The Cove (8 page)
Hank nodded at the locust posts.
“Bring up a load with you and we'll get back to it.”
Walter nodded and the men left the yard. Laurel finished with the beans and then went into the field to hoe the corn. She worked barefoot, her feet and ankles soon darkened by the loosened soil. She'd tied her hair back, and as she paused at a row end she straightened and looked up at the pasture.
Hank set the wire in the crowbar's claw and pulled against the brace while Walter pounded the staples and used the tamping rod to unroll the wire. When the tone of the metal staple entering the fourth post deepened, Hank moved to the next end post, set his left knee against the wood, and pulled downward with the crowbar until the wire was taut. When they braced the fence, Hank didn't check that Walter blunted the nails so as not to split the lentle. Trusting him already to do things right.
Trusting everyone but her, Laurel couldn't help thinking. From what Hank had said to Slidell, he hadn't told Carolyn, at least not an out-and-out proposal, that he was ready to marry. Yet most everyone else, including Carolyn's daddy, seemed to know. At least that was one thing she and Carolyn shared. Laurel looked up at the notch. Last week she'd seen Carolyn's father up there herself. An audition, Slidell had called it. Be glad he passed it, Laurel told herself. It just means they'll get married sooner, and you and Carolyn can start getting used to each other and become friends. Her being down here, it'll finally show folks there can be some happiness in this cove.
W
hen Laurel's mother died, her father had covered the mirror and let the Franklin clock run down so he could still the hands on the ten and the two, mark the death time. Two months passed before he rewound the metal key. But the hands had been locked in one place so long they seemed unable to free themselves, and so remained on the ten and two. Last winter, the days had been so long Laurel would look at the clock and almost believe it was still running, that time had slowed so much a minute could feel like a day. But now that she wanted time to slow down, it passed faster than any time in her life. Already it was Thursday evening. One more day and one more night and he'd be gone.
“Glad we got that upper pasture almost done,” Hank said, “for it looks likely to rain tomorrow.”
They were on the porch, Hank perched on the railing while Walter and Laurel sat beside each other in the ladderback chairs. Walter's eyes were closed. He'd worked hard all week, enough to have Hank say that with Walter's help for a couple more months the farm would be in tip-top shape. But Laurel knew she'd miss Walter more than Hank would, even though she still knew little about him. He'd raised two fingers when she asked if he had any sisters and no fingers when she asked about brothers, five when she asked how many years he'd worked as a musician. She'd found out a few other things but not near as much as she wanted to. If only one person could ask questions, after a while it sounded like you were being nosy. Some things he couldn't answer anyway. When Laurel asked how he'd gotten to the cove he'd simply shrugged. When she asked where he'd found the green feather, he nodded toward the ridge where she'd found him. On this side? she asked, but he shook his head.
But just sitting beside him at the table and on the porch had been nice. She was used to not talking, she could stand that well enough. It was not having someone to share the silence, the way it had been last winter, that was the terrible thing. Laurel wondered if Walter understood that about her, that she was as used to silence as he was. She wondered how he had managed in New York. Did he point at what he wanted to buy, unlatch his door to anyone who knocked? And not being able to read and write. What if he needed to buy something that he couldn't point to, or needed directions to a place?
“Are you too frazzled to go up to Slidell's and sip whiskey, Walter?” Hank asked.
Walter opened his eyes and nodded.
“Yeah, I'm beat too,” Hank said, “though I'd deeply enjoy some of the Clayton boys' lumbago draught.”
“It would be good to know how Paul's doing,” Laurel said, and turned to Walter. “That's Ansel and Boyce's nephew. He got hurt bad in the war.”
They sat in silence a few minutes, the light diminishing, appearing not so much to drain from the sky as to seep into the cove's dark floor. Up in the trees, jarflies started droning. A breeze came up and Laurel smelled a dampness in it.
“New York,” Hank said. “Is that where you lived all your life?”
Walter nodded.
“But you couldn't have lived there your whole life, not and know how to raise a fence like you do.”
“You mean New York State?” Laurel asked.
When Walter didn't reply, Laurel went inside and fetched
Frye's Grammar School Geography
. She moved her chair closer so that the pages spilled onto both their laps, their forearms touching as she balanced the book between them. She felt the gold hairs on Walter's arm, the warmth of his skin. She found a map of New York State.
“Show me.”
Walter pointed north of the city where the black dots and the names beneath them were sparse.
“Near Ithaca?” Laurel asked.
Walter nodded.
“So you left there to go to New York City,” Hank asked, “to play music, I mean?”
“It's no wonder, good as you are,” Laurel said when Walter nodded. “I still can't figure out how you ended up here though. It had to be some adventure.”
“I'd like to hear that story too,” Hank agreed. “I bet it'd fill a book big as the one Laurel's holding.”
The jarflies continued their racket in the trees. An owl near the barn hooted, was answered from somewhere in the deeper woods. Then other voices, human voices. Slidell emerged from the woods on Ginny, behind him two other men on horseback. At first Laurel couldn't tell who they were, then saw the high foreheads and broad shoulders, red hair tinged with gray. Slidell had his guitar case strapped to his saddle. What the two brothers brought with them was more curious. Balanced on Boyce's lap was an oblong wooden box shaped like a child's casket. Ansel wore a feed sack around his neck, a thin rope sewn through its top for a drawstring. A pair of bulging black eyes poked out of the sack. As the men got closer, Laurel saw the eyes belonged to a small bat-eared dog. The three men tethered their horses and dismounted. Ansel took the sack off his neck and laid it gently on the ground. As the dog wiggled free of the cloth, Laurel saw Ansel dip a hand in his pocket and withdraw something pinched between forefinger and thumb. He made a quick crossing motion over his heart and rubbed his hand on his shirt. Salt, Laurel knew, and knew the wherefore of his doing it. Like they're afraid I might forget what folks think of me, Laurel thought.
“You can't leave without I have you meet Ansel and Boyce,” Hank said when Walter rose to go inside.
“That's right,” Slidell said, “especially since I told these boys Hank's got a crackerjack fife player down here, all the way from New York at that.”
Slidell freed the battered guitar case from his side saddle. Boyce tucked the box under an arm and used his free hand to remove a corked jug from the saddle bag. Ansel unwrapped a meaty hog bone and laid it before the dog.
“Figured if you wouldn't come to us, we'd come to you,” Slidell said. “Share some good whiskey, maybe some tolerable music.”
“I can be persuaded to the whiskey part,” Hank said, “but you'll have to ask Walter if he'll lip that flute for you.”
Walter looked unsure but finally nodded.
“You know Slidell,” Hank said to Walter. “That one with the Santy Claus beard is Ansel and the other's Boyce. Come on up on the porch, gentlemen. Walter ain't no revenue man and even if he was he couldn't tell on you.”
“I confidenced them of that,” Slidell said, smiling. “They've been of a wary nature since their scare last week.”
The men ascended the steps. Laurel offered to bring out more chairs but only Slidell accepted. Ansel sat on the railing beside Hank. Boyce squatted in the corner, the oblong box set before him. He uncorked the jug and passed it to Hank, who drank and offered the whiskey to Walter.
“You'll never taste any that beads up better and it's smooth as freestone water,” Hank said.
Walter took a tentative sip and passed the jug to Slidell.
“That fyce of yours looks to be living the high life,” Hank said to Ansel. “Prime hog meat and rides in the saddle.”
“That dog earned it,” Slidell said. “You want to tell it, Ansel, or you want me to?”
“Go ahead,” Ansel said. “I done talked it out one time today.”
“These boys was running their copper above Ansel's place. Just finished bottling a full run when they heard hounds coming up the creek, the revenue man and the high sheriff right behind. There wasn't near enough time to hide everything, so Ansel leaves Boyce to haul the still and jars into a thicket whilst he takes that fyce yonder and gets a ways down the creek, staying in the water all the while. Ansel takes off his shirt and ties it around that fyce's neck and says “get home” and that dog takes off like Caesar's ghost, dragging the shirt through mud holes and briars all the while. He kept it on though.”
Slidell stopped and turned to Ansel.
“That's right, ain't it, it being on him the whole way?”
“I took that shirt off him my ownself,” Ansel answered. “He did seem to find every briar to run it through and that shirt's the worse for the trip, but I'd rather be wearing an old shirt with tears than a new one with black-and-white stripes.”
“They followed the fyce?” Hank asked.
“Damn right,” Slidell said. “Led them dogs and them following right back to Ansel's cabin. The high sheriff and the revenue man was so flummoxed they didn't bother going back up the creek. Just called it a day and went home.”
“That must have been a sight in the world to see,” Hank said. “I'd have paid admission to watch that show.”
“Anyway, what you're drinking now, you can thank that fyce for it,” Slidell said, “so I'd treat him with some respect.”
“Next time I'm in town I'll buy him a prime ham bone myself for that good deed,” Hank said.
The men passed the jug, Hank raising it to toast the dog. When the whiskey was offered to Walter again he declined. Hank didn't offer it to Laurel. He wouldn't, she knew, but not because she wasn't a man. Afraid if he did, Boyce and Ansel wouldn't drink from it. Yet they'd drink after Hank, not even rubbing a sleeve over the jug's mouth before they did.
“I got muscadine wine in the larder,” Laurel said to Walter. “You'd be better off drinking it than what's festering in that jug, especially come morning.”
She went inside and got the bottle and two tin cups. She poured some in a cup and swallowed, tasted the deep purple of the muscadines. Laurel handed the cup to Walter.
“Taste of it,” she said.
He sipped from the cup and nodded.
“You go ahead and drink that,” Laurel said, and poured herself half a cup.
She took another swallow and felt the wine dribble down her throat.
“Anybody else want some?” Laurel asked, but all the men, including Hank, shook their heads.
“But you haven't tried this, Hank,” she said, and offered him the cup. “I made it last September while you were gone.”
“I'm fine with what's in that jug,” Hank answered.
“Just a taste,” Laurel said, still holding the cup out.
“No,” Hank said firmly, looking away.
How long will it be before you'll let me and Carolyn drink from the same dipper, Laurel was tempted to ask.
Hank turned to Ansel.
“What do you hear about Paul?”
“The telegram said his lungs is scorched. Hurt his eyes too but he ain't blinded, and that's a blessing for there's many what have been. But he won't never be the man he was. That's some sorry bastards to use gas like that.”
“Even in a war, you'd think some things wouldn't be allowed,” Boyce added.
“Yes, you'd think so,” Slidell said, then more softly, “but it never seems the way of it. Hank knows that as much as I do.”
“No, what happened to you was worse,” Hank said. “I was a soldier, not a child.”
For a few moments the men were quiet. Walter had finished the wine but shook his head when Laurel offered more. She finished her cup and set it beside the bottle as well.
“They say for sure yet when Paul's coming home?” Slidell asked.
“He'll be in that Washington hospital till November,” Ansel said. “If he's doing okay then, they'll send him home.”
“Feith's talking up a big to-do when Paul's train comes in,” Boyce added, “having a band and letting the schoolkids come and all such doings.”
“I bet Miss Calicut will have her class go,” Laurel said.
“She best not for their sake,” Hank said. “Feith is liable to sign them up.”
“That's the God's truth,” Ansel agreed. “He's a gung-ho fellow for getting a body volunteered and over to the fight.”
“Except if that fellow is his ownself,” Hank said.
“Having a rich daddy does have advantages when a war starts up,” Boyce said. “Get to put on a uniform and no one within a thousand miles who'll kill you for the wearing of it.”
“He still got those school lads dandied up in shirts and britches?” Hank asked.
“He was last Saturday,” Boyce said. “Feith struts them around like peacocks, all the while them saluting and yes sirring him. Gives him something to do when he's not bedeviling that German professor.”
“Feith claims him for a Hun sympathizer, maybe even a spy,” Ansel added. “Yes, sir, Sergeant Feith and his troops will be storming that college any day now, dodging chalk and erasers all the while.”
“Makes me and Ansel glad we don't get to town much,” Boyce said. “It's bad enough to hear about such nonsense, much less see it.”
Slidell lifted his guitar from the case and leaned close to the instrument. He plucked each string and then turned the wooden pegs until he was satisfied.
“Fetch out your dulcimer, Boyce,” Slidell said, and turned to Hank. “These boys said they can't stay long.”
Boyce opened the case and settled the dulcimer on his lap, a raven feather in his right hand. Walter was looking at the dulcimer intently.
“You ever played one of those?” Laurel asked.
Walter shook his head.
“But you've heard one before?”
Walter nodded.
Slidell and Boyce began to play and Ansel joined in. As Ansel sang
And there's no sickness, toil, or danger in that bright world to which we go,
Laurel wondered if Walter believed what the song claimed, that there was a place where no one got sick and the lame walked and he would be able to speak. But what good did that do in the here and now. It gave you some hope, Laurel supposed, and that was something, but it didn't change the day to day very much.
“That was a good one,” Hank said as the men paused and passed the jug.
“Amazing how a couple of drinks always makes my guitar sound better,” Slidell said. “I guess some of the fumes seep into the wood and oil the squeaks out of it.”
Slidell turned to Walter.
“Get that fife of yours and join us.”
Walter hesitated.
