Sweet Song (14 page)

“Nothin’ anyone could do. Ain’t no use in blamin’ no one.” Buddy glanced over at Cracker-Jack, then looked at Jesse. “No one,” he repeated.

That night the men dug a shallow grave in silence. No one ate. Cracker-Jack took his bedroll into the woods and out of the sight of the others.

Leon helped to make a fire, then let himself fall asleep, knowing that he’d awaken several times in the night. Each time he awoke, Leon lifted his head to be sure the others were asleep. As it got closer to daybreak, Leon uncurled his tight muscles, stretched his arms and legs, and sat up making as little noise as possible.

He gathered his sack. On his way out of camp, Leon placed his hat over Bob’s grave and left it there. Rather than run, Leon tip-toed as not to disturb his sleeping partners.

Jesse shocked him, stepping from around a tree into Leon’s path. “I done blame you,” Jesse whispered. He rubbed his arm where the buckshot had penetrated.

Leon wanted to step past him.

“Listen, boy. We go around the town by passin’ over the mountain. At first Cracker-Jack want to keep you around ‘cause we can use you. But Cracker-Jack turn bad.”

“There’s a town?” Leon said.

“Follow this creek downstream. At the river, go upstream. It about two days walk.” Jesse held out a pot with congealed stew about an inch thick along the bottom.

“You’ll get into trouble.” Leon pushed the pan aside with his hand.

Jesse agreed with a silent nod and slight grin. “We know you mulatto, but you also carry youself like a white boy. Cracker-Jack be jealous. You keep tellin’ youself you white. You look whites in the eye and claim you worth somethin’. You hear?”

“I do.”

“Safe travels,” Jesse said. Then he turned and headed back to camp.

Leon’s stomach ached for the stew, but it wouldn’t be good for Jesse had he taken it.

He took a few slow steps toward the creek, then stopped to listen. He couldn’t hear Jesse’s footsteps. Birdsongs had already conquered the air. The darkness had begun to dissipate into morning, waking the diurnal animals and setting the nocturnal to task looking for a safe resting place where the day’s heat would let them be.

Twittering birds increased in number until it was the only sound Leon heard. He picked up his pace, his sack in his hand and his chin up. He felt alert, rested, confident. He imagined a river-town hustling with noise, bursting with work. He could fish the river, farm at the edge of town, fix stables. There would be work for him, and people with nothing murderous in their past, nothing they would need to run from. He could live in a place like that.

T
he West Branch of the Susquahanna is a winding river, taking sharp curves in one direction and then several miles farther turning in the opposite direction.

Leon couldn’t catch a fish without Bob’s help. An aching stomach, due to eating nothing but raw mushrooms and blackberries, reduced his ability to sleep. Leon followed the water around one bend after another. Nothing but silence and wilderness spread before him at one turn, then people and noise at the next. The town appeared to have sprung out of the ground.

Leon kneeled in exhaustion. The roaring of the river rushing around the bend muffled the noise coming from the town. For the moment, the sight of people brought him joy. Leon, tired as he was, lifted up onto weak legs and hobbled into town.

Two men heading south in a buckboard stacked with grain, stopped alongside Leon. “You okay, mister?”

Leon looked up and the sun caught his eye. “Tired,” he said through a squint. “And hungry.”

The man on Leon’s side of the buckboard shook his head. “There’s work and plenty of it this time of year.” He clicked his cheek, snapped the reins, and the wagon kicked back into motion.

Leon watched the wagon go down the road. Work. He changed focus back to the town ahead of him. He’d do most anything for a good meal.

The dust rose from the sun-dried roadbed and lifted into Leon’s nose and mouth. He could not will himself to feel white, a fleeting memory of what Jesse had suggested. He stayed in the road unable to enter any of the buildings.

Other men walked the streets. A few said howdy to him. Leon nodded and turned his eyes away. Before long two men deliberately approached him. “You lookin’ for work?”

Leon glanced at the man speaking, who stood Leon’s height, but carried another forty pounds, which made Leon feel skinny. The man wore a leather hat that shaded his dark brown eyes. Stubble poked out of the man’s chin, but not his cheeks, leading Leon to guess that the man was young. The speaker’s partner stood six inches shorter and ten pounds heavier, but was older by a few rough years, with a thicker beard, maybe a few week’s growth.

“Haven’t eaten much either,” Leon answered.

“Don’t know about that, but the mill needs help.”

“Where do I go?”

The young man took Leon by the arm and turned him. He pointed toward the edge of town, not far away. “There.” The largest building to be seen had a thin tower-like frame with a fat lower part below that gave the impression of a longhouse. Lumber was piled in front of it.

The young man slapped Leon’s back. “That there mill is all this town is.” Then he laughed as if he had told a joke, and walked off with his friend.

Leon continued to gaze upriver. There was only the one log pile. As he got closer to the mill, though, the banks became heavy with timber. Even so the woods behind the mill were still thick with trees. He couldn’t imagine where all the timber had come from. Upstream, he figured. Leon shook his head assuming he wasn’t processing the town properly. Perhaps there was more logic to the town than he could grasp in his present state of hunger and fatigue.

Other men passed as Leon stayed on course for the mill. With each step he heard more people talking and yelling. Then came the clanking and ringing of chains.

He didn’t have to say much as he approached the mill. It appeared that no one would go in that direction unless he wanted work. And at the moment Leon wanted nothing more than to earn a good meal and a place to lie down.

“Hey, Harry,” Leon heard someone call. Two men came down from the long-house to meet Leon. “Three days work for meals and a
bed. After that, you get a daily rate to be determined by how much work you can do. That sound good, son?”

Leon nodded then his shoulders felt light and his knees weakened. He staggered. The two men grabbed him and held him up. “He’s fevered,” one said.

“Dang-blame it,” the other responded. “We take ‘im to the bunk house. The others won’t like it. Maybe the shed’ll do.”

Leon slept and remembered little more than lying on the floor. When he saw one of the men again, the burly logger was carrying food. Leon ate slowly. Before long, he felt better. His head cleared.

“You fevered. We ain’t got much space for the sick.”

“I feel better,” Leon said. He looked at the food in front of him. He took a drink of water. “Really, I feel better. I can work.”

“No matter. Until you’re free of the fever, the other men won’t want you around.”

Leon nodded as he stuffed food into his mouth. He swathed his plate with a last piece of bread and handed the plate back. His muscles ached. He stood. “I’m ready. Please, don’t turn me out.”

“Wasn’t plannin’ to.

Standing required as much will as strength for Leon to accomplish.

The man pulled a crate off a stack. “Here you go. Have a seat. Not much room in here, but you can stretch out. Your sack is over there, but you ain’t got no bedroll. I have it deducted from your wages. And the couple meals too. I sure as shit hope you can work once you spry up.”

“I can,” Leon said. He stepped into the darkness of the shadows and sat on the crate. “Thank you.”

The man slapped the door frame with his palm and left, leaving the shed door hang open.

Leon watched him go, then rolled off the crate and lay on the floor where he curled into a ball. He woke in the middle of the night, a blanket over his shoulders. The man must have returned, but Leon had no idea when. He put his palm to his own forehead, which didn’t feel hot to his touch. He stretched his arms and legs. The aches were still there, and across his back and in his neck, too.

Leon crawled to the door and swung his legs out over the stoop. The sky spread clear above him. Stars stood close enough to touch. The air was cool. The river rush was loud and the thud, thud, thud of logs bumping together created a rhythm Leon almost recognized. He breathed in the night air. There were no mosquitoes, no gnats. He scratched his arms where he had been bitten the last few days. He rubbed his face with his hands. He didn’t know the name of the town nor what type of work he’d be involved with, but he was alive and awake and could feel the sickness leaving his body.

Leon lay back on the floor. His legs hung out of the shed. He reached back and grabbed the blanket and pulled it over his chest and arms, up close to his chin. He had left his bedroll when he left the roamers. This one felt good and warm. He closed his eyes and fell back to sleep. He dreamed of death: Big Leon’s and Bob’s. The blast and scatter of buckshot through corn occurred over and over again until Leon opened his eyes and his hearing returned. The blast was replaced by the thud, thud of the logs banging together.

Light came into the shed.

Leon’s legs were sore, especially behind his knees where they had been bent over the door jam. He rubbed each leg out, starting at his thigh and ending at his foot. After he finished with his legs, he rubbed each arm starting at the shoulder. Then he stretched and twisted his back, holding it in place to let the ache’s dissipate. He rubbed his neck, too, and forehead, ears and face, especially around his eyes. When he was through with the massage, he stood.

Across the water, the sun had already lighted the sky. Humidity produced a haze in the distance, obscuring the details of the mountains. The river, filled with fish, frogs, and turtles, stretched gloriously before him, wide and strong. The ker-plunk and plop and swishing sounds rose from the river, a song of its own.

The Susquahanna was fast moving, fed by hundreds of creeks, mountain streams, and small runs. The way it twisted and snaked, the way it cut through the mountains, proved its strength. That morning, the sun lighting the water’s deceptive glass surface proved its beauty.

Fish broke the surface everywhere, the pops and plunks penetrating through the constant hiss made by the current as it rushed downstream straight into a sharp bend.

Leon sure wanted one of those fish. Had he thought to steal one of the bent pins and some string from the roamers, he’d be out there fishing already.

He rolled his blanket and sack together. His own bedroll. He rubbed the wool fibers with his hand. The blanket would keep him warm come winter. He stood in the doorway waiting for someone to come for him. He tapped his foot and hummed. He felt much better, like he could put in a day’s work.

After a while and no one came by, Leon slapped the floor and stood. He spit on the ground in front of him. He waited another minute and thought about those fish.

When he couldn’t wait any longer, he walked down along the bank of the water and around the mill. Heading up toward the bunkhouse, he smelled eggs cooking, and bread. The scent pulled at his stomach as he approached.

“New man!”

Leon recognized the man who had led him to the shed and returned with the bedroll.

“Fever’s gone,” Leon said.

The man nodded. He held out his hand. “Jack,” he said.

“Leon,” Leon said taking the man’s hand.

Jack cocked his head. “Never known a Leon before.”

Leon turned his eyes away from their handshake. He didn’t know how to respond. What did Jack mean by his statement?

“That a French name,” Harry said from a few feet away.

“My grandfather’s name,” Leon said.

“They Christian folk?” Jack asked.

Harry answered for Leon. “We ain’t none of us Christian after workin’ here for a year.” He walked up to the men. “You hungry, Leon?”

“I try to live Christian,” Jack said.

The other men standing around laughed at him.

“I do,” Jack said laughing as well.

Leon followed Harry to a long table made from several cut planks laid across two stumps. Bread, pans filled with eggs, fresh blackberries, and cooked bacon were positioned in a row, ready to be taken.

Leon’s mouth filled with saliva.

Harry led him to the end of the table and pushed a plate into his hands. “Spoons at the end.”

Leon looked down the table to where the spoons had been piled. The food appeared to go on forever. He followed another man and filled his plate until there was no room for more. He followed the man in front of him to a knoll partway down the bank toward the water’s edge. There wasn’t much talking while the eating was going on, and Leon was fine with that. He pushed eggs into his mouth and chased them with bacon, then he pushed bread in and chased it with a fist full of blackberries. Sweet juice trickled from between his lips and he giggled with delight.

He had all but forgotten the river and the morning until the sun broke over the hills and a blast of light reflected from the river, making his eyes water.