by Ron Rash
He shivered harder and each breath brought less air. The earth beneath him felt thinner, mere inches between him and a river that would sweep him into some fathomless pool where no light survived. He did not move because one foot lifted and set back down might plunge the rest of him into water. It’s only in your mind, Walter told himself, but now he could not help believing that the earthen floor was about to give way. A deep suck of air opened a space in his upper chest. His chin lifted and he readied a shout. He clamped his chattering teeth at the last moment and what issued forth was a low muffled groan. He took deep quick breaths through his nose and kept his lips pressed tight.
The barrel stopped.
“I’m sending it back,” Hank shouted.
The barrel descended, still moving through amber, but moving. You would hear the water if it were so close, Walter reassured himself. But not if water filled the cavern to the ceiling. There would be no sound now and none when he was immersed. He would be in an inescapable darkness but, even worse, a place of endless silence. Forever. Walter reached out and pressed his splayed hand into the wall’s moist dirt. He held it there and watched the barrel sink toward him.
Finally, the barrel was within reach and he grabbed the rope with one hand and the rim with the other. Walter half-pulled and half-toppled his body onto the lip, held the rope with both hands and placed hand over fist until he was completely in. The barrel rose. The hole appeared impossibly far away, and small, so small it could never widen enough to allow him through. The rope creaked and the barrel swayed with each crank, the hole still no larger than a silver dollar. Walter shifted his grip as he imagined threads of hemp unraveling with each turn of the winch. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against his clenched hands as if to buttress them. The air became less dank, and then he could feel light settling on his eyelids. He opened his eyes and looked up and the well mouth had rounded to the size of a cymbal. The muscles in his hands and forearms burned, but he was afraid to loosen them for a single moment.
His head broke through and the earth bobbled and then leveled around him. Hank pulled the barrel away from the well and Walter spilled out. He steadied himself on his knees, leaning so one palm lay flat against the ground. Laurel came out of the cabin, running toward him arms outstretched, already reaching to hold him. She fell before him, her hands on his shoulders.
Hank kneeled beside him too.
“You okay?” Hank asked.
Walter nodded and started to rise but Hank’s hand pressed firm against his shoulder.
“Rest a minute. I’m a damn fool for not spelling you. I should of known better than to leave you down there that long.”
Walter tried to rise again and Hank shifted his grip to Walter’s bicep. Laurel took the other arm and he stood.
“I’ll go back down,” Hank said.
Walter waved his hand dismissively at the remaining rocks.
“You mean it’s done?”
He nodded.
“Okay then,” Hank said. “I’ll go to the barn and batter us up some chinking, but you need to get out of them soggy clothes and warm up.”
“Come on,” Laurel said, and took Walter’s hand.
They walked around the cabin to the old well. Laurel drew a bucket of water and brought fresh clothes, a towel and washcloth. He stripped and washed, put on the new clothes. Laurel had started a fire so he sat by the hearth. She leaned over the back of his chair until her face pressed against his.
“Tell me you’re okay, with words. Please, I need to hear you say it.”
“I’m fine,” Walter said, his voice low though the door was shut.
Laurel kissed him, let her cheek resettle against his. The fire began to warm him. He shivered less and then not at all. He raised his hand and let his fingertips slowly trace the fall of Laurel’s hair from ear to shoulder. There was a joyousness in just the touching, the lithe way the strands separated and regathered, and the wonder was that he had not noticed before. So much more to know, he thought. So much.
“I’ve a surprise for you,” Laurel said, “what I’ve been working on in my room. I was going to save it for the day we left, but I don’t want to wait. Since it’s not muddy, I’ll wear it tomorrow for our picnic.”
Laurel put another log on the fire, a covey of orange sparks ascending as the wood resettled on the andirons. She pulled a chair beside him.
“I want to take you through the ship,” Laurel said. “I think I can see every part of it now. We’ve got time. Hank will have to clean up before he comes in.”
Laurel started with the reichskriegflagges on the two mastheads and worked her way through the top deck and the A B C and D decks and last the four propellers. She asked if she’d forgotten anything, and he shook his head.
“I can believe in it now,” Laurel said. “It’s as real to me as it is to you, but there is one more thing.”
“What is that?” Walter asked.
“You and me,” Laurel answered. “But I can see that too. We’re on the top deck and all around us is blue water and blue sky.”
Walter smiled.
“Can you see it?” Laurel asked.
“Yes,” he answered, and he could.
That night as Walter drifted toward sleep, the sensation of being in the well’s depths startled him awake, his heart pounding as he lay in the dark. Think about coming out of there, he told himself, think about Laurel and how the first thing you saw was her running toward you, light all around and her arms already reaching out to hold you.
V
Chapter Twenty-one
When you’re sparking, it’s all dandelions and honey, Marcie had told her, but once you’re around someone every day, things you didn’t much notice before, like the way he slurps his soup or don’t doff his muddy boots, or even the littlest thing like a tune he keeps whistling or how he lays kindling, nags at you like a sore tooth. Of course you’re showing your failings too, and he’s noticing them, and there’ll be days when you’ll fuss and both have the sulks afterward. But I’m glad I done it, Marcie said. Oh, there’s evenings you’re both too frazzled to say more than a few words to each other and times he’ll be in the field all day and you in the house and you’ll not sight him for hours at a time, but you know he’s close by. Maybe calling it being hitched ain’t the prettiest way to say you’re married, but it’s the truth to my mind and true in a good way, because you’re working together and depending on each other, and you’re sharing the load. There’s a blissfulness to that sharing, like when your little chap does something for the first time, holds his spoon or makes a cute sound, and it’d be nothing to anyone else but a marveling to you and him, because it’s all part of something that couldn’t be in the world but that the two of you brung it in together.
Yes, Laurel thought as she took the bread for their picnic from the stove, it’ll not always be dandelions and honey, but that’s okay. The cooking fire had warmed the cabin so much that she opened the door. Hank was using the hammer to loosen the rocks from the old well’s chinking while Walter carried them across the yard and set them beside the new well. There were still moments, mornings walking to the henhouse or cooking, afternoons the cliff wedged out the day’s last light, when her mind would fix on the worst imaginings—that once Walter was back outside the cove and around other women he’d realize he didn’t have to settle for her, or, no matter what Walter told her otherwise, he was just wanting a safe place to wait out the war, that the very day an armistice happened he’d pack up and leave, alone. But only moments, because then their eyes would meet or hands touch, or just the memory of such a moment, and she could believe again.
Laurel placed the bread in a tin and stepped out on the porch. Hank and Walter were raising the rock circle that would make the new well head. Walter selected a rock and tried to fit it in one spot and when that didn’t work he tried another. All the while Hank used a trowel to chink t
he gaps with manure and the horsehair from Slidell’s barn. There were beans to thread and hang and a picnic basket to fix, but Laurel decided that could wait a little while.
“Come to help now that all the hard work’s done,” Hank teased, but he and Walter looked pleased to have her with them.
Laurel began filling the gaps too, sometimes trying half a dozen rocks before one locked into place. There was a pleasure in it, like solving a puzzle. The wall rose steadily around the hole and by midmorning it was done.
“Me and Walter can get the scaffolding finished by noon,” Hank said, “then you all can go on your picnic.”
As they walked into the front yard, Laurel saw not even a single layer of rock rimmed the old well.
“A varmint could fall in there,” Laurel said, “so we best get our drinking water from the springhouse.”
While the men walked to the shed to get the hammer and nails and planks, Laurel fetched a sack of beans from the alcove and went into the cabin. She began threading the pole beans and knotting the string ends to the rafters while the men hammered the wood to build the scaffolding. By the time these beans are parched, we may be in New York and shed of this place and its ever-always miserableness, Laurel thought. And yet, she knew, if the cove had not been bleak and lonely, Walter wouldn’t have stopped here to hide or her family come here to live. Would she wish it all away—her family coming to this cove and all the bad things that had happened because of their coming, the shunning and aloneness, what Jubel and others had done to her—wish her family had instead stayed in Tennessee where a birthmark was just a birthmark and the sky held on to the sun all day?
The hammering stopped and Laurel heard the men out by the old well washing up. You go on in, I’ll put the tools up, Hank said. Walter came up the steps and Laurel turned toward the door. He stepped inside, smiling as he walked across the room, his arms opening to embrace her. No, Laurel thought, I’d live every miserable day of it again, just for this moment.
Chapter Twenty-two
Chauncey had stayed up late to confirm the train’s departure from Washington. Even when he did get in bed, the coming day’s responsibilities were like cockleburs prickling away sleep. He told his mother to bring breakfast to his room and then his lunch while he fussed over his speech, making changes first with a pencil before writing a final copy in ink. When the ink dried, he read the speech a last time before taking the fresh-pressed uniform from his closet. He put on the khaki shirt and breeches, then the socks and the garrison shoes, retying the laces twice before the bows were the exact same size. Chauncey strapped on the leggings and his Pershing Liberty belt that holstered the Colt pistol. He aligned the buckle with the breeches’ top button, then took the tunic off its hanger and put it on, last the campaign hat. As he settled himself in front of the dressing mirror, Chauncey knew that he had done all he could. He’d worked out all the music and marching wheres and whens with the grammar school and high school and he’d talked Benjamin Parton into donating nails and wood for the grandstand and he’d supervised every drag of a saw and every swing of a hammer. He’d gotten the Marshall Sentinel to write a front-page article about the homecoming and figured out exactly who’d do what during the actual ceremony. Chauncey had even purchased the boys new brown leather shoes and paid for them with his own money.
He turned his gaze to the window. The sun was out. After months of planning, the day of the homecoming had finally come, and now the weather, which had been the one worry outside his control, had aligned itself as well. Chauncey looked at the man enclosed within the mirror’s quartersawn frame and made a final appraisal, moving up from the gleaming tap toes of the garrison boots to the knife-sharp creases in the breeches to the tunic and its polished blackened bronze buttons and the collar with the RS and US aligned and the campaign hat’s centered blue cord. There wasn’t the slightest flaw. He raised his right arm and gave a crisp snap of the wrist, practicing the salute he’d give when Paul came off the train. Sergeant Chauncey Feith would square his shoulders and, even though he was a higher rank, salute the private first and hold that salute until Paul was seated and the band began to play. He looked in the mirror one more time and picked up his speech and the copy he’d made of Governor Bickett’s letter and went downstairs. His mother gave him a kiss and told him how handsome he looked and his father shook his hand and told Chauncey how proud he was.
Outside, he scanned the sky. Gray clouds bunched on the horizon but they’d not arrive until after the ceremony. No breeze swayed the weathervane so he could place Governor Bickett’s proclamation on the podium, which was much more dignified and respectful than holding it up like a dinner menu. After that it wouldn’t matter if the other five pages sailed clear to Raleigh, because Chauncey didn’t need a written speech to tell about the day Paul Clayton asked to be part of the Boys Working Reserve and Chauncey had known right away this young man was destined to be a hero by the way he comported himself, no slouching or rocking back on his heels but standing tall from the start. After just three weeks Paul had become the troop’s leader and it wasn’t just that he was the oldest at seventeen but because Paul Clayton led by example and never shirked his duty. The day Paul turned eighteen, he was at the recruiting office with his mother to sign the papers. If Tillman Estep had the nerve to show up at the ceremony, Chauncey would pause and look Estep right in the eye and say Paul Clayton wasn’t the kind of soldier who waited to be conscripted. He would recite from memory every medal and ribbon Paul had received and say that Tennesseans could toot their horn about Alvin York all they wanted but North Carolina had a soldier every bit the equal of Alvin York and that soldier’s name was Paul Clayton. Then Chauncey would step back and salute Paul again and Senator Zeller would have his say and the band would start playing and keep playing and the band and the schoolchildren would march down Main Street and following them would be Jack leading the troop and they’d march all the way back to the high school. That Hun-loving professor up on the hill wouldn’t have to fiddle with his gimcrack harness to hear it and Miss Yount would damn well hear it too and she’d not be able to raise a gnarled finger to her lips to hush it.
Nevertheless, as he came closer to town and heard a radio playing, Chauncey admitted to himself there had been one thing besides bad weather that he’d hoped wouldn’t happen, though thinking about it even now made him feel a little guilty. He knew he was being hard on himself. It was only human to want something you’d worked so hard for so long to be a success, but it still twinged his conscience that for weeks whenever an automobile horn honked or a church bell rang his first thought had been please don’t let it be over. But November ninth had come and the war was not over but that wasn’t Chauncey Feith’s fault because whatever he’d wished or not wished about the war ending didn’t matter. It was just something he’d thought, nothing more, and a thought couldn’t change what happened an ocean away.
Chauncey walked briskly up Patterson Street. At the corner of Patterson and Main he stopped and set his right toe behind his left heel and made an about face. He stepped onto the boardwalk planking and passed Parton’s Outdoor Goods, Linkletter’s Café, and Shuler’s Apothecary. All three had shades drawn and CLOSED signs on the doors. Across the street Ben Lusk ushered a customer out of the barbershop. He’d taken off his white smock and had a key in his hand. Feith Savings and Loan was shuttered and even the Turkey Trot had shut its doors, a couple of forlorn drunks lingering by the entrance. Chauncey stepped off the sidewalk and followed the train tracks to the depot.
A crowd was already gathering, some adorned in silk dresses and spiffy suits while others milled about in overalls and smocks sewn from flour sacks. There were hunched old men with canes, shouting schoolchildren, matronly women with parasols, young mothers with babies, and some professors and students. As Chauncey made his way to the grandstand, all who saw him nodded or smiled or tipped their hats. Children ran up and saluted him and several people patted his shoulder and held out
their hands to shake his. Jubel Parton said Chauncey couldn’t have picked a prettier day for a parade and Georgina Singleton agreed and told him the whole town appreciated all the hard work he’d done. Professor Dukes, who’d signed the petition and quoted Chauncey at a faculty meeting on the limits of free speech, spoke of how proud he was of Chauncey and Marvin Alexander said the same.
Chauncey nodded to all who gave him kind looks and kind words but he didn’t speak or smile. It wasn’t that Chauncey Feith didn’t appreciate the praise but a modest demeanor reflected the truth, that he was merely a soldier doing his duty. To respond any other way would be a bad example for the boys. As soon as Jack saw Chauncey, he lined the others up beside the grandstand and they all saluted. The boys looked impressive in their new shoes and washed and ironed shirts and pants. Chauncey returned the salute and blinked back a tear, because what he felt was gratitude that he’d had the opportunity to mold such fine boys into men. He told Jack that the boys wouldn’t need to line up until one forty-five and could be at ease until then. Since the library visit, there’d been times Jack had forgotten his sirs and salutes, but today Jack said yes sir loud and clear and gave a proper salute before the boys broke formation and mingled with the ever-growing crowd.
Chauncey checked the clock tower and saw that the metal minute hand would soon begin its climb upward to one fifty-five. When he looked over at the depot, he saw that Boyce Clayton was on the porch with his sister-in-law Belle, a woman who had raised a hero though she’d had to do it alone after losing her husband in a logging accident. She sat on the bench and people took her hand and spoke. Mrs. Clayton raised a balled-up handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. Chauncey was glad once again that he’d decided to place her on the stage and have Jack escort her to a seat beside Chauncey and Senator Zeller.
