The Sweetness of Water

by Nathan Harris

  He walked over to Prentiss and asked if he’d seen anything.

  “Nothing that big,” Prentiss said. “I’d have woken you.”

  The forest was calm, silent save for the occasional dispatch from the dark: a trampled branch, the pitched squeal of a possum.

  George pondered the comment for a moment. “That big…Wait, you don’t mean the beast?”

  “It could venture this far out,” Prentiss said.

  “You know, I haven’t thought of it in days. Not once this trip.”

  Prentiss eyed him curiously.

  “I must not have told you,” George went on. “I saw Ezra last week.”

  With George there to share sentry duty, Prentiss finally relaxed, slumping against the closest tree.

  “You know what he said?” George went on. “That I’m too curious. That I never should’ve been poking around in the woods in the first place the day I found you and Landry. To the contrary, I told him, it must’ve been some form of destiny, as I venture through those woods all the time and there’s nothing to be found but all manners of solitude. Not that I believe in a higher being or what have you, but to come upon two fellows felt like a fitting meeting, bound up in something real, which is quite a foreign concept to me. So here is where we circle back, as I told Ezra then that the only other time I had that feeling was whenever I saw that beast from my bedroom window. I’m not one to share that story—least of all with Ezra—as it leads to a natural skepticism, but I was caught in the throes of sentiment, and it simply poured out of me.”

  Disregarding his embarrassment, George pressed on with the rest of the story for Prentiss. Ezra had stood before him, he said, listening intently as George related how the beast was exactly the way his father had described it: brooding, sturdy on two legs, ominous but graceful in its movement. Once he’d finished, Ezra had laughed uproariously, doubled over behind his desk, waving George off in seeming derision. Well, George told him, he wasn’t the first to disbelieve him.

  “It’s not that,” Ezra said between fits of laughter. And he explained to George, then. How George’s father, Benjamin, would wait until night, dress himself up in layers, and put on a show for his son, a practice that he gleefully reported to Ezra, detailing George’s reactions come morning, how shocked he appeared at the breakfast table, barely willing to eat.

  “It was all in good fun,” Ezra said. “He even had that colored girl dress up. I forget her name. The help. But she was nearly as tall as your father and he’d have her go out there when he wasn’t up to it. Heavens. Benjamin could be a real comedian. I didn’t know you still”—and here, George said, Ezra had to wipe away a tear of laughter—“still believed it.”

  George couldn’t imagine his father having done such a thing to him. And to think that Taffy, his only friend, had been complicit made it that much worse. For her to have kept this conspiracy with his father felt like the ultimate betrayal. It wasn’t funny at all. Just cruel.

  Prentiss seemed embarrassed by the story himself, looking at George with pity, as if Prentiss, too, had been in on the joke all along. But his words indicated otherwise.

  “There was a time,” he said, “after my mama was gone, when I would sleep on the porch of our cabin waiting for her to come home. When the weather turned and I still wouldn’t come in, Landry got so worried, so worked up, he’d try to pick me up and carry me inside. Had to kick and scream to keep him off. Sounds fool-headed, I know—I just couldn’t give up hope. I knew her walk, knew her shape, knew the noise of her footsteps. Sometimes I could swear I felt her fingers grabbing my ear from behind, the way she used to when it was too late to be on the porch and I wouldn’t listen.”

  He fidgeted and stared off into the woods.

  “I s’pose I’m still looking for her. That’s part of why I’m out here running, right? Even if it’s a slim chance. I’m still looking, and I’ma keep looking. ’Cause if I ain’t got that belief that she’s out there somewhere, what’s left?”

  When George couldn’t muster a response, Prentiss filled the silence for him.

  “What I’m saying is I believed you all along. Even now. Ain’t nobody got a right to say what lives in these woods—or anywhere else, far as that goes. We might not get a say in much, but we got a say in our faith.”

  “I still believe,” George said in a low voice, grateful for the goodwill.

  “That’s two of us, then.”

  A thrashing wind swooped upon them and George began to shiver even as it calmed.

  “You should go lay down,” Prentiss said.

  “Stop treating me like a fossil. I can rest on my own accord, thank you.”

  Prentiss put his hands up in defeat. “Just keeping an eye out for my own. We both know your bedtime. You gon’ be good and grouchy come morning at this rate.”

  “I cannot wait to be rid of you,” George said, laughing. “It will be my pleasure to see you off once and for all.”

  The hint of a smile formed on Prentiss’s lips, though he quelled it. The wind sought them once more, unbearably loud this time, an aching susurration seemingly born from the shadows, provoking urgent declarations among the trees, as though there were specters howling from the void. For a while they were at its mercy, and then, just as suddenly, things calmed again.

  “I’d like to ask you something,” George said. He peered back at his son bundled in his blanket, resting peacefully. “It’s a favor. You owe me nothing, of course. Let’s make that clear. But perhaps you will grant it to me nonetheless.” Fatigue had subdued his voice but he carried on. “My son is…fragile. There’s nothing wrong with softness, but the world is a sharp place, if you will. Sometimes I fear for him. And I know there are wrongs, unforgivable wrongs, that you will always see when you look at him, but maybe you might find it in your heart to watch over him for me anyway.”

  “George—”

  “I trust you, Prentiss. If I knew he had you watching over him, even from a distance—”

  “You have my word. And you ain’t gotta say nothing about it.” His tone betrayed no emotion, but the assurance alone brought George great comfort.

  “I thank you,” he said.

  “But I’ll ask you one in return,” Prentiss said.

  “Anything.”

  “That you get on back to bed.”

  George met the request with a dismissive laugh yet obliged him.

  “What about you?” he called back as he returned to his bedroll.

  Prentiss told him he’d wake Caleb to cover the last hour. And then they’d be gone.

  George wasn’t sure he could sleep through the wind, but when he woke again the skies over the ridge were blue and the horses were making noise to start off. Both the boys were awake, scrubbing the site clean of any markings.

  Caleb considered him cautiously. “We’re past the county line,” he said. “If you want to head home.”

  George had barely opened his eyes. “Why don’t you hand me some of that jerky. I’m hungry.”

  It was the only answer he would give. They weren’t to safety. He wasn’t going anywhere until he had ushered them to it.

  * * *

  Strangely, as George grew more exhausted—his hip chafing at the labor of the ride, his hind end sore from sleeping on the ground—he thought less of his own woes and more of his son’s. By the time they’d reached their third day of traveling it was as though he was no longer present within his own body but was rather a dim source of supervision. When he hurt he wondered if his son hurt and when he rested he often startled himself awake and wondered if his son’s sleep was more peaceful than his own. It felt like the devotion of a mother, and notwithstanding a lifetime of finding such fawning behavior irrational on the part of Isabelle and other women, he was now attuned to it.

  Meanwhile they’d ventured farther than he ever thought he would. The landscape continued to startle him, especially the river itself, which obliterated all his preconceived notions of nature’s power. It was the breadth of many men a
nd he stopped their caravan for a time just to stand in awe of the rapids, a sight that prompted a fulmination of humility the likes of which he had never known.

  “Well, this is just…” But George was too overwhelmed for words and sat down.

  They left him alone in his silence, perhaps aware that what he needed, above all else, was some rest. When at last he went to stand, it took both boys to bring him up and he knew then that his excursion was coming to an end. He wouldn’t last much longer.

  It was nearly night again. The ground grew soft and the heat wet. Limp tree branches hung low enough for their leaves to proffer even deeper shade. In the onrushing dusk he took special notice of a fallen log covered in so many ants that they moved like the current of an inky river, a great swell of black rolling on endlessly. He feared for their mounts upon the unsteady ground but both the mare and Ridley managed just fine, until they came to a deep swale that would call for wading through. They once again looked at George as though this might be the turning point for him.

  “You don’t have to,” Caleb said.

  George dismounted. “Lead them by the reins,” he said. “Calmly now.”

  It took them fifteen minutes to work through the depression, waist-deep in mud, the gnats hovering but the animals unfazed and, if anything, happy to greet the intermission, and when they emerged on the other side they were greeted by the noise of another man not of their party. Caleb, already in his stirrups, swung around, rifle at the ready. George shuddered, then turned himself. A stallion stood on the other side of the swale, its tail swishing placidly. Hackstedde slouched upon it with indifference, yet he somehow appeared more vibrant in the wild—his skin golden, eyes alight.

  Without a word he unstrapped his saddlebag, removed a pouch of tobacco, and placed it against his saddle horn.

  “Boys,” he said.

  They were all consumed by silence. George stood stock-still as the sheriff unspooled a clod of tobacco, deliberate in his slowness. Then a hand was upon his shoulder. Prentiss helped him aboard Ridley and the three of them set out at a clip. The donkey could not keep pace with the mare but Caleb never let George fall far behind. He could still feel Hackstedde’s presence at his back when he finally brought Ridley to a halt. Caleb and Prentiss rode some distance beyond him before they noticed that he’d stopped and were forced to circle back.

  “We have to keep moving,” Caleb said. “They’ll be over that marsh in no time.”

  The crossing was what had done him in, and with the last light seeping out of the sky, George felt himself giving way to sleep, his body racked by the past few days—by a whole lifetime. He patted Ridley once, this animal who had been as trustworthy as any man he’d known, then gave his son a faraway smile.

  “I believe I am done,” he said.

  “There’s no being done,” Caleb said. “You saw Hackstedde just as well as I did.”

  “I’m tired, Caleb.”

  “You ain’t thinking straight,” Prentiss said. “Your boy is right. We can’t stop this run now.”

  George dismounted. “I surmise they might make camp before they cross,” he said. “They’re in no rush. Their pace is steadier than ours, their mounts faster.”

  “And so you suggest we surrender here?” Caleb said.

  George breathed in, paused, then let the breath out. “I believe I have a plan.”

  They stared at him with impatience. He was hardly unaware of the moment’s urgency and yet both times he made to speak his voice failed him. The vicissitudes of the past few hours had been astounding. He knew what was required of him and still he did not possess the means to carry it out. He thought he had shed all of his fears some time ago but he now quivered in apprehension, unable to meet the gaze of his son, who would be either disappointed or relieved by his decision, neither reaction one he could bear.

  When he spoke again his voice was thin, but he got the words out.

  “You’ll go on foot,” he said. “And you will leave me here.”

  * * *

  There were no stars that night. The forest seemed to observe him from every angle, shimmering eyes beaming from the cavity of a tree, shadows lurching violently in the distance. The whispers of the river and the insects built to a clamor whenever the wind dulled to a hush. He’d fastened a rope between the horse and Ridley and was making his way on his own, leading them both by the reins. The lightest canter was misery-inducing and he had resigned himself to walking. They had left no trace except the trail of the animals’ hooves, but having seen Hackstedde’s eyes fixed on the ground at the swale, he knew that was what kept the sheriff on their heels. Out in the swamps the boys would have a day’s lead, and without their mounts he felt confident that any hint of their progress would be concealed by the water. His only function now was that of a decoy, and he walked endlessly, his body burning up, his shirt soused in sweat.

  He grew used to the voices rising over the noise of the night. Whether they were within his mind or without he couldn’t tell, nor could he distinguish what they were attempting to tell him. He chose to believe they were no more than instructions to keep marching, empty babble to occupy his mind. He thought of the Indians who spoke to the trees and to the spirits and yet even as his senses offered evidence to the contrary, he could only protest it as superstition. His feet had gone numb and his tongue was thick with thirst. His son had insisted on giving him his pistol and he had the thought to pull it out now at some looming, unknowable danger, then changed his mind. A garish haze had invaded the night sky and the moon was branded red. Something was amiss yet what that might be was beyond him.

  A labyrinth of ferns led him toward an obscure corridor of the forest and even at the resistance of the horse and donkey he followed the path. He could hardly see past his own body and when he reached his hand out to feel his way forward he touched coarse flesh of a certain size and make and it immediately registered as belonging to his own father. He stopped more out of anger than fear.

  “You leave me be,” he said.

  The horse halted and yet the pressure came not through the reins but as a slight grip on his shoulder and once again he pulled away from it.

  “I will go my own way,” he said.

  The ground became a soggy morass and he figured he’d somehow gotten himself turned around back in the direction of the swamps. He was ready to give up. His body was undone. He dropped the reins and fell to his knees in submission—and then a shadow moved, the kind of flicker in the corner of the eye that is gone once you look closer, and yet the thing before him was unmistakably there, unhidden. He could not rise, but had he tried he would have failed to meet its height; the beast, uncrushed by the density of the darkness, roused to stand, was double his size. Its chest was armored by a thick mane darker than the night itself and its milky eyes showed out from its skull like coins of moonlight reflected off a pond.

  George thought his heart might burst in ecstasy. The beast stood motionlessly and stared at him with no aura of threat or danger between them and George suddenly had great confidence that the beast had laid eyes on him before—indeed (for he was certain now), it had been watching over him for years, and only now had he been privileged enough to glimpse its true nature, and what a rapturous joy it was, enough to bring a man to his knees were he not already there.

  “Might you come closer?” he begged.

  There was nothing he wanted more than to get a better look at the very thing that had eluded him for a lifetime, for in the presence of the beast his doubts washed away, his convictions grew in clarity, his spirits rose. So energizing was the sight that it brought him to his feet once more. His legs wobbled, and he wiped the mud from them. He stepped forward carefully. Never did the beast waver. It stood so still, in such peace, such stoic grace, that its face blended into the red gypsum haze that had overtaken the sky, and its chest began to fade into the cavernous blackness of the night; with panicked despair George reached out to touch the beast before it disappeared entirely, yet all he felt was an
absence, and all that was visible before his eyes were his own hands. Never had he felt so confused, so unsure of his surroundings, and he began to spin in circles.

  “Ridley!” he pleaded. “Do you hear my voice? Come find me. Ridley!”

  The darkness was resolute in its stillness. Ridley was gone. He was accompanied by only the wind, which was so forceful now that it managed to transport him to the ground—and calm enough in its whispers to put him to sleep.

  * * *

  That night his mind cycled through the previous day with torturous repetition. He woke more than once, realizing where he was yet paralyzed by a passing dream, his body unable to rejoin the waking world. He felt cocooned within himself and the only thing that pulled him free from the grasp of sleep was the strong, reliable urge to urinate. He raised himself to a seated position, breathing calmly, happy to see the burgeoning daylight.

  He felt fevered and removed his shirt, then pissed where he stood. A look around told him that he had (as he’d guessed) circled back to the swamps. The temperature was surprisingly cool, the heat from the night having sheared itself from the morning sky in a thick gray mist that ran on far enough to mask the distance beyond him.

  The greatest relief was finding Ridley and the horse before him, still roped to each other, both of them idling quietly. It took no time to convince himself that the horse—young, restless, and excitable—had probably tried to run off, yet Ridley, dear Ridley, was too loyal to do so and had held the mare at bay, waiting for George to rise from his slumber. He was embarrassed by his conduct the night before and approached the animals with his head held low.

  The sky was still concealed in smoke, the sun still glowing red, and he wondered what hell had descended upon the world. Once he was oriented, he took a jar of Isabelle’s peaches from the horse’s saddlebag. He was deathly tired, his skin pallid, his face gaunt, and he contemplated how much longer he could last. Would even the ride home be too much? He’d never missed a soul when he was on one of his jaunts in the woods but he missed his wife dearly now and could not shake the fear that Caleb and Prentiss had found harm somewhere—that his plan had failed them.