After Eli Page 8

  She stared at him suspiciously.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  He stood and stepped to her and took her face in the palms of his hands and lifted her eyes to him.

  “It’s the mirror in the eyes of the man who cares for you, Sarah,” he replied. “You’ll see it someday. Someday, you’ll be lookin’ into some lucky man’s eyes and you’ll see yourself dressed in a robe and a crown and you’ll know you’re a true princess, you will.”

  His eyes pulled her into him and she stood without moving against his palms.

  “Do you believe me, Sarah?” he asked gently. “How do you think a butterfly comes from a worm? By believin’ it’s got beauty inside it that no one else can ever see. And that’s the way it’ll be with you, Sarah.” He leaned forward and kissed her tenderly on the forehead and then released her. “Now that’s a private kiss, Sarah. Just between you and me. Just to tell you there’s one man who already thinks you’re a butterfly. Will you keep it that way? Between us? Not tell your mother or Miss Dora, because they’d not understand. Just between us? Will you?”

  She nodded.

  “I—I’ve got to get on back,” she said hesitantly. “Mama wants me to watch for the doctor’s car. When it comes back up the road.”

  “I’m thankful for the water, Sarah. I’m glad it was you that brought it up.”

  “Mama—Mama said we’d better not miss the car goin’ back. She—she’s worried about Mama Ada.”

  “I’ll help out later,” he said.

  Sarah looked at him, then turned and ran from the woods.

  “You’re a butterfly, all right,” Michael said to himself. He smiled. “Ready for spreadin’.” He began to whistle.

  * * *

  The doctor’s car passed by the house in early evening, speeding recklessly over the rough dirt road, and Michael sat until late night with the three women on the front porch of the house and watched for the car’s return, but it did not appear. The following morning, as he left the barn for breakfast in the fading darkness, Michael saw the weak yellow beams of headlights drifting slowly in his direction, as though searching the ground in resignation. He knew intuitively that Garnett Cannon’s funereal pace was his own private processional. He decided he would not speak of seeing the car; the news would come soon enough.

  * * *

  The first bell struck as they were completing breakfast.

  It was a very faint chime, a dull, metal ringing that floated into the kitchen and then died away.

  Dora spread her hands over the table, palms down, in a hushing gesture, and lifted her face to the ceiling. No one moved.

  Then a second bell. And a third.

  Rachel pushed quickly away from the table and slipped through the kitchen door into the backyard. Sarah and Dora followed. They stood together outside, facing the sound, facing Yale.

  A fourth bell. And a fifth. The three women pulled closer.

  Michael watched them through the window and listened attentively. He did not understand what was happening, but he knew there was a private message in the ringing, that each striking of the bell spoke to them in a dreaded voice.

  Again and again the bell struck. Minute after minute, like a drugged ticking riding up the funnel of the mountain valley, echoing faintly. And then it stopped.

  Dora turned away and walked back into the house. She paused at the door and looked at Michael, then passed him and went into her room. Sarah stood beside her mother and began to cry. Rachel held her and said nothing.

  “Is there somethin’ I could do?” Michael asked gently from the kitchen door.

  “No,” answered Rachel. Then she added, “Mama Ada’s dead.”

  “That was the ringin’?”

  Rachel nodded yes. She embraced Sarah, taking the girl’s face to the cradle of her throat.

  “Are you for certain?” Michael asked.

  “There were eighty-five rings. That’s how old Mama Ada was,” Rachel told him. “When somebody dies, they ring the bell in years, so people’ll know.”

  Michael walked to Sarah’s back and put his hands on her hair and stroked it.

  “It’s a sad day,” he whispered. “But the best thing to do for sadness is to let go of it, Sarah, and not be ashamed of it passin’ through you. Stay close to your mother. She’ll be needin’ you as much as you’ll be needin’ her.”

  Rachel looked into his face, then dropped her eyes and pulled Sarah closer.

  “I’ll be workin’ in the woods, if you’ll be needin’ me,” Michael said. “You’ve things to do. The wake and the funeral, and it’s best for me to keep from troublin’ you, bein’ I’m not family or friend of the sweet lady.”

  He left them standing in the yard. He crossed the field and walked in the hem of the woods until he was above the house, at the place where Sarah had guarded the grazing cows. He sat with his back against the giant cedar and surveyed the valley. A haze covered the land in its thin fog-skin and the sun broke over the mountains like an unfolding Chinese fan.

  “Ah,” he said to himself in a relaxing sigh, “it’s a lovely day, it is. A lovely day.”

  * * *

  The minister sat behind the pulpit in a tall chair with the wingspread of ornate angels carved in the thick oak tips above his shoulders. He stared transfixed at the opened coffin before the altar. His legs were crossed at the knees and his hands rested, left over right, on the kneecap. His hands were large and the knuckles were disfigured with knots of arthritis. His skin looked bleached against his black suit and the dark mahogany of the chair. He was white-haired and old and the flesh under his small eyes sagged from too much crying for Jehovah to forgive his sinful people.

  He watched numbly as the fuzzy figures of mourners moved slowly before the coffin, peering into the shallow wooden pit for a quick eye-stop of memory. They looked and shook their heads and forced their faces to turn their bodies away and returned to the church pews in a dragging walk of holding back the terrible final moment—not realizing the terrible final moment was over. He watched as they marched before him, swaying, one by one, old and young, in the custom of a last praising. They came in a prescribed order—first friends, then neighbors, then relatives, until only the family remained. And then Floyd and his wife and children, the last of the processional, gathered in a tight bow at the coffin’s edge and drank with their eyes from the still, small figure that lay like a flower on a white pillow. Floyd reached timidly across the space of his life and his mother’s death and touched her face lightly, almost involuntarily. A film of tears filled his hollow eyes and someone tugged at his arm and led him away to the front pew.

  A baby whimpered and was stifled against a mother’s shoulder. An old man coughed. A woman cried in a soft monotone, like a brook. The minister nodded once and the pianist began to play a subdued lead, and three people, a man and two women, stood together beside the piano, facing Floyd, and began to sing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Their voices were high and harsh.

  The old minister closed his eyes and leaned his head against the flying angels of the tall mahogany chair. The words and music and the voices of the song were like an extension of him. He had heard it hundreds of times at hundreds of funerals. His mind repeated the words with the voices and his right index finger tapped the rhythm against his kneecap.

  Then the song was over and he opened his eyes and stood slowly and walked to the pulpit. The Bible was open before him but he did not look at it. He lifted his face to the exact center of the ceiling and his lips parted and his throat quivered with the beginning of a word.

  “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want—” he recited in a voice that rose in a roar from his chest.

  “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil—”

  His voice rumbled in a song cadence and the words were flung far across the small church, driving the sword of David into the breast of every listener.

  He ended the psalm with a breathless “Amen” a
nd stood trembling, washed in the rush of the echo: “…dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” He stepped from the pulpit and walked unsteadily to the front of the coffin. He looked once into the frozen face of Mama Ada and gently whispered, “Ada.”

  He watched her for a long moment, as though expecting a reply, and then he turned to the congregation.

  “Ada,” he said again. “Ada liked singin’. Told me once to bury her with singin’, with a sermon about singin’. Said to make it soft and sweet, like precious Jesus. Said to make it loud and strong, like God laughin’. Said to tell people to go to her graveside with singin’ on their lips and in their souls.”

  He raised his deformed hands before him and locked them at the wrists. He stared at a pinspot of the ceiling, the space-map linking him to God, and his mouth opened and his voice flew from his throat like a wind.

  “Sing your songs, O people,” he said happily. “Sing of light, not darkness. Sing of joy, not sorrow. Sing in celebration, not in lamentation. Sing with spirits soarin’, not laggin’.”

  A voice from the congregation muttered, “Amen,” and the minister bowed his head and pulled his hands to his chest and smiled triumphantly.

  “Death’s not a draggin’-down angel to them that’s fearin’ God,” he began again, quietly, patiently. “Death’s not mean-faced to the lover of Jesus’ name.”

  “Amen. In Jesus’ name.”

  “Death’s a turnin’ loose of everythin’ that’s knotted up and tiresome. Death’s a heart filled with laughin’ to them that’s been hurt with burdens. Death’s a roomful of happy faces to them that’s been alone. Death’s a whirlwind trip over the whole universe to them that’s never traveled anywhere except in dreamin’.”

  “Praise God.”

  “Death’s a clean mountain mornin’ to God’s child. It’s the first snow of first winter. It’s spring’s bloom. It’s summer’s goodness. It’s autumn’s harvest.”

  “Glory be to God.”

  The old minister paused and his head lifted and his smile broadened and his arms spread in an embrace of the room. His voice became a whisper.

  “Death’s just God’s way of showin’ His believers what it’s like to be forever achin’ with happiness. O my people, happiness. Happiness in bein’ free of all this old world’s pain. Bein’ free of anger. Bein’ free of fear. Bein’ free of always wantin’ more.”

  “Free, dear Jesus, free.”

  “Death. Death. Old, old Death. Where is he, anyhow? Where’s his hidin’ place? Up in the mountain? Somewhere in town? Down by the river? Where’s his hidin’ place? What is old Death, anyhow?

  “Death’s not some ghost, sneakin’ in when it’s pitch-black night.

  “O my people, that’s not what old Death is.

  “Death’s God’s mercy comin’ on the quiet, swift wings of sweet, sweet angels. O yes, my people. That’s what Death is.”

  “Sweet Jesus.”

  The old minister stepped forward in the aisle. His eyes swept the congregation and he nodded happily. He turned to Floyd.

  “Sweet, sweet angels, brother Floyd. Picked by the Almighty God Jehovah, Himself. Gentle angels who hear God’s message and do God’s will with gladness. Gladness because they know, brother Floyd. O my people, they know.

  “They know what’s ahead for the good. The good like Sister Ada. They’ve been on the bosom of God, restin’ their weary heads against His great, wide shoulder, and they’ve felt His blessedness. And they’ve heard the songs God sings like a baby’s lullaby when the fightin’s over and the day’s done.

  “O yes, my people. Sister Ada liked singin’. So sing up for her. Not for mournin’, but for praisin’. Sing her to rest. Sing her loose from this place. Sing her on her angel’s trip through the valley of the shadow of Death, up through the Naheela Valley, up over the mountains. Sing her on up until she dwells in the house of the Lord forever and leans her weary face on the great, wide shoulders of the Almighty.”

  He was suddenly spent and his voice broke and he struggled for breath. He stepped back and leaned one hand on the coffin and fought the light dots of pain in his brain. Then he looked into the coffin and smiled and whispered, “Ada.”

  7

  GARNETT CANNON STOOD aside from the choir of mourners in the June heat—in the cemetery of names he had once touched and squeezed and probed—and he felt a loneliness he had never known. He watched the gravesiders moving among themselves in a daze, tightening the close circle around the deep rectangular hole. It was a tableau of an eternal rite and Garnett knew their most private feelings: Who would be next? He saw their eyes darting about them, searching for the premonition that floated in the air like a specter. There was an eerie sense of expectation, as though a burial bouquet of dark flowers would be flung above their heads and fall into the hands of one of them.

  They stood in generations. The toothless old, bent at the neck, frail as twigs. The tiring. The strong, with chesty bodies and burned work faces. The very young, afraid of the singing at the graveside. They were the whole of humanity, thought Garnett. From God’s beginning myth to the last child spewed down the liquid tunnel of its membrane shell, breaking loose from its hot cavity. They were all of all people. They were the royalty and the remnants of a noble mutation caused by accident or God. Garnett was not certain which. God, he supposed. He did not know if he believed in God, but he did believe in the frustration that made his guts, if not his voice, cry out.

  He stepped back to the shade of an elm and slipped the knot of his tie. Perhaps God was just a word, he thought. Perhaps the whole gold-leafed, red-lettered tale was a primeval illusion and Mama Ada would rot like a diseased potato and nothing about her would move a single inch from the oak box with its brass handles and hinges.

  He fanned his face with his hat. The crowd was singing “Stand by Me.” He knew he would go early that night to Pullen’s Cafe and drink long and bully the crowd with his view of the world beyond the valley. The men would listen respectfully until he accused Roosevelt of being a Hyde Park demigod, and then they would shake their heads in their disapproving manner and mutter, “Now, wait a minute, Doc. Ain’t no need to go that far.”

  But Garnett loved the men of Pullen’s Cafe. He loved their tolerance and their stubbornness. He loved the literature of their stories. He loved the peace they seemed to bring with them like a silent companion. It was a mystery why they enjoyed peace in Pullen’s. Perhaps it was a fraternal thing, but without the Greek or the initiation. Mountain quid pro quo: Something for something, but there was no one who cared to measure or test the something, and that, in its own way, was peace.

  * * *

  The singing stopped and there was scripture and a prayer and the coffin of Ada Crider was lowered into the grave and the crowd began to walk away.

  Garnett saw Rachel standing alone, waiting for Dora and Sarah to join her. He thought of the Irishman. He pulled his hat on his head and walked to her.

  “Rachel,” he said in greeting.

  “Doctor,” she replied solemnly.

  “It hurts to lose her,” he confessed. “Maybe more than anybody since I’ve been here. I loved that old woman.”

  “Yes. Me, too.”

  “Are you all right?” he asked. He did not care if the question sounded personal. Being personal was his business.

  She nodded.

  “Just wanted to know,” he replied. “Been a long time since you’ve been in to see me. Not since Sarah was born, I guess.”

  “I’ve been well,” Rachel said. “So’s Sarah.”

  Garnett looked across the cemetery to where Sarah stood obediently beside Dora and a group of older women.

  “She’s grown almost,” he remarked. “A woman now. And pretty. Got Eli’s fairness, but she looks like you just the same.” He removed his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the perspiration from his eyes. “By the way,” he added, “I was glad to meet that O’Rear fellow. You tell him I meant it about coming down to Pullen’s. If he’s Irish�
��and he is—he’ll like it.”

  Rachel looked at him suspiciously, but his eyes were scanning the leaving crowd.

  “I’ll tell him,” she said.

  “Good.”

  Garnett began to walk away. Then he stopped and said, “If you need me, Rachel, let me know.” He turned and left without waiting for a reply.

  * * *

  The fence stretched like a backward question mark across the field and in a widening semicircle above the house. Michael worked steadily in the heavy, thick heat, but he had changed. He no longer walked the fence line at night with Rachel and Sarah and no longer boasted of his workmanship. His voice had lost its merriment and he often sat for long periods without speaking, absently carving on a block of wood. He seemed distant and solemn and restless, and his silence was as commanding as his bluster had been.

  He was a wind that had calmed and his moods affected each of the three women differently.

  To Rachel, it was a prelude to his leaving, the last calling of the wanderer’s instinct. It had been so with Eli and Eli had left many times. She had been controlled around Michael in the days following Mama Ada’s death—never touching, never asking, never signaling. She had lain awake at night and felt the imprint of his body and thought of the short, dark distance between them and she had plotted going to him. But she could not. She could not risk discovery, nor could she risk absolute surrender to him; surrender would have meant the confession that Eli was only part of her, not all. She loved Eli, she repeated to herself again and again, but here was this other man; here was Michael. And she fought his presence with a practiced coolness. She could not go to him and she knew he could not come to her; he was the kind of man who waited, who tortured women with his patience. Still, she yearned to hold his face and bring it to her breasts and feel him thrusting deep within her. She wondered if he thought of leaving because she would not go to him at night.

  To Dora, there was warning in Michael’s behavior. He was planning to stay. After the fence, there would be no reason to remain, but Michael would not leave and Dora knew it. He needed to invent an excuse and he would find one. Dora watched him closely. She knew that he would not simply pass among them as a casual visitor would; when he left them, there would be scars.