—before.”

  “Aw!” Jareb reddened. “Never mind. I’m going to see Tally. She worries me. Last time Sister Ruth wouldn’t let me talk to her. She was sleeping.”

  I untied the packet after he left. I touched my finger to my tongue, to the salt, to my tongue again. It was just dusty salt. But two days later, after using it with my meals and in my drinking water, my eyes opened without my having to pry the gummy lids apart in the morning. The next afternoon my gums stopped oozing blood under the pressure of my fingertip, and the burn on my wrist, left from my tantrum with Jareb, had visibly begun to heal. A week later, back in my smithy in the clear sharpness of a sunrise, I let my hammer fall on the anvil with a joyous chank that splintered to echoes against the mountains beyond.

  Darius and Dab came down to the smithy that evening to find out what was happening. They had heard me off and on all that day. I told them about the dusty salt. I showed them my healed scars. I beat a tattoo on my anvil with my second-heaviest hammer. I showed them some of the salt—a small box Jareb had brought me last night.

  “I’ll share with you,” I said, as a Christian brother should. “I think I can get us some more.”

  “Evil—” Darius shook his head, his lips sucking in where his teeth used to be. “Lead us not into—”

  “Dope,” said Dab through his cracked lips. “Makes you feel good for a spell, then kills you.”

  I felt a sudden flare inside me. I closed the box slowly. “By their fruits—” I reminded them. “A good tree can’t bear bad fruit.”

  But they wouldn’t even touch it. I watched them shamble gingerly off. They had to rest twice before they were out of sight.

  An hour later I met Sister Ruth coming out of the meeting house. She had been crying, and her hand, clutching her shawl under her chin, was like a claw. One wild strand of grey hair scraped her ravaged cheek. She had been twenty-five her last birthday. She was a shattered forty in the fading evening light.

  “Sister Ruth!” I said. “How is Tally?”

  “Dying,” she said hoarsely, “I hope. I bin in there to dedicate her to Death. A quick, merciful death.” She turned her face away.

  “Let me help—” I said, touching her sagging shoulder.

  “I heard,” she whispered hastily, slipping like a shadow from under my hand. “I heard about the salt but the mister won’t let me listen. That’s why I’m giving her willingly to Death. He won’t let me try to help. Why should I keep her suffering?” and she was gone.

  Jareb was waiting for me at my shop—a restless shadow in the deepening darkness.

  “What are you doing here this time of night?” I asked him. “You should be home. Your mother—”

  “Mr. Lambert,” he burst into my reprimand, “is Tally really dying? They wouldn’t even let me in the house. They chased me away. Is she dying?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Sister Ruth thinks so.”

  “I tried to give Sister Ruth some good
for her, but she’s scared of Brother Rual. Mr. Lambert, do they really think I want to give something bad to Tally? To hurt her?”

  “They’re hurting so bad themselves that they can’t think straight about anything,” I said. “You better scoot on home. Your mother will be worried.”

  “But they can’t just let her die!” cried Jareb. “How can they not—”

  “Do you think they want her to die?” I asked heavily. “You’d better go on home.”

  Jareb hesitated a moment, then faded soundlessly into the dark. I sat there on the edge of my anvil for a long time, letting the darkness flood me inside and out. I was finally roused by the sound of voices and the soft thudding of feet along the trail.

  “Hello, there!” I called.

  The voices cut off. I moved toward the dark huddle in the shadow of the path. “Who’s there? Where you headed?”

  “Don’t tell him nothing!” Dab’s slurred voice was venomous. “Consorting—”

  “Dab,” I snapped. “Don’t be any more of a fool than you have to be. What’s going on? Wait. Let me get some light on the subject.”

  I stirred the banked coals in the forge with a pitchy pine stick and laid a couple of others across when flame leaped up. Pale ovals of faces came out of the dark.

  “Sister Ruth!” I reached out a hand to her faltering, stricken face. Brother Rual struck my hand down feebly. “Don’t touch my woman!” he snarled. “Evil—!”

  “What’s going on?” I demanded. “Sister Ruth, is Tally—worse?”

  “Tally’s gone.” Her flat voice was choked with grief.

  “Dead?” I cried. “But—”

  “We don’t know if she’s dead or not!” Sister Ruth cried. “She’s gone! She’s gone! She’s gone!” Her tautly clasped hands swung up to hide her anguished face in the crook of one elbow.

  “Gone?” My mind whirled blankly. “But where—”

  “We got a good idea where!” It was Dab’s snarl. “And we know who! Leave us be, you devil-lover!”

  It was no trick for me to outdistance them in the dark. Nor to tell where they were headed. The only house above was Sister Gail’s. I knew my way through the wood lot as well as I did by road, and I lost the group behind me before they could get started again. I was across the front porch of the house with one stride, the flat of my hand heavy on the door. It was unlatched and swung open to the shove of my shoulder.

  Jareb and Sister Gail looked up, frightened; as I plunged in. Sister Gail held Tally on her lap, a Tally so wasted and limp in the flicker of that candle that she looked dead to me. Her chin was wet and Jareb was holding a dripping cup.

  “Jareb! What in the name of—” I began.

  With one quick swoop, Jareb dropped the cup and swept Tally up into his arms. “I won’t let them take her back to die!” he cried. “But she won’t drink! Mr. Lambert, what’ll we do!”

  “You’d better think of something fast,” I said. “Dab and Darius and Rual and I don’t know who all else are coming! Jareb, you can’t pull a fool thing like this. You’ve got to—” I stopped trying to push words into unopened ears and turned to Sister Gail.

  “Sister Gail! They’re ready to kill—”

  “But Jareb says this powder will save her. It has kept us healthy—at least he says so—”

  “He stole the child, Sister Gail! Don’t you realize what your son—Jareb!” I caught just the flicker of his heels as he slipped out the back door into the dark—with Tally.

  “I’ll get him!” I cried. “Fasten that door, Sister Gail! Don’t let them go!”

  I stumbled to a halt beyond the house, searching in the darkness. Where had that fool kid gone? Then I heard the snap of a branch on the hill above me. He was cutting across to the creek. The creek! The watermelon pond. I took out after him. I should have been able to catch him—burdened as he was—but he had the same advantage of me as I had had of the others—he knew every step of the way, even in the dark. Before I could plunge down to the pond, he was there, wading out, slipping and stumbling with Tally clutched tightly to him.

  “Jareb!” I called. “Jareb! Wait!”

  “Don’t stop me, Mr. Lambert!” he cried. “Don’t try to stop me. Tally will die unless—”

  “Are you sure she’s not dead already?” I panted, moving slowly down to the water’s edge. Jareb’s head bent sharply to his burden.

  “She’s still breathing,” he said in relief. “Oh, Mr. Lambert! What if it is too late to save her—”

  “Jareb, you must be crazy,” I said. “You can’t steal a child like this! Bring her back before her dad gets hold of you. If anything happens to her, they’ll call it murder—”

  Jareb backed away from me, deeper into the pond. “I gotta do something!” he said. “I’m going to take her to that boy’s people.”

  “That boy!” I sagged with despair. “Jareb, there isn’t any boy! You can’t cake her to someone who doesn’t exist—”

  “If there isn’t any boy, where did I get the good I gave you!” cried Jareb. “How come you aren’t sick any more like the rest of them? There is so that boy!”

  “Then where are his people?” I asked, inching forward. “And what makes you think they can do anything—”

  “If they know where to get the good, then they ought to know how come it works and maybe they know some way to make Tally take it. And they live at the other end of the water! I told you already!”

  “Fine,” I said, moving ankle-deep into the water. “Now all you have to do is turn fish and get there.”

  “I’ll get there,” said Jareb, backing away. “That boy told me how. You only have to be underwater right here, and you don’t have to hold your breach very long. N’en you get in a tunnel and it goes to the end of the water. And he said it isn’t far in the tunnel, but you have to use roads and horses outside and go up and down; so it’s lots longer.”

  We looked at each other across the shimmer of the dark water. Then Jareb said, “Mr. Lambert, I know that boy’s people can make Tally well. Tell Mamma I’ll be back as soon as I can. Tell Sister Ruth I’ll take good care of Tally, and I’ll bring her back as soon as I get her well. Please don’t be mad, Mr. Lambert. I gotta take her! I’ll bring her back well.”

  “Jareb!” I caught him with my voice. “If you’re going to cake Tally underwater, hold your hand tight over her nose and mouth until you come up.”

  He fumbled for Tally’s face, turned with her clasped close, and plunged down into the dark waters. I stood and watched the waters churn and roll. I watched them quiet and smooth to a dull mirror of the sky. I wondered as I sloshed out of the water and started up the hill—had he disappeared into the waters as he had risen from them—with a lie on his lips?

  I got back to Jareb’s house as fast as I could, my heart torn for Sister Gail. What if that scraggly mob had been able to give each other strength enough to do her some harm? The place was dark and silent. I stumbled across the porch.

  “Sister Gail!” I called. “Gail!” She wasn’t there. I groped for the candle on the mantel. It was gone. I bent to stir the fire. In its flicker I found the broken candle lying on the braided hearth rug. I hunched to the heat of the coals and lifted the lighted candle to look at the room. It told me nothing I didn’t already know. Gail was gone. Willingly? Had she gone willingly? Or had she been dragged by the scrawny, feverish bite of sick fingers?

  I pelted back downhill to my smithy. Where now? I paused, groping in the dark with my eyes. Where could she be? I gulped for breath and started down the path. A shadow slid out of the dark.

  “That’s far enough.” Dab’s voice was a scared loudness. “Don’t come no farther!”

  “Where’s Sister Gail?” I demanded. “Dab, if you’ve done her harm—” I started forward.

  “No farther!” screeched Dab. “I got my shotgun on you!” There was a breathless pause, then Dab snickered. “Gotta shaky trigger finger, too. Might squeeze anytime. Can’t control my fingers like I usta.”

&n
bsp; “Where is she?” I demanded and started forward.

  “Far enough,” he snarled. “Don’t make me kill you. Back it up.”

  I did, but I persisted. “Where is she?”

  “Where’s Tally?” he retorted.

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “I didn’t catch Jareb.”

  “We caught Sister Gail.” Dab’s snicker was old and tired. “Gonna trade you straight across.”

  “Trade?” I asked.

  “Trade,” said Dab. “Her for Tally.”

  “But I haven’t got Tally!” I said.

  “Jareb has,” said Dab.

  “But I don’t know where he is!” My voice was rising.

  “We know where Sister Gail is,” said Dab softly. “And we’re keeping her there till Tally gets back. You want her, bring us Tally. Straight—across trade—dead or alive.”

  “What’re you doing to her?” I demanded.

  “Nothing.” Dab’s voice was moving away. “Just nothin’. Oh, ’ceptin’ water to drink, of course. We’re still disputin’ about bread. Some say yes and some say no. She could live off her fat for a month, some say. Some say let her eat our bread and be like us!”

  “Dab!” I called. “You’re crazy, every one of you!”

  “We feel crazy,” he said. “Some say yes and some say no. I say why bother to feed her? Tally’s dead. We’re dead. Make her dead, too!”

  “Dab, you’ve gotta—” Then I realized there was no one in the shadows anymore.

  I stumbled wearily back to my bed in the smithy lean-to, my years and the past months catching up with me. I huddled into myself on the edge of my cot. “God—” I started to tell him about it. “God—” My face crumpled behind my hands. “Gail!” I suddenly admitted that she wasn’t sister to me anymore. Despair surged up in me like a gushing freshet. Driven by a sort of delirium, I started for the pond. Then I staggered back toward the huddle of the settlement. Then veered towards the Curtis place. When rational thinking came back, I was huddled in my smithy again, trying to warm my chilled soul through hands held over the banked, crinkling coals of my forge. I groped my way to the back of the lean—to, to my cot that had served me except in the very coldest weather of last winter. Whatever I had to do—find Gail—find Jareb—find Tally—alive—I had to have light to do it by. Gail could be hidden anywhere, in anyone’s house, in any of the shacks or lean-tos or sheds. Or in the meeting house—a thousand places. Search would have to wait for light. And Jareb and Tally. Soon enough when light came to grope for their floating drowned bodies—or to drown myself trying to follow where they went.