The Hinterlands (20 page)

I got up and stood by the door listening, to see if anybody had come into the yard. Way off I heard a screech owl and then I could hear the water in the creek. Next I heard a kind of whimper, the kind a dog makes when it comes around after it's been away a long time. It sounded like Trail.

I unbolted the door and opened it a crack, and sure enough there was Trail standing in the moonlight and whimpering. I put out my hand and he sniffed it and licked it. He wagged his whole body with excitement and pleasure of being home.

“Here boy,” I said. “Here boy.” I stepped outside and looked toward the field. The figure was not where it stood before, but closer. The man stood right by the barn in the moonlight, and I knowed it was your Grandpa.

That made me madder than I was before. It riled me anew that he was afeared to face me. I went back in and got a piece of cornbread and give it to Trail. And then I shut the door and latched it. Let him stand out there and freeze, I thought. Let him shiver till he falls apart like crumbling chalk.

I set down by the fire. I wanted to take a burning stick from the fireplace and go out there and hold the light in his face to see what he would say for hisself. That was always my inclination when they was trouble, to go right to the cause. Wasn't no use to put off trouble. I wanted to see his face when he tried to explain why he had fooled me all them years, and left me alone to birth Wallace with no help on the night of the painter. I wanted to hear what he would say about all those times I had gone without a woman to talk to and my own Mama just across the mountains, no more than fifteen miles away.

I put another stick on the fire and set looking into the flames. Like I said before, I never did see the signs and mysteries in a fire that other people claim is there. I never did see no faces of the
dead or the flutter of angels, nor hear the tramp of steps warning of bad things to come. What I always seen was paths that led to distant fields and far mountains. Behind the flames I watched faraway valleys reached by trails that run right up to my feet.

I thought, can I ever live with Realus after what he done? How can I live with a man that would deceive me so? Man and woman can't be one flesh in hatred and suspicion. If I didn't take him back inside I'd have to live on the creek by myself like a widow woman raising her children.

But Realus could go off to the west and start a new place and a new family. A man could just vanish into the wilderness and clear him up a new place and find another wife.

I would take your Grandpa back. Children, I done a lot of thinking that night, and I did a lot of growing up. When we finished burying that poor young man, I was just a girl. By the time that night was over I felt like a grown woman. I don't think a body ever really grows up, but we keep learning. That's part of the interest in getting older, is to learn a little more.

What I seen next was that I was going to have to forgive Realus. And if I forgive him just partly, they would always be that distance between us the Devil hisself seemed to have made in our lives. If I only forgive him in part, that Devil would worm his way back into our lives through that gap and never go away.

No sir, I seen that for my own sake, call it my own selfishness, I had to forgive your Grandpa complete. I couldn't live no other way, and I couldn't live with myself no other way. As I kept thinking I felt myself growing. I seen that I might have a long life, and that I might have grandchildren like you all. I was always a slow learner. It takes me a long time to make sense of things, but I always see eventually where I am, and once I seen how everything had to be the rest was easier.

I must have wandered off in my thinking again, for it was Trail whimpering at the door that called me back to the task at hand. I felt twenty years older. I wrapped my shawl around me and unbolted the door.

Trail whined and licked my hand. I reckon he was so happy to be back home, he was near beside hisself. Dogs love to gallivant but they also love to come home where their people are.

The figure was still standing out there by the barn in the moonlight. It could have been a statue, except it was stooped forward a little. That stoop told me a lot because Realus was never one to slouch. The yard looked like it had been frosted with some kind of blue powder. Even the dirt and the manure pile looked scrubbed and starched. The mountains was shining above the creek in the moonlight. Trail trotted alongside of me, and run circles around me as I walked. But the figure by the barn never moved. Its front and face was dark.

“Realus,” I said. “Is that you?” My breath was tight in my throat and chest. But the figure made no more answer than a statue would. I had forgot to bring out a pine knot for a light.

“Ain't no use to stand out here shivering to death,” I said. I walked right up to within ten feet of the man but I still couldn't see the face. I knowed it was your Grandpa by the height and shoulders. “You might as well come on in,” I said.

Still he didn't say nothing. It was like a big dark ghost standing there. For a second I almost got confused about what I was doing. Had he maybe lost his mind with shame and worry and wandering in the woods? Had he been hit on the head and lost his memory? Was he dead and this was his ghost come back?

Trail was whimpering and jumping between us. He licked my hand and then run to the man. “Calm down, Trail,” I said. “Calm yourself.”

But I seen what to do then. That dog showed me its wisdom. It was no good to talk. No words could break through the distance between us in the bright frosty air. “I can't see your face,” I said, and stepped forward and took his arm in my left hand and his hand in my right hand. His fingers was icy cold.

Now a touch speaks far beyond any words, children. A touch is a little thing, but at the right time it's like a current pours through. People ain't whole unless they're connected, and a touch is the first and true sign of that connection. You can see that in a little baby, how it will delight in being touched and held, how it recognizes affection. They's all kinds of holding and caressing, but I'm just talking about the first touch of friendship and fellowship, the touch of family and kith. Every single person really feels a part of the same family.

I took your Grandpa's arm and hand and held them. His big fingers was froze. I turned him around so he was facing the moonlight. Trail was jumping up on us, and I said, “Get down, Trail. Get down.” And I seen Realus's face was wet. It was like dew had settled on it, or the dog had licked it. The moonlight was caught in the drops down his cheeks and in his beard.

“Let's go in to the fire,” I said. “You must be awful hungry.”

“I ain't hungry,” he said.

“You need to warm up anyway,” I said. I started leading him toward the house. He put his arm around my shoulders and we walked slowly toward the lighted doorway. He smelled of the damp and cold of the woods, like he had been out for weeks instead of days. Trail whimpered and run in front of us, and then behind us.

When we got inside I was almost blinded by the firelight and candlelight.

“Set down and I'll warm up some cornbread,” I said.

“Don't bother,” he said. He seen Willa was asleep on the bed and kept his voice low.

“No use to starve,” I said. “That won't help nothing.”

He bent to the fire and held out his hands. “I always meant to tell you,” he said. “I went looking for you and seen you had gone to the settlement.”

I didn't say a thing. I put the bread in a pan to warm it on the hearth.

“You need a bath,” I said. “It will warm you up.”

“I was afraid you would leave me,” he said.

“At least you wasn't here when the Indians come,” I said. I had the two kittles on boiling.

“I stayed out in the woods with Dan and Trail. I must have rode a hundred and fifty miles.”

“What happened to old Dan?” I said.

“He's over yonder by the edge of the field,” Realus said. “I thought about riding him further to the west, but I seen I couldn't do that. I had to come back.”

“You could be in Kentucky by now,” I said. I give him a plate of cornbread and grits and a piece of pie. Don't ever believe a man when he says he's not hungry.

I got out the wooden tub and poured some hot water in it. From standing out there in the cold, he was chilled through to the joints. I knowed he'd be sick if I didn't get him warmed up.

“You've been cold and dirty long enough,” I said. “I want you to get in this bath.”

Children, they was a pleasure in giving that big strapping man a bath. It was like bathing a great big baby, to make him fresh and clean. I guess in a way men are just babies; at least, they act like babies sometimes. In their shining white skin that don't never see the sun they look tender as babies.

That night, as we laid in bed with the firelight breathing in the room, I knowed I was right. Just touching him told me that. Sometimes you can see far ahead and way back at once. I seen that when I touched your Grandpa with love, it was like I was touching all the people back through the ages, through all their love and affection. And in the same way we touched the future through our love and our children's down through the years. When you grandchildren, and your grandchildren, feel the closeness of a husband or a wife it will be like a part of me and your Grandpa living in you. Don't worry if you don't understand. I don't think the young is meant to. I know I didn't at your age. But I wanted to tell you anyway, so's you'll remember it after I'm long gone. Your Grandpa's gone and he can't tell you. He always had trouble speaking his affections anyway, though he could charm anybody in a friendly way.

Next morning when I woke, Realus was not there. The bed was empty beside me, but soon as I set up I seen they was a fire strutting in the fireplace. It was just daylight, but the bed beside me was cold so your Grandpa had been gone for some time.

I got up and dressed and put on water for tea and grits. I was glad to see the bathtub had been carried out. Willa woke up and stretched. “Is Pa coming home today?” she said.

“Pa come home last night,” I said.

“Where did he go?” she said.

“He must have gone to milk,” I said. I looked out the door. They was a heavy frost, like the starlight had stayed on the grass, but no sign of your Grandpa. Even Trail was gone. I got the water boiling and made grits and tea. Just as Wallace and Lewis come down from the loft, I heard somebody in the yard. Your Grandpa opened the door. He held his gun in one hand and a limb of
something in the other. The light was behind him and I couldn't see what the branch was.

“You was out early,” I said.

“Pa, where you been?” Wallace said.

“I went out to get my gun and to feed Dan, and to bring you this,” he said. When he closed the door, I seen it was a branch of witch hazel in full bloom. You know how witch hazel seems to blossom right out of the bark along the stems. The blooms was bright yellow.

“Where did you find that?” I said. The limb seemed to fill up the room with its smell. Witch hazel has a sharp smell, a medicine smell, like it is supposed to wake you up.

“I got it over on the branch,” he said. “It's the last thing in the year that blooms. It blossoms when everything else has quit for the winter. Sometimes it throws its seeds on snow.”

He started to hand me the limb, but I told him to put it on the table. I had to fix breakfast if we was going to have any. But as I worked, I thought how much I liked something that blooms after everything else has, something that shows they's always another chance.

“Put it in the jar of water there,” I said, “So they'll be room for everybody at the table and it will keep blooming for a while.”

 

I was always the kind of feller that had to be making something. Never could just sit with my hands empty. Even on a rainy day I had to be fooling around with a piece of wood or tightening up harness. I'd sit on the porch or in the corner by the fire scraping and polishing a piece of walnut for a gun stock or cherry wood for a lap desk.

“Solomon's the makingest youngun I've got,” my Mama would say.

“It's the spirit of the creator in him,” my Aunt Willa would say. “The maker puts his talent into some more than others.”

I took pride in such talk. At least when I was just a youngun. But the truth was I made things because I couldn't stop myself. I liked to be bragged on good as anybody, but mere love of praise would never drive anybody to work hard as I did.

I'd see a piece of pine and have to get my hands on it. It was like the material told me what to do. The grain of the wood, the color and tone, even the smell demanded the block be shaped. It was like wood had its own idea about what it wanted to be.

And once you get into a job, it's like the job itself takes over. You know what I mean, son. The work pulls you along, pulls you into it. And next thing you know, it's like you can't make a wrong cut or measurement. The work takes you over and you just go with it.

Must be why them fellers spend their lives making tables and chairs and such. Now I
could
feel to make chairs every day from the maple and ash and hickory the good Lord has provided. I could do it and be happy. But along when I was just about half-grown, I went on to other kinds of building. I done all the work here on the place Pa told me to. Just like you, I plowed and hoed corn in season, and pulled fodder and picked berries and cleared land in winter. I put my hand to nearly everything you could name, from syrup making to tanning hides. I smoked meat and hunted deer, and carried off taters and hams on my back down the mountain to peddle in Augusta.

They wasn't no road here back then, and you toted on your back or rode a horse wherever you went. Best people had was an old sled they pulled across the holler and along trails. Wasn't no wagons or buggies 'cause they wasn't no place to drive them, except way down in the valleys. And no place you could buy them, except down in Augusta. We was branch people, living here on the high creeks and headstreams.