Gabriel's Story (3 page)

“You can't charm me, Hiram. I've been around too long for that.” She drew back and looked the man up and down. “And look at yourself ! You're dressed as if you're back at South Hill.”

“Maybe so,” Hiram said, taking a look at his garments, “but here I'm working for no one but myself, and I guess you, now that you're here.” Hiram looked her long in the eyes, and something passed between them, a message of both reprimand and forgiveness and a certain pained understanding. But when he looked away and found the boys, his smile returned. “Sweet Jesus, look at you two! Left you boys and find you men. This world moves too fast for me sometimes. Must be getting old.” He shook hands with both, bringing them close to him in nearly a full embrace.

Ben's face lit up in the first show of joy this long day. Gabriel tried hard to stand firm but couldn't keep a grin from tugging at his lips. Hiram talked easily with the boys, asking them had they seen any Indians or buffalo, warning them that this land was hard, might be too hard for the likes of them. This got just the expected reaction from Ben, who denied all Hiram said with rough gestures that soon involved the man in a tussling match.

The afternoon passed into twilight. Eliza prepared a supper of tinned corned beef that they'd brought with them, served alongside some of last year's potatoes, with a measure of lard laid across it all. To the men's surprise and delight, she also produced a jar of peach preserves, just as soft and sweet as they remembered from some long-ago time. They ate the fruit in big dripping spoonfuls that Hiram named “syrup-covered sunlight.” But it was over all too soon, and both men licked the spoons they ate with and scraped the bottom of the jar as if more of the delicacy might be hidden somewhere in the glass itself.

They soon engaged in a meandering conversation that tended toward light banter. They talked of people they all knew back East, about food items and comforts yet to be seen on the plains. The men told of some of the trials of this land, but did so with the humor of distance. They made the chill of winter into a joke, coyotes into playful creatures, and the labors of the land into things not to be feared but to be proud of. Gabriel sat beside his brother but seemed to find entertainment only in the dark corners of the room. Each change in the conversation seemed to annoy him, although he spoke no protest.

Solomon built up a fire and sat tending it like one would a sick child. For a moment it appeared to have all his attention, and yet when he spoke, his words came out measured and thoughtful. “Guess it's easy enough for Hiram and me to laugh. We done been out here long enough to love the place. I'd ask y'all to give it some time, if you would. We may look poor, but we got more than most—this land, the mule, the horse, and the sow out back. And you and I both farmed the land before, Eliza. I know this here's different, but we can learn what's to be learned. Think for a moment how good things maybe could be.” He looked at his wife, his hopes for their future written in the deep lines of his face. “But I'll tell you what else. Hiram and I talked about it . . . If you choose to head back East, we'll pay the fare.” This got Gabriel's attention. “There's no cash left to speak of, but we could sell the horse—sow too, if need be. I'm just saying the choice is yours. Life out here ain't like being a slave, but it's a might harder than the city life y'all been living, might harder than we knew, fore we got here.”

Eliza didn't look at Gabriel, but her hand rose in a vague gesture, as if she were reluctantly waving him away. The same hand moved to her lips and quieted some thought there. She walked over and sat down next to Solomon. Gabriel followed her with his eyes, unsure what to read in her face. She leaned forward and spoke close to her husband, although loud enough that the others could still hear her. “Solomon, I been thinking on it all day. When I first saw the house, this house, I just about forgot that we had dreamed this up together. Thought maybe you'd lost your mind and I was about to.” She spoke the words plainly, punctuating each one to make sure they were understood. Solomon lowered his eyes and studied the shape and size of his hands. “But Solomon, I tell you what. You my husband, same one I married before God's eyes. I did that cause I thought I could finish this life with you, and that's still what I intend on doing. So what I'm saying is, you have me. All of me. You always have. And I knew that before we boarded the train.”

Solomon raised his eyes, which were suddenly moist; his face was flushed and exhausted by the day but timorously joyous at the words his mind was still processing.

Eliza turned to her boys. She still directed her words at Solomon, but her look asked the boys that she be allowed to speak for them too. “I know my boys. I know they're smart enough to wonder what in God's name this is all about. But they're also wise enough, I think, to understand that sometimes you gotta have some faith and put in some hard work to get the things you want. And they're strong too. We'll put them to sod-busting, and they'll have the place turned over in a week's time. They'll do us proud, and make you two men feel like some old somebodies.”

Solomon smiled, uneasy. Hiram laughed outright but kept his eyes on the boys.

Gabriel stood with his chin pushed forward, inhaling deeply, as if he might finally speak in something more than a grunt, longer than a sentence. He didn't look at his brother, for he already saw Ben's face in his mind, shy and smiling under the praise and ready to accept anything their mother proposed to them. Gabriel silently cursed the boy, a weaker, feebler version of himself. He held the room in silence for a long moment but in the end spoke only with the breadth of his back. He shoved the door open and stepped into the night air. After striding forward a few steps, he faltered and stopped, witnessing before him a panorama that in no direction promised solace or escape but that led only unto itself, infinitely.

FIVE WEEKS AFTER THEY'D BEGUN THEIR RIDE, the two men
ended it, at a ranch north of Fort Griffin. The ranch's main
house, near which they stood, sat like a New England estate that
had been transplanted by a mischievous whirlwind and set down
out of malice upon the wide skillet of the southern plains. It was a
building of numerous rooms, smooth planed wood, bay windows,
and a wraparound porch that stood a full six feet above the
ground. It was painted a bright, pure white, with blue shutters
and trim, and it was lined across the front by young apple trees. A
little distance away, a buggy stood at the ready, hitched to a thin-muzzled and proud black horse. It watched the two men and their
horses with an air of cautious indifference. The white man surveyed the scene with eyes little impressed by the show of grandeur.

Man don't even know where he is, he said.

When the owner appeared, he walked briskly, slightly annoyed,
probing with his tongue for some troublesome bit of food that had
lodged itself in his teeth. He was dressed in a dinner jacket of a
type rarely seen in Texas, with pressed breeches designed for riding
in some country where such was done for pleasure rather than out
of necessity. He paused at the porch railing, studied the two men,
then asked their business.

The white man stated it: the rumor he'd heard and his proposal
to remedy it.

The owner had heard rumors of his own where this man was
concerned and didn't mind saying so.

The man didn't seem to have an opinion on these rumors. He
took off his hat and ran a hand up over his hair, the strands of
which were so white they shone like sun-bleached hay. This done,
he replaced the hat and all was as before.

You've known me since I was fourteen. You know the places I've
worked and the jobs I've done. You want your cattle in Kansas; I
want to drive them there. Seems we got a mutual interest, don't it?

The owner agreed to a certain amount of truth in that. He
propped one leg up on the railing and wiped the corners of his
mouth with his fingertips.

Shame what happened to your father. I can't say he didn't
bring it on himself in a godawful way, but it's still a shame. He
was a good man in a lot of ways, just couldn't control his excesses.

Can't blame a son for his father.

This seemed to answer some question the owner had yet to state.

No, I don't reckon you should. If I chance it with you, you ain't
gonna make me look a fool, are you?

The man smiled and indicated with a shrug that this was an
impossibility.

The black man watched it all and waited.

THE MORNING OF THE BOYS' FOURTH DAY IN KANSAS, Solomon and Hiram taught them how to break sod. They yoked the horse, Raleigh, and the mule for the effort and pointed out the features of their plow. It was an old contrivance much used and abused, with wooden handles so dry and worn that their creviced features sliced fast into soft hands. The frame of the thing was some sort of forged metal, ribbed and primitive in design, dented and aged and twisted by its labors, the blade especially so. Solomon wrapped the handles in strips of leather and set to it with the boys and the beasts all full on.

It was awkward work, coordinating the pull of the animals and keeping them to the proper course while the plow bucked and resisted, trying to dig too deeply into the earth or slipping up and out or tipping off to one side. When Gabriel held the plow, it seemed strangely like a living thing, something with a mind of its own and the strength to actualize its intent. It took the exertion of all his muscles, from the wrists up through the shoulders, the wrap of his back and the push of his thighs, right down through his legs to his toes, which dug into the ground in an attempt to find purchase. Every so often the blade bit especially well and sliced forward a foot or so. In an hour they had cut a wavering trough that Solomon deemed long enough for their purposes. They turned the plow and swung the beasts around and labored back. And so the morning passed.

Eliza set a simple lunch for the men and boys, a stew rich with chunks of beef and potatoes, along with cornbread fresh from their Dutch oven. Gabriel was surprised each day that she coped so well with this place, that she seemed to know the primitive tools she found and their use. Her share of the work was exponentially increased by the fact that she was the sole woman of the family, but she fell to it like one returning to an old trade. Every morning and evening she trudged over the rise and down to the well on the other side for water. As their potbellied stove was too misshapen to function otherwise, she cooked over its open flames, with all of the chores related to it: the constant need to feed and monitor the fire; the danger of being burned, singed, or scalded by pots of boiling water that seemed far too large for her thin arms.

Gabriel watched her with anxious eyes, expecting, hoping to see her overwhelmed by it all. But like Solomon and Hiram, she went at these tasks with a satisfied energy. The work was good, and she was happy finally to get at it. She sat next to Solomon, and Gabriel couldn't help noticing each time they touched. Their hands brushed often; their shoulders rubbed together; their laughter always took them toward each other. This too seemed strange to the boy. Try as he might, he could recollect no such closeness between Eliza and his father.

After lunch, the men headed back out to work. Gabriel got up to go but lingered by the door. He turned around and stared at his mother, the light from the open door casting him in silhouette. They occupied the silence for a good few seconds, the only sounds being those of Eliza clearing the table. “What's on your mind?” she asked.

“Daddy didn't raise me to be no farmer.”

“It's your daddy you're worried about?” Eliza smiled sadly. She watched him for a moment, then continued collecting the spoons and bowls in one big kettle. “I spent near ten years working in your daddy's funeral parlor. That ain't no work to love either, living off the dead.” Gabriel's eyes snapped at her, but Eliza stopped his words before the boy uttered them. “I hear you, Gabriel. I know your father had bigger plans for you than this, but things ain't come to pass quite that way. Just settle your mind to the fact that we're here in Kansas and live with it. I know your father wouldn't've had nothing to do with this, but he's gone.”

Gabriel crossed his arms and stood with his legs set wide apart, although there was something nervous even in this defiant stance, something of the child playing the adult. “If you know what he'd've thought, why you spurning him?”

“That was never my intention. Anyway, it's not your place to judge me for your father.” She scooped up the last bowl and dropped it in the pot. Her eyes flicked up toward Gabriel, but only for a second. The glance seemed to affect her. She paused in her work, and a melancholy frown wrinkled her brow. She set both her hands on the table and leaned her weight on the unstable boards. “You were special to your father. You know that, don't you? More so than Ben, and don't ask me if that's right. He never could get enough of you, and he always did see all of his hopes and dreams growing in you. That's why you cherish him so. And I'm thankful for it. But Gabriel, there was no great love between him and me. He chose me because he figured I looked good on his arm and was educated enough not to embarrass him and his kin. But he never loved me, and his family never cared for me either. Yes, they're prosperous for black folks, but they got no soul, Gabriel.”

“Like Solomon's got soul?” he asked, the words blunt and cold, less a question than an accusation.

“Yes, that's just what I mean. I loved Solomon first, if you have to know. Way back, way back and way south, when I was somebody's property. But I got sold away and found my way to your father and he made his offer and I took it, but I never did forget my soul. I never did forget Solomon. When your father passed I sent for him, wrote him and told him if he wasn't married already he could come up and I'd be his wife.”