Fire Along the Sky Fire Along the Sky

by Sara Donati

  “Well, come along then,” she said, tapping the table with a finger. “Spit it out.”

  “It's got to do with your aunt Merriweather,” Nathaniel said.

  Her mouth had begun to soften into a smile when the dogs righted themselves suddenly, the fur bristling down their spines—a signal louder than any knock.

  Elizabeth's hands flew up and then settled like restless birds.

  He said, “Easy, Boots. I'll send them away, whoever it is.”

  But then he hadn't been expecting to open the door to Almanzo Freeman, given up for dead long ago and now returned to the land of the living.

  It was more than ten years since they had last seen Manny, and to Nathaniel it looked as though he had spent every day of it in battle. He had gone away a young man and come back a soldier, of a particular kind. It was in the way he stood, his hand curled around the barrel of his rifle; it was in the set of his shoulders, the expression that gave away nothing: not pain or joy or hope.

  As a boy he had resembled his father, but Manny had grown into a copy of Galileo Freeman: compactly built but broad in the shoulder, hard muscled, with the gleam of steel in his eye. His skin glowed deep brown in the evening light from the open door, and Nathaniel saw that there were lines of raised tattoos on his forehead and neck and at his wrists.

  English came hard to him, all his sentences laced with Kahnyen'kehàka rhythms, softened sounds, long pauses.

  To Elizabeth, who understood what it was to worry for a son, none of that was of importance.

  “You haven't been to see your mother,” she said for the third time. She was sitting at her place at the table, too angry to get up and greet Manny properly.

  Nathaniel stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder.

  “Give the man some room to breathe, Boots.” He squeezed lightly. “It ain't exactly easy.”

  It was the wrong thing to say, he felt that from the way her muscles tensed beneath his hand. But Manny saw that too, and jumped in before Elizabeth could take the opportunity.

  “I don't suppose I got anything easy coming to me,” he said in his deep, quiet voice. “I don't even know why I stopped here, except I saw the smoke coming from the chimney and I thought maybe there'd be some familiar faces.”

  Elizabeth's expression softened, and she closed her eyes. When she opened them they were damp with tears.

  “I'll go with you.”

  Nathaniel said, “We'll all go.”

  In Curiosity's kitchen garden they stopped, all three of them, in shadows that smelled of new turned earth. In the dark Elizabeth's face floated like a heart carved from bone. She gripped Nathaniel's arm so hard that he felt the bruises rising under the skin.

  “Go ahead,” he said to Manny. “We'll be in directly.”

  Then he walked her over to the deeper shadows and held her head while she was sick, each spasm rocking her like a fist to the gut. He spoke calm words, nothing that made any sense, nothing that she would remember later; it was the sound that mattered, she had told him once. Something to hold on to.

  When she had finished he held her, trembling, against his chest and stroked her hair. Her breaths came deep, with a hiccup at the end like a child who has cried itself into exhaustion. What he wanted to do, just now, was to pick her up and carry her home, but already he could feel her gathering her strength.

  “I must go in to Curiosity,” she said. “She will need me.”

  Nathaniel pressed his mouth to the top of her head. “I'd say Manny is the one needing help. I wouldn't want to be in his shoes just now.”

  That got him a weak smile. Elizabeth said, “I shall have to write to Hannah, now. It can't be put off any longer. She will need to hear what Manny has to tell, after all.”

  They thought of that, each of them. The things Manny hadn't told them he would tell—must tell her. They each imagined Hannah with that letter in her hands, reading. Her husband's name on the page, followed by a line of words like crows on a fence, like footprints. She would have to follow them wherever they might lead.

  “Maybe she'll be glad,” Nathaniel said. “It might be a relief, to know something for sure after all this time. You wrote just that in the last letter, if I recall right. ‘Any report is preferable to the work of the imagination.'”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said softly. “I said that, and it is true, I think. But I do not like to be the one making the report.”

  “You won't be,” Nathaniel said. “Whatever happened, it's for Manny to tell the story.”

  Within just a few days it became clear that Manny had few details he was willing to share with anyone at all, even his mother. To those who deserved an explanation—his sister, his brother-in-law and nieces and nephew, the Bonners—he said the same things: he was sorry to have worried them, he was glad to be home.

  “He don't even ask many questions, not even about his boy,” Curiosity told Lily when Manny had been back three days. Lily had stopped by on her way to the village to say hello, though she couldn't keep from blushing at such a transparent half-truth.

  But Curiosity was too distracted to tease her about Simon; her only son showed no interest in news of his only child, and for all her wisdom of the world, that was one thing she had trouble digesting.

  Mostly to herself Curiosity said, “No doubt he was counting on Hannah being here. Got things to say to her before he can move on.”

  At times like this Lily tried to think like her mother, who had the knack of saying just the right thing, or of knowing when silence would serve better than any words. Then she said what came to mind, before she could stop herself.

  “He knows Hannah will be back,” Lily said. “But I think it will be a while before he understands that the others are really gone. He spends a lot of time at the graves.”

  Lily knew this because both the graveyards—the one for the slaves and the other one—were between the meetinghouse where she did her work and the woods that went down to the lake. Now that she kept the door and shutters open for light and air she saw everyone who came and went on that path. There were people who visited their dead every day. Anna McGarrity spent a few minutes in the early morning talking to her father as if he were lying abed, too lazy to get up; Callie and Martha tended the little flower bed they had planted at Dolly's feet.

  Manny went by the meetinghouse windows every day and stayed in the graveyard for long hours. Just yesterday Lily had followed him, out of equal parts curiosity and worry, and found that he did nothing more than stand and study the crosses that marked the graves. Galileo Freeman, Polly Freeman, Margaret. Father, sister, niece, all out of his reach, unable to hear his apologies and explanations.

  It was the loss of his father that seemed to settle on Manny hardest. Like a man caught in an unexpected hailstorm; he must take what the heavens served him.

  She said, “He has an awful lot of grieving to catch up on.”

  Somehow that turned out to be the right thing to say. Curiosity's expression cleared, her distraction giving way to thoughtfulness and, then, resignation. She took Lily by the shoulders and kissed her on the cheek.

  “You got a lot of your mama in you, Lily. I know you don't like to hear such a thing, no girl your age do. But you got the best of her.”

  “But I don't mind,” Lily said, embarrassed and pleased. “Just lately I've been wishing I could be more like her. More rational.”

  That made Curiosity really laugh, a deep, heartfelt laugh, and she wrapped her arms around Lily and rocked her.

  “Feel a little crazy, don't it? Sometimes I wonder what the good Lord thinking arranging things the way he do. Falling in love ain't no better than losing your mind, seem like.”

  Lily nodded, too embarrassed to respond.

  “Let me tell you something I told my girls when they fell. There ain't no shame in it, what you feeling. And the truth is, it don't last, child. No fire could burn that hot and bright without letting up. The whole world would burn down. So you be thankful for it while you got it. What
comes after has got its own charms.”

  “How long will that take?” Lily asked.

  Curiosity hummed a little, thoughtfully. “For some the burning part don't last no time at all. For most I suppose it take a year or so before they slow down a bit. And then there's folks like your daddy and ma—”

  “Oh, no,” Lily said, pulling away. “I don't want to hear this.”

  “—who never do lose that feeling, not entirely. Not many women your mama's age got to worry about increasing, after all. Look at you blushing, child. You make me laugh.”

  “Jokes this early in the morning?” Simon said at the door. He was rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and a deep beard shadowed his cheeks.

  Lily opened her mouth to say something and then shut it again, shook her head and turned away.

  “I have work to do,” she said. “Goodbye.”

  “Wait!” Simon called after her. “I'll walk down to the village with you.”

  Lily fluttered her fingers at him without turning around. “You haven't had your breakfast. Goodbye.”

  Curiosity's laughter stayed with her all the way down the garden path.

  A difficult morning was made worse by Mr. Stiles, who was waiting, Bible tucked under his arm, at the door of the meetinghouse. Lily was still fascinated by his person, the contrast of his dusty black clothing and white hair and pinkish eyes, the way the blood moved beneath skin the color of January ice. Those things intrigued her, but not enough to make her want to listen to the man preach. That she would hear no matter what her feelings when he took up his spot just outside the trading post and launched into his daily sermon.

  Mr. Stiles was particularly fond of St. Paul's gospel and his wisdom on the place of women, and returned to the topic—it seemed to Lily at least—every other sermon. Now he had decided he must bring the word to her directly, and there was nothing she could do, really, to evade him. Her mother, who was both frustrated by the man and vaguely interested in him, had made it clear that they were all to be polite.

  Which would not include turning around and running away, Lily reminded herself, though the thought had a certain appeal. She could spend some time with her mother, just the two of them. It was something Lily hadn't done since they moved into the village. Because I've been busy, she told herself. No other reason. And: What an awful liar you are. You can't even fool yourself.

  “Miss Bonner,” Mr. Stiles began, bowing stiffly from the shoulders. “Can you spare me a little of your time?”

  Lily managed a tight smile and a nod, and then she went through the door he held open for her.

  He was patient, Lily had to give him that much. While she arranged her worktable and sorted through brushes and looked at great length for a drawing that didn't exist, he stood quietly, hat in hand, and waited.

  It was no use, of course. Lily pushed out a sigh. “How can I help you, sir?”

  “I would like you to take my likeness,” said Mr. Stiles. “And one of my nephew as well. To send to my brother and his family in Maine.”

  She had been expecting something very different, and for a moment Lily could hardly think what to say.

  “You do take commissions?” Mr. Stiles cocked his head, lifted a shoulder.

  “I suppose I do,” Lily said. “The question has never come up before. Did you want a painting? Oil? Watercolor?”

  “Oh, nothing as fancy as that.” His gaze skimmed over the work pinned to the walls. “A good likeness in pencil will serve very well. I can pay any reasonable price.”

  Lily stood with her hands pressed to the tabletop, leaning forward a little. “Mr. Stiles, I have the impression you do not approve of the work I do here. From your sermons . . .” Her voice trailed away. She had not meant to give him that, the acknowledgment that she must listen to his preaching.

  It pleased him, as she knew it must. His expression was eager. “Yes?”

  “You do not hold a very high opinion of independent women.” And then something occurred to her, something that struck her as almost funny. She said, “You will preach to me while I work, is that it?”

  “I will read my Bible,” said Mr. Stiles.

  “Aloud.”

  “It has a fine sound to it, read in a sure voice. I assure you.”

  Lily had to bite back a smile. “Sir, no matter what you may have heard about my family, I am not unfamiliar with the Bible.”

  Mr. Stiles had a disquieting smile; it drew his lower lip down into a corner and made a bow out of the small red mouth. “You will take the commission?”

  She let out a laugh, short and sharp. “You are persistent, Mr. Stiles.”

  “I am much blessed,” he agreed.

  “You don't really want your likeness taken, do you? This is just a way to get me to listen to your preaching.”

  The older man leaned forward so far that Lily caught sight of a perfect pink circle at the crown of his head, the first clear sign that he was struggling with his temper. When he straightened again he said, “You are refusing my custom?”

  Lily thought in silence for a moment. She said, “I propose a compromise. I will take your nephew's likeness first. If you are satisfied with my work, and we can come to agreement on how to proceed, I will take yours when his is finished.”

  It was a fine piece of reasoning, Lily thought, as she watched him think it through. A wily old man, her mother called him, not without some measure of appreciation.

  He bowed again. “Very well. I will send Justus to you.”

  Lily watched Mr. Stiles walk away through the village, his pace deliberate. He left her with the uneasy feeling that she had somehow managed to give him what he wanted without ever revealing to her what that might be, exactly.

  In spite of the visitors who came by at the oddest times, Lily liked her spot in the middle of the village; she liked the movement and noise and most of all she liked sitting on a stool in the doorway and putting what she saw down on paper. This morning it was old Mr. Hindle, Jock's father, who sat on a stump plying the blade of his scythe with a whetstone. A dry stump of an old man, with a face carved out of leather under a straw hat. He had tucked a bunch of heartsease into the wide leather belt that held the whetstone pouch, wilting now but the colors still bright: yellow and a deep purple just the color of the old man's eyes. What delighted Lily most was the fact that he had the biggest ears she had ever seen on a human being, great boats stuck to his head with lobes like limp griddle cakes.

  She was still occupied with those ears when a shadow fell across her lap and she started out of that place where she went while she worked.

  The morning was half gone, and the world was full of noise: from the sawyer's pit by the new school building came the rough voice of metal cutting into wood; a child was weeping piteously—one of the Ratz girls, she saw now, who had spilled an apron full of eggs into the rutted lane and flapped her hands at a riot of puppies who were determined to take advantage of her poor fortune. Mr. Stiles in loud voice, reading from Corinthians from an upended box in the lane in front of the trading post. From the mountain came the echoing bellow of a moose in rut.

  Manny Freeman was standing beside her.

  “Didn't mean to startle you.”

  The first needlelike pain of a headache darted behind Lily's eyes, but she smiled. “I need to get out of the sun anyway.”

  He followed her into the shade of the meetinghouse, where a botfly bounced and buzzed against the walls.

  “Blackfly coming on now,” Manny said in a conversational tone. “Won't be no peace until frost.”

  That was a fact of the north woods, one so obvious to anyone who had grown up here—as both of them had—that Lily found it odd to have it raised as a topic of discussion. For the rest of the season she would start her day by rubbing Curiosity's pennyroyal ointment into her skin and looking at the world through a beating, shimmering haze of gnats and no-see-ums and blackflies. Horses and mules and oxen would have the worst of it, twitching and switching and sometimes running mad when
the flies got the better of them.

  “Oh,” Lily said. “You've been thinking about Polly.”

  Manny stood at the window, looking down the lane to the point where it disappeared into the woods. “The team run away with them, did I understand that right?”

  “Yes.” Lily came up beside him. “Just there. It happened very fast, I think. The team took off and the wagon turned over. They didn't suffer, either of them.”

  “Good,” Manny said. He glanced at her, and Lily saw the sweat beading on his upper lip. He said, “Might I have a look at your drawings?”

  Lily hardly remembered Manny, who had already moved away to Manhattan when she was a little girl. Maybe, she reasoned to herself, that was why he seemed comfortable with her.

  “Of course,” she said, taking care to keep her voice even. There were tears on his face now, but she turned away as if that were as commonplace as the buzz of flies. She went to her worktable and let him be, and in a quarter hour he cleared his throat, as if to tell her that he had got hold of himself.

  “It's like walking back in time,” he said. He had switched to Kahnyen'kehàka, but Lily had the sense that he didn't even realize it. Kahnyen'kehàka was her second language and she answered him in kind.

  She said, “If you would like to take some you're welcome to them. There are quite a few of your father and your sister. And here.”

  She walked to the far wall and searched for a moment. “Here's one of your son. He was just walking when I drew this. When he was little Polly sent him here to spend the summer with your folks.”

  A laughing child, bright-eyed and keen, with full round cheeks. Lily held out the drawing to Manny and he took it without looking.

  “Here's another one, the last time he was here. Two years ago, I think, just before he started as a cooper's apprentice.”

  Manny looked at the drawings, his face set and blank.

  “A cooper's apprentice, you say.”

  “In Albany. He's got a real talent for the work, I've heard. And he writes to your mother faithfully, every month.”