All the Truth That's in Me (3 page)

And so you stayed with us for a season, until Father organized a crew of men to help you rebuild a small cabin where your old home had stood. He helped you plow and plant your spring wheat. He persuaded the aldermen to erect a tombstone for your father in the churchyard. You loved my father for all he did for you.

But still, I would find you sometimes that summer, sitting with your feet dangling in the stream, staring at the water with hollow eyes. I would sit beside you, and we would watch the stream together.

I was twelve then, and you, a skinny, under-grown sixteen.

XXXVI.

The evening I stumbled home, it was midsummer twilight, soft and blue over the split-log fence, the fields, the hills beyond. A sight I never thought I’d see again.

Darrel, still a boy, though bigger, saw me first and yelled. Mother burst out the door, wiping her hands on her dress, then hitched up her skirts and ran to me, calling my name.

We collided. She clasped me to her, rubbing her hands over every part of me.
Then she stopped and took my head in both hands.
Her mouth contorted with weeping. “You came back. Sweet Lord above. You came back.”
I drank in her face, the damp summer smell of her.
“Where have you been, child?”
In spite of my plans my lips parted. I pressed them shut again.
“Speak to me.”
“I ghanh.”
Her weeping eyes froze. She grasped my face and tilted back my head. She pushed down my protesting jaw with her strong thumbs.
She cried out and released me. My head fell back for an instant, then I righted myself.
She stood with both hands clasped over her mouth, her eyes as round as the midsummer moon.

XXXVII.

I don’t believe in miracles. The Blessed Virgin, he said, appeared to him and told him not to do this thing, nor take my life.Mother would have called it a shameful papist remark. And that was when he cut me.

XXXVIII.

Once, toward the end of the summer when you lived with us, I sat by the stream, plucking petals off a flower and dropping them one by one into the swirling water.

I’d flung the empty stem into the water and had nothing left to toss but grass when you appeared with a handful of posies.

“You looked like you were running out,” you said.

I laughed and buried my nose in the bouquet. “You can join me, if you like,” I said. “You brought enough flowers for both of us.”
You smiled then. Green sunlight filtering through my willow boughs moved across your face. I realized it was the first I’d seen you smile since the night your house burned, leaving you alone in the world.

I watched the light on your face too long. Your cheeks grew red. You sat down and took a flower, plucked a petal, and dropped it in the stream.

When we’d stripped all the blossoms, we watched the water. You took my hand and held it. It occurred to me that I should feel startled, but it was only peaceful, there with you, with willow boughs brushing us like feathers, and the stream moving ever and ever past us toward the sea.

XXXIX.

I pick wild grapes, east of town. My knife slices through the woody stems and almost cuts my finger. Mother wants two bucketsful for wine. You’re not Maria’s yet, and so I make a plan to leave you some, in a bowl on your porch. No, I’ll be daring and bring them inside, fill your pan with them. A farewell gift while I still may, and a mystery to make you wonder.

What do I care if it’s shocking? I am shocking. What was done to me was shocking. I am outside the boundaries forever, no longer decent. I will leave grapes for you in your own home.

Galloping hoofbeats on the track shorten my plans. I duck in the bushes. Peeping through, I see Clyde Aldrus riding the horse that’s kept pastured at the lookout. He’s bent low in the saddle, urging the horse on with a face full of fear.

XL.

The church bell sounds its strident warning, a summons for all in the village to drop what they’re doing and come. I arrive in town, panting, my pail banging my shin.

A huddle of villagers surrounds the pillory on the common. This is where we shame our sinners, but now Clyde Aldrus stands upon its platform, repeating his news.

There are ships on the horizon, twenty miles east. So the scout tells Captain Rush.
Three ships that don’t appear to be carrying calico.

XLI.

The men in town are silent now. The women buzz with talk of war. Goody Pruett passes our gate on her way to town and tells Mother what she’s heard. This time she does not even extract her usual exchange of a cup of bark coffee.

The homelanders and their ships can travel almost all the way to us up the river, until they’re forced to disembark at Roswell Landing. From there, it’s not a long march to Roswell Station and our fruitful farms.

They’ll take it all, for a price in our blood. We know they haven’t forgotten their brothers from ’37.
Ever since the arsenal was lost, all we have are private arms. Blunderbusses, flintlocks, fowling pieces, pistols. Ninety guns with which to face their hundreds. Ninety men with ball and powder, and blood for spilling. Ninety necks that will turn to face destruction, and hold it back for half an hour.
Roswell Station will not see nightfall tomorrow. Neither cloud-eyed widow, nor grizzled elder, nor fat-legged infant will survive. They may spare the younger women. The whole and healthy ones, at least.
You will not take Maria for your own.
Even I can find no joy in that.
Someone else will have her instead.

XLII.

Men look to Captain Rush, who sweats, and then they look to you. Unspoken on their lips is the fear: who will lead us with Colonel Whiting gone? He was our confidence, our miracle. Remember ’37, when he rousted the homelanders?So they look to you, the son and heir, who never shot more than autumn deer.

XLIII.

There is talk of fleeing to the woods. Of wagons and frantic harvesting, women loading clothes and tools and only the most needed dishes into wagons and carts, and vanishing into the great expanse of forest west of here. But what about the old, the infants and children, the wives soon to deliver?

Others talk of sending riders out, to Pinkerton and Chester and Codwall’s Landing and Fermot, to marshal a resistance. How many fighters would return from other towns? Would they not rather hold them here than face overseas invaders in their own harvest fields?

Would they get here in time?
I drift from house to house, delivering eggs and bottles and written messages, until my errands are done, and still I drift and listen, for no one thinks to curb their tongues near me.
I drift back home and see the lust in Mother’s eyes—if only I could tell her what I see and know and hear. But not even for that knowledge will she bend her iron rule that keeps my lips closed.
I find Darrel in the barn, sharpening the blade of Father’s ancient bayonet. He doesn’t call me Worm today. He doesn’t say a word at all.
I find you at Maria’s house, in council with her father and the elders of the village. Leon and Jud and all the able men are there.
I find Maria in the woods, huddled on a tree stump.
She sees me.
Her enchanting eyes are red and fat with crying.
I don’t understand the desire I feel to do something for her. I pluck the reddest apple I can find off a nearby tree and place it upon her lap, in the cave of skirt that falls between her knees.
As I walk away I hear her pearly teeth bite into it.

XLIV.

Preacher Frye stands on the stoop of the village church, telling an audience of women to believe in God’s deliverance. All sorts of miracles are possible. The river could freeze. A malady could overtake them all. Fiery darts from heaven could rain down upon the ships. We should pray.

The women, usually rapt at the sound of Preacher Frye’s voice, slip away one by one, until only I stand to listen in the middle of the dusty street.

The preacher fills his lungs and then sees me. He empties them again, turns, and disappears inside.

XLV.

I pass your silent house. You’re still in council with the men. I’m carrying my pail of grapes, so I push your door open and tiptoe inside. It’s as neat as if you had a goodwife already. So yellow, the beams you’ve split to build anew on a burnt foundation. The scents of sweet pine and old smoke mingle.

My little surprise for you has been spoiled by this evil news. Nevertheless, I reach for a pan hanging from a rafter and scoop handfuls of grapes from my pail into it. My fingers are purple with crushed grape skins.

Something rubs against my ankles. I smile to see Jip wagging his docked tail for my benefit, and bend to scratch behind his ears.

Then I hear a footstep, and freeze.

You come around the post of your bedroom door and see me.
You jump, and yelp, and drop the boots you carried.
A squeak of terror escapes my throat. I set your pan on the shelf and turn to flee.
You’re naked. Half naked. You wear only trousers, with the brace straps dangling over your shoulders.
You catch me by the hand at your doorway.
“Wait,” you say, then you start to laugh. You hand me my abandoned pail. “Thanks for the grapes. I’ll eat them before I leave.” Your laugh ends when you remember why you’re leaving, heading off to battle.
If I don’t run now, you’ll see my eyes fill with mortified tears. Your bare body is inches away from my face. I haven’t seen your skin like this since you were a boy swimming in the stream. Nor will I again.
Here you are, and you don’t mind me here. As though Maria Johnson were never born, and I, never taken. As though there’ll be no war tonight.
I can’t stay, and I don’t know how to leave.
You reach your arm high to pull your musket from its shelf, and with it, a wooden box. Letters are stamped in black paint on the side. I am leaving, leaving now, but the box makes me pause. I frown at the letters.
You notice me studying the box, and wonder at it.
It’s far past time for me to leave, so at last, with all my strength, I do it.

XLVI.

P
.
O
. Some other letters.
R
.

The box. The back of the box. I remember that box, and many more like it. Stacked in heaps, facing the wall of my cell, so I never saw the letters on them.

P
,
O
, something, and I think the next letter was a
D
. I hadn’t seen it clearly.
P
,
O
, something,
D
, something,
R
.
He brought them in, early one morning, before I awoke, and stacked them around me like prison bars. “Don’t touch these,” he said. “And don’t light any candles if you want to see tomorrow.”
I obeyed him, even though tomorrow held nothing to interest me.
P
,
O
,
D
,
R
.
Candles.
Powder.

XLVII.

The word has come. The men will march to Roswell Landing, four miles east, at river’s edge. There they’ll wait for fighters who’ve been summoned by the riders—boys with messages sewn inside their shirts. At Roswell Landing, they’ll hold invaders back for as long as rocks and guns will last.

The smithy forge roars through the night as Horace Bron melts every scrap of metal he can find into musket balls. Women bring pans, and men bring nails and tools and horseshoes.

Women must gather the children in and march them through the night to Hunters Ferry, eight miles south and west, where it’s hoped homelanders will not go—at least, not until spring breaks through winter snow.

Darrel will travel with the men, and Mother, she’ll stay behind to tend to the wounded. My mother is a brave woman. It may be that homelanders will reach her before any wounded villagers do. She is neither young nor old, and she is strong. If she would smile, she would still be handsome. I fear for her.

I am forgotten, free to do as I please.
No one eats. No one sleeps. You bring Jip to our house and tie him to a tree. He whimpers half the night, until I go outside and let him curl up in my lap.
Morning comes. I milk the cow. Her bag is full and aching, swaying. She’s been forgotten, too. War can do that.
I skim the cream, then find the last autumn blueberries in the woods and fill a bowl for Darrel. Sugar, too. Why save it now?
I run to find him. He’s in town, waiting for the army, as they’ve taken to calling it.
I tap his shoulder. He jumps and spins, hands braced to fight. But it’s me. He slumps, shaken. I offer him the bowl.
He looks at me. He covers his eyes with his hand. I see his lips are trembling.
Underneath new ginger whiskers, I see a soft face I once washed and kissed.
I want to say, don’t go, little brother. Stay. Flee. You can play soldier another day.
He drinks the cream and berries, smacks his lips, and kisses mine. I thump his back, and take the bowl, and send him off to battle.

XLVIII.

You are there among the would-be soldiers, organizing them in ranks. Your gun is slung over your shoulders, your sacks of powder at your hip. You move the men and guns around— how do you know how to do this? Your jaw is set with confidence but I see the concern in your eyes. I memorize your shape, your stance, your walk, your nod, the way your eyebrows rise and fall to animate your speech.

You are our leader now, and Roswell Station worships you. Propriety abandoned, women touch you, wishing you Godspeed and blessings as you lead their men to war. Might I dare to touch you, too? My heart pounds inside my chest. Only a few short steps and a tug on your sleeve. No one could censure me for that today.

But you whistle on your fingers, and the ranks form into rows. The women call good-byes, and you lead the men away. Women sob aloud, embrace each other, and turn back toward their homes. I run away, fleeing down the street, so my tears can fall in privacy.

XLIX.

Darrel once read to Mother the tale of a girl in France who heard angel voices telling her to save her people from the English. She dressed as a man and spoke with fire and eloquence. She raised an army and defeated the invaders, all for love of her motherland. For her courage and her passion, she was later burned to death, called a witch and heretic.Do I love you less than she loved soil?
I have no words to save you.