by Ron Rash
He wedged himself against the dirt wall and began filling the barrel with the blasted rocks, working solely by feel. He chunked a last rock in the barrel and tugged the rope and the barrel rose, his hands on its wooden sides, leveling the ascent. Shovel in hand, Walter stabbed the soil loose around the last dynamited stones and tried to turn his mind to something other than unraveling ropes and crumbling walls.
He thought of Goritz and how after the charity concert the conductor had sought him out and asked where Walter had studied. When he answered Leipzig with Herr Schuler, Goritz nodded approvingly. Your talent is being wasted, Goritz had said. I will audition you and if it goes well I can, if you wish, get you United States citizenship. You are not quite ready yet, though. For the next six months, practice until your arms ache and your lips bleed. The suffering will be good for you. A slight smile had crossed the conductor’s face. If you haven’t already found a woman who will break your heart, find one. What we played tonight, especially the Mozart, requires suffering.
April sixth. He’d marked the audition date on his calendar, but as winter moved into spring rumors of an American declaration of war were rampant. Off the Vaterland, he spoke as little as possible. Commodore Ruser made no pronouncements but most onboard believed they would be forced to sail for Europe. Men spoke of the Lusitania and presumed the Vaterland’s chance of survival no better. That last evening as Walter walked back to make curfew, there were more indications of a coming war. The window of Heinaman’s Shoe Repair had been shattered. Men passed a whiskey bottle outside Schuman’s Hoffbrau House and bellowed about traitors. A man set fire to a poster advertising Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Walter thought about going to Goritz right then, but the flute and all his savings were on the ship. He went on, passing a drunk searching for a recruitment office, a stevedore lingering on a church step, a thumbprint of ash smudged on his forehead. He was already on the dock when he saw the American flag on the Vaterland’s masthead, the pier and deck crowded with soldiers and policemen. He turned to flee, but he’d been seen. He was caught and shoved into the back of a police wagon, taken to a Bowery jail.
The barrel eclipsed the well mouth’s center, leaving only a rind of light. The barrel descended and Walter threw in the last dynamited rocks, picked up the shovel and began digging as best he could in such narrow quarters. He tugged the rope and the filled barrel rose. The darkness dimmed slightly and Walter looked up. The well mouth was clear and the air around him felt less constricted. He leaned against the earthen wall, felt its dampness on his back. The barrel reappeared, swaying on its rope above him.
He had seen the dead man on the way to North Carolina. When the train stopped at a crossroads in Virginia named Damascus, he and his forty-nine shipmates stretched and smoked on the depot’s platform. No handcuffs bound their wrists but the guards had shotguns and billy clubs at the ready. As the men were herded back onto the train, one of the guards said a local attraction was just up the line, something they’d not want to miss. The guard must have told the engineer, because when a bridge came into sight, the train slowed. The dead man was naked except for a pair of soiled pants and a single dress shoe gleaming blackly in the late-morning sun, its lace untied. Blood clotted on his face and chest. The man’s head leaned toward one shoulder, as if curious at what had befallen him. A placard dangled from his neck, the word Hun charring the wood. Try to escape, one of the guards told them, and that will happen to you.
After a while he and Hank changed places. Though bringing up the barrel was harder work, Walter was glad to be out of the hole. But Hank’s missing hand made his working below difficult and much slower, so after lunch Walter stayed in the hole until Laurel called them for dinner. They were both so mud sodden that Laurel laid clean clothes on the old well’s corbelled head. He and Walter stripped and shared the soap and water.
“That was as full a day’s work as we’ve ever done,” Hank said as they dressed. “I’m sorry you’re the one has to stay in that hole all the while, but with me down there it’d be Christmas before we hit water.”
Hank went on inside but Walter lingered. He looked up at the cliff. With the shorter days, it seemed even more massive, further narrowing the light. So different from the ocean’s endless above. He suddenly remembered the Vaterland’s gold sextant. Another detail for Laurel. In the last days, the ship had become more vivid to him than any time since he had left New York. Sometimes it was as if he saw it more clearly now than when he’d been on it. Laurel too. She now knew half the ship as well as he did.
Laurel stepped out on the porch.
“We’re waiting for you, Walter.”
He nodded and went on inside.
Chapter Eighteen
They had been lucky. As wearisome as the digging was, Hank and Walter at least hadn’t hit more rock. They were fifty feet deep according to Hank’s rough measuring, close enough that on Tuesday Hank borrowed Slidell’s wagon to order the pulley. Laurel went with him to buy the dress she’d wear the day she and Walter left for New York. As they came into Mars Hill, a newsboy held up a newspaper that proclaimed ARMISTICE WITH TURKEY, beneath WAR SURE TO END SOON. Good that I did come today, Laurel thought, I may have need of that dress this very week.
“I figure that new pulley to set us back a few bucks, but it’ll last till we all got gray hair,” Hank said.
Laurel nodded. It would, though she and Walter wouldn’t be around to see that happen. A lot of wasted work, especially if Hank couldn’t sell the farm. Though with Laurel gone, she believed there was a much greater chance of finding a buyer. If it did sell, she’d take none of the money. It was part of something she wanted to be shed of completely.
Hank found a free post in front of the depot and helped Laurel off the buckboard. A sound like volleys of rifle shots came from the depot’s far side.
“What the hell is that?” Hank asked, and they walked onto the depot’s planking to see.
Chauncey Feith stood in front of a grandstand completed but for the steps and railing. The Boys Working Reserve wielded saws and hammers as Chauncey gave orders over the din.
“Must be part of the big to-do next week for Paul Clayton,” Hank said.
“I guess there’s worse they could be doing,” Laurel said.
Hank nodded and turned his gaze back toward town.
“So I’ll go on over to Lingefelt’s and order the pulley, buy a new rope and pail, couple of other things. What about you?”
“I’m just going to the dress shop.”
Hank took out his watch and checked the clock tower.
“Let’s meet back here in twenty minutes.”
As Hank walked up the street, Laurel looked at the town spread out before her. This could be the last time she came to Mars Hill except to board a train to leave it. As her eyes passed over the storefronts, then above to the college, she wanted to feel something besides bitterness. It wasn’t all of them, Laurel told herself. There was Doctor Carter and Miss Calicut and Marcie, and Professor Mayer, he’d been kind to her. Mr. Shuler had been nice when she’d traded there, and Tillman Estep, who’d stared at the ground as he handed Laurel a five-dollar bill. To help you through until your brother gets home, Estep had said. No, Laurel thought, not all of them.
She touched the dress pocket to make sure the three silver dollars were still there. It would be a new dress for a new life. As Laurel crossed the street and stepped onto the boardwalk, she thought how good it would be to live where no one knew anything about her. People weren’t supposed to be friendly in cities, but how could there not be more smiles and nods than here.
Inside the cloth shop, a group of women stood by the counter, Mrs. Dobbins on the other side. This is the last time, Laurel reminded herself, and took a deep breath. When she walked in, the women quit talking. She saw only Mrs. Dobbins’s face but knew its sour expression was matched by four more. Laurel went to the back of the shop and slowly thumbed through the wo
oden trays, finally decided which pattern she liked best. The dress’s shoulder straps were thin and would reveal the birth stain, but that didn’t matter to her because it didn’t matter to Walter. She stepped among the bolts of cloth, wished she’d asked him his favorite color. Laurel pondered what it might be, trying to remember if he’d made special notice of her blue-checked gingham dress or yellow ribbon. If he had, she couldn’t recall it. Then she remembered something else.
The women were talking again and their tone and glances toward the back of the store made the topic clear. Laurel found a striped cloth she liked but instead decided on a solid. She checked the pattern and turned toward the counter.
“I need five yards of this one,” Laurel said.
The women turned as one, as if offended that she’d spoken in their presence.
“Excuse me,” Mrs. Dobbins said, and came around the counter with her cutting shears.
Mrs. Dobbins rolled the cloth off the bolt, cut it with quick ragged snips as an older woman came into the shop. She wore a cloche hat and a yoke-collar dress. A diamond sparkled on her hand and pearls big as marbles hung around her neck.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Garvey,” Mrs. Dobbins said, bunching the cloth and handing it to Laurel like it was a dirty dishrag.
Mrs. Dobbins bustled over to where Mrs. Garvey stood.
“What may I help you with today, ma’am?”
“I’m having a dress made for my granddaughter. Some nice silk, if you have it.”
“Yes, ma’am, we have an array of lovely crepe de chines,” Mrs. Dobbins said. “Over here by the window.”
Mrs. Garvey examined the silk as Laurel stepped to the counter.
“Excuse me just for a moment, Mrs. Garvey,” Mrs. Dobbins said.
Mrs. Dobbins took Laurel’s three silver dollars and placed them in the cash register. She laid two quarters and a dime on the counter, took out a handkerchief, and wiped her hands. The women around the counter gave smirks of approval. Old biddies, that’s all they are, Laurel thought. An image from childhood came to her. A hawk had grabbed a baby chick and then lost its grip. The biddy was hurt and bleeding and the other biddies began pecking it. Because that was what biddies did, she’d learned that day. They found one of their own sick or hurt and took turns pecking it to death.
“Six yards of this one,” Mrs. Garvey said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Mrs. Dobbins answered, and reached for the shears, “and I must tell you, Mrs. Garvey, that is the finest cloth in the store.”
“You’ve wiping your hands,” Laurel said, “you did that because you think me a witch, Mrs. Dobbins?”
Mrs. Dobbins reddened. For a few moments she stared at Laurel, then turned to Mrs. Garvey.
“The very finest cloth, Mrs. Garvey, I can assure you of that.”
“So you think me a witch or not?” Laurel asked again, loud enough that Mrs. Garvey stared at her.
“So what if I do,” Mrs. Dobbins hissed, and came around the counter, brushed past Laurel.
“Then you’d better warn Mrs. Garvey that I touched that silk just a few minutes ago. I hexed it, so there’s no telling what might happen to her granddaughter.”
Laurel picked up her change and walked outside. Hank waited by the wagon, the rope and bucket and a salt lick stashed in the bed. Laurel crossed the street. Chauncey Feith and his boys were still working on the scaffold, saws grinding amid the hammers’ sharp reports. Hank unhitched Ginny and they rode up Main Street. The sun was out but a steady wind made the air chilly. Laurel raised her coat lapels and covered her neck.
“That’s some fancy cloth you bought, sister,” Hank said. “What will you make with it?”
“A dress.”
“Looks to be for a special occasion,” Hank said, and smiled. “You and Walter ain’t made plans to get hitched without telling me, have you?”
You’ve been spiteful enough for one day, Laurel told herself, but she couldn’t hold her tongue.
“You mean the way you did me?”
Hank stared at the reins.
“I was wrong to do that, wrong about some other concernings too,” Hank said. “Things are going to be different. They already are. The farm’s in better shape than it’s ever been. The crops proved out a good harvest and the livestock’s stout. It shows a prospering has come to the cove. Even Carolyn’s daddy admitted as much. Now I’ve got Carolyn and you’ve got Walter and I’m figuring things to only keep getting better, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Laurel said, and she did believe they would. It just wouldn’t be here.
“The way people see us, it’s changing.”
“For you,” Laurel answered.
“But it will for you too,” Hank said, “just give it time. I’ve been thinking about what lays ahead for all of us. After a year or two Carolyn and me could move back. It’s the gloaminess that bothers her, so we could build a house on the ridge near the creek. Cut down some trees and we’d have sunshine aplenty. You and Walter could do the same, leave that darksome cabin to the spiders and salamanders. The bottomland has some rich soil, Daddy was right about that, and it’s been fallow so long we’ll have bumper crops for sure. All of us could make a good life there, and you and me could finally have a real family, with cousins and aunts and uncles. Folks won’t have the least cause to shun us.”
The way Hank described it, Laurel could almost believe it might happen. It was like a map unfurled with just enough dots and names to look real. A last beguiling to keep her here, not by Hank but by the cove itself, allowing her to dream the place different. But it wouldn’t be different, not really. There would always be folks like Mrs. Dobbins. Even Walter, what would he believe, and blame, if the first cow died of milk fever, or a hailstorm flailed the life out of three months’ work. If she got pregnant and something went wrong.
“The dress I’m making,” Laurel said, “it’s a surprise for Walter, so don’t let on.”
“I won’t,” Hank said.
They were on the Marshall pike now, and Laurel turned her mind to the Vaterland’s B deck first, moving through the Ritz-Carlton restaurant and the wintergarden’s palm trees and flowers and gilt latticework, then on through the ship’s library with its glassed bookcase and blue oriental rug, finally the social hall, the biggest room of all and where the orchestra had played. There were two elevators and three winding staircases with bronze banisters, windows framed with pilasters and oak walls, four oil paintings of Pandora. There was a half-moon stage with a grand piano and above it all a glass ceiling.
As the wagon jolted onto the wayfare, Laurel moved on to the A deck, starting in the smoking room with its brass lanterns dangling from the ceiling, stained-glass windows, the white-stone fireplace Walter told her a grown man could stand in, its andirons heavy as another ship’s anchor. By the time they got to Slidell’s, Laurel had imagined all of the A, B, C, and D decks. It was like a jigsaw puzzle in her head, some pieces missing but enough that Laurel was starting to have it all connect.
Slidell came out and helped get Ginny unhitched and back in her stable. Stay and have a drink if you’re not averse, he told Hank, so Laurel walked on alone to the cove. Walter was by the shed, chopping logs into kindling. She took the cloth and pattern to her room and came back outside.
“Be careful,” Laurel said as she approached. “Those fingers of yours are going to have to keep us out of the poorhouse.”
Laurel took the axe from his hand, leaned closer, and kissed him softly on the mouth.
“Let’s go inside where it’s warmer,” Laurel said. “Hank’s having a dram with Slidell, so we got some time to talk.”
But Walter shook his head and led her a few yards into the woods. They faced the notch to watch for Hank. Overcautious, Laurel thought, but not to be swayed in the matter. He’d yet to speak a single word on the porch or in the cabin.
“Hank talked to me today
about him and Carolyn coming here to live with us,” Laurel said. “It’s not likely crossed his mind we could be leaving.”
“And that is how we want it to stay,” Walter said.
“I know,” Laurel said.
She took his right hand, brought it around her waist, and settled her back against his chest.
“A newspaper claimed the war’s all but over. It said there’s been an armistice with Turkey.”
“Perhaps so,” Walter said. “After so long, it is an amazement anyone remains to fight.”
“When it does end,” Laurel said, “all I will take with me I can wrap in a bedsheet. Ten minutes and I’ll be ready. I want us to leave that very day, even if we have to walk to Mars Hill.”
Laurel saw Hank coming down from the notch. Still a while though, before he got to the cabin.
“We have time for you to tell me about the E deck.”
“There was a swimming bath,” Walter said, “and twin marble staircases led down to it, and a statue made of black marble.”
“What was it a statue of?” Laurel asked.
“An angel,” Walter said.
Chapter Nineteen
On that Sunday afternoon four months ago, the first thing Chauncey had seen as he crossed the river was the Mountain Park Hotel looming over the whole town. It was even grander than he had supposed, four stories high with two cupolas rising even higher. He’d heard the hotel’s interior was spartan since becoming part of a prison camp, but it was still a magnificent building the Vaterland’s officers were allowed to occupy. One of them stood on the hotel porch, and because of the white beard and white uniform, Chauncey knew which officer it was. Beside the hotel were a dozen barracks and around them wells and coal bunkers and even a blacksmith shop. A fence surrounded the hotel and barracks, but though it looked to be a good ten feet high, Chauncey noted that a man who would risk a few barbs in his hands could scale it easy enough. He slowly passed the barracks and saw the Germans milling about. Some played cards or pinochle while others smoked and lounged. They weren’t wearing shackles and it had looked to Chauncey more like a church camp than a prison. One Hun was at the fence, talking to a pretty young woman outside the wire, a local girl from the look of her flour-print dress. No one appeared to care that she and the Hun could be passing information or a weapon. As he passed, Chauncey saw their fingers touched through the wire.
