To Us May Grace Be Given

by L. S. Johnson

  After a while she stopped sucking and licked the cloths instead, turning them one way and another and wetting every spot.

  “Ahhh.” She licked a last spot and looked at me. Her face was less gray, though she still looked sickly. “Thank you, Addy.”

  I nearly said you’re welcome. But she was a devil after all. “Will you help us when Bill Boyland comes?” I asked instead.

  She leaned back in the yoke, closing her eyes. “Tell me about your Boyland.”

  “He’s a big cattle rancher. He owns most of the land around here. What he doesn’t use for his cattle he rents out to farmers. He even owns the land under the inn and the bank. The lawyer says he exhorts everyone.”

  “Ex-torts,” the devil said. “Him and half the men in this territory.”

  “Bill Boyland says Mam didn’t file claim so he bought the land fair and square, but Mam went to the lawyer and he said she has papers showing she was here first. Only she’s afraid to go to the city for a judge because she thinks Bill Boyland will just take the land while we’re gone. She got a letter from the lawyer instead but Bill Boyland says that’s not good enough.”

  “Then send the lawyer for the judge,” the devil said.

  I frowned. “I don’t think we can.”

  “You didn’t go to this lawyer?”

  “I had to take care of things here.”

  The devil pursed her lips at this, but said nothing.

  “Maybe the lawyer’s frightened Bill Boyland will have him shot,” I said. “That’s what happened with the last farmer who tried to keep his land. Bill Boyland went out there with his men and they shot them all, and they shot the lawyer so he wouldn’t tell anyone what they’d done. Then they burned all the buildings so there would be no papers, so when the judge finally came there was nothing.”

  “Thorough,” the devil said.

  “Mam says you can kill them for us.”

  At that she laughed. “Your Mam talks a lot of shit.”

  “She called you here,” I said.

  “She didn’t call me here. I was on my way to the city and my horse went lame. I was partial to that horse,” she added, and there was a tremor in her voice now. “You’re not the only one who lost a friend in this.”

  I didn’t want to think about that. “But she baited the circle—”

  “Oh, I smelled your rotten meat. When I was inside your fence, not a hundred miles away.” She smiled at me, a nice smile. “The way I hear it, I’m supposed to be descended from a snake, not a god-damned dog.”

  Before I could catch myself I smiled back at her.

  “Look, Addy.” The smile went quick. “Your blood will keep me alive but little more. Even if you took out the blade right now? It would be days before I could walk, much less help you fight anyone.” She met my eyes square. “If your Boyland is honest, he’ll be here at the full moon. But if he’s not? He’ll be here a hell of a lot sooner, or he’ll send men out here instead.”

  “Why?” I asked, startled.

  “Because that way he can kill you both, and then come back at the full moon with plenty of witnesses and oh dear, it must have been thieves, that’s what happens when women homestead without a man, what a pity.”

  She was right. He could do it; I could see him doing it. She was right.

  “If you truly want me to help you? I need more blood, a lot of it, and I need that damn knife out. Now, preferably.”

  I hesitated then, trying to think. “Mam says she can drink yours and take care of Bill—”

  “If your Mam drank my blood she would keel over dead,” the devil said, as reasonably as if we were discussing planting. “And if you drank my blood you might keel over dead, but if not? You would become a devil like me, and to be honest I don’t think you’re cut out for it.”

  I hesitated again. Now I wished I hadn’t come. Mam was right, she did have a mouth on her, one that said confusing things.

  “The blood you need,” I said slowly, “it’s people’s blood, isn’t it? Not chickens or goats or anything else.”

  She just looked at me.

  “But there’s no one for miles except me and Mam.”

  “I don’t make the rules, Addy,” she said. “That’s just how it is.”

  I swallowed. Horrible, confusing things, but I understood that well enough. No one made the rules about land either, or about folks like Bill Boyland trying to do you out of it.

  “How long do you think we have?” I asked.

  “He said by the full moon?” At my nod she smiled again. “Then I’d say it could be any time now. Right now it’s nice and dark outside, and all sorts of things can happen in the dark. It’s long enough before that he could make up a good story about where he was, but not so far ahead that they won’t recognize you. Right about now would be a perfect time.”

  I nodded again, my head jerking up and down like I was one of the chickens. Right about now. I thought I could hear hoofbeats.

  “I’ll try to do something,” I said, though I couldn’t think what. “I’ll try,” I said again.

  The devil waved the sodden rags at me and I took them quick, swiping them out of her hand. Her skin looked gray again. Silently I backed out of the barn and into the silvery yard. I looked around before cutting across, as if Bill Boyland might already be there, ready to shoot me dead.

  Back in bed I thought it through again. There had been another family, far to the east, right where they were setting the county line. Thieves had cut them up and burnt their house and barn both. At the time everyone had just said what a shame it was, but I wondered now, because Bill Boyland had bought that land at auction right after. He had divided it up and rented the lots to eight different families, where before there had only been one.

  Extort. I saw now that Mam and I were nothing compared to that, nothing compared to rectangles of land where people paid just to be allowed to live.

  I held my arm up to the moonlight, looking at the lines of blood under my skin. We were nothing to Bill Boyland, but we could be something to the devil, maybe enough of a something to help when the time came. I just had to figure how I could bleed myself without dying.

  That night I dreamed I was crouched by the beech tree, keeping watch over the circle, waiting for the devil to come. I picked at the bark and the sap ran, only it wasn’t sap but blood; I picked more bark off and underneath was goat hair. I heard bleating then. I pulled and pulled at the bark and underneath were the goats, all of them cut up and bleeding and stuffed inside the tree like sausage meat. They were all dying and when I tried to pull them out my hands kept slipping in their blood and their screaming filled my ears until I woke up sobbing. I was lucky that Mam had already gone out to start the chores.

  5.

  The next day I made my own count of the cartridges, and whatever else we could use to protect ourselves: knives, cast-iron pots, shovels and loys and Da’s two big sickles. Mam killed another chicken and bled it out. It was a waste, but if she knew what I had done with the devil it would be the whip for me. She had it out now, coiled on the ground by her feet as she wrung out the chicken.

  Beside it lay the revolver. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I didn’t like it.

  “Addy,” she called.

  I went over and reached for the chicken but she handed me the revolver, then the bowl of blood.

  “I need your help,” she said. “We don’t have time for her games and I can’t have her sicking up again.” She took up the whip and gave it a good crack. When it struck the ground it made places on my body hurt. “Keep the gun behind your back so she can’t see it. That’s it. Now when we go in there, you just get that blood down her throat. I’ll do the rest. If she breaks loose, shoot her dead.”

  She waited until I nodded, then led the way to the barn, her skirts tossing the dust one way and another. As we swung the door open a buzzard rose off the horse at the noise and Mam threw a rock at it with a cry. I hated when she was like this, raging and stamping her feet and with her should
ers pulled up. Before Da died she never got angry, she had been kind and gentle, always laughing and singing. She was still kind sometimes, but more and more she was this Mam, almost like she wanted to be angry. I’m doing this for you, she always told me. I’m doing this so you won’t be afraid of anything. Fear is death out here, Addy. Never forget that.

  We went to the stall and I was afraid the devil would give us away, but she only looked from Mam to me and back again. Mam held up the whip and she flinched.

  “You need to eat,” Mam said in a loud voice. “Now you’re going to drink this and you’re going to like it, understand?”

  “I’m doing my best,” the devil said. “There are other kinds of blood that suit me better, as well you know.”

  “Don’t give me that. Blood is blood.” Mam nodded at me. “Addy, help her drink.”

  “Like meat is meat?” The devil’s eyebrows raised. “I don’t see you two dining on rats, or that horseflesh rotting out there. No, it’s all chickens and sweet little goats for you.”

  I stopped halfway towards her, swallowing. Mam uncoiled the whip. “Addy, give her the bowl.”

  As I got close the devil looked up at me and mouthed bargain, and then she took a sip from the bowl. She gagged at once, pushing me away as she strained to work it down, just as I had struggled to swallow the stew Mam made out of Isaac. Her face became damp and she made a choking noise.

  “More,” Mam said. “She needs to drink it all.”

  I started to angle the bowl and the devil shook her head. “Wait,” she gasped. “Wait, I—” She broke off, gagging.

  “For God’s sake,” Mam yelled. She cracked the whip and I cried out as it whistled past me and struck the devil in the face. “Addy, get it down her throat!”

  But I couldn’t move for looking. The whip had opened a cut on the devil’s face, a big ugly gash that was running dark blood. Only as I watched the blood became sticky and the edges puffed up, then moved together. At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks, I blinked and blinked, but every time I blinked the cut looked better. As if it was healing right in front of me.

  “Mam, what’s she doing?” I whispered.

  “I told you, Addy,” she said, and there was something heavy in her voice. “She’s a child of the serpent, a devil made flesh. You can’t kill ‘em like you would a man. Right now the only things keeping her from killing us are the blade in her backside and her hunger.” She pointed with the whip. “Now get that god-damned chicken blood down her throat.”

  “A devil made flesh,” the devil repeated. “You should try looking in the mirror. Singing hymns while you whip me? Plotting murders? I think you want this. I think you’re enjoying yourself. I think you like the whip and you like blood and you even like killing. I think you even like it when your girl misbehaves, you like getting her scared and making her bleed, I bet you tell her it’s for her own good—”

  The whip came crashing down, over and over, lashing one way and another. I stepped out of the stall, hugging the bowl to myself and my eyes shut tight, trying not to hear the devil screaming and Mam humming under her breath.

  Then all of a sudden there was silence, just the sounds of panting, and Mam said, “Addy, give her the bowl again.”

  I opened my eyes and the devil looked like she was in pieces, her clothes hanging in ribbons and her face all red gashes. She had one eye swelling and her mouth hung open. I could see her heaving.

  “Addy,” Mam said in a soft voice, “give our guest something to drink, or I’ll turn her blood to dust.”

  Slowly I walked towards the devil. I saw now she was crying, her tears mixing with her blood, and I felt like crying too. “She means it,” I said, forcing the words out. “She knows how.”

  “All she knows,” the devil muttered, “is cruelty.”

  “Please,” I whispered.

  She looked up at me, her good eye black and red and swimming in tears, but she opened her mouth and drank the chicken blood down, throatful after throatful.

  And then she jerked away, wrenching in the yoke as she began choking. Mam ran behind her and seized her jaw, holding her mouth closed. “Get the revolver out,” she said to me. I pulled it out of my pants and held it with both hands, keeping it pointed steady at the devil’s face. Her cheeks puffed out and her swollen eye cracked open; she was gagging and mewling as Mam kept her mouth shut tight.

  And I remembered, suddenly: when Da had died I was sick soon after, and Mam had given me some medicine, something foul. It was a medicine I’d had before, only it tasted like it had gone sour, but when I tried to tell her how bad it tasted she had flown into a rage. She had poured it into my mouth, more than I’d ever taken, and then held my mouth shut, and I had sicked up inside so much I nearly choked. Later she had said how sorry she was, that grief was making her act strange.

  “She’ll shoot you,” Mam was saying. “She’ll shoot you dead unless you keep that god-damned blood down.” The devil was going still at last, though she looked worse than I’d ever seen her. She looked like she might even die.

  “Good girl,” Mam said. Slowly she released her hands. “Good girl.” She stepped back and the devil sagged limp. “See?” She pushed the devil’s hair out of her face, then gave her a pat on the head. “Now that wasn’t so bad, was it? No more games, now. You just drink, and you kill Bill Boyland, and everything will be just fine.” She wiped her hands on her skirts. “Come on, Addy. We got work to do.”

  Grief, Mam had said. But that had all been years ago. What was she grieving now? Or did she still miss Da that much?

  “You’ll pay for this.” The devil’s voice was raspy. “You just wait. You think you know things? Everything you know is nothing more than the fancies of sick old men. And we took care of them a long time ago.”

  Mam picked up the bowl and handed it to me, then settled about coiling the whip up neat; she’d started humming.

  “But I know something.” The devil’s voice rose until it filled the barn. “I know you’re a fucking liar. I know this has nothing to do with the land because it was never yours. You’re using me to mete out some kind of vengeance. You pretend you’re just a poor old woman done wrong by, but at the end of the day you’re nothing but a pisspoor squatter and when they come they’ll hang you and good riddance!”

  I reached for Mam who had turned back, but she only looked at the devil, then at me with a broad smile, and I realized she was trying not to laugh.

  “Seems like chicken blood agrees with her after all.” And with a chuckle she strode out of the barn, singing

  A noble army, men and boys,

  the matron and the maid,

  around the Savior’s throne rejoice,

  in robes of light arrayed.

  They climbed the steep ascent of heaven,

  through peril, toil and pain;

  O God, to us may grace be given,

  to follow in their train.

  When we were getting ready for bed Mam suddenly said, “You want to ask me a question, Addy, ask me. You know you can ask me anything.”

  I slowly buttoned up my nightshirt. I could just glimpse my reflection in Mam’s little mirror, that she had brought with her when we came out. It was the only fancy thing we had, with a frame made up of tiny flowers and ribbons all tangling together. From my old life, she would say when I asked her about it. It reminds me that we’re all a mix of good and bad, like your Da says. And that God wants us to live with our decisions.

  I looked at myself, at my short hair and my peaky face. I was a mix of things, all right. I’d never even seen a girl like me, and I sure didn’t know what was good or bad right now. But there were things being decided that I was going to have to live with.

  “What if we asked Bill Boyland to buy us out,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “We could go somewhere else and start over, maybe somewhere closer to the railroad.”

  I tensed then, waiting for her to start yelling, maybe even to hit me. But she only sighed. “Addy, you can’t g
et caught up in wanting to change things. Change is never as good as it looks in your head. There’re always problems, there’re always men looking to take whatever you have—your money, your land, your pride. At some point even a woman has to take a stand, or you’ll always be running.”

  She laid down and closed her eyes, but I blurted out, “is that why you and Da came here, because you were running?”

  Mam opened her eyes and looked at me for a long moment. But all she said was, “running means different things to men and women.” She rolled over, turning her back to me.

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  But she didn’t say anything; she only lay there. I knew she was awake and holding herself tight and still, like she had after Da died. All day crying and laughing over him in the field while I had walked the long, long road to Tom’s place, and then when they took Da away she had laid down just like this. Only Da was seven years gone now, and I was still alive.

  Later that night I left the house again. I had my dirty rags but I also took a clean one. Outside I found the bowl and the skinning knife and brought everything into the shadow of the barn. There I hesitated, looking at the big cruel knife, but there was nothing for it, and it felt right that it should be this way. I had done Isaac wrong; I had done them all wrong, all these years, telling them they were going off to Tom’s to eat grass. Now I thought maybe I had known otherwise but I had wanted to believe it. The stew Mam made had tasted horrible, but it had also tasted familiar.

  I cut my left hand at the base of my thumb. I didn’t use that hand so much, and I made the cut low so it wouldn’t rub against the plow. At first it didn’t hurt but then it did, oh God did it hurt, and it was hard not to bandage it at once but let the blood run into the bowl. So much pain. How long had Isaac suffered for, before God took him? What about all the others, the chickens and the little ox and the devil’s horse and even Da, what had they felt?