The Cove (10 page)
A
s black shallowed to gray in the cabin window, he thought of what Goritz had said about needing to suffer. Easier not to see Laurel, he had decided, so quietly dressed and made his way to the door by tentative steps and touches, the haversack on his shoulder. Outside, there was little light until the trail curled around the cliff face and the sky unsealed into a wide leveling dawn. At the trail notch, he passed under dangles of glass tied to a tree limb. He thought again of the hanged man.
Slidell met him on the porch.
“Didn't expect you this early. I got to eat and then we can go. Come inside and I'll fix you something too.”
Walter shook his head.
“All right, I'll be out in a few minutes.”
As he waited on the steps, he thought how amazing it was that three years in New York had passed before he and the others were rounded up. They had been able to leave the harbor day or night and go wherever they pleased. They swam in the Hudson River in the summer and skated in Central Park in the fall. Because the crew still got paid, they could attend concerts and operas, enjoy good food and good drink. Some of his fellow musicians spent evenings on River Street, playing patriotic songs between rousing speeches. There was plenty of time to do such things because, for the musicians at least, they performed only an occasional fund-raiser. For those three years, the ship and its crew had been as safe there as any place in the world.
IN HEAVEN
, an onboard banner had proclaimed one October night.
It would be different now, but Goritz was surely still there, and willing to help him.
Slidell came out and they got in the wagon and left. The wagon bumped and jostled out of the yard and onto a path little wider than the wheels. The woods thickened and the blue sky disappeared. Walter checked his pocket and confirmed that he still had the note for the depot manager, only then realized he'd left the medallion. Better not to have it on him anyway. They were coming out of deep woods when Slidell spoke.
“Them you stayed with are good folks, and the way they been maligned, especially that girl, is a grievous sin, and once Hank's married it's going to make it all the harder. I wish she could find someone the way Hank has. Men ought to be lined up with all she's got to offer, including her prettiness, though folks make her think it's not so because of that birth stain. Don't you think she's pretty?”
Walter nodded because he was expected to, but also because it was true.
Slidell jostled the checkreins and looked straight ahead.
“Forgive an old man for speaking his mind, but I could tell the other night she'd taken a shine to you, seemed you'd taken a bit of a shine to her too. I was hoping you all might get to sparking and it change your mind about leaving.”
Leaving.
He would be the one this time, remembering the English ocean liner that had harbored only meters from his own ship. There had been quite a bustle when the liner departed. All morning cars and carriages brought passengers and steamer trunks shipside. When the rain let up, he'd left his own ship and sat on the pier as the dockworkers untied the ropes tethering ship to shore. Tugboats arrived to nudge the liner into the Hudson as the last passengers boarded and the pier's crowd waved handkerchiefs and hurled confetti. He had brought the flute but did not play until a young woman in a green silk dress, matching parasol in hand, paused on the gangplank and looked his way. She nodded at the flute, mouthed the word
Brahms
. He raised the silver to his lips and began the final movement of the First Symphony. The flute's notes soared over the ruckus around them. The woman placed her free hand on the railing and let the parasol settle on her shoulder. She was young, probably no more than twenty, tall and slim, her long black hair accentuating her ivory-white skin. She nodded slightly, knowingly, as the song crested and then faded. The last of the voyagers came up the gangplank, passed first the woman and then a steward who checked off names. The steward came to escort her onto the deck but the woman remained where she was, as if the music might yet woo her back to shore.
The song ended and she smiled and spoke but again her words were lost in the confusion of other voices. He raised a hand to his ear and made his way toward the gangplank, not taking his eyes off her as she pointed him out to the steward and said something. She walked on up the gangplank as the steward walked down. Walter pushed through the riotous crowd until he and the steward were face-to-face
. The young lady said that she hopes you will play for her again
,
perhaps when the ship makes its return voyage next month.
The steward made his way back aboard as the ocean liner's steam horn announced the voyage had begun. Walter had turned back into the mob then, searching for her among the passengers offering their farewells. As the water widened between them, he saw the parasol's green rounding amid the jostling of Mephisto feathers and top hats. He watched until the parasol was just a dot of green and then not even that. The next day he went to the Cunard Line's office and checked the ship's return date. It was a week later when he had seen the headline
LUSITANIA SUNK BY HUNS
.
They came to a better-maintained road and Slidell tugged the left rein and the horse turned that way. The blue sky reappeared, wider and brighter than Walter had seen in two weeks. After so long its vastness was disconcerting. They passed cabins and houses and before much longer he saw a clock tower and brick and wood buildings huddled on a hilltop.
“That's the college. It's named Mars Hill too. It ain't very big so I doubt you ever heard of it.”
Walter had heard of it but did not nod as the road leveled and then began its descent into the village. Slidell hitched the horse to a post in front of a café and pointed up the street.
“There's the depot. I'm going over to the hardware store and after that I'll be yonder in the Turkey Trot,” Slidell said, pointing to a low-slung building beyond the depot. “If you change your mind, I'll be in town at least till noon.”
Walter nodded and stepped onto the boardwalk. He passed the café and a clothing store and then a barbershop, the white-smocked barber outside on a bench, his face obscured by a newspaper.
The barber lowered his paper.
“You need a haircut?”
Walter shook his head and went on. The boardwalk ended and train tracks lined the road edge, on them a freight train whose coal car was being filled. On the depot's platform, two old men on a bench stared at a checkerboard. The redcap leaned against a post, cleaning the underside of his nails with a pocketknife. Walter stepped inside to buy his ticket. A woman with a child no more than four or five stood at the window, the depot master explaining a train's arrival time. The child saw him and let go of his mother's hand, walked over to a wanted poster tacked on the far wall. For a few moments Walter simply stared at the sketch of his own face. No scraggly beard appeared on the drawing, but his face was clearly recognizable. He felt not a constriction in his chest but a hollowness, as if his heart had simply evaporated. The child ran to his mother and tugged her hand. The woman spoke brusquely to the child, then turned back to the depot master.
Head down, Walter went out the door. He stepped off the platform and to the building's side where he was alone. He had no trouble feeling his heart now. It pumped frantically as he tried to contain his fear enough to decide what to do. The coal bin was almost full so the train would leave soon. To where he had no idea but surely far enough away that his face wouldn't be on the depot wall. He walked head down past the linked boxcars until he found one with an open side door. He was about to dive in when a Pinkerton stepped from behind the caboose, billy club in hand. The guard smiled and tapped the wood against his palm.
The Pinkerton did not follow so at least he hadn't been recognized. Walter walked rapidly up the boardwalk, fighting the impulse to break into a run. He raised his eyes only to make furtive glances for suspicious stares, more wanted posters, saw none. He passed the last storefront and settled himself behind the college's marble arch. The railroad tracks glistened in the late-morning light. Thirty meters at most, but it was all open ground. The Pinkerton could be anywhere, at the depot or walking behind the caboose or on the train itself. He looked around for a metal rod or hefty stick, saw nothing.
The train gave two quick whistle blasts and the cut steel wheels made their first halting turns. Stay where you are and you'll soon be hanging from this arch, he told himself, and patted the haversack to ensure that the flute case was there. A stack of railroad ties lay halfway between the marble arch and the tracks. If he got there unseen, the sprint to an open boxcar would be only two or three seconds. Walter hunched over and ran, flung himself down behind the ties. His gasped breaths sounded so loud he closed his mouth and breathed through his nose, taking in the acrid smell of creosote. He glanced toward the depot but didn't see the Pinkerton. He peeked over the ties and saw the cowcatcher and then the engineer with an elbow propped on the windowsill. When the coal car passed, he glanced toward the depot a last time and rose, looked down the tracks for the first open boxcar.
He saw the Pinkerton before the Pinkerton saw him. The guard stood inside the open car, one hand on the metal door and the other wielding the billy club. As Walter began running, he heard a menacing shout but dared not look back. He passed the college entrance and ran up the road away from town, cresting the hill before slowing to a fast walk. An automobile soon came up behind him. Too winded to run anymore, he kept his head down, waited to hear if it stopped and men poured out to strike the first blow. But the automobile did not pause. The road curved and woods appeared on the right side. He entered them twice to hide before the turnoff appeared and he followed it. After a while he came to Slidell's house and then followed the trail down the cliff side and back into the cove.
A
s they approached Doak Ellenburg's barn, milking traces jostled the wagon's iron-rimmed wheels, swayed the buckboard Hank and Laurel shared with Slidell. Doak Ellenburg and his wife Hester had farmed this land before opening their livery stable in Mars Hill. Wesley, their only child, had been the first soldier killed from Madison County. No body had been shipped home from France, no last unmailed letter or watch or wallet.
“Looks to be a good portion of folks here tonight,” Slidell said after he pulled the brake and tied the checkreins.
“I wish we'd talked Walter into coming,” Hank said. “You could of brought your guitar and these folks would hear something special.”
“He's shy around people because he can't talk,” Laurel said.
“He's been here two months,” Hank said. “It ain't going to get any easier if he don't try.”
“Give him time,” Slidell said. “Shy ain't near the worst thing a man can be, whether he can or can't talk.”
Slidell and Hank lifted the bulging tow sacks and walked past other wagons and buggies, two Model Ts. Near the entrance, what looked like an enormous poppet doll sprawled in the weedy dirt. The shirt and pants were thatched with straw, a rotting pumpkin set atop the shirt collar. Drawn on the pumpkin were daggered teeth beneath a mustache and a monocle. A pitchfork jabbed through the chest, as if the effigy might try to slither away.
KAISER BILL
, a placard proclaimed.
Inside, red, white, and blue streamers dangled from the rafters, the sideboards arrayed with Liberty Bond posters of American soldiers leaving home, hulking Germans with spiked helmets, Lady Liberty with flag in hand. But the poster that held Laurel's eye was the one with a huge blood-red handprint, below it the words
The HunâHis Mark
BLOT IT OUT
with
Liberty Bonds
Hank's hand, Laurel thought, bloody and bodiless, still somewhere in France. She wondered if it was the poster Hank noticed first, and saw his own hand hovering ghostlike before him.
Laurel gathered their coats and draped them on a stall door. When she came back, Doak sorted what Hank and Slidell had given him into boxes marked
SCRAP IRON
and
RUBBER
. Grief can age a body quicker than time, Laurel's mother had once told her, and she saw the truth of it and not only in Doak Ellenburg's face. His shoulders curved inward, his back was hunched. Slidell had said the arrival of the dust-colored Western Union telegram had so grieved Doak's wife that she hardly ever left the house, even for the jubilees.
“You young folks go mingle,” Slidell said. “I saw Ansel's and Boyce's horses so I'm figuring there to be some sipping going on behind this barn.”
“I might have a sampling myself later,” Hank replied. “If we get too walleyed, Laurel can stack us in the back and drive us home.”
“Looks like the Weatherbees aren't here yet,” Laurel said after Slidell left.
“You ever known it to be different?” Hank grumbled. “That old man's contrary to any kind of fandango, even when it's for a good cause. Soon as he gets here he's ready to turn around. But there ain't no changing him. I've learned that.”
Laurel looked for Marcie Bettingfield but saw instead Jubel Parton talking to his friends. Jubel saw Laurel as well and quickly dropped his gaze. He spoke to one of his friends a moment and then walked out of the barn. Laurel knew he wouldn't be back. Afraid Hank would thrash him again and maybe afraid of her too. The night Jubel had won his bet, she'd washed the blood from her thighs and gone in the barn to tell Slidell she was sick and needed to go home. As Laurel had searched for Slidell, she'd seen Jubel looking her way. She'd waved a hand across her face, then pointed an index finger at Jubel and made a circling motion. Nothing but a made-up pretend curse, but Jubel's face had paled. Laurel had taken some pleasure in that, if for no other reason than wiping the smirk off his face. He'd better be glad I'm not a witch, she'd thought that night, because I'd put a suffering on him like he's never known. But Hank had made Jubel pay.
“I still say Walter should of come,” Hank said. “He won't get over his skittishness unless he's around folks.”
“I want to teach him how to read and write,” Laurel said. “That might confidence him more.”
Ezra Davenport came up to Hank, his gnarly face grim as he nodded toward the barn's rear.
“You seen what them Hun bastards done to my grandboy?”
“I didn't know he was back,” Hank said.
“Got home yesterday,” Ezra said. “Them sons of bitches gassed him.”
Laurel followed Hank to where several men were gathered around Michael Davenport, who'd been conscripted the same week as Hank. Black patches covered his eyes, the silky cloth held in place by a string knotted behind his head. Burn scars welted his face and neck and phlegm clotted each breath. A white cane leaned against a barn slat.
Hank took Michael's hand in his and leaned close, spoke so softly no one except Michael heard. But only the words were soft. Hank had never said if he'd killed men in France, but Laurel saw enough hatred in his face now to believe he could have. Michael's brothers flanked their younger sibling, their faces as grim as their grandfather's. As Hank exchanged handshakes with the brothers, Michael's head turned slowly left to right, as if looking over the crowd. Maybe reacting to the sounds, Laurel thought, but it was as if his body hadn't yet realized his sight had been doused forever. Michael started coughing and the brothers clutched him by the arms as Ezra retrieved the white cane.
“We got to get him home,” Ezra said. “That gas has festered his lungs and he can't near swallow nor breathe.”
Clusters parted so the brothers could pass three astride. Michael shuffled his feet, head still turning left and right as his siblings guided him toward the barn mouth.
“What did you say to Michael?” Laurel asked.
“That if they'd let me back in the army I'd kill a dozen of those Huns for what they done to him. Boyce is right. There's things people ought not do to each other, even in a war. When I was over there I heard awful stories, babies stabbed with bayonets, a Hun general who'd filled a tub with eyeballs. I never saw such and figured it just tall tales. Even what happened to me, I figured it was just one sorry son of a bitch. But now . . .”
Hank shook his head.
“I'm going to have a big swallow of that white liquor before the Weatherbees get here. Maybe that'll help smooth my dander.”
Hank went outside as Ansel and Boyce Clayton came up on the makeshift stage. A guitarist and Lee Ellen, Boyce's wife, were with them, Lee Ellen's voice blending with her husband's.
The news has flashed around
Our boys are homeward bound
Skies of gray have given way to brightness
Hearts that once were sad are feeling gay
And we'll be there to meet them just to say
Oh welcome welcome you are welcome home.
As the song ended, a child running ahead of her mother bumped into Laurel. She was about to help her up when the mother snatched the child's arm so Laurel couldn't touch her. The mother glared and dragged her daughter away. The Claytons finished two more songs before Marcie entered the barn, her baby cradled in one arm. She waved and hugged the baby closer as she and Laurel made their way to each other. Even at a distance, Laurel saw how having a baby had changed Marcie, her bosom and hips bigger but a gauntness in her face. Laurel remembered how pretty she'd been in the cotton batiste wedding dress. Her sisters had adorned Marcie's brown hair with virgin's bower and when she'd walked down the church aisle her tresses were bright and pretty as winter stars. Laurel had been there to see it, because Marcie had told Robbie there'd be no wedding unless Laurel was invited. It had taken a lot of sand to do that but Marcie had always had plenty of sand.
They met in front of the stage and leaned into a half hug.
“Where's Robbie?”
“Outside talking with some of his buddies, probably sipping moonshine too. I'll oblige him that though. He's been hanging tobacco since the pink of day.”
The baby whined and Marcie patted him, set his head on her shoulder.
“I just give you a good feeding, boy. This one ain't to be satisfied, Laurel. Some days I'm of a mind to wear a cowbell for all the suckling he does, and Robbie already wanting another, but he ain't the one got a chap tugging on his teat all day.”
“You're still tonicing with that Queen Anne's lace?” Laurel asked.
“I am and it's working,” Marcie said, and smiled, “because we've given it a bushel full of testings.”
The song ended and Chauncey Feith came onto the stage as the Claytons stepped off. He wore his wool uniform though the barn was warm. A gun was holstered around his waist, as if Germans might rush through the barn mouth at any moment. Laurel watched as six boys settled behind Chauncey, arms by their sides. They were fresh scrubbed, their hair clean and combed, and Chauncey had dressed them up in khaki pants and blue denim shirts, thin black belts and black socks. But the well-worn brogans, several pairs passed down from larger feet, showed they were farm kids. They tried to act grown up but grins kept widening their pressed lips. Laurel saw Hank by the barn mouth, his eyes on the stage too.
Chauncey Feith raised his arms and the barn grew quiet. One of the boys handed him some sheets of paper and Chauncey began to read.
“It is gratifying to see all of you here, and I commend your unceasing support of war bonds and the scrap metal and rubber drive. As the song says, I also hope that our brave men are indeed homeward bound. There are continued good tidings from Europe and some say this war could end soon, but we have heard that before. Whatever news of victory we hear or read, we cannot rest until the kaiser hangs from a rope in that fancy palace of his. We must remain ever vigilant, because the Hun will become even more desperate and devious, not just overseas but here in Madison County, where we of late have all but been overrun with likely imperial agents. Thus I offer the following.”
Chauncey raised his eyes and shuffled the papers.
“To President Lange and the board of trustees. We the following demand the immediate removal of Doctor Horatio Mayer from his position as Professor of Languages at Mars Hill College. Furthermore, we demand that he not be allowed on the campus in any capacity, especially to have contact with students. We know for a fact that Professor Mayer has conversed with men we have cause to believe are enemy spies, a matter that has already been reported to you. Information passed to him could cost American lives. Professor Mayer must be immediately dismissed from the college. Let us not hear any more cries about free speech, that colleges should embrace any and all sorts of free thinking. Professor Mayer does not have the right to speak freely when his allegiances are not our own or, we surely hope, the college he represents. His continued employment will cause everlasting dishonor to Mars Hill College. Furthermore, Miss Dorothea Yount should be, at the very least, severely reprimanded for her allowance of potentially subversive books in the campus library. We would note that a number of your own faculty have already agreed to sign this petition. Their having done so is an act of true courage. Let Professor Mayer's dismissal be the first step in restoring Mars Hill College's honor and good name.”
Chauncey raised his eyes.
“The boys have already placed copies of this petition on Doak's table. If you believe in freedom, sign the petition. Thank you for coming tonight and for all your contributions for our brave soldiers.”
Chauncey gave a crisp salute, the boys following him single file as the Claytons stepped back on the stage and began “The False Knight,” a song Laurel had always liked. If Walter had come, he could play it for her later, though the main reason she'd wish him here was simply missing him. How could she not when for two months they'd been in the cove together every day, every night on the porch alone for at least a few minutes, holding hands and exchanging brief kisses.
“The Weatherbees are here,” Marcie said, nodding toward the barn mouth where Carolyn's parents talked to an older couple.
Hank stood beside Carolyn, who was all spruced up in a blue cotton dress and white Buster Brown collar. Her face had been roughened by acne but there was a prettiness in her blue eyes and copper-colored hair. Smart as a whip too, Hank claimed. Easy enough to see why he was smitten by her. The Claytons played a slower song and Hank took Carolyn's hand, placed his forearm and stubbed wrist against her back and pulled her close. She settled her head against Hank's chest and they joined the other couples on the makeshift dance floor. Laurel was about to tell Marcie about Walter but Marcie spoke first.
“Not marrying Carolyn until he fixes up the farm for you is an honorable thing,” Marcie said. “Good of Carolyn too, especially since her daddy's giving them that land on Balsam. There's many a woman who'd want her betrothed working on her house, not his sister's.”
I don't know your meaning, Laurel almost said, but then she did know, and the wonder was that she hadn't realized before. The Claytons continued to play but like the talk of adults and the cries of babies and shouts of children the music seemed distant, as though the world was pulling away from her. Marcie sighed as the baby nuzzled her breast.
“I best go suckle him, because it'll be a sight easier now than on a bumpy wagon. Maybe he'll sleep a bit too. That way I can swaddle him in a corner and give me and Robbie a chance to dance a song or two. It's been ever so long since we've done that.”
Laurel nodded and Marcie left. When had Hank planned to tell her? When the furniture arrived at the train station and was hauled north to Balsam instead of into the cove? Fixing up the farm for her, Marcie had said, but Hank had also done it to prove to Carolyn and her daddy that, even with one hand, Hank could do the work needed to support a wife and family. He had used part of his army savings but also the last of the money their parents left behind. She thought of the new fence with its taut strands and metal thorns and how Slidell had mentioned the expense of barbed wire instead of split rails. Hank had said barbed wire lasted so much longer. With a small gasp, Laurel realized something elseâthat Hank was making it clear he'd not ask Laurel to live with him and Carolyn. She would be left behind, and he had decided that months ago.
