by J. L. Jarvis
Maggie shivered. Jake wrapped her in a throw blanket and brought her over to the hearth.
While he built a fire, she watched him. Hunched over, arranging the kindling, his back looked even broader, more muscular. Hard work had shaped his flesh and backbone, and nearly broken it. His hands were rough. But as she watched those strong hands at work building a fire, she wished those hands would touch her. Now. As if he could hear her thoughts, Jake glanced back at Maggie and flashed a reassuring grin with that squint that was almost a wink. Why did that affect her so? And after all these years? She had known him so long that she took for granted his strength, and the depth of his character. Work at the steel mill wrenched the humanity out of most men but not Jake. It may have shaped his body, but it had not broken his spirit. Beneath his gentle warmth he was stronger than steel.
A hand stroked her hair. Maggie awoke to find herself curled up on the kitchen bench, resting in a pair of strong arms. She opened her eyes and saw Jake gazing down at her with unguarded eyes. Then she remembered what had happened the night before. She tried to sit up, but her head was pounding.
Jake held her down gently. “Take it easy. Everything’s fine.”
She combed her fingers through her hair. She was weary and groggy and didn't want to lose the dream she’d awoken with, safe in his arms.
Jake explained, “Just lie back and listen. When Beth wakes up, she’ll need to decide what to do with Hank. If you want, I can go down to the jail and keep him away from here.”
“No.” It was Beth. She stood in the doorway. “He’s my husband. He belongs with his family.”
Maggie sat up and turned to Beth.
He said gently, “Sit down, Beth. Let’s talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” Beth leaned against the counter and became absorbed with its surface, first dusting it off with her fingertips, then grabbing a rag and wiping it clean.
“So you’re going to bring him back home—just like that?” Maggie was sitting up, clutching the blanket. She could barely contain herself.
Beth continued to find undiscovered dust on the icebox, the stove, and the windowsills. Maggie looked from her sister to Jake and felt helpless. He walked over to Beth while she continued to clean, and he touched her shoulder. She flinched.
Jake took a step back. “Beth, what if I’m not around? What happens the next time?”
Jake’s words surprised Maggie. The thought of Jake not being around here had never occurred to her. Of course he might not always be here. He could leave. People left.
Beth’s voice was quiet but firm. “My mind is made up.” She left the room.
Beth’s decision didn't surprise Maggie. They’d been through this before. She sighed and turned back to Jake. With no warning her eyes filled with tears, and her throat ached too much to speak. “Tell Will thank you. And you—thank you isn’t enough. I don’t know—”
“Shh—” Jake shook his head with a hint of a frown. He reached out his hand to her shoulder, and she sank against his chest with a sob. He held her in his arms and let her weep until all of her pent up troubles and worries had melted against him. All the while he smoothed her hair from her face and her neck, and he soothed all of her sorrow and some of his own.
When the last tear was shed, Maggie sniffed and then snorted and smiled, embarrassed by the sound. With half a grin that faded, Jake pulled out a handkerchief and wiped off her tears and her nose. She lifted her eyes, which were open and trusting, and she saw that Jake’s cheek was still wet with her tears. She reached out her fingers to wipe it dry, but his eyes closed as if her touch pained him. He grabbed hold of her hand and held it there, to his cheek. His lips sought her hand and barely touched her palm, and then he opened his eyes to meet hers.
Maggie, dazed from fatigue, found herself full of longing. He seemed like a dream, or a stranger.
Abruptly, he let her hand go, and it hung in the air for a moment. Jake strode to the back door and muttered goodbye. The door shut behind him.
Chapter 12
“Tired?” Charles Adair looked up over his reading glasses at his wife, who set down her book with a sigh and watched the summer rain drizzle down the parlor window.
“No. I was thinking about Andrew.”
“Mm-hmm.” Charles returned to his reading.
“What do you think of his young lady friend?”
Charles glanced up from his book. “She’s very pretty.”
“Yes, but did you notice how he looks at her?”
“Like a young man looks at a pretty girl?”
“No. There’s more to it than that, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry.” Charles returned to his reading with a rustle.
“Well, I would. What if it gets serious?”
Charles lowered his newspaper and stared over his glasses. “Now, what makes you think it will get serious?”
“I don’t know. A feeling.”
“Well, my feeling is that he is a young man who is enjoying life while he can.”
“And exactly what’s that supposed to mean?” Lillian’s concern for Andrew was replaced by annoyance.
He grinned sheepishly. “Not everyone is fortunate enough to find a wife as lovely and agreeable as mine.”
Lillian leveled a skeptical look toward her husband. “What a nice sentiment, Charles—eloquent, yet so endearingly void of sincerity.” She smiled sweetly.
Charles buried his head in his newspaper and grinned. “Lillian, you’re far too good for me.”
“Yes, I know. Which brings me back to my point. This girl, Maggie, is entirely unsuitable for Andrew.”
“Not to worry, Lillian. Nothing will come of it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because, we’ll make certain of it.”
Lillian stood and walked over to the window. “It would break my heart to see Andrew marry beneath him. To build social standing takes generations—”
“And money.”
“And it takes so little to tear it down.” She cast a concerned look toward her husband, clearly annoyed by his glib attitude.
Charles gave Lillian a reassuring look. “You worry too much. Just leave it to me.”
Lillian looked out the window at the misting sky and said no more.
It was dusk when Beth approached the large tent. Hank had refused to go, and Robin was too young to appreciate it. So Beth came by herself, as she often did. Tent revivals came through town quite often. Beth had always hoped that one day Hank might come and be transformed into the good man she wished he could be. It would take such a miracle.
Already alive with activity, hymn singing filled the air as everyone sang, some in their own key, and the ruddy faced organist pumped the bellows of the portable organ with her feet.
I’ve got peace like a river
I’ve got peace like a river,
I’ve got peace like a river in my soul.
I’ve got peace like a river,
I’ve got peace like a river,
I’ve got peace like a river in my soul.
With each successive verse, Beth felt her tension and worries subside. Unlike many of the other worshippers, Beth remained tranquil. Life had nearly drained her of the ability to exhibit enthusiasm, even at those rare times when she felt it. Although she lacked the appearance of exultation, she began to feel the peace of which they sang. It was so often missing in her everyday life.
When the singing stopped, Beth sat and silently prayed for God to deliver her from her anguish. She didn't feel like the saint Maggie accused her of being. She felt angry and bitter that life had afflicted her so. Still, she knew she had chosen Hank. She couldn't blame that on God. As the preacher lifted his voice and took the crowd on a turbulent journey through hellfire and damnation, Beth’s mind wandered.
She was seventeen, with life ahead and nothing to fear, when a big strapping man with a coal-dusted face chose her over the others to receive his attention. A naïve girl with no
reason to doubt, Beth fell deeply in love with the man who became part of her dreams. A simple girl, her dreams were similarly fashioned. Love, a home and children were all she needed or wanted. Beth smiled with rue to recall it.
A young Beth stood on a wooden crate outside the grange hall, peering in the window at the forbidden dancing. “Why don’t you come inside?”
Beth shied away, smiling in spite of herself.
“Dance with me.”
He frightened and fascinated her. “I don’t dance,” she confessed.
“You don’t dance? Well, here, I’ll teach you!”
He was so sure of himself, so virile and strong. Beth was drawn to his vigor. He had an energy that drew both men and women to him, but especially women. And when he smiled at her, she melted into his waiting arms. They danced on the grass until she found herself at the threshold of the dancehall, and it took but one step more to bring her inside. Once inside the forbidden place, Beth wondered what the sin was in dancing, for each step and each turn and each breath she drew in filled her with delight. As he walked away to get something to drink, Beth overheard two men talking not far away.
“What’re you looking at?” said one to the other.
“I’m watching the girls’ heads turn as Hank walks by.” They both laughed enviously.
Hank wasn't exactly a handsome man. His features were too big, his body too large. Yet he was all brawn and bravado, and women responded. He exuded maleness—or perhaps it was the way he looked into their eyes. He seemed to have discovered that by searching their eyes, he would get to their hearts. And from there, he could get what he wanted. Beth lacked the experience to understand it, but her reaction was no less profound.
When he returned with the punch, he handed the two cups to Beth, and then pulled up two chairs, one of which he retrieved from beneath one of his friends. When Beth held out the punch cup for him to take, he looked into her eyes and those eyes glimmered, holding her gaze. He had beautiful eyes, gray as dusk. When he said in a voice that was husky and low, “Thank you, dearie,” she was his.
How she’d loved him. But that was so long ago. How had life become so sad?
She sat in the tent meeting and prayed for God to deliver her from the pressing weight of regret. With no Biblical basis for doing so, she could never leave Hank. Yet for all of her faith, she couldn't understand why the Bible permitted divorce for adultery but not for a woman who was beaten. But there was no point in wondering. Marriage was a covenant before God, and she had made that covenant with Hank.
The preacher walked through the crowd. The air was filled with sounds of whimpering, cries of praise, and murmured prayer. Beth stood praying silently, when the preacher stood before her and placed his palms on her head. An explosion of lightness and warmth flooded through her and made her feel weak and off-balance. Supporting hands caught her and lowered her gently to her seat. She emerged from what seemed like a dream. Sounds grew louder. Her head cleared.
Music played as the meeting ended and people filed down the aisles. As the crowd thinned, Beth stood but faltered, still sore from her bruises. The same pair of hands again came to her aid. Beth said thank you, and turned around to see a man perhaps a bit older but not very much, with kind eyes and a pleasant manner that put her at ease. There was something about him.
“I’m sorry. For a moment, I thought I might know you,” she said, averting her gaze.
“Eben Wakefield.” He offered his hand.
“Beth Garvey,” she said, taking the hand that he offered. They held on long enough to be cordial, and a brief instant longer. He let go, but the gentle touch lingered. With an unassuming smile and a nod, he turned and walked away. Beth noticed a slight limp as she watched him disappear into the crowd. She looked down at her hand and touched where he had touched.
“What am I doing?” she whispered, as she dropped her hands to her sides. She walked as briskly as she could through the crowd and out of the tent, and then as fast as she could without running toward home. With every step she tried to drive away what had happened. But nothing had happened or changed—except how she felt. Her heart had come alive again and she liked it. And it was wrong. She told herself she was lonely and making too much of what was really nothing. People met and shook hands every day. To make more of it was the stuff of schoolgirls. She was a grown woman. And yet, with every breath she recalled each breathless moment. She leaned against a tree and hid in its dark shadow and silently wept. She wept for her heart so parched that it could so easily be revived by a gentle touch of a stranger’s hand. For so long her heart had been deprived of tenderness that she’d believed it was dead. Now these stirrings reminded her that she was, indeed, alive. She could feel after all, and her feelings were wrong.
Deep into the night, the furnaces at the Cambria Iron and Steel Company throbbed. Sparks sprayed from white-hot pits of glowing iron and lit up the sky. It was a sight that might have been beautiful, were it not for the grueling work.
At the open-hearth furnace where Jake worked, the deep clang of metal and shrieking machines filled the air and made the ground tremble. The cacophony drilled through his mind. Sweat dripped from his face and down his neck, until his clothes were wet through every layer. But the heat was too intense to strip down without burning his skin. Even in the heat of summer, the men dressed in such layers to shield them from temperatures close to 3,000 degrees. No one wore rings or jewelry. Any metal against the body would burn the skin it touched.
Jake’s job was to add carbon and manganese to the molten steel. He would lift a sack of coal to his shoulders, and then run toward a hundred-ton ladle of molten steel. He had to get close enough to hurl the sack into the ladle and run from the resulting flames and sparks before they could burn him, for the heat would hurl the flames and anything near them to the roof. Next, he would rush to the ladle and shovel manganese into it, hard and fast, while the brutal heat wore at him and weakened him until he was no longer a man, but a beast with no thought in mind but to muster the strength do the next task, and the next. Eight hours of tasks, six days a week, Jake toiled at this job. Hour after hour, he pushed himself onward.
He hated the way it burned the spirit right out of a man. What remained was the basest of beings, devoid of thought or feeling. In time one became just another moving part of the machine. Yet these days, Jake found himself welcoming the mind numbing, sense dulling drudgery of hard labor. It took him to a place where thoughts and feelings could be laid to rest. All that mattered was the present task, and then the next. Into the ladle he poured coal, along with his anger, frustration and pain. Again and again he repeated the sequence, his powerful back and shoulders taut with the weight they bore. Drenched clothing stuck to his body. Rivulets of sweat trickled down his face and neck unheeded. In his eyes, a narrow glare was ever focused on the brute labor he was performing. Sometime well into his shift, it was lost to the red heat of the furnace: all the love and all the dreams. The hillside was black with them.
Came five o’clock and everybody quit. For a few minutes before, they sat around and wiped their sweat and waited for the whistle. Jake sat down with a laborious growl—a long, weary, bone-deep, throaty sigh. Not a day passed when he didn't think of fate’s cruel whim, which tore him from his schooling and his hope of escaping the steel mill. He looked about him at the men and boys, sitting, sprawling, and some nodding off to sleep. Life’s harshness lined their faces and broke down their bodies. The mill went through men like worn machine parts. A man was lucky to work past forty. At twenty, Jake felt in peak condition, but he knew very well there were precious few years remaining for him at the mill. The steel left its mark on all men. His turn would come.
He closed his eyes and tried to block out the thoughts and feelings that threatened to rise to the surface. He had not adapted to the work as well as most. Oh, he had learned to go through the motions. He worked like the others. But he thought too much. His mind wouldn't rest. At first, he had tried to share his ideas with his sup
eriors.
“You’re not paid to think,” they told him.
So he became a machine. He performed the work, but his thoughts were his own.
“Hot enough for ya?” A man about Jake’s age slumped to the floor beside him.
With a weary grin, Jake nodded. “Ed.”
“Hey, Bobby? Over here,” Ed Davies called out to his little brother. Along came Bobby Davies, who looked no older than ten. He sat beside his brother long enough to roll his jacket into a pillow and rest his head upon it. Within seconds he was asleep. No longer the worker, he looked every bit the child.
The three sat in comfortable silence, allowing the sensation of rest to radiate through their depleted bodies. Too weary to bother looking at Jake, Ed stared ahead and spoke. “I hear they’re hiring over at Homestead.”
“Oh?” Jake asked wearily.
“I’m going.”
“Pittsburgh?”
“Well, you know Ida’s from McKeesport. She don’t like living so far from her family.”
Jake nodded. The day shift was filtering in now. The night workers started stirring, getting up and gathering by the exit. Jake stood and started to walk. “So, when are you going?”
A firm slap on the back diverted Jake’s attention. “Mornin’, Jake,” said his brother, Will.
Jake looked up and grinned. “Your turn.”
It was a trivial exchange that had become part of their daily routine, comfortable and familiar. Jake followed the parade of men who walked through the exit and into the morning sunlight. Jake squinted. The glaring daylight hurt his eyes. His body was spent.
But Jake liked working the night shift. He liked being able to go to the library when he woke up, although there were too many times when sleep won without a struggle. Many a time Jake was nudged awake as he slumped over a book at a library table, but he was never late for work. He had come close, but Maggie had always looked out for him. She often sent him to work with reluctance, for a steel mill was no place for a man who was anything less than alert.
