To Us May Grace Be Given

by L. S. Johnson

  October 1, 2017 Volume 7 No 12

  To Us May Grace Be Given

  by L.S. Johnson

  1.

  They came near the end of the day. We thought it was thunder at first, though there weren’t any clouds. Eight of them on horseback with Bill Boyland at their head. “Eight men for a woman and her kid,” Mam muttered as she loaded the revolver.

  Once they came through our gate they stayed in their saddles. I couldn’t see their faces for their hats pulled low; I only recognized Bill Boyland by his voice and the shiny gold watch hanging from his waistcoat. He told us Mam’s letter and papers didn’t matter none. Mam started arguing with him; I couldn’t speak because my voice would give me away as a girl.

  “Your Pa was a squatter,” Bill Boyland said to me. He spoke slow, like I was thickheaded. “Now your Ma is right: ten years ago it didn’t matter none, because ten years ago it was every man for himself. But that was then.”

  “And this is now, and you’re nothing but a god-damned thief, William Boyland,” Mam said.

  “Constance, I warned you and Matthew both. This land deceives. It looks good but the dirt’s cruel. Doesn’t matter how much you pray over it, it’s never gonna be good for anything but making meat.” His hat nodded at me. “You’re working your boy like a god-damned animal, and for what? You both deserve better than this.”

  “Better than our God-given home?” Mam asked. “Better than what’s rightfully ours? I have blood in this land, William Boyland, blood and ten years’ honest work—not that you would know anything about that.”

  A few of the men muttered when she spoke, but Bill Boyland raised his hand and they silenced quick. “Only the Land Office can give the homes out here, Constance. You should have filed claim—as you say, you had ten years to do it in.” He hadn’t raised his voice once. “Now I bought this land fair and square, Missus Norton, and I mean to have it. I want you gone before the next full moon.”

  When they had ridden away I let the knife slide out from my sleeve and Mam untucked the revolver from beneath her apron. She went in the house, leaving me to put away the loys. I made out like I was tired from plowing, but in truth I worked slow because I thought my heart might burst from beating so hard. Eight men. We had the revolver and the shotgun, but we were close to being out of cartridges for both. Mam hadn’t wanted to go to town for weeks now; she was afraid Bill would have a man watching, who would come after she was gone and rob us blind and do worse to me. But I knew now that was a mistake. Eight men and he could probably come back with double as quick as you please, and it was less than a month to the full moon.

  When I finally went in she had cleared the table and pulled the carpetbag out from under the bed. It was grey with dust; even before Da died Mam and I weren’t supposed to touch it, though I used to open it when no one was looking. It’s the past, Da would say when I asked him about it. From when we thought we knew better than God. We came here to get away from that.

  The way Mam was laying things out, I knew I wasn’t the only one who had peeked inside. She didn’t even have to look, just put out the candles and the fancy drawings, and even the vials that I liked best. In your hand the stuff inside looked black, but when you held them up to the light you saw that it was really a dark, sweet red.

  Beside these Mam put a knife I had never seen before, with a thick handle and two round blades folded up like a flower.

  “I’ll show him,” she said. “I’ll show him my god-damned claim.”

  “What d’you mean?” I asked. My voice sounded funny; sometimes I went so long without speaking I forgot what I sounded like.

  Mam didn’t answer. She was peering at the drawings, holding them up to the light and talking to herself.

  I started cutting up the potatoes for supper, but I kept looking at that knife. Not round, the blades; more like petals, tight as a spring bud. I reached out and touched the handle only to jump when the blades snapped apart. Now it looked like jaws ready to bite.

  “Leave it be,” Mam said. She bundled everything up again and went back out into the yard. Under the beech tree she began dragging her heel in the dirt, making a circle.

  I followed her outside. “Mam, what’re you doing?”

  She grinned at me then, not her nice smile but the way she smiled when we killed rats in the barn.

  “Calling down the god-damned devil on that sonofabitch Boyland,” she said, and got down on her hands and knees in the circle.

  We had nearly three weeks before Bill Boyland was to come back, but as Mam explained it, sometimes the devil takes a while. We took turns watching the circle and keeping up with the plowing. Mam said it wasn’t a circle but a kind of snare. She had put the last of our salt pork in the middle and kept adding drops from one of the vials to it, her face getting grimmer by the day. I didn’t know why we didn’t just send the devil to Bill Boyland direct, rather than bring him to us, what if the devil decided to take us all? But Mam didn’t look like she was for questioning, so instead I said that the goats might get at the bait.

  “Nah, Addy. It’s devil’s blood.” She touched my shoulder, which made me feel better. “The goats are smart, they know better than to touch it.”

  “The devil will come for his own blood.” My voice nearly twisted up, making it a question, but I caught myself in time. Mam was fierce with the whip when she got the rage in her.

  “They’ll come to rescue one of their kind,” she said. “They won’t come for food, they can get that anywhere. But they’ll come for one of their own. Any of them within a hundred miles, they’ll smell it.”

  And then I really wanted to ask questions, because I had always thought there was just one devil, the one in the Bible. Now I pictured devils like rabbits, with horns for ears and long sharp tails. I wanted to ask Mam how many devils there were, and did they come in different kinds, and what if we got the wrong one? But she was smiling the rat-killing grin again, and all those questions weren’t really what I wanted to ask: If a devil came, what was to stop him killing us as well?

  That night I took a while feeding the goats. They crowded around all warm and nibbled my fingers. We had to sell most of the animals when Da died, but Mam had made sure we kept the goats and the chickens. I watched the goats being born every year, and the ones I had to nurse I named in my head, though I never told Mam. When they grew too old for milking or making babies she would walk them down the road a ways to a fellow named Tom. He had a big herd that he rented out for clearing brush, sometimes even for the railroad. In the post office there was a print of the railroad coming through, and I would pretend our goats were just past the edge of the paper, eating up the dead grass and keeping the men safe from fire.

  I whispered their names now as I fed them. Isaac, after one of my favorite stories. Leah and Rachel, because their story always made me feel sad, and I thought they would have been happier without Jacob. There had been one I named Matthew, after my Da, but he was with Tom now. Cain and Abel, for twins that kept butting each other. Even a little Addy, because she came so late like I had done.

  If Bill Boyland got the land, we’d have to sell them all, maybe to someone for their meat.

  Isaac butted my hand and I scratched his head. I knew him by his uneven horns. I knew them all and they all knew me, they would come when I called them. Mam wanted to keep the land because it was ours, because Da had cleared it and worked it until it killed him. But I wanted to keep the land for Mam and the goats, so we could all stay together.

  I looked at Mam, sitting on the edge of the circle, waiting for the devil to come. Anything, to keep us here, together. Anything.

  It was six days and nights before the devil finally came.

  2.

  The devil
came up over the hill at sunset, hunched over and leading a lame horse. It wore a hat and coat like anyone. I thought it was one of Bill Boyland’s men, but Mam hissed at last and went behind the house. I didn’t know what to do so I just stood there on the far side of the beech and waited.

  It approached slow, like it sensed something was wrong. I couldn’t see its face for the kerchief over its mouth. At the fence it stopped and waved at me. I waved back before I thought better of it, but there was nothing for it then.

  Halfway across the yard it stopped again and looked around. I could see its eyes squinting, could see its nose wrinkle as it smelled the bait. It turned completely, looking back at the fence, and that was when Mam ran out of nowhere with the jaw-blades and drove them into the devil’s back, right between the shoulders, and snapped them shut.

  It screamed then, its voice as high as my own, and fell like it’d been shot. The horse reared and ran to the far side of the yard.

  “Get the little yoke,” Mam said.

  The devil’s hat had fallen off. Its long brown hair fell everywhere, thick and snaking. There was a big stain on its back where the handle stuck out, and blood was dripping on the ground. With a moan it started to drag itself back towards the fence, hand over hand, its legs twisting up.

  “Addy get the god-damn yoke!” Mam yelled.

  I ran to the barn. The devil was cursing now, calling Mam terrible names, and I clapped my hands over my ears. It took me a while to find the little yoke, the one Da had made for our last, runty ox. When I came back out Mam had her knee on the devil’s backside and was holding its head down with one hand, pushing aside its hair with the other.

  Her head, her hair. I didn’t know much about devils, but now that I was close I could see this one looked an awful lot like a woman.

  “Look,” Mam said. She dug her nails into the devil’s neck, making her shriek into the dirt, and scraped something free. When she held out her hand to me there were shiny circles on her fingers. “Child of the serpent. You would never know it to look at her. For generations your Da’s people fought ‘em, to the death more often than not. Now she can start paying us back.”

  My mouth was hanging open and I closed it tight.

  The devil said something then. Mam lifted her hand away and the devil twisted her head to look at me. She looked like a woman, but her face was all hollow and a sickly gray, like she was ill. Her eyes were the same dark brown as mine.

  “You’ve made a terrible mistake,” she said.

  “That may be,” Mam said, “but it’s done now.” She took the yoke from me and latched it round the devil’s neck.

  We tied the devil up in a stall in the barn, tying the yoke to the walls and her wrists to the yoke and hobbling her feet just to be sure. When I reached for the blade Mam slapped my hand and shook her head. The devil’s legs were still limp. She hadn’t fought when we dragged her across the yard, just looked from me to Mam and back again. Even knowing about the snakeskin she still didn’t look like a devil to me. She looked like a woman, sick and scared.

  “Please,” she said now. “Please, I can’t feel anything. Just get me a doctor and I won’t tell anyone, I promise.” Her eyes looked wet. “I have family waiting for me, they’ll pay whatever you want.”

  Mam just snorted and checked the knots.

  “My name is Elisabeth,” she said, turning to me. She was crying; my own throat got tight. “Please, I have no money, why are you doing this? Please send for a doctor. I can’t feel my legs, oh God, why are you doing this?”

  “Mam,” I whispered.

  “You can save your breath.” Mam said. “We’ll let you go after the next full moon.” She jerked her head at the doors. “Men are going to come here, they’ve threatened me and my boy. You take care of them for us and we’ll let you go.”

  The devil just looked at her, her eyes huge and weeping.

  “If you don’t, I’ll take your blood and do the job myself.”

  Still the devil just looked at her. I could see her trembling.

  “Well,” Mam said. “We best get supper on.”

  “Wait!” She leaned forward. “You can’t just leave me here! I may never walk again!”

  Mam laughed. “If I took that blade out you’d have my throat before I could take a breath.”

  “Mam,” I whispered again. She looked like she was hurting bad. What if we had made a mistake, what if we were killing her?

  But Mam patted my arm. “It’s all right, Addy. Think about it. If she were what she claims to be she’d have bled out by now. She sure as hell wouldn’t have the strength to holler like that.” She turned towards the barn doors. “Come on. We’ve done a good day’s work.”

  “No, you mustn’t leave me! Please!” The devil was looking at me, all wild and sobbing. “I just want a doctor. For God’s sake! I’ll do whatever you want, just send for a doctor!”

  I bit my lip; I felt like I might cry too, but Mam hated tears. Only how could a devil even say God without getting struck down? “What if we’re wrong?” I whispered. “What if she’s just a person?”

  Mam sighed then and crouched down in front of the stall, plucking at the old straw. “I know what you are,” she said to the devil. “Matthew’s da was an alchemist and a preacher, as was his da, all the way back to Thomas Norton himself. Matthew told me the real story of Eden, how the serpent tricked Eve so he could eat from the tree of life, and how all his offspring carry that in their blood. Mankind’s birthright gobbled right up. But it wasn’t all good, was it?” She smiled at the devil. “No, it came with all sorts of problems. Like your hunger, like how a little knife can leave you helpless. Like how even a foolish old woman can make a poison that will turn you to dust.”

  At Mam’s words the devil’s eyes went hard, and her mouth became a line. She met Mam’s gaze square, and then she spat in the straw.

  “That’s what I think of your fucking das,” she said. “Cruel madmen to a one. Rather like you, I suspect.” All the trembling and fear were gone. “So your plan—” she made the word sound dirty— “is to keep me tied up until the next full moon, and then what? I can’t walk, you idiot.”

  “Not now you can’t,” Mam said. “But we both know it’s only the blade—”

  “No, you know that,” the devil interrupted, and Mam’s face went dark. “I will tell you what I know, shall I? I know that if I don’t feed soon, I’ll be dead by the time your men come. I know that if you don’t give me time to heal after you remove the blade I will be nothing more than another bitch for them to fuck and kill. And I know you are in no way strong enough to drink my blood, not with that sickness in you.”

  I stepped back, expecting Mam to go in a rage, but she didn’t. She didn’t even speak. She only stayed crouched, with her face dark and her hands twisting in her skirts, and then I was proper afraid. No one had ever spoken to her like that without her raging at them.

  “Now your daughter here, she might be able to drink,” the devil continued, looking at me. The line of her mouth curled up and it was awful. “You’re as strong as a little horse, aren’t you? A god-damned mule of a girl. So your mother’s the mouth and you’re the muscle, is that how it is?”

  “That’s my son,” Mam said then, but her voice was something I’d never heard before, all strained and cracked.

  “I have given you the courtesy of my honesty,” the devil said. “I recommend you do the same.” She leaned forward again. “I’ve met your kind before, missus. You listen in on your menfolk, you sneak into their studies and read their books, and you think you know better than they did, and you always die worse.” She kept talking when Mam started to speak. “If you took the blade out now it would be days before I could walk again, and my belly was empty long before now; even if you hadn’t crippled me I’d barely be able to stand. I need at least three nights to heal and I need to eat. So put that in your fucking plan.”

  Mam bared her teeth, then reached over and smacked my leg. “Go start supper,” she said. �
�Go on, now. I got business here to take care of.”

  Just before the barn doors I looked back. Mam was saying something to the devil, something I couldn’t make out. What if it was true, what the devil said? What if Mam had read the book wrong, what if there was some kind of sickness in her? She was always tired, but we were both always tired, there was only the two of us to do everything.

  Mam kept talking; her face was whipping mean. If the devil replied at all I couldn’t hear it, and I didn’t want to.

  From the kitchen window I watched as Mam stormed out of the barn, cursing and kicking at the dirt, the shotgun in her hand. I thought to hide then but she went to the horse instead, seizing its reins and dragging it limping past the fence where she shot it in the head. I could have sworn I heard a cry from the barn but it could have been me. Just to shoot it like that, when it might have only needed shoeing. Just to shoot it. Mam stripped off the saddle and harness and as she was passing the barn she threw them in a heap by the door and then I did hear something, not a cry but the devil cursing like when Mam first stabbed her. She kept on long after Mam started the evening chores and I was making supper; she kept on until at last she just stopped, like someone had cut her throat.

  “I don’t think she can stop all Bill Boyland’s men,” I said to Mam when she came in for supper.

  “She will if she wants to live,” Mam said. “You just stay away from her. She’s got a mouth on her, that one.”

  I stirred the soup, trying to think how to ask without asking.

  “I get pains in my stomach, Addy,” Mam said then. “They come and go. Sometimes I sick up and there’s blood. That’s why it has to be this way. This land is all you’ll have after I’m gone. A woman can’t get by without money or a man. This land is as good as dollars.”

  I heard her, but at the same time it seemed like she was speaking from a long way away. Tears kept coming out and I watched as they fell into the pot, making little circles in the soup. I didn’t dare sniffle or let on how I felt. It would only get me slapped.