by Ron Rash
Hank would bring in more kindling before he went to bed, but Laurel rose to do it. She stepped onto the porch and filled her arms. The night embraced her and for once she wanted to be in dark and in cold, because it would be all the better when she went back inside and the fire’s warmth and brightness again enveloped her. A few snowflakes came down in a slow windless fall, white and soft as dogwood petals. A tear rolled down her cheek, then another and another, and though Laurel tried to blink them back she couldn’t blink fast enough, so set the kindling down and wiped her eyes. The lift of her heart she’d felt on the outcrop she now felt again, and it wasn’t just love. She’d felt love before, known its depths when her mother died.
This was something rarer. Happiness, Laurel thought, that must be what this is. She picked up the kindling and went inside. She and Walter and Hank stayed by the hearth past midnight, and no one spoke and no one seemed to want to, as if a single utterance might break some benevolent spell that had been cast over the cabin.
Chapter Fourteen
Chauncey parked the Model T and crossed the city square, passing Governor Vance’s monument before ascending the courthouse steps. He confirmed Senator Zeller’s office number in the foyer and walked down the hall, his shoe heels making a solid confident report against the marble floor. He gave the door’s wavy glass two firm raps and waited until a woman’s voice told him to enter. The room was more austere than he’d imagined, its seating a single long pew and nothing on the walls but a framed photograph of the state capitol. The receptionist sat at a rolltop desk next to the closed inner door of the senator’s office. She had a round attractive face and black curly hair, long dark lashes like those of an actress he’d seen in a flicker show. The nameplate said MISS BEATRICE PETTY.
“I have an appointment with Senator Zeller. My name is Chauncey Feith.”
“Oh, yes,” the woman said, glancing at her calendar. “Sergeant Feith. Just have a seat. The senator will see you soon.”
“Thank you,” Chauncey said, and sat down.
A newspaper lay on the pew’s far end but Chauncey didn’t pick it up. He sat knees directly in front of him and back firm against the varnished wood, the manila folder with two copies of the official proclamation in his lap. How long the wait might be he didn’t know, which was the reason he hadn’t brought the boys along, most of all Jack, who’d been close to insubordinate since the library visit. A state senator was a very busy man and constituents, even important ones, could be left waiting for hours, but the boys might not understand that.
Yet he’d hardly sat down when the inner door opened and Senator Zeller himself invited him in. The senator gave Chauncey a firm handshake and gestured toward the nicest of three chairs opposite the desk, only then seating himself. Senator Zeller asked after his parents and spoke of his affection for Madison County.
“As beautiful a place as there is in North Carolina,” Senator Zeller declared, “and its people the salt of the earth. When duty to their country calls, they are ready, which is why I’m honored to be part of the ceremony, even if I have to cede the statehouse to the scalawags and pettifoggers for a day.”
“Your presence, sir,” Chauncey said, “will mean so much, not just to Paul Clayton but to our whole county.”
Senator Zeller leaned back and clasped his hands over his stomach.
“And there was another matter, yes?”
“Yes, sir,” Chauncey said, and took out the copies of the proclamation. “I wanted to have one framed to present to Paul Clayton at the ceremony.”
Senator Zeller set the copies on his desk and took a pen from his drawer. He signed the bottom line on both, blew the ink dry, and handed them back.
“Thank you, sir,” Chauncey said and placed the proclamations back in the folder.
“Thank you, Sergeant Feith,” Senator Zeller answered, smiling as he came around the desk, set his palm on Chauncey’s back as he led him to the door.
“Miss Petty, take a good look at this young man. With his leadership abilities he might one day assume my place in the senate.”
Unlike the young librarian at the college, the receptionist’s smile was polite and sincere. He wished now he had brought Jack along so the boy could see the respect that Chauncey Feith commanded even in a senator’s office.
“It was an honor to meet you, Sergeant Feith,” Miss Petty said.
“You as well, Miss Pretty,” Chauncey answered.
The instant they left his mouth, Chauncey wanted to grab the words midflight and strangle them. But then Senator Zeller gave a loud chortle and slapped Chauncey on the back.
“What did I tell you, young lady. He even knows how to charm his constituents.”
“Yes, sir,” Miss Petty said as she demurely lowered her eyes to the calendar.
For a few moments Chauncey stared at the secretary’s bowed head, thinking maybe he actually had meant it in a witty but flattering way. He looked up, contemplating a good-bye salute, but Senator Zeller had returned to the inner office.
The sky was overcast as Chauncey descended the courthouse steps, but it felt like the brightest noon. He settled his eyes on Governor Vance’s monument until an automobile horn broke his reverie. A limeade would be a fine way to celebrate a good day, but as he walked toward Grant’s Pharmacy, Chauncey noticed the two-story brick building with W. O. WOLFE TOMBSTONES AND MONUMENTS painted on the storefront. Shoaled on the wide front porch were slabs and blocks of varying sizes and shapes. By the shop’s open door, a huge marble angel hovered over the seeming disarray.
Chauncey turned to the shop’s smaller stone wares, some blank but others with chiseled names and dates, on one a cherub whose face, like the angel’s, had been vividly rendered. A statue would be raised in Mars Hill when this war ended, the same as after the Revolutionary and Confederate wars. A stone soldier would stand atop it with names on the pedestal inscribed in alphabetical order. Chauncey tried to recall if the earlier statues had mentioned rank. People would see his name on the statue, and that was a pleasing thing, yet it vexed him knowing Tillman Estep’s name would be above his. He didn’t mind if Paul Clayton or Wesley Ellenburg had names above his, even if they were only privates, but men like Tillman Estep didn’t deserve to be on a statue. Their names sullied the others. But there were statues with only one name. Chauncey let his gaze lift from the porch to Governor Vance’s monument. Why should he be embarrassed that he’d thought a few times about a political career, especially now that Senator Zeller had suggested that very thing.
Someone coughed inside the shop and a few moments later an old man, tall and gaunt, stooped through the open doorway, his hands and leather apron smudged with white dust.
“W. O. Wolfe, at your service, sir,” the stonecutter said, and made a slight bow. “How may I assist you?”
“Do you make monuments of real people?”
“I do,” the older man replied, “although, as you can see, more often creatures of the celestial realm.”
“And why is that?” Chauncey asked.
“Perhaps they wish an image of what they aspire to be instead of what they are,” the stonecutter replied. “The better angels of our nature, corporal as well as spiritual. I can assure you, young squire, from my own humbling experience, that as we grow infirm and life’s pleasures pale we long to free ourselves from these sad declining vessels. But enough of such dispiriting parlance. An old man’s morbid reckonings are not usually the concerns of youth, nor should they be.”
The stonecutter paused, licked the tip of his thumb and rubbed it on his apron, allowed a wan smile.
“And yet, young as you are, you have come to my shop. Noting your uniform and your temperament, might I venture you are soon destined for duty overseas?”
“I didn’t say it was for me,” Chauncey said.
“Pardon my presumption,” the older man answered. “It is indeed my hope that this war will end
before you or any others are sent. We have lost too many young men already.”
The stonecutter walked over to a partially obscured tablet little larger than a family Bible. He picked up the stone and leaned it against the wall. The old man stared at the tablet with such fixed somberness that Chauncey asked if he’d known the person.
“No, a boy from Leicester. He was killed two weeks ago in France.”
The stonecutter stepped back so that Chauncey could see the granite tablet.
“His father said he was one of the first boys in Buncombe County to volunteer.”
Beneath the four letters was carved 1892, then a hyphen, a hyphen that hitched Chauncey’s own birth date to 1918. Just a coincidence but he felt a shudder and averted his eyes. The old man said something, almost a whisper.
“What?” Chauncey asked.
“The paths of glory lead but to the grave,” the stonecutter said. “It’s a line from a poem.”
“I need to go,” Chauncey said. “Thank you for talking to me.”
“My pleasure,” the stonecutter replied, and spread his palms outward. “As you can see, my companions are less than loquacious, so any conversation is a blessing.”
As he followed the French Broad north, Chauncey turned his mind from the gravestone by thinking of a distant time when his visage, like Governor Vance’s, might command a statue. Not in Raleigh or Washington necessarily, but perhaps in Mars Hill. He imagined himself white haired and distinguished like Senator Zeller. He and Beatrice, his wife of many years, would arrive on the train for the statue’s unveiling. There would be some speeches and proclamations, and of course Chauncey would be expected to make some remarks. He’d mention first the late Senator Franklin Zeller, who had been an early mentor but also introduced Chauncey to Beatrice, and he’d mention Captain Arnold, the man who’d first believed in Chauncey’s leadership abilities. Last, he’d call Beatrice to his side and thank her for her support. Beatrice would tell about the first time they’d met and how Chauncey had charmed her with his sense of duty but also his sense of humor, calling her Miss Pretty not Miss Petty. Then Beatrice would turn to the crowd and talk about how Senator Chauncey Feith had dedicated his life to serving his country and there’d be tears on her cheeks as she said that, as this statue attests, everyone now knows Senator Chauncey Feith is a great American, a man of integrity and patriotism and valor, but it was not always the case. Beatrice would explain how the army had needed Sergeant Chauncey Feith on the home front more than they needed him on the front lines in France, where he would have gone without a moment’s hesitation and gladly given his life leading men into battle. Then Beatrice would turn to Chauncey and say that the greatest blessing in her life was being married to a man of such nobility and honor. Then they’d have him unveil the statue and the people in Mars Hill would see a figure of Chauncey in his army uniform saluting them, and they’d be inspired, generation after generation, most of all the young men who, when fighting far from home, would remember the statue and the soldier it honored.
As he drove into Mars Hill, Chauncey wished he’d asked the stonecutter which lasted longer, marble or granite.
Chapter Fifteen
As the men lingered over their morning coffee, Laurel finished the pumpkin pie they’d have for dessert come evening. She pinched the dough around the pie plate’s edges, stippled the dough with a fork as she added sugar.
“You mind getting the cinnamon for me, Hank?”
Hank was about to rise but Walter motioned for him to stay seated. Walter took the cinnamon tin from the shelf and handed it to her. She sprinkled cinnamon over the dough and set the tin beside her. Only when the men left and she was placing the tin back on the shelf did Laurel realize.
She sat down at the table and tried to remember another time she’d used the cinnamon while Walter watched her. She couldn’t remember one and even if there had been the shelf held a dozen tins the same size and shape. Laurel pondered if hearing such a long word had helped him, but Walter had known right away that it wasn’t a tin labeled sassafras or pennyroyal. She got up and stood in front of the shelf. As she searched for some difference that might explain it, other things perched in her mind—like Walter looking so carefully at the newspaper’s words and the time in bed she’d heard her name and thought it a dream, or how he’d used a pencil so familiar like, even how the words cinnamon and Vaterland looked similar.
You could have just forgot a time when he saw you use it, Laurel told herself. Besides, why would he pretend things that just made his life harder. Laurel got up and finished the pie and set it in the stove. Soon the smell of pie filled the cabin, usually a soothing thing, but not today.
After they’d finished noon-dinner, Laurel told Hank she was going to go spruce up Slidell’s house. If you get hungry before I’m back, there’s beans and potatoes, she said, waited until the men were almost to the door before telling Walter she needed his help for a minute.
“I’ll meet you outside,” Hank said.
Laurel pointed at the flour barrel, which easily weighed a hundred pounds.
“I need you to move it closer to the larder.”
As Walter lifted the barrel he gave a soft grunt. A grunt, not a puff of breath. Laurel dared not meet his eyes, instead looked toward the door. Hank had set the shotgun back by the door weeks ago. Laurel’s heart hammered against her chest as Walter crossed the room and passed within a stretched arm of the weapon.
She waited until she heard the men working before unbuckling the shotgun and prying out the shell. Laurel placed it and the extra shells in Hank’s closet under her pillow and left. Slidell was in his field cutting cabbage but Laurel didn’t pause to speak or ask to borrow the wagon. She needed to walk, to have something to do besides fret. Leaves rasped and acorns popped beneath her feet as she made her way down to the pike. What it all meant was a knot she couldn’t unsnarl, but when it did unsnarl, what then? Laurel remembered a story Slidell had told her father. One winter day Slidell and Ginny had pulled up a big oak stump in his pasture and beneath it was a good half hundred rattlers and copperheads knotted in a big ball. There was snow on the ground and Slidell said those dark bodies pulled apart and began crawling over the whiteness and it looked like he’d opened a crack in hell itself.
When Laurel got to Mars Hill, she went straight to the schoolhouse and waited on a hall bench. She smelled the chalk dust and linseed oil. Even if she were blind, Laurel would know where she was. But there had been changes. Electric wires vined the walls and there was another classroom added on the back. Laurel listened as both teachers asked and answered questions. As it got closer to two o’clock, the students fidgeted in their chairs and whispered to each other, restless as bees in a bee box.
The college’s bell rang twice and students poured into the halls with their book satchels, the town boys and girls toting their brown paper bags and lunch boxes, the country children with their milk pails. A teacher Laurel had never seen before stood at her door, telling the students not to run. When the last child left Miss Calicut’s class, Laurel stepped in the doorway. Miss Calicut was erasing the chalkboard. Laurel remembered how she’d sometimes gone outside after school and clapped the erasers together, holding them like cymbals as she raised yellow clouds that had made her cough. She looked around the classroom and saw the same colorful globe beside Miss Calicut’s desk and the same big map of the United States. But now there was also a poster that said BUY WAR BONDS and beside it a painting of a Carolina Parakeet, a real painting, not a copy. The biggest change was how the desks and the room itself were so much smaller. Laurel remembered how even in her last year her feet had barely touched the floor.
“Is it hard to believe you ever fit inside one of those desks?” Miss Calicut asked.
Laurel looked up and saw Miss Calicut had turned her way.
“Yes, ma’am. It is.”
“It’s probably even harder to imagine an old
woman like me could have ever been that small.”
“You don’t seem old.”
Miss Calicut smiled.
“Kind of you to say so, Laurel. That’s one of the best things about teaching. Being around children does make a part of me still feel young, even with my gray hair. But look at you, pretty as a bluebird.”
Laurel blushed.
“It’s the truth, Laurel Shelton, you were always pretty and smart to boot, and brave, you and your brother both. Speaking of which, I’ve heard Hank’s back from the war. That must be a blessing for you.”
“Yes, ma’am. He and Carolyn Weatherbee are going to get married soon.”
“They’ll make a good match,” Miss Calicut said. “Carolyn was a good student, though not as good as you. How about Marcie Bettingfield? Do you see her much?”
“Just at the victory jubilees.”
“She was a good friend to you, I remember that.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Here I’ve been nattering on and hardly given you a chance to speak,” Miss Calicut said. “Is there something I can do for you, or did you just come to brighten my day by visiting?”
“I need to ask about a word, the meaning of it.”
“What word?”
“I’m not sure how to say it.”
Miss Calicut handed Laurel a pencil and piece of paper.
“Vaterland,” Miss Calicut said. “I’ve never seen that word before. Did you look it up in the dictionary I gave you?”
