The Orchardist (13 page)

I said there aren’t no children—

The man smiled. Oh, I doubt that very much. I doubt that the children have perished. He paused. We’ll see soon enough. A baby can’t stay hidden, can it?

Talmadge looked at the canyon. It had been more than ten minutes since the girl had gone into the orchard. Maybe they were making an escape, he thought. And then the man said, as if reading his thoughts—

Shall we? He flicked the cigarette away from him. To Talmadge: Will you escort us? Or are we going by ourselves?

They walked across the creek, entered the field. Michaelson waved frantically to the haycatchers—but it was unclear whether it was a greeting or a warning. The haycatchers each in their turn glanced at the men; but Talmadge, in his increasing anxiety, did not know how to regard them. There were four of them: strong, capable men though not all of them young; dark-skinned and oily with sweat, naked to their waists. He caught the eye of one man, Clee’s cousin—who was young, in his midtwenties, Talmadge guessed—who stared at him. For a moment the man’s eyes were all Talmadge could see. The man did not pause in his work; but then he looked down, and Talmadge looked at the canyon looming ahead of them; and Talmadge willed his and the men’s strides to lessen, to gain weight. He willed the feet of the girls to fly; he willed them to float through the air.

Once they entered the canyon mouth, Michaelson skipped ahead, like a demented child.

How far does this go? said the mean-looking man, nodding to the trees. And then, a minute later: You have a regular empire here—

Up ahead was a cry of pain—something between a howl and a moan. It was Michaelson.

Talmadge’s heart thudded in him like an overlarge bird trying to overcome its cage. They turned the corner. Michaelson stood beside a towering oak, his head tilted far back, his mouth open. In the tree hung two bodies. One—Jane’s—hung still; but Della danced in midair, her feet pedaling, her hands at her neck. Talmadge felt at once his body empty, and also felt that he was floating toward them.

Jesus Christ, said the mean-looking man, who stood next to Talmadge. To the red-haired man, who had gone ahead and gazed up at the girls almost dreamily: What are you doing? Cut them down!

The man stood at the tree’s base, looking up. Michaelson shifted his weight from foot to foot, and cried up at the bodies.

How do I— The red-haired man had a soft voice; gestured toward the tree, at a loss.

The mean-looking man too stood at the base of the tree, but found no way to access the trunk, no foothold. He looked up.

Jane! he called. Jane! Damn it!

Talmadge had a scythe in his hand. There was a man beside him, Clee’s cousin. He was saying something to Talmadge, but Talmadge didn’t understand him. The man took the scythe back and climbed the tree—he shimmied up the trunk, grunting, with the scythe over his shoulder—and crawled out onto each limb and hacked at the ropes by which the girls hung. Della came falling first, and Talmadge half caught her—he had positioned himself under her. He collapsed under her weight, the wind knocked out of him. The sun in his eyes. She snuffled and gagged, grasped his shirtfront. It’s all right, he said, holding her. It’s all right.

Jane was farther up on the tree. When she came down, Michaelson held open his arms beneath her, but he shied at the last moment, covered his face with his hands. Jane fell before him in a heap.

Talmadge delivered Della to the haycatchers standing by, and went to Jane. Got to his knees. The mean-looking man had not moved, but watched the scene as if observing it from a great distance. Michaelson peeked from between his fingers. Talmadge bent over the body, breathing heavily. He put his ear to her mouth, listened. Waited for breath. There was none, not even a whisper. But for her sake he waited. He sat up finally, gripped her shoulders. He remembered the heat and moisture of the birthing room. The lantern light garish on the walls. Her struggle to give birth to the thing that had grown inside her. Her pain. Her grasping his arms from sheer necessity, because she wanted to live. She had, at that moment, accepted his help. But even then the situation was mean: she did not have a choice.

Her leg was splayed awkwardly to the side, and he situated it beneath her. Michaelson came forward now, was weeping.

Talmadge got to his feet.

Jane! called Della, feebly, hoarsely, from where she sat propped up against a tree.

The mean-looking man gazed at her as if he didn’t recognize her. A calculating expression on his face.

That’s enough, said Talmadge, though no one had spoken. Then, gruffly: Are you done here?

With great effort Michaelson took his hands from his face.

Talmadge did not know Michaelson was close until he was almost upon him.

Again Talmadge held a scythe. He must have reached for one, and one was handed to him. Michaelson reached out an arm as if to embrace him. His face ghastly white. Della, who had stood and leaned heavily against the tree, widened her eyes, and looked as if she would scream.

Talmadge raised the scythe.

The mean-looking man strode to Michaelson, punched him in the jaw. Michaelson staggered; the man struck him again. Michaelson bent in half, held his face. Was still.

The mean-looking man, breathing hard, held his fist to his heart, as if nursing it, looked away into the trees. Seemed to think, to blink; and then he appraised Talmadge. His voice shook:

A little while back there was talk of compensation.

Talmadge’s heart beat quickly now: from confusion, but also relief. If there was talk of money, there was also talk of a solution; of the men going away. He lowered the scythe blade to the ground.

Yes, he said. I said that.

Yes, said the man, nodding. And—he looked at Della, and then away—we’ll take money for her as well. If she interests you. Looking away at the trees again, he sighed deeply. I suppose I could take her back, there’s always a use for her—although, honestly, I don’t think he would want her. Not now. But the children, continued the man after a pause, his voice rising—I will take them off your hands, or you may pay for them, whatever you wish. How many of them are there? Where are they? No, never mind. He shook his head. I heard once that this one might have been carrying two—

Talmadge did not even begin to argue. Did not see the purpose of it. He leaned on the scythe blade, exhausted.

You’ll have to come back to the house. I have some money there.

They moved in one large group back to the cabin: Talmadge still carrying the scythe; Michaelson mute and bent miserably, covering his face with his hands; Della limping, the haycatchers forming a loose ring around her. Jane’s body was strapped onto the back of a horse. Everyone—including the haycatchers—waited in the yard while Talmadge went inside the cabin for the money. When he returned, the mean-looking man met him at the base of the porch steps, and Talmadge peeled the bills from a large roll. He paid for them all: Jane, the infant, Della, and Della’s unborn children. Everyone watched: it was like a ceremony.

There, said Talmadge, and handed the man the final bill.

The man folded the money and put it in his breast pocket. His mouth puckered with grimness.

A pleasure, he said.

Talmadge hesitated. How do I know you’ll stay away?

The man looked at him.

I mean, I don’t want
him
coming back here anymore. Looking for them.

Michaelson glanced at Talmadge and the mean-looking man, but seemed uncomprehending that they were discussing him.

The mean-looking man smirked.

Him? He won’t remember a goddamned thing.

He remembered before.

Well, I’ll remind him then. How’s that?

Talmadge didn’t answer him. It would have to be fine. He would have to be satisfied; there was no other choice.

Jane was unstrapped from the horse, and Talmadge took her indoors, placed her on the bed she shared with Della. Covered her with the quilt up to her chin. Again he had the sensation—the memory—of her animation, her struggle of the birthing night. And now she lay unmoving. Unable to sense any temperature anymore, any texture on her flesh.

He covered his face with his hands and stood for a moment before he went outdoors.

Michaelson and the men mounted their horses and headed slowly toward the upper forest. Before they reached the treeline, Caroline Middey and her mule and wagon came out of the forest before the men entered it, and they passed each other. The mean-looking man tipped his hat to her, and Caroline Middey gave a small nod. When she reached the yard, she dismounted and asked Talmadge, who was waiting for her: Who was that?

W
here is the child? cried Caroline Middey. Oh: where is the child?

T
almadge returned to the canyon alone. He heard the cries, faint but getting louder as he neared the upper cabin. Still he had to search for her. The girls had placed the child in a shallow basin behind the upper cabin and covered her with leaves and branches. How was it that she had kept there all the afternoon without crying? Or maybe it was that they could not hear her over the other racket. A blessing, he realized now. He crouched down and scooped her up, picked the debris off her, tucked her inside his jacket, near his armpit, his heart, for warmth; carried her down into the canyon and through the orchards, across the field—the haycatchers looking up from the treeline where they had prepared their supper—to the cabin.

Caroline Middey likewise inspected the child and washed her in a basin of warm water, wet-eyed and praising God, and then Talmadge left the cabin while Caroline Middey helped the girl nurse the child. He did not know how long he was gone; just walked up and down the aisles of the apricot orchard. Unseeing, fatigued. Numb. And then they all went to bed, although it was newly dark. Caroline Middey slept with Della in the girls’ bedroom—Jane’s body was cleaned and bound in the sapling shed, ready for burial the next day—and Talmadge took the baby into his bed. They had not yet named her, he thought, rousing from shallow sleep. He had asked the girl just the day before if she had chosen a name—to be without a name for too long was not good for the child, he thought—but Jane had turned her face away and had not answered him. It had offended her, somehow, his asking it.

When the infant cried in the night, he gave her his finger to suck. Her gentle noises and whimpers roused him all night from deepest sleep.

II

T
almadge had lived forty years in the orchard without any exceptional event happening to him, barring inclement weather or some horticultural phenomenon. Nothing to speak of in the human realm, really. And then this happened. Death in the orchard. The infant’s screams sounded different to him, now. He walked among the apricots at midday, squinting in the heat and light, disoriented, until Caroline Middey called him for dinner.

W
hat do we call her? said Caroline Middey, of the infant who slept now atop a pillow beside her on the love seat. Caroline Middey was knitting. It was after supper. Della sat at the kitchen table, and Talmadge stood at the stove, heating water.

It had been two weeks since they had buried Jane up-mountain, on a plateau near a grove of pears he and his sister had planted after their mother’s death, and which had since gone wild. The pear trees—there were four—from a distance reared against the sky; but up close they curled in a thick, woody bramble over a cliff edge. Standing beside the trees, one could look down on wheatfields, miles below, rolling to the horizon. Jane was buried under the only tree that was not a fruit tree on the plateau: an enormous prehistoric-looking cottonwood with small silver-green leaves that flashed constantly in the wind.

And the wind was alive the day they put Jane into the ground; it played over the plateau and made the sound of rain in the tree and in the long dry grass. And Talmadge was relieved: for the sound hid them all from each other, and Della in her grief. Her hair blowing over her face as she stood beside the grave, unmoving.

He said to her, now, of the child:

What do you think we should call her?

Della was motionless, as if she hadn’t heard, but then she shrugged. Gazed to the far corner of the room. As if she didn’t care at all what they were discussing.

We have to call her something, said Caroline Middey.

Talmadge wiped his hands on his thighs and went to the window, to the trunk beneath it. Got down on one knee, heaved open the lid. And how long it was since he had investigated there. Out of the trunk rushed a cidery smell.

Della had already explored the trunk with Jane, but despite herself, she looked at what Talmadge was doing now.

After searching for a moment he found a large Bible, and after looking at it he took it up, and went and sat at the table across from the girl. Della—again, despite herself—glanced at what he was doing. She was acutely aware of the onionskin pages whispering between his fingers. He took out a sheet of paper stuck within the middle pages. There were other markers—letters, notes, recipes—but this was the main one, the important one. He unfolded the paper and ran his palms over it, several times, to flatten it. On the sheet was drawn a family tree, the names in flourishing script. After a minute of looking, he placed his fingers on a tier of names.