Gap Creek

by Robert Morgan

  When we come out of the woods into the open country around Flat Rock, the moonlight was so bright it seemed like day. I could almost see the green in the grass along the creek and the windows of houses made you think there was lights inside them. Dew on the fields sparkled like beads. I was so tired my arms ached and my legs trembled by the time we got to the gate of Dr. Prince’s house.

  Sure enough, the dog set up a growl and a bark. He come running from the porch and stood behind the gate snarling. He would have eat up anybody that come through that gate.

  “You holler for the doctor,” Papa said.

  “Let me catch my breath,” I said, and shifted Masenier to my left shoulder and called out, “Dr. Prince!”

  The dog set up an even bigger fuss. And I heard a noise in the house.

  “Hey, Dr. Prince!” I shouted.

  A light was lit somewhere inside the house and a door opened. “Who is there?” a voice called.

  “This is Julie Harmon and her papa. Masenier is bad sick.”

  “Is he with you?” the voice called.

  “We carried him down the mountain,” I said.

  The doctor called the dog back and held him on the porch while we climbed the steps and went inside. The cur growled as we passed him. It was a big fancy house with high ceilings and lots of mirrors and lamps. The doctor led us into his study, which was lined with books. Rich folks’ houses always smell like toilet water and some kind of soap.

  We laid Masenier on the table in the middle of the room and Dr. Prince brought a bright lamp over and looked at him. Dr. Prince had a big mustache like the German Bismarck. He pulled the blanket back and felt of Masenier’s pulse. “How long has he had the fever?” he said.

  “He got hot two nights ago,” Papa said.

  Dr. Prince bent down and sniffed Masenier’s breath and listened to his heart. “Could he have milksick?” the doctor said.

  “Too early for milksick,” Papa said.

  “Then it must be typhoid,” the doctor said.

  I was going to say hadn’t nobody else on the mountain had typhoid, but I didn’t. Who was I to argue with Dr. Prince?

  Dr. Prince went to a shelf and got a bottle of something that looked like reddish syrup. “Let’s give him a dram of this,” he said.

  I had to hold Masenier’s head up and Papa pried his mouth open with his fingers. But I don’t think Masenier knowed what was happening when the doctor poured the spoon of syrup in his mouth. Some dribbled out of the corners of his mouth, but I guess a little went down his throat. Masenier was too deep asleep to know the difference.

  “You’ll have to watch him closely,” the doctor said and handed Papa the bottle of syrup. “Every fever is different.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have no money,” Papa said.

  “You can pay me later,” Dr. Prince said. It was the way the doctor said it so quick that told us he was rich and didn’t need our money.

  “I’ll bring you a dollar soon as I sell some chickens,” Papa said.

  “That will be fine,” Dr. Prince said. He showed us to the door and held the big cur dog by the collar while we walked to the gate. I never did see any of the doctor’s servants.

  I know Papa was tired before we ever started back up the mountain. I was wore out myself in my legs and in my back, and my arms was sore. We had four miles to walk still, and they was up the mountain.

  “Let me carry Masenier,” I said.

  “We’ll take turns,” Papa said.

  “I should carry him now on the flat ground,” I said. “And you can carry him when the trail gets steep.”

  “We’ll both get wore out,” Papa said.

  “I can rest while you’re carrying him,” I said. I took Masenier from Papa. The boy was dead asleep. His head laid on my shoulder. I prayed, Lord, let us get Masenier home. Don’t let him die out here on the trail in the damp night air. I had never prayed with such a will.

  It was the prettiest night you ever saw, with the moonlight slanting on the creek and dew sparkling in the grass. The mountains rose like shadows ahead of us. It must have been three o’clock in the morning, and the mountains was so still and peaceful you would have thought the Millennium had come and all our trials was over. It was the first time I ever noticed how the way the world looks don’t have a thing to do with what’s going on with people.

  I locked my arm around Masenier like I never meant to let go, and I stomped the ground hard to make my steps firm. If I had to carry him all the way up the mountain, I could. I was determined to get this over and done with. There was strength in me I had never called on, and this might be the time I had to use it.

  Papa lit the lantern when we got to the woods and started climbing. It was so still I could hear our breath and the flutter of flame in the lantern. Sometimes a twig or an acorn dripped off the trees. I had never seen the woods that quiet. There wasn’t even a dog barking anywhere, and the wildcat must have found its mate, for I didn’t hear any more squalling.

  When you make extra effort a numbness sets in, like your legs are walking on their own and you’re not willing them to. But as I kept going a throbbing started in my back, and every step hurt, like I had cramps in my back and arms.

  “Want me to take him?” Papa said after we had gone maybe a mile.

  “I’ll take him a little further,” I said. I figured if I could get to the bench on the mountain where Riley’s spring was we could rest and give Masenier a drink of cold water. Then Papa and me could take turns carrying him the rest of the way up the mountain.

  “You are going the extra mile,” Papa said.

  The extra four miles, I thought, but didn’t say it. When you are straining you have a short temper and a sharp tongue. Mama liked to say, “It weakens you to feel proud of yourself.” Better use your breath to fight against the trail, to fight against the mountain, I told myself.

  We had got a little further up the trail, up to where the beds of moss growed below the laurel thicket, when I felt Masenier stiffen in my arms. I thought he must be waking up and stretching, that the syrup the doctor had give him was having a good effect. But his back arched too stiff and fast. “Are you awake, little feller?” I said. I started to pat his back, but felt his whole body stirring.

  “Is he awake?” Papa said.

  “Must be,” I said, for Masenier was twisting in my arms like a baby that will jump even while you’re holding it. But there was something wrong, because the stirring continued, and his back kept jerking. “Hold the light here,” I said to Papa.

  Papa brought the lantern up close and the first thing I saw was Masenier’s face. His eyes was open like he had seen something terrible and his mouth was drawed back in a scream, but no sound come out except the gnashing of his teeth. He looked like he had seen the awfullest thing and it had scared him to death.

  “Is he dying?” I said.

  “He’s having a fit,” Papa said.

  Masenier’s feet was kicking now and his whole body heaving. I didn’t know what to do. Should I lay him down? Or hurry on up the trail toward home? Should we turn and go back down the trail to the doctor’s house?

  “Put him down here,” Papa said, and held the lantern over a bank of moss beside the trail. I knelt down and laid Masenier on the ground, and it was the worst sight to see him twist and kick with both legs. I’d never seen anybody have fits before.

  “What can we do?” I said and held his head off the cold moss. I felt helpless. It was like the night was crushing down on top of me.

  “Put something between his teeth,” Papa said. “So he won’t swallow his tongue.”

  All I had to put between Masenier’s teeth was a corner of the blanket we had wrapped him in. I folded it twice and stuck it in his mouth, which was foaming with spit. His head jerked as I pushed the fabric between his teeth.

  And then he coughed and coughed again. I seen he was choking. I wondered if he had swallowed his tongue, or was he choking on his own spit? I stuck my finger in his throat t
o pull out the block and felt something rush up into his mouth.

  “He’s strangling!” I screamed.

  Papa held the lantern closer and we seen that Masenier was throwing up. White stuff come out of his mouth and lines of white stuff. “My god,” I said. For I thought he was throwing up milk or some white gravy. But what come out of his mouth was gobs of squirming things. They was worms, wads and wads of white worms. He kept coughing and throwing up, and more come out.

  “He’s choking,” Papa said and reached his hand into Masenier’s mouth and pulled out more gobs of the things. I shuddered, looking at what he was doing. Papa dug out more worms to clear Masenier’s mouth and throat. And when he stopped, Masenier’s mouth was open and his eyes was open, but he was still.

  “Make him breathe,” I cried and shook Masenier’s chest.

  Papa pushed on Masenier’s heart and listened to his chest. “He’s not breathing,” he said. Masenier’s mouth was open and his eyes was open in the lantern light.

  “What can we do?” I said.

  We just looked at his little body, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Something twitched in a nostril. It was another worm that had found its way out through his nose.

  I SET THERE on the cold ground feeling that human life didn’t mean a thing in this world. People could be born and they could suffer, and they could die, and it didn’t mean a thing. The moon was shining above the trees and the woods was peaceful. I could hear the creek down the ridge gentle as a dove, and the mountains was still as ever. The ground under me was solid, but little Masenier was dead. There was nothing we could do about it, and nothing cared except Papa and me. The world was exactly like it had been and would always be, going on about its business.

  We must have set on the ground several minutes before we got the strength to pick up Masenier and carry him up the trail. Papa and me took turns toting the body, and we got to the house in the first light of day. Mama and Rosie was waiting up, with the lamp still burning on the mantel.

  Two

  After Masenier died there was just us four girls in the family, Lou and me and Rosie, and Carolyn the youngest. Rosie was the oldest, and Lou was next. After we lost Masenier Carolyn got spoiled almost as bad as he had and never did a bit of work around the place. It was like we had to spoil somebody, and with no brother it was just natural that Carolyn would be the one. Mama made Carolyn pretty pink dresses with lace and ribbons on them. And she fixed Carolyn’s hair in ringlet curls and a pink bow. Carolyn looked more like a doll than a regular child.

  Papa’s lungs had started to get a little weaker. When he got overworked or soaked in a storm, or chilled by a draft in church, it would take him in the chest. He’d get his feet wet mowing along the branch and before midnight he’d be coughing and spitting into the fireplace. He had been a strong man, but the chest consumption weakened him all over. When his lungs hurt he couldn’t sleep, and when he coughed none of us could sleep much either.

  The rest of us, except Carolyn, sure worked plenty. As Mama got older she sometimes had back trouble and couldn’t stand up straight and had to walk bent over. It might have been rheumatism, or something inside her way down. But it throwed more work on us girls when she was poorly.

  Rosie didn’t mind doing her share of the housework. She never did like to work outside in the yard and fields, but she would cook things. She liked to sew and to knit. She could do embroidery and knit socks and sweaters and shawls. And she liked crocheting counterpanes and fancy pieces. Rosie would help to dust and clean up, but she preferred to be in the kitchen, or setting by the fire with her yarn and hook with a cat in her lap. That needle pulled and pulled and pulled, looping the soft knots of the vest or throw she was crocheting. Her bag of thread and needles, scissors and extra hooks, set on the floor beside her chair.

  But what Rosie liked most of all was cooking. She always kept a fire in the cookstove and a pot of coffee warm on top of the stove. Rosie would sip coffee while she was rolling out dough for a piecrust or cooking down strawberries for preserves. She had her own box of spices and seasonings on the shelf and she didn’t want anybody else to touch them. She dried herbs from the little garden on the bank and put the leaves in bottles and jars like a druggist might. “I don’t want anybody to touch my herbs,” she said. “They might mix them up.”

  “How do you know they’re not already mixed up?” Lou said once.

  “I know by the look and the smell,” Rosie said. She took the cap off a bottle and sniffed it.

  LOU WAS THE only one of my sisters that was willing to work outside. I don’t think she liked it, but she was willing to help out. Like I said, when Papa got sick it fell on me to take care of the stock and field crops. But Lou would pitch in and help. Biggest job the year round was to bring in wood, for we had to have fuel for the cookstove and the fireplace. We had to keep the house warm when Papa was coughing, and that meant load after load of wood.

  Ever since I was a girl I had worked with Papa to cut firewood. I could pull a crosscut saw and chop with an axe. Since I was a barefoot girl I had been splitting kindling for Mama. But I was never good at splitting bigger chunks and logs. I had trouble lifting the sledgehammer, and I always did hate the harsh sound of steel on steel driving a wedge.

  But helping is one thing, and having to do it all yourself is another. Once Papa started taking to bed for long spells, with his breath too short to get any air, Mama said somebody had to bring in the wagon loads and sled loads of wood, had to cut and saw and split and tote it to the porch where Mama or Rosie or even little Carolyn could reach it. Though Carolyn rarely touched anything as rough and heavy as wood. The job just fell to me, without anybody explaining why. And since it had to be done, I done it, and kept on doing it.

  FOR FIVE WEDNESDAYS in a row that winter it snowed. And between the snows it would sleet. And after every sleet come a thaw where everything started melting. Then when it turned cold again the water froze, so there was layers of ice and snow like a fancy cake stacked in the woods.

  The snow got so hard and slick the horse couldn’t hardly walk on it. That was the month our cow slid off the pasture hill into the branch and lost her calf. The ground was slicker than a pane of glass.

  “I don’t think the horse can stand up, much less pull the sled,” Lou said.

  “Then we’ll have to pull it ourselves,” I said.

  “I’ve heard of working like a dog, but never like a horse,” Lou said.

  There wasn’t no other way to bring in the load of wood that I could see, except to pull the sled ourselves. We toted the axe and saw into the woods across the pasture where a bunch of trees had been knocked down by the ice. I broke a sheath of ice off a log before we begun sawing. It was like everything had been painted an inch thick with ice, and then coated again.

  The first thing you have to learn about a crosscut saw is to just pull it. You don’t ever push it. The other person pulls it toward them, and then you pull it back. If you try to push the saw it will buckle and wear you out before you get started. Pa had taught me that. But Lou had never done much sawing before. Every time she pulled the handle to her, she tried to push it back. The saw pinched and stuck in the log and made it twice as hard for me to pull.

  “No, no, just let it go,” I said.

  “I’m trying to help you,” Lou said.

  The log was froze and hard to saw anyway. Fresh wood has a lot of water in it, and froze wood saws like a rock. And when Lou pushed on the saw it was almost impossible to pull it to me.

  “Don’t try to help me, just help yourself,” I said.

  For a few strokes everything went smooth. And then Lou started pushing the saw back without thinking. “Don’t push,” I hollered.

  After you have held a crosscut saw for half an hour your hands get so stiff you can’t open the fingers. Your fingers are curled around the handle and it hurts to let go. Your fingers ache when you straighten them.

  We cut through the log three times in twenty-inch pie
ces. My back got stiff and my fingers hurt. “Let’s rest a little,” I said.

  “We’ll get cold if we stop,” Lou said.

  “I’m burning up,” I said. Sweat was running down my back and around my temples, though it was below freezing in the woods. “I hope no man ever sees us working like this,” I said.

  Lou pulled the saw back to her and gasped, “Why not?”

  “Because he would never think of us as ladies,” I said.

  “We’re not ladies,” Lou said.

  “I don’t want to be looked on like a field hand,” I said.

  “Maybe that’s what some man would want,” Lou said.

  “Not any man I would want,” I said.

  “Now look who’s being choosy,” Lou said.

  We stopped to rest when the log was sawed through. I stood up and put my hands on my hips. “Any man that just wanted a woman who could cook and bring in firewood would either be a cripple or too old to be any count,” I said.

  “When is a man too old to be any count?” Lou said.

  “I don’t know exactly,” I said. “But when a man gets beyond a certain age he’s no account for a woman.”

  “And how would you know before you married him?” Lou said.

  “You’d just have to be smart,” I said. As I rested I could feel the cold sinking in.

  “Or you could try him out,” Lou said.

  “Lou!” I said. Lou always did like to say the worst things she could think of.

  “That would be better than marrying somebody who was no account,” Lou said.

  When I let go of the saw handle my hands was numb at first. But as I straightened the fingers and stretched them they hurt like the bones had been bruised.

  I knowed marrying was on Lou’s mind. She was two years older than me and she had been thinking of getting married since she started walking home from church with Garland Hughes the year before. She was sweeter than a pound cake on Garland, and they went riding in his daddy’s buggy several times, until she heard he had a girlfriend over at Pleasant Hill that he sometimes went to see, and who was going to have a baby. After that she wouldn’t walk home with him no more. But the way she grumbled and took on, you could tell she was still studying about him. She was mad at Garland, but she hadn’t got over him, not by a long rifle shot.