A Stranger Here Below

by Charles Fergus

  “Mr. Thompson—the ironmaster—he was from down Philadelphia way. Just as much a stranger as you, y’might say. He was a sharp dealer and a good manager. His business grew. The ironworks prospered.

  “When we lived at Panther,” the old woman continued, “we went to the church in the village. Presbyterian. The Reverend McEwan preached there. A sturdy red-headed man, in his fifties, as tall as you, maybe even a little taller. Strong as an ox. And fiery! Apt to blow up at little things—men drinking or gambling or swearing, women spreading gossip and lies. Then he would preach a sermon that would have Christianized the Old Boy himself.

  “His daughter, Rachel, was a pretty girl, small and dark. She must’ve took after her ma, who died when Rachel was young.”

  Gram Burns abruptly stood. “I have left us run out of coffee. Let me make another pot.” Gideon objected that he was fine, but the old woman shushed him. As she made the coffee, she rambled, “It’ll be a long hard winter, you can tell so, by how many acorns the oaks has got and how the hickory nuts are falling like hailstones.” She poured boiling water, swirled the coffee in the pot. “The groundhogs are fat as pigs. That’s another sign we’ll get walloped by the snow and the cold. I hope you got your wood in.”

  She brought over the pot and refilled their mugs. “Want some rum in yours?”

  “All right. Yes.” The old woman’s coffee could use sweetening. Gram Burns got out a jug and poured a dollop of dark rum into each of their mugs.

  She settled onto the bench again. “Where was I?”

  “The preacher’s daughter.”

  “Rachel.”

  “How old was she?”

  “Marryin’ age, early twenties. The girl had some schoolin’; she was well spoken, not rough like me and mine. A stranger, too, you could say, but she didn’t hold herself too good to nurse a sick neighbor, or put up food from their garden, or join in a quilting or a husking bee.

  “All the young men were sweet on her. But I think they understood she was above them. The two men who really wanted her, and who courted her, were the ironmaster and the judge.

  “In the big house, we heard all the stories. Mr. Thompson tried to give Rachel a gold ring and a silk dress, but she refused them. He proposed marriage; she turned him down. All along I think she had her cap set for the judge.”

  Gram Burns looked down into her mug. “It was good to get on at the ironworks. Zeke and I, we had bought this place from my folks. I buried two children here; we had our share of terrible lean years. At Panther, the work was regular. We made sure we didn’t owe the company store, and managed to save some money. We could’ve left there and come back to this farm any time we wanted.

  “So I had some independence. I was older than Ad Thompson by a few years. Only once did he put his hands on me.” She raised fierce eyes to meet Gideon’s. “You wouldn’t credit it, looking at me now, but I was once a woman that would turn a man’s head. When Mr. Thompson took hold of me, I slapped him hard across the face and yelled out so the others would hear—‘You touch me again, I will have the law down on you!’

  “He let go and never bothered me again.” She lifted her chin. “He trifled with more than a few of the women who worked for him. Some fought him off, others didn’t. He pestered my daughter-in-law, but she wouldn’t have none of it, either. True worked in the big house before she married you. What has she said? He ever try anything on her?”

  Gideon felt his face heat up. True had never mentioned anything about the ironmaster taking advantage of women. But he didn’t want to get sidetracked, didn’t want to stop the old woman’s story. “You were telling me about Rachel.”

  “No, I was telling you about the ironmaster.” Gram Burns stared at him, then drank from her mug again. “At the time you are interested in, there was half a dozen of us working in the big house. Mr. Thompson even had him a nigger butler, name of Harvey. Black as that kettle on the hearth. Such airs he put on, and him no more’n a slave. I can’t tell you what become of him, maybe he bought his freedom or maybe Mr. Thompson sold him off, but I know for a fact he don’t work there anymore.

  “Mr. Thompson’s brother Nat lived there, too. Nat was a few years younger than Ad. They were close, them two, thick as thieves. Nat was a sturdy fellow with blond hair that he wore long and washed every other day. Fancied himself quite the ladies’ man. That made another pair of hands you had to watch out for.

  “Nat sometimes took the iron to Pittsburgh. Back then, they cast the pigs in ingots shaped like a U to fit over a mule’s back. He’d head out leading a string of mules, with a gang of men to help him. Sometimes my husband went along, but Zeke knew I didn’t like him going off like that, so he tried to avoid it.

  “When Nat came back, he’d be full of stories about how he’d pleased some rich woman in bed, or won a pile of money betting on a horse race, or whipped some man twice his size in a fight.

  “As well as spouting such hogwash, he drank. It seemed like every other word out of his mouth was an oath. He didn’t care for real work. Sometimes he drove the ironmaster’s carriage—drove it fast as Jehu when Mr. Thompson weren’t with him.

  “One fall, right around this time of the year, the Reverend McEwan hired Nat to work on a barn he was building. We all laughed at that; we didn’t think it would go too well. Mr. Thompson had sent Nat over to the reverend, saying he ought to lend a hand. Which that was odd, on account of the ironmaster hadn’t forgotten how the preacher’s daughter had thrown his proposal back at him, and I expect he grudged the reverend for favoring Judge Biddle as well—by then, you see, Rachel was engaged to marry the judge.

  “Nat said the work didn’t agree with him. He’d come home of an evening and brag on how he had slacked off whenever the preacher turned his back. It weren’t long before they got into it. We heard that the reverend knocked him down—which Nat no doubt richly deserved, with that mouth of his. But no charges were filed, and it seemed to blow over. Nat even went back to work for the reverend. Then one evening he didn’t show up for supper. Didn’t come home the next day, either.

  “Some figured Nat had lit out for Pittsburgh. Others reckoned he’d gone back to Philadelphia. Then some women said they were walking past the parsonage, and on the other side of the hedge they saw the reverend and Nat fighting. That turned out to be the last time anyone saw Nat Thompson alive.”

  Gram Burns inspected what was left in her mug, took a last sip, and set the vessel down.

  “They found Nat’s body buried in the garden at the parsonage. The Reverend McEwan was charged with murder and put on trial. Judge Biddle presiding.” The old woman’s eyes were unfocused; she nodded slowly to herself. “The reverend confessed. The news got to Panther real quick. A cry went up from folks gathered down at the company store. I was out sweeping the porch on the big house, and I heard them people from all the way down there. I tell you, there was a lot of sympathy for the reverend. Everyone felt sorry for him, even knowing what he’d done.”

  With a groan, the old woman hitched herself up from the bench. She shuffled to the cabin’s door and opened it. Outside, the ground was white. In the dirty light Gideon saw Maude standing in the pasture with her tail to the wind and an inch of snow on her back.

  Gram Burns shut the door. “You’d catch your death, riding out in this. You’d best stay the night. True will know why you didn’t come home.”

  She went to the hearth, swung the kettle away from the fire, and dished out two bowls of the stew whose fragrance had, for the last hour, been making Gideon’s stomach rumble.

  “Sam Bainey, down the holler, he’s married to my girl Peg,” Gram Burns said. “Killed him a buck last week and brought me a haunch and the neck meat.”

  Other than saying a long and complicated grace, the old woman didn’t speak during the meal. Afterward, she sent Gideon out to feed the animals. The snow came down hard, icy needles that stung his face. The hay was dusty and stemmy, but it was all the old woman had in her barn. He wondered how she got her hay in;
probably her daughter and son-in-law helped her.

  Inside, he found her seated on the bench, staring at the fire, her cup—and his, warming on the hearth—filled with rum. Taking the cup and sitting on the other bench, Gideon sought to get Gram Burns back to the story. All he had to say was “The Reverend McEwan …”

  “Come the day of the hanging,” she said, “Mr. Thompson told us we should all go and watch. Said it would be a lesson to us. So we packed lunches and walked in to Adamant.

  “Gigs and wagons was all over the town, and horses tied to trees. The crowd covered the ground outside the courthouse; you could’ve walked on the people’s shoulders. When they brought the reverend from the jail, someone yelled ‘Hats off!’ He went along in front of the cart that carried his coffin; him, the sheriff, and a preacher from another church in town. Two men marched behind them, one beating a drum and the other playing a fife.

  “The reverend had on black smallclothes and white stockings. They obliged him to carry his own rope, with the noose slung around his neck. When he got to the gallows tree, he climbed up on the cart. His face was pale and sweating, but he smiled like he didn’t have a care in the world. He looked out over the crowd and spoke. His voice was strong. He quoted from the Book of Lamentations: ‘The Lord hath despised in the indignation of His anger the king and the priest.’ He said that he had become swollen with pride and had let hatred rule his heart, which led him to commit a terrible sin. For this, the Lord had covered him with shame and laid him low with sorrow, so that he might finally see the glory of God and be raised up again through his son Jesus Christ.”

  The flickering light from the fire reflected in the old woman’s eyes. “The reverend spoke of the fires of Hell but said he would not be burning in them, for he had repented his sins and received God’s grace. We should all of us do the same, he told the people. He quoted from the Bible again: ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as the snow.’

  “They offered him a hood, but he shook his head. The sheriff fixed the noose and drew it tight. The reverend looked up, a smile on his face, like he could already see the angels coming to carry him to glory. The sheriff looked to Judge Biddle for a sign. The judge was staring at the ground, shaking so hard it seemed he must fall down dead himself.

  “I couldn’t watch, and turned my face away. I happened to look at the ironmaster, who stood not far off. He had a smile on his face—that tight, upside-down smile he likes to wear.

  “They whipped the horse and drove the cart out from underneath the reverend. Out of the tail of my eye I seen him jerking and kicking at the end of the rope. People cried out, and some turned and ran. But Mr. Thompson stood there smiling as he watched the reverend die.”

  The fire crackled, and the wind hummed in the chimney.

  “Rachel’s brother arrived in Adamant the next day. He and his sister buried their father, and then they left. Far as I know, they never came back here again.”

  The old woman looked at Gideon with her sharp eyes. “Now you know about the preacher’s doom. A sad enough tale, like so many in this world. Does it help you any?”

  “I’m not sure.” Gideon got up from the bench and stretched his legs. He found himself standing by the small wooden chest on whose top rested a scattering of bright creek-polished stones, some small animal bones, and the root of a plant, ivory-colored and split into two legs so that it looked like a little misshapen man. He thought it must come from der buschabbel, the mandrake plant. Folk down home believed the buschabbel had great magical powers. Hexes used it in casting their spells. You had to dig it out of the ground with care; if you just pulled it out, its scream would drive you mad.

  Also sitting on the chest was the owl’s severed foot. Gideon picked it up. It was shaped like an X, with two toes in front and two in back, each toe tipped with a curved, needle-sharp talon. The toes were clenched shut, leaving between them a small hole that an eye could peer through. He held out the foot to Gram Burns. “Can you look through that hole and tell me anything? Anything that would explain why the judge killed himself?”

  He was surprised—downright shocked—to hear such a thing come out of his mouth.

  “What’s the matter? My story ain’t good enough for you?” Gram Burns shook her head. “I don’t have the power to look into the past. Just memories, same as anybody else.” She took the owl’s foot in her bent and wrinkled fingers. She looked at it for a moment, then held it up between herself and the firelight. She leaned her head forward and looked through it.

  Quickly she set it down again.

  O may we all remember well,

  The night of death is near

  Eleven

  At times the old woman’s snoring was regular, like two vigorous men ripping boards with a pit saw. At other times it was as random as a hog rooting through slop. Between bouts of snoring Gram Burns twisted and turned on her cornhusk mattress, filling the cabin with rustling, crackling sounds.

  Gideon lay awake on his own pallet. Troubling images flashed through his mind. He pictured the red-haired preacher Thomas McEwan standing on the cart, the horse pulling it out from under him, the condemned man writhing and kicking at the rope’s end, the ironmaster smiling cruelly as the preacher strangled to death—and Judge Biddle being forced to watch.

  His thoughts flipped to the ironmaster’s despicable treatment of women. He imagined True being molested by the powerful man who employed her. What if Adonijah Thompson had overpowered her, raped her? Gideon couldn’t bear to imagine it. Would his feelings toward True change if he learned that such a thing had happened? He squirmed on the hard bed. True hadn’t been a virgin when they made love that first time. Well, he hadn’t been either. But what if she had willingly submitted to the ironmaster’s advances? Or worse?

  He lay on his back staring up into the darkness. He ground his teeth together. Could True have had designs to marry into the ironmaster’s status and wealth? Should he ask her about any relationship with the man? But what could that do, other than shame her or bring back awful memories? If she’d wanted to tell him anything, she would have done so. And if Adonijah Thompson had indeed raped True Burns, or any other woman, should he be arrested? What was the statute of limitations for rape?

  He sat bolt upright and wiped the sweat from his face. He reminded himself that he loved his wife. She was the dearest person to him in the whole world. He tried to convince himself that past miseries and pains should be forgotten. If you forgot things, if you thrust them from your mind, they lost their power to affect you. Shouldn’t he just try to forget about Judge Biddle’s suicide, put it behind him? And, if he was rational about it, shouldn’t he banish from his mind his memmi’s murder as well? As if he ever could.

  When he could no longer bear the old woman’s snoring or the feverish unspooling of scenes inside his head, Gideon got up and pulled on his boots. Outside the cabin, the snow still fell. He stood on the doorstep, listening to the hissing of millions of flakes as they swirled down out of the black sky. He heard, far off, the howling of a wolf, then more voices joining in, the mournful wailing of the pack punctuated with deep, guttural barks. You never heard wolves anymore in the Dutch country. In Colerain County they were common. He stood in the cold until he began to shiver. Then he went back inside. He wrapped himself in the quilt and finally slept.

  In the morning Gram Burns said little. She had a distant look on her face, as if she were exploring some lost world inside her head. Maybe she’d gone a bit narrisch over the years—no doubt it was easy to go a little crazy when you lived by yourself and grew old alone. Look where solitude and memory had taken the judge.

  He thanked Arabella Burns for his breakfast, saddled Maude, and left the cabin. The sky was just beginning to lighten. He rode toward Adamant on an unmarked track. The snow had stopped, but the sky was still leaden. No animals showed themselves in the forest, nor birds in the air.

  The farm folk were all indoors, like beasts gone to lair. Smoke issued from the chimneys of
the houses and cabins he passed. Yet this must be but a temporary pause in the laboring. It was still October, the twenty-seventh day of the month; crops needed to be brought into barns, animals slaughtered and their flesh smoked or salted, apples and potatoes and turnips and carrots laid away in barrels of sand, fuelwood cut and split, pine boughs and cornstalks banked against the weather sides of dwellings.

  He mulled over what True’s grandmother had told him. And he wondered what she had seen when she peered through the owl’s foot. He had asked her about that, twice—once right after she’d put the thing down like it was on fire, and again this morning, and both times she had refused to meet his eyes or to answer.

  Worry grew in his brain like ice invading a pond. After his memmi died, he worried that every time he opened the door to a room, every time he walked around the corner of the house or the barn, he would find someone he loved lying there murdered.

  He got back to town by midday. The snow was melting, turning the streets into mud. At home, when he pulled open the door, True flew into his arms.

  “Did you miss me?” she said.

  “Of course I missed you.”

  “I didn’t miss you much,” she said, grinning back at him. “I took a hot brick to bed to keep my toes warm, since I didn’t have your big feet for that.”

  David lay bundled in a quilt on the floor, napping. “Can we leave this little man by himself for a while?” Gideon said.

  In the bedroom he and True threw off their clothes and came together. She made him lie back on the bed while she straddled him. He rose to kiss her shoulders, her neck, her breasts. She kissed him on his cheeks and eyes and mouth, holding his head in her hands as she commenced the slow rise and fall; pausing, caressing, murmuring, drawing out their lovemaking until all thoughts had flown from his head—then the rushing tumbling release, their eyes locked together as with a sharp cry she fell forward onto his chest.

  He held her against him and pulled up the quilt to cover them. He wanted to shield her from anything that might threaten them in this uncertain and dangerous world. He wanted to protect her from bad things that might have happened in the past. He knew that both were impossible, foolish wishes. He held her close.