The Orchardist (9 page)

We’ll get it tomorrow, said Jane. Hush now. Go to sleep.

Della continued to cry until she discovered that the voices on the porch were conspiring with the moon and the stars through the trees, and the wind that covered it all, and those powers knew where the kitten moved in the orchard and would inform her, if she just went to sleep, of its location the first thing in the morning. All that was required of her was to sleep. And so she did. At once, suddenly, as if stepping off a cliff.

I
t was Jane who intuited when the elements—human and otherwise—shifted around them and were no longer amenable to their presence, and who determined when they should linger, and when they should flee. She had told Della months before their departure from Michaelson’s that they were going to escape. How? Della had asked, but Jane had just shaken her head, as if to say that that was not the right time to speak of it. And it was a wonder she told Della at all, because the girl was known to leak things—information, stories, and rarely but horrifyingly,
feelings
—like a cracked kettle. But this information about their escape she kept quiet. Nothing came out of her during times with the other girls—during meals, or settling down to sleep—which was remarkable, for she was filled with the urge at times, she did not know why, to dazzle them, the other girls, with a story, or a joke—to make them appreciate her perhaps, or even envy her intelligence, her wealth of stories: her cleverness. But she thought about what Jane had said and knew this information was different; it could not be shared, no matter how much Della wanted to be liked. And she knew her sister would do it: plan their escape. It was as good as fact: she and Jane would escape from that place. When would it happen? Jane would let her know. She was waiting for the right time. Timing, according to Jane, was everything.

C
aroline Middey left the orchard, promising to return at the week’s end to check up on them. Two days later, when the man went to town, Jane and Della entered the cabin again and went through his things. Della did not know what they were looking for, but this looking through his things had a different feel to it; it was not like the other times when they entered the cabin out of boredom or simple curiosity, this had the feeling of a mission about it.

In an old cigar box atop the bureau in his bedroom—the box was full of odds and ends: old coins, buttons, pins, screws, bits of twine and colored thread—Jane found a folded piece of paper that had her and Della’s names on it, and Michaelson’s. She could not tell what it said other than that, but it was enough. They had to leave, said Jane, and Della nodded, absently. She was wondering if he’d left them any food in the cold pantry, even though he said he would be back by evening. She wondered also if he was bringing any sweets from town.

Jane packed some food in a burlap sack, and then they were in the woods, walking. Jane kept looking over her shoulder as if expecting the man to appear suddenly with the mule and wagon. Della wanted to laugh. It was like a game. Surely she and Jane would return by nightfall, because he would have cooked them something to eat. Surely they were not really going away! Jane was playing a game. But they kept walking, and by late afternoon Della was hot and dizzy and empty—alarmingly empty—and wanted to rest. Where was the creek? Where had the creek gone? Jane said she didn’t know where the water was. They had forgotten to bring a container of water to drink from. Now they had to go back. But Jane seemed not to hear her when Della said this. I need to lie down, said Della, and then in a high, helpless voice: I’m going to be sick. And she went into a grove of trees—cedars—and fell immediately asleep. When she woke, her cheek was in the dirt and she was retching, and pushing, and something hot and wet was coming out of her buttocks. She tried to call for Jane, but she was too weak. She wept onto her folded arms.

And then she was asleep again, and when she woke it was the morning of another day and her arm was around Jane’s neck and they were moving slowly through the trees. I’m sick, said Della. Yes, said Jane. Della turned and looked at her sister’s face and saw that it was raw from crying.

She was immediately again asleep. When she woke she was not moving but lying on her back. The world was slowly spinning. There was a face of an Indian looming above her. She was very hot. She tried to say something to him—to ask for water—but her mouth wasn’t working, it felt stuffed with a rag.

When she woke again she was in a room slightly familiar to her. But she could not place it. It was night, the windows were dark. There was Jane on a bed above her—Della for some reason was on the floor, on a mat—and Jane was stripped of clothing but for an undershirt, and she was crying.

It’s happening, thought Della. It is all happening again.

And then Caroline Middey entered the room. It seemed she was coming to Della from far away. The old woman approached her and leaned over her and said, in a voice also muffled and far away: It’s going to be all right, dear. The worst is almost over—

I
n town, at market, Talmadge accepted samples of gooseberries, tufts of bread. He did not leave immediately, as was his custom, but toured the stalls. He bought an onion loaf, and a handful of aniseed to make into a pudding a woman recommended. He bent over a scrap of paper, writing instructions given by different women, translated by his hand into pictographs and bundles of sticks, undecipherable to all but him.

Potatoes, molasses, cheddar cheese. Cream, and a silver tin to store it in.

W
hen he arrived at dusk the girls were not at the base of the apricot tree or in the plum orchard, where they sometimes squatted in the grass, watching him work. He waited on the porch, anticipating their forms separating from the trees. The water, full and reckless in the creek, was loud in his ears.

He hiked to the upper cabin, holding a lantern before him. In his pockets were biscuits and bacon wrapped in thin cotton towels. Perhaps one of them had given birth, he thought, but then he thought: No. For some reason he thought he would intuit when one gave birth. And it was not the right time for it yet.

He arrived and found the upper cabin empty. He stood in the entranceway, looking at the leaf-filled sacks, the lantern light shuddering on the fine-grained walls.

T
wo days later, in the afternoon, the men arrived with the horses. Talmadge went down to speak to Clee, but Clee wasn’t among them. Talmadge questioned one of the men, who told him that Clee and the wrangler—another one of the men, a Cayuse—had stopped to help some travelers. A person who was sick. The man shrugged.

Talmadge returned to the porch and waited.

Clee and the wrangler arrived in the orchard at dusk. Talmadge went down into the field to meet them. Clee, atop one horse, held the younger girl, who appeared unconscious; atop the other horse, led by the wrangler, was the older girl, wide-awake and alert.

They stopped at the creek. Clee delivered the younger girl—dirt- and blood-smudged, half conscious—down to the wrangler. The wrangler was unnaturally small of stature, and the girl’s form dwarfed him. The other girl would not be helped—she raised her arms and made a hissing sound when Talmadge held out his arm to her. She attempted to dismount by herself. As she struggled, sliding off the horse, he held up his arms to brace her but she turned, holding herself up by the pommel, and struck him in the face. He shied away, held his nose. Clee grabbed hold of her and dragged her from the horse. She howled in anguish. Talmadge spoke gruffly from beneath his hand to let her go, and Clee let her go. She leaped away from them and spun around, feinted back. Turned in wide arcs, kicking the dirt. Murmured some unintelligible, breathless story out the side of her mouth. She had the surprised look of wanting to run; but there was the girl unconscious over the wrangler’s shoulder; there was that. Talmadge held his nose and then took his hand away and looked at it, wiped his hand on his thigh. He went to the wrangler and the man delivered the girl to him. Talmadge jumped a little to resettle the weight and started for the cabin. The men hesitated, not knowing if they should follow him or not.

The other girl, furious, bewildered, covered her face with her hands. A moment later she kicked the dirt, followed Talmadge to the cabin.

I
nside the cabin he tried to enter his own bedroom with the unconscious girl but the other girl objected to this, she wailed high in the back of her throat as soon as he went into the room, she would not follow him. And so he entered the other room, which he had not set foot in for several months—he did not visit it except to air it out every three months or so—and laid the girl down on the bare mattress. It was dusty in the room, and cold. The other girl did not object, but stole into the room behind him. He thought he should take the girl’s clothes off her, they were filthy. But he could not imagine such an act, could not imagine going through with something like that, especially with the other one watching. He left them, went to the porch, and told Clee and the wrangler, who stood waiting on the grass, that someone would have to go fetch Caroline Middey. The wrangler said immediately that he would do it, and turned and started down the hill for a horse.

Talmadge and Clee exchanged glances; then Talmadge turned and reentered the cabin.

He removed his hat before stepping into the room. The older girl sat on the edge of the bed, clutched the other girl’s wrist. Protective. She looked up at him as he came in, aimed her gaze over his shoulder.

After a few moments of silence, Talmadge cleared his throat and said: Caroline Middey’s coming. She’ll come right away; she’ll know what to do.

The girl looked back at her sister on the bed, who, though apparently asleep, had an agonized expression on her face.

The older girl said quietly, still gazing at her sister: She’ll be all right. Then: It’s just happening, is all. There was a moment where it seemed she would continue—she had more to say—but then she let the moment pass, was silent.

He hesitated. We should get those clothes off her—

And then the girl looked at him. The quality of her gaze did not change—she still looked through him—and while her face appeared to relax, he recognized it as a hardness: her eyes became slightly hooded, her nostrils dilated. She gripped the mattress edge, as if to brace herself. Her voice when it came out of her was hard as steel.

You touch her, she said, and I’ll kill you.

C
lee, sitting in the birchwood chair, turned his head to look at Talmadge—a very slight raising of the eyebrows, an appraisal: What is happening? You know them?

I don’t know them, said Talmadge, and sat down in the opposite chair. He took off his hat and then put it back on again. A gesture of frustration, weariness. It was early evening, but darkness had not drowned out all objects: the hides of the horses shifted below, and the sky, far above, was still pale. It was quiet—too quiet, Talmadge thought—in the cabin at his back. But the girl would not speak to him; she would not let him close to examine her sister; and so he decided to leave them alone for a time.

He accepted the pipe Clee lit for him now, and after pulling on it briefly, he told the story: how the girls had come into the orchard, and he had been watching out for them; how they were wanted by a man—their father, maybe, he didn’t know, but a strange and violent criminal—who lived north of Ruby City, up on the Okanogan. The man had already been to town, looking for them. I thought I’d help them until they had their babies, Talmadge said—surprising himself, for this was the first time he had heard himself articulate such a plan—and then they can be on their way. If they want. It’s not proper, he said after a silence, for a girl to give birth in the forest. Without a woman’s help, he added.

Clee had brought out his pipe and sat smoking while Talmadge talked. After a minute he took a few brief pulls and then set the pipe on his knee to rest.

I wish she’d come, said Talmadge suddenly, and his voice seemed loud, and startled.

When Clee had found the younger girl, he thought she was dead. He brought the pipe to his mouth. He thought she was dead but she was not dead. Not dead on the ground when he leaned over her and put his hand into the sweltering crevice of her neck, to check for a pulse. The other girl speechless from fear and anger beside her. She was not dead then, and not dead sitting before Clee on the horse, the long ride back to the orchard. The men guiding the horses carefully across the landscape, as if the girls were made of glass. Not dead when the wrangler took her down from the horse; not dead when Talmadge took her next upon his shoulder. Through this all, she was vital, though crouched down near, and hovering over, death. Perhaps feeding on it to stay alive. There were people like that, he knew: they existed. This one was one bright nerve. Once, before he had taken her up on his horse, when she still lay in the hot wheat, she had opened her eyes and taken him in. The black eyes burning: and in them no insanity but the insanity to live: the pure animal will decked with human desire. This one was too fierce to die. The girl will not die in that room, he wanted to tell Talmadge now. He had read in her eyes, in the riddle of her face, that she would not die in that room. Although, he thought ruefully—taking the pipe from his mouth and knocking its bottom, gently, on his palm—he had assumed events according to such intuition before, and had been turned on his head. And remembering such slights, such crimes, a challenge was erected suddenly between him and the outside air, though he sensed the futility of such a challenge: the girl would die tonight, or she would not. Let the night do its work: he defied it to take her.