Bottomland

by Michelle Hoover

  “You think we have time for helping?”

  “Suit yourself,” I said. “Come spring, we can begin your side.”

  Elliot marched off. I squared my hat. Lee and Ray had stopped their work, their blades in the bank. “Until spring,” I said. “He will change his mind.”

  “What if he doesn’t?” Ray asked.

  I chewed my cheek. “You cannot help a man who will not help himself.”

  “With our banks holding, what if the water swamps his?” Lee stood next to his brother in waders. He was taller than Ray by a head, twice as broad. Still there was something small in the boy.

  “It won’t.” I bent to my work. The water snaked round my boots. When I raised my face, the wind sent me to shivering. “Lee,” I called. The boy gazed across the pastures on the far side. Elliot himself was gone. In front of their barn his son Tom stood, watching us.

  The trees turned bare with winter. Margrit and I drove to town in our wagon for the last trade of the year. The snow had narrowed the road, the river only ice and stone. Beside me, my wife pressed her hands together in her lap. When we passed the Clarks’ fences, she tapped her knuckles.

  “Haven’t seen the Clarks since weeks,” she said. Their house was dark. In the barn, one of the daughters sang a tune. The barn was dark as well.

  “I never see them much.”

  “Mrs. Clark missed sewing on Wednesday and the Wednesday before that.”

  “I suppose the county has run out of cloth for her.”

  Margrit smiled but quickly fell silent. Her eyes stayed with the house. “She has a fast hand. I’ll give you that.”

  “We have no need of Mrs. Clark.”

  My wife stirred. “We have no need of her sewing. But she and Mary are the only ones who visit us.”

  I drove on. My wife often hid her worries, but she kept her eyes on me for now. When we reached town, the streets seemed deserted. The doors closed, shutters drawn. No wagons stood before the market other than a single four-wheeled cart. Only Mr. Wilkerson walked on the path. When I nodded to him, he offered a look back. A trio of boys played with their marbles. The tallest of them held his like a fist of stones. The horses grew restless, the boys leering at us. When I stepped out to secure the wagon, I rubbed at the horses’ flanks and Margrit hurried to the market. It was then I heard a voice.

  One of the boys lay on his backside in the snow. His cheeks were red as his hair, his lips bloody. The other two straddled him with their boots on his hands. They dropped one marble after another into his mouth. The boy squirmed. The marbles struck his teeth with a wet snap. If he dared close his lips, one of the boys pried them open again. I called out to them. The two dropped their marbles just the same. The mouth of the boy filled. He was close to choking. When I took to my feet, the two raised their heads, glanced at the other, and ran. The red-haired one rolled onto his stomach, spit the marbles out. The underside of his coat was soaked with mud and snow. He gripped his stomach, tried to lift himself. Before I could reach him, he had leapt from the ground and run off as well.

  I stood in the street alone. At my feet, a frozen puddle of spit and blood and a handful of marbles, white as milk. The boys had vanished. The marbles lay sunken in the mud. I picked one up and rolled it between my fingers. At my back, the market door opened. “Wo bist du?” Margrit called. I slipped the marble into my pocket and raised my hand to her.

  Margrit held the door with its bell ringing. From the wagon I hefted our jug of cream and carried it up the steps. The weight of the jug weakened me, as did the strangeness of what I had seen. Two boys. Intent on drowning another with playthings. Inside, the market was airless. An old woman sniffed, eyeing me as if I had somehow caused her sickness. I lugged the cream to the counter. The bell sounded again. Before I could turn, something sharp and wet struck my neck. Margrit pushed at my arm. “Ignore it,” she begged. I looked to find an egg bleeding on the floor, and there was the red-headed boy, not lying now in the mud and snow but his face raw. His lips were bloody still. He stood in the door with his arm cocked from the throw of that egg, and slammed out of the place the way I supposed he would the rest of his life. An unthankful creature. A ruffian. A boy not much higher than dirt.

  “Julius,” Margrit scolded. “The cream.”

  At the counter, Mrs. Conners turned from her cash box. “That boy is my own daughter’s.”

  My wife pinched my hand. “So grown. I never would have recognized him.”

  The woman looked us over. “No, you wouldn’t.”

  Margrit blushed. “Always so many children about. Sometimes it’s hard to recognize my own.”

  Mrs. Conners hummed and moved away from us. “Never known folks who keep so to themselves. The Schultes. The Meyers. They don’t keep to themselves so much.”

  Margrit raised her voice. “We’re ready with the cream, then, Mrs. Conners.”

  “I don’t think we’ll be taking your delivery today.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “With all the trouble.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  Mrs. Conners dropped a newspaper in front of us.

  AMERICAN STEAMER HOUSATONIC SUNK

  U.S. BREAKS WITH KAISER

  “I suppose my boy has it right, doesn’t he, Mr. Hess?” said the woman. “I suppose he knows what to do. There will be more of them, boys like that. They’ll all know what to do when there’s a need.”

  I drew back, looked out the door, where I expected the boy to hover still. I reached into my pocket and felt for the marble. When I pulled it out, I found it not a marble at all but a muddied tooth. I closed it in my fist.

  “They’ll be war,” said Mrs. Conners. “Wilson is just waiting to set the Germans straight. Why, my own son, he’s itching to go.”

  That evening, we sat about the dinner table. None of us stirred once we took our seats. Margrit set her hands to the bowls and circled to fill plates. “I never thought you would lose your appetites.”

  I counted empty chairs. “Where are Esther and Myrle?”

  “In the kitchen,” explained Margrit. “They say they have a surprise.”

  No one at the table seemed eager for surprises. Agnes and Lee were more than quiet. Ray never turned his head from the window. Nan sat in her corner, her face down yet her cheeks glowing. She twisted at one of her fingers.

  “Mother . . . ,” started Agnes.

  “What is it?”

  Ray held onto his knife and fork and cut fiercely at his meat.

  “It’s Harriet,” said Agnes.

  “Harriet Clark?”

  Agnes nodded. “She said the whole town wants to know: ‘Doesn’t your father talk Kraut?’”

  Margrit cleaned her spoon off the edge of a bowl. When she took up her chair again, she unfolded her napkin into her lap one square at a time. “That’s not a proper word.”

  “It never matters how a person talks,” I said. “Those Clark girls are not smart enough to rub two pennies together.”

  Agnes wiped her cheeks. “I don’t care.”

  “Of course you care,” said her mother. “A girl with a father so sickly. Who knows what comes into her mind?”

  “Ray’s the one in trouble.” Agnes fidgeted. “Why don’t you look at him?”

  “What about your brother?” At the end of the table, Ray sat in shadow. When he raised his head, his eye appeared blackened. A bruise on his cheek. “Ray, what happened to you? What happened to him?”

  “Answer your mother.”

  The children stayed silent. Nan kneaded her hands.

  “Lee knows,” said Agnes. “He was there.”

  Lee sat next to his brother. He pressed his fork into his potatoes. “We were in the old barn on Southwood.”

  “The Asters’ place?”

  “Used to be Asters’. It’s empty now.” Lee took a
nother bite. “Some of us go there once in a while.”

  “Ray started it,” said Agnes.

  “She wasn’t supposed to be there,” said Ray.

  “Even so,” complained Margrit.

  “Patricia was there too,” said Agnes. “Ray was trying to get her attention.”

  “I don’t need her attention.”

  “But you like it.”

  “Who’s Patricia?” asked Margrit.

  “She’s sweet on Ray,” said Agnes. “So he started a fight.”

  “It was Tom Elliot who did it. And Lee just stood there like a duck.”

  Lee chewed. “Didn’t seem you needed any help.” He took another serving of beans and filled his cheeks.

  “He hasn’t a spine on him.”

  “Ray Martin,” said Margrit, “that’s your brother.”

  “It’s Tom I mean. He’s already lost a cousin over there. Signed up early with the Brits. The Germans ought to be put behind bars, that’s what he said. Said his father says the same.”

  “Nonsense,” I said. “You can’t outlaw a person.”

  Ray shook his head. “You should have seen them all agreeing. And Tom, he kept talking.”

  “So Ray hit him,” said Agnes.

  “He hit me back. But I got him worse.”

  “You don’t hit a boy all the same,” scolded Margrit.

  “They’ll take our land,” said Ray. “That’s what he said. They’ll take the farm, and set it back the way it was, rivers or not. Any German-born loses the right to property.”

  “You see?” said Agnes. “It isn’t just Harriet Clark.”

  Lee joined in. “At school, they made me and Hank Weber kiss the flag.”

  I struck my plate. “Aber was, den! You have gone to school with these children. You have known each other since you were born. And we have had this land years longer than the Elliots or the Clarks. There are laws.”

  My voice echoed. Lee slashed at his meat. Nan opened her mouth wishing to speak, but considered the better of it. I gnawed at the gristle between my teeth. Such a sour scrap I thought I might never be finished. The door from the kitchen gaped. Myrle and Esther rushed in. They held an enormous cake between them. Myrle stepped forward, her face bright, but Esther pulled up short, eyeing us. Myrle lost her grip. Catching it, Esther threw the cake onto the table. Scrawled in frosting by a fingertip: nan’s getting hitched!

  “Nan, is it true?” asked Margrit.

  Nan tried to smile. “Yes, Mother, just this afternoon. I told them, but they wanted . . .” Her hand wavered at her mouth. “Then all this trouble. I said they shouldn’t bother, but they went ahead.” Nan reached out to take both the girls by the shoulders. The ring that hung on her finger was a narrow thread. The cake appeared caved in, a chocolate cream on the surface to mask the ruin.

  “All this waste,” I said. “Our good flour, our sugar and eggs. You thought of that, Esther, of not wasting?”

  “Julius,” scolded Margrit.

  Esther bit her lip. “We didn’t waste anything.”

  “You best be sure.”

  “But Myrle made it too. We both of us did.”

  Myrle nodded. Her hands were blanched with flour. Margrit held out her arms to her. “Julius, leave Esther alone.”

  Nan took up a knife, sinking it into the cake. The knife trembled.

  “Why, Nan.” Margrit stood to take the knife herself and cut where Nan left off. “Carl’s a good man. We’re happy for you, aren’t we? Come on, everyone. This is a good thing. We have a cake.”

  Nan rested back in her chair. “That’s just it, Mother. If there’s a war, Carl will have to go.”

  “They’ll be a draft soon,” said Ray. “Wilson is just waiting.”

  I rubbed at my forehead. “Nothing will come of it. There are laws. Not even Wilson can take away a man’s land on a whim.”

  “That cousin of the Elliots had the right idea,” said Ray. “Join the Brits.”

  Lee had stopped his eating. Next to him, Ray brandished his fork.

  “Wilson,” said Margrit. “I don’t want to hear about him. You eat now. We have a cake for Nan. We have something to celebrate.”

  The next morning, a sliver of cake waited before our bedroom door. After dinner, I had taken myself to bed. I could not bother to eat a shred more of meat or anything else. The cake lay on its side on a plate, a note beneath it. For Father. With my finger, I tasted the cream. It was salt.

  “Oh,” Margrit let out. “They saved you a slice.” She rested her hands on my shoulders. “It was Esther’s idea, baking that cake. She wanted something for Nan.”

  “It isn’t much.”

  “Jon Julius, if you never give that child a chance.” Margrit moved to straighten the sheets. She seemed to spend longer to dress, wrapping her belt about her waist and pulling it tight. “They’ll never forgive us.”

  “It’s thousands of miles away,” I said.

  “It’s the Germans. I’m only glad the children know so little Deutsch.”

  “Ray and Nan,” I said. “They know what they should.”

  “I wish it were less. The Smiths, they changed their name when they first crossed over.”

  “Who are the Smiths?”

  Margrit remained quiet. She eyed the plate in my hands. There was the shortening we had from Mrs. Conners, the salt and flour. No trade. We had purchased them with dollars no less.

  “Lee and Ray won’t go, Julius. They can’t.”

  “Wilson has made nothing yet. Lee is too young by a year. If there is a war, it will be over then.”

  “What about Ray?”

  “Ray.” I sighed. “He has hornets in his stomach.”

  “Maybe that Patricia will settle him.”

  “First time I heard of Patricia.”

  Margrit sat heavily. “Poor Nan. What a day for an engagement. I so hope her Carl stays.”

  “I don’t think Nan will have a say in it.”

  “And what was Elliot going on about?”

  “The man keeps to himself, same as me.”

  “You keep to yourself too much.” She looked at me then. “I don’t like this business with the river. Could be the cause of it.”

  “Elliot will like it fine when he sees what land I save him.”

  “Have a visit with him. You can talk about the boys.”

  Outside the door, the children rose from their beds. The girls tumbled down the stairs in a rush and their chairs scraped the kitchen floor. Margrit touched her stomach and lifted her chin. “Breakfast.”

  My wife stood and wavered. I reached out my hand, but she set herself right. I watched her go. Her footsteps were quiet in the narrow hall. We had no need of others, surely. Yet had I kept her too much at my side? This house and the comfort in it, it was her own making. Her words to the children were always kind. For myself, I was helpless to extend more than shouts. “They’ll take the land,” Ray had said with his bruised face. “If there’s a war,” said Nan. Of the evening before, only the wreckage of the cake remained. War was coming. Though far overseas, I feared it was gaining on us. If it crossed that ocean, how easily it might bring us to ruin.

  III

  Wilson announced the draft at the beginnings of June. A million more men he wanted. A million he would gain. Mrs. Conners sewed a flag to raise in the center of town. Mothers scurried to fatten their sons before the arrival of notices. Ray spent his hours combing the winter crops for pests. The fences along our westernmost acres he insisted on mending, though they needed none. One noon dinner he wandered in late in his boots and cap. At the table, only Margrit and I remained.

  “I don’t see the point in waiting for my card.”

  I rested my cup beside my plate. “You will wait.”

  “Why?”

  “We need you for the fall harvest.
With the new acres I need two boys, not one, and soon those acres will double. Wilson can hang his war for all I care. We still have a third of the riverway to finish. Have you forgotten?”

  “What if they draft me before then?”

  Across from me, Margrit gripped her fork. Her face was flushed, her gaze fallen to Ray’s throat.

  “No,” I said. “I have the new reaper. And the winter wheat is ready for a pass.” I rose to my feet and gazed down at the table with its dishes and scraps. “Come now. If you don’t plan to eat anything, we can start.”

  The boy raised his head to speak. He turned instead and rushed out. Margrit brought her napkin to her lips.

  “He won’t go if I can keep him.” I touched her shoulder, but she flinched. Since months, the sure-­bloodedness of my wife had grown thin. She stood to gather plates, though the plates seemed heavy for her.

  At last she spoke. “We can’t keep him.”

  Outside, both my sons were at work in the corral. They had the reaper brought out and two of the horses. They readied a third. “That old machine,” I said, “it was little more than a scythe on wheels. But this . . .” I clapped the bullwheel. “This is mechanization. We need only two horses.”

  “Two?” asked Lee.

  “Buck and Telly, they will make it just fine.”

  We led the horses to the northernmost field. The rest of our acres were corn and oats, yet the winter wheat was an earlier harvest by months. The following season, I planned not to plant a row of the crop, difficult as it was. Now I hoped it kept Ray from sitting at tables and making pronouncements. The boy trailed silently behind us. Yards from where we walked, the river ran with noise enough.

  “Look at that,” said Lee. The water kept to its channel on our side, yet on the far bank it stole clots. Elliot was losing more soil than gaining.

  “You boys make a start. You’ll be able to handle this alone. I’ll be seeing Elliot about the river. We will set him right.”

  I had not since the fall seen Elliot. I had not gone outside our acres in the months following our trip to town the winter before. Our work in the spring and summer kept us home. Still I carried that tooth in my pocket, a reminder. In my heavy boots, I crossed the fields. The beginnings of June, yet the month had rushed at us with the heat of August. Since a week, the soil had been hot to the touch. It steamed underfoot even after the sun had gone. Now the wind swung eastward. The sky hung above us with spits of rain, steaming the ground further still.