In the Valley

by Ron Rash

THANKS FOR THE HELP.

  NO PROBLEM, JAKE. SERIOUSLY, YOU DOING OKAY?

  I’M OKAY.

  JANICE AND I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE YOU COME UP FOR CHRISTMAS.

  THANKS, BUT I’LL JUST STICK AROUND HERE.

  JANICE PROMISED TO BUY YOU A STOCKING AND HANG IT UP WITH KELLY’S, AND YOU KNOW MY CHEF CREDENTIALS. WHAT YOU SAY?

  MAYBE ANOTHER TIME.

  OKAY, BUT IF YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND…

  OKAY. GOT TO GO. THANKS AGAIN.

  Jake sat awhile longer, summoning the energy to get up, to walk to the lot, to turn the key in the ignition. The gas could wait but not the prescription, so he drove to the CVS. Inside, Christmas reds and greens dominated, but holiday cheer was absent. It was near closing and the employees looked tired and harried. The store’s harsh fluorescent lights seemed designed to heighten such unhappiness. If you don’t stay, you won’t get even a few hours’ sleep tonight, he reminded himself.

  The customer at the counter turned and dropped her prescription into a bag decorated with candy canes, shifting time: a red stocking filled with shiny foiled Hershey’s kisses, bright-striped candy canes, tangerines, and, at the bottom, a box of crayons. Jake must have been four, because he wasn’t yet in kindergarten. He remembered the crayons’ waxy smell as the colors and shapes flowed unmediated from his hand to paper. The wonder of the act remained.

  Before leaving, he made a couple more purchases. Once home, he tapped in Shelby’s number.

  “I asked Daddy again and he’s certain the paintings were done in 1945,” she said. “He said the paint cans are still in his shed and prove it.”

  “I’m not doubting your father,” Jake said. “My friend says the only explanation is that your great-uncle was in the actual cave. Did he ever hear anything like that?”

  “I never heard of it, but I can ask Daddy and call you back.”

  “Sure, I’ll be up till at least eleven.”

  Jake listened to a message his sister had left about holiday plans, then poured a glass of wine. He’d finished a second glass when the cell rang. He checked the number and picked up.

  “Daddy said Uncle Walt never talked about the war or France to him, and hardly to my grandfather either. But there’s a man in Tennessee who was in the same unit. He visited Uncle Walt a few times, came to the funeral too. Daddy had his address and made some calls. He’s at the VA hospital in Knoxville. I’m thinking about visiting him Saturday. It might be the only chance to talk to someone who knew Uncle Walt during the war. Having a child, it makes things like that seem more important.” Shelby paused. “You’d be welcome to come along.”

  Jake had no plans for Saturday morning, other than a faculty luncheon he’d just as soon miss.

  “I’d like that. What time and where?”

  “Knoxville’s three hours away, so is ten all right?” she asked. “We could meet at Uncle Walt’s or in Brevard.”

  “I’ll meet you at your Uncle Walt’s,” Jake said. “I’d like to see those paintings one more time. And can you give your father a quick call and see if he knows which division your uncle was in?”

  “He’d know because he’s got the discharge papers, but Daddy’s likely asleep now. I’ll find out tomorrow.”

  As Jake finished the wine he scanned the Internet for more images of the cave, finding some that were not on the farmhouse wall, including one of a man leaning or falling. Vertical lines—spears, perhaps arrows—passed through the figure’s torso. Jake read the article, which suggested interpretations based on shamanism, the image’s coloration, and its location within the cave. He shut down the computer and took the Ambien.

  Jake awoke at three, feeling the same chest tightness that had sent him to the school infirmary last week. After an electrocardiogram showed nothing, Jake was given a scrip for Klonopin. Don’t hesitate to use it, Jake, Dr. Wells had told him. He knew he wouldn’t go back to sleep, so he made some coffee, then waited at the kitchen table for dawn to lighten the window above the sink. He showered and dressed, afterward drove to the college to teach his last classes of the semester.

  * * *

  —

  On Saturday morning he arrived at the farmhouse on time, but it was ten-twenty before Shelby showed up.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I stopped to pick up some baby clothes from my sister.”

  “No problem,” Jake said. “I can drive if you like.”

  “No, I don’t mind. Plus, I know a shortcut to 40 even the GPS can’t figure out.”

  As Jake opened the passenger door, Shelby nodded at a white pastry box, asked if he wanted her to put it in the back. Jake told her it was fine.

  Soon they were on back roads Jake had never traveled.

  “Have you met this man?” he asked.

  “Once when he visited, but he probably won’t remember me. His name is Ben Winkler.”

  They rode in silence awhile. A green sign appeared with the words I-40 WEST KNOXVILLE/CHATTANOOGA, and they merged onto the interstate.

  “Have you decided on names for your child yet?” Jake asked.

  “It’s a boy and we’re calling him Brody. It’s a family surname.”

  “I like your using a last name that way,” Jake said. “My wife and I were planning to have children, and wanted to do the same.”

  * * *

  —

  After they signed in at the front desk, the receptionist pointed to the elevator.

  “Fifth floor. Take a right. It’s room 507.”

  The door was open. Mr. Winkler sat in a recliner in the corner, a folded newspaper on his lap. A metal walker stood in front of the chair, green tennis balls on the wheels. After they introduced themselves, Winkler removed a pair of black glasses and set them and the paper on a lamp table. He rubbed the paunchy flesh below his eyes a moment, then motioned toward two plastic chairs. Shelby set the white box on the room’s single bureau before sitting down.

  “Pull those chairs closer,” he said. “My hearing ain’t what it used to be.”

  Jake and Shelby moved nearer.

  “So you’re Walt’s niece?”

  “Yes, sir,” Shelby said. “Great-niece, that is.”

  For a few minutes Shelby made small talk with Mr. Winkler, asking about his health, the family pictures on the bureau. Her manner was unhurried and respectful. Though only thirty-six, Jake felt a huge gulf existed between him and his most recent students. He wondered if Shelby’s generation was the last raised to tolerate quietness and stillness. It wasn’t a judgment, just a reality. Perhaps a life of unyielding distraction was better, he’d often thought since Melissa’s death.

  “We have a question for you,” Shelby said, “about Uncle Walt during the war.”

  “I’ll try to answer,” the old man responded. “But my memory’s gotten near bad as my hearing and eyesight.”

  “When you were in France,” Jake asked, “do you remember anything about a town called Cabrerets?”

  “Hard to know,” the older man said. “Most times we was too busy trying not to get shot to be looking for town signs.”

  “Yes, sir, I can imagine so,” Jake said, taking out the map he’d printed off the Internet. “I looked up the troop movements, and it seems your division wasn’t anywhere near there, but I wanted to be sure. The red mark I made, that’s where the town was.”

  Mr. Winkler put his glasses back on, took the map and studied it.

  “Some of us did come through there, not during the war but right after.”

  “Right after?”

  “Yes. We had a three-day leave and took a train out of Paris. Walt hadn’t wanted to go. He was in a bad way. We finally convinced him it might do him some good. The train was headed toward Toulouse, if I remember right, but we got off when the notion took us. Anyways, at one stop this Frenchman come on board jabbering about something we might
want to see, said he’d drive us there and back.”

  “It was a cave, wasn’t it?” Jake asked.

  Winkler took off the glasses again and set them on the table. He looked at Shelby.

  “Walt told about being in that cave?”

  “No, sir, not that I know of,” Shelby answered. “Were you in there with him?”

  “Not the first time. I wanted to flirt with them French girls instead of visiting some old cave, but Walt and a couple of fellows went to see it. The others caught back up with us and said it wasn’t worth the time, that they’d seen better drawings in the funny papers. When we asked where Walt was, they didn’t know.”

  A smile creased the old man’s face, his eyes no longer focused on his visitors but something more inward.

  “We figured he’d got one of them French girls to say oui,” Mr. Winkler said. “Anyways, when it was near time to catch the next train, we started searching. It come to nothing until a Frenchman said Walt was in the way-back part of that cave, laying on the ground, asleep. So me and another fellow went in to get him. It was spooky in there, I tell you that, and got spookier the deeper we went, and we went a long, long ways. It had to be near a mile. Darker than any place I ever been, and what light we had showing these old-time fierce animals on the walls. When we finally found Walt, he was laying on the cave floor asleep.” Winkler stopped and looked at Shelby. “Your uncle was a brave man. I don’t want you to feel otherwise about him.”

  “I won’t,” Shelby answered. “You can tell us.”

  “We woke him but he wouldn’t get up. One of the fellows sat down beside Walt and tried to talk sense to him. But that done no good. He started crying and saying that the only thing outside of that cave was death. We finally had to grab his arms and drag him. Even then he kept begging us to leave him there.”

  “So he was at the very back of the cave?” Jake asked.

  “Deep into that cave as you could get. I didn’t think we’d ever get him out. The next week Walt was headed home on a Section Eight. Some fellows in the unit thought bad of him for breaking down like that, but none of them was in that first wave at Omaha Beach. Walt was in the 116th Infantry. You know about them?”

  “No, sir,” Jake answered.

  “Well, they was in the thickest of it. Walt and two others from his unit came off that beach alive. Our outfit had some hard tussles, and Walt fought good as any man, but even then you could tell he was in a bad way. And every day it got worse.”

  “My daddy said Uncle Walt was never the same when he returned,” Shelby said softly.

  “None of us were, child,” Winkler said, shaking his head. “It’s just some could handle it better than others, or at least pretend to. My boys wanted me to go back over there a couple of years ago. They’d pay the flight, hotel, meals, everything. I told them thanks but that I’d spent most of my life trying to forget ever being there once.”

  The nurse who’d been waiting beside the door came into the room.

  “It’s time for your lunch, Mr. Winkler.”

  Shelby nodded at the white box on the bureau.

  “I baked you some gingerbread cookies. You can have them for dessert.”

  “Thank you,” he said, raising a trembling hand blotched purple-black. He held Shelby’s hand a few moments before releasing it. “Your uncle, he was a good man. We didn’t do much talking when I visited, but if you’ve been through tough times together, you don’t have to.”

  * * *

  —

  When Jake and Shelby got back to the farmhouse, Jake asked if he could see the paintings a last time.

  “Of course,” Shelby said, and lit the lantern.

  They went down the dark hallway. As their eyes adjusted, the menagerie slowly emerged. Shelby set the lantern down and stepped close to the lion. She placed her hands on the plywood, wiggled it until the two remaining nails pulled free. She carefully leaned the plywood against the wall.

  “What will you do with it?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t know,” Shelby answered. “It wouldn’t seem right not to save something, especially after today. I might put it in the nursery.”

  Shelby leaned to pick up the lantern. When she stood again, the window’s suffusing light surrounded her. Woman with Lantern, Jake thought. Perhaps somewhere such a painting existed. If not, he thought, it should. For a few minutes they were silent. Though it was midafternoon, the room was darkening. The animals began receding, as if summoned elsewhere.

  “I guess I’d better be getting home,” Shelby said, “else Matt will start worrying.”

  Jake carried the plywood out and Shelby placed it and the lantern in the back of the Jeep.

  He opened the trunk of his car, then took out the sketch pads and boxes of crayons he’d bought at CVS.

  “A gift for your son,” he said. “Maybe he will be an artist like his great-great-uncle.”

  Shelby set the gifts beside the lantern and plywood.

  “Thank you,” she said, giving him an awkward hug, “not just for the gifts but for helping me find out about the paintings.”

  “I was glad to do it. When your baby’s born, I’d like to know.”

  “It won’t be much longer,” she said, giving her stomach a soft pat. “The doctor says the third week in January.”

  “Cézanne was born around that date. The twentieth, I believe.”

  “Maybe I’ll aim for that,” she said, smiling.

  “Would you mind if I stayed a few more minutes?” Jake asked.

  “No, sir,” Shelby said, looking at the surrounding woods. “In the fall when the leaves turn, this cove is such a pretty place. Even now, there’s a beauty about it.”

  After Shelby left, Jake went back inside. He looked at the animals for a few minutes, then lay down on the moldering mattress. The springs creaked and a thin layer of dust rose and resettled. He did not realize that he had fallen asleep until he opened his eyes in darkness. He felt his way through the house and out the door. In the day’s last light, Jake drove slowly to the creek, stopped at the water’s edge. Oak trees lined the opposite bank. In their upper branches, mistletoe clustered like bouquets offered to the emerging stars. He paused there a few more moments, then went on.

  The Baptism

  Reverend Yates had awaited his coming, first for hours, then days and weeks. Now it was late December and winter had set in. When he’d lowered the metal well bucket, it clanged as if hitting iron. A leashed pitchfork, cast like a harpoon, finally broke the ice. He was bringing the water back to the manse when Jason Gunter came out of the woods on horseback. Reverend Yates took the bucket inside and returned with a shotgun that, until this moment, had never been aimed at anything other than a fox or rabbit.

  Gunter saw the weapon but did not turn the horse. Even in the saddle the younger man swaggered, the reins loosely held, body rocking side to side. Not yet thirty, but already responsible for one wife’s death, nearly a second.

  “That’s a mighty unneighborly way to be greeted,” Gunter said, smiling as he dismounted, “especially by a man of the cloth.”

  “I figured it would be one you understood,” Reverend Yates replied.

  Gunter opened his frock coat to show the absence of knife or pistol.

  “I didn’t come for a tussle, Preacher.”

  Gunter was dressed in much the same attire he’d arrived in four years ago—leather boots and wool breeches, white linen shirt and frogged gray coat. As then, his hair was slicked back and glistening with oil, his fingernails trimmed, undarkened by dirt. A dandy, people had assumed, which caused many to expect Gunter to fail miserably when he’d bought the farm adjoining Eliza Vaughn’s property. But that hadn’t been the case at all. He had brought his wife with him, a woman clearly once attractive but now hunch-shouldered. Her eyes were striking, the color of wisteria, though she seldom raised them when in
town. A month after they had come, she’d hanged herself from a crossbeam in the barn, or so the county sheriff concluded.

  Reverend Yates lowered the shotgun so it rested in the crook of his arm, but the barrel still pointed in Gunter’s direction.

  “If it’s about where Susanna is…”

  “It ain’t about knowing where she is,” Gunter answered. “That’s over and done with.”

  “What is it then?”

  “I got need to be baptized.”

  When Reverend Yates didn’t respond, the younger man quit smiling. For a few moments they stared at each other.

  “If you want someone to baptize you,” Reverend Yates said, “there are plenty of other preachers who can do it.”

  “Who said I wanted it?”

  Gunter turned, placed two fingers in his mouth, and gave a sharp whistle. Eliza Vaughn and her fourteen-year-old daughter, Pearl, came out of the woods and stood silently beside the horse’s haunches. Reverend Yates stared at Eliza questioningly, but she would not meet his gaze. Beneath a coat once worn by her husband, the woman shivered, and perhaps not just from the cold. Reverend Yates had warned her not to let Susanna marry Gunter, but despite what had happened to Gunter’s first wife, Eliza did not stop the marriage. Widowed, she’d had the hardship of raising two daughters alone. Gunter was a broad-shouldered man strong enough to keep the farm running. The first wife’s death hadn’t been Gunter’s doing, Eliza claimed. He ain’t never drank a drop of liquor, she’d said, as if all men needed alcohol to summon their perfidy. After the marriage, Gunter helped support Eliza and Pearl, keeping them in firewood, helping plant and harvest crops, digging a new well.

  But there had been a price. First a pumpknot swelling Susanna’s left brow, then two weeks later an arm so wrenched out of the socket that it hung useless at her side for weeks. Susanna did not claim she’d bumped her head entering a root cellar or twisted her arm restraining a rambunctious cow. She offered no explanation, nor did her mother or sister, even after several women in the congregation, out of curiosity or compassion, inquired. Her lot in life was to suffer, Susanna appeared to believe. But on that Sunday, watching her wince each time she moved the arm, Reverend Yates told her it was not her duty to suffer. Even then, Susanna had said nothing. She’d turned and walked back through town, past the manse and up the wooded path to where Gunter waited.