The Sweetness of Water

by Nathan Harris

  Or what of the freedom to learn? There were so many things that Prentiss yearned to know, subjects he wished to be educated on in the coming years. Not all of it was pure speculation. They’d had so much free time that Caleb had begun to teach him letters, even. Caleb would often test him with words all morning, each more advanced than the last, and he’d begun to crave the smile that crossed the boy’s face whenever he meant to trip Prentiss up and failed.

  His success seemed to energize Caleb as well. He would tell Prentiss how he never wished to work with crops again, that there was so much else to do in a world so vast. A printing press would be pleasant work, he said, and although Prentiss knew little of it, the thought sounded just as fine to him, too. He’d need to know numbers, perhaps, know how to make a transaction with a customer, or calculate stock on hand, but Caleb assured him that this could be learned in due time. Up north there were teachers, eager to work with freedmen just like him. If this was true, the borders of the possible and impossible were not entirely clear. A job like that, with a bit of education—Prentiss saw himself becoming no different than any white man. He’d walk through a city with the sort of pride that fuels a whole brigade of soldiers on their way to battle.

  This was when his mind would return to Clementine. To his mother, even. If he could spell their names, and pay the cost to the right man, the imaginary was suddenly true. Of course they could be found. How ignorant to have thought otherwise, to have shrugged off the potential, the great rewards, that might come in the cultured life which could follow this one. He could see himself already, leaving work early to get home, his mother playing with Elsy, and Clementine in the kitchen, pregnant, cooking up a meal from a recipe that his mother had passed on to her new daughter.

  Good money. A family. A house of his own. It wasn’t just that he could be free, he realized. He could be happy.

  CHAPTER 27

  One hand. That was all she’d felt of George’s body after he passed. His wrist was smooth as hardened wax—so cold, so foreign, that she convinced herself it wasn’t her husband at all. They buried him the morning after he’d passed (a walnut coffin, identical to Landry’s), Isabelle and Silas alone, for she did not wish to see anyone else on the occasion. His death was hers—she claimed it, and the others could mourn on their own time if they pleased.

  When the burial was over, Silas told her she should come with him. There was room at the homestead in Chambersville. She could be closer to her nephews.

  They were before the cabin. Silas had already retrieved his horse from the stable. He stood ready to leave, his saddlebag stuffed with worn clothes, his hat on, his hand upon the horse’s flank, calming the animal in anticipation of their ride.

  “Bring the boys here,” she said. “To me. I’d like to get to know them better. But I won’t be leaving Old Ox.”

  He raised one of her hands to his face and kissed it briskly, then let it fall to her side.

  “Remember,” she said. “I told you once I might have need to call on you. That hasn’t changed.”

  “It’d be foolish to think I won’t be back to check in of my own accord,” he said. “I predict you’ll soon be calling on me to leave your home rather than come to it.”

  “It will never be so,” she said.

  He mounted his horse and gave her a wink.

  “Just wait until you have my boys here raising hell.”

  He reached back and patted the horse’s rear, then dug his boot heels into its side. Dust kicked up like smoke and he was gone before the cloud even fell back to the ground.

  * * *

  Alone now, she had no one to answer to but herself. Still, she was prepared to take on the task George had spoken of. She walked to town the following morning. The place continued to recover. It was odd, the spectacle of men and horses tramping over the ashen floor of what had once been the lumber mill, the abattoir, cleaning out everything that had been razed only weeks ago. The scene felt distant from her, like someone else’s dream, but Isabelle did not allow the sight to threaten her mood. An energy coursed through her, clamoring for her to take action. She carried signs she’d written in George’s study, ten in all, and she put them up proudly about town: a board against the furniture depot; a utility pole before the schoolhouse. She was determined that they be prominent—the words bold and the letters large—so that all who passed would take notice.

  HELP NEEDED ON THE WALKER FARM.

  ALL RACES, CREEDS, AND COLORS. FAIR PAY. EQUAL PAY.

  When she’d run out of signs—her hands empty, her feet tired—she returned home. The only thing left to do now was wait.

  * * *

  The first man appeared several days later like an apparition formed from the morning light. A hunched fellow, hobbling with each step, not unlike George. Isabelle saw him out the bedroom window, coming up the lane, and she dressed and hurried downstairs.

  When she opened the door she was met by a colored man wearing a cotton shirt jumbled at the collar and a blue suit jacket. A small yellow flower, already wilting but still bright against the jacket, spilled from his breast pocket. He was older than she was, perhaps sixty, and seemingly so wary that even after she greeted him he seemed reluctant to speak.

  “Ma’am,” he said, finally. “I’m looking for the owner of the Walker estate.”

  She told him that was her.

  “There’s no mister?”

  “Not any longer, no.”

  Although reticent, he was not afraid to look her in the eyes. His own were largely hidden within the deep creases of his skin and yet they revealed themselves when he spoke, deep beds of hazel, each expression given gravity by their sudden emergence from beneath his furrowed brows.

  “I’ve seen that sign in town,” he said. “If you’re still offering.”

  She joined him on the porch and walked to the railing, thinking of the burnt land and all that lay beyond it down the hill. He followed her, still wary, keeping his distance. She told him what had happened. Then asked if had a skill with farming.

  By way of an answer he held out his hands, so weathered that Isabelle could hardly make out the lines on his palms—whittled by years of toil.

  “Tell me your name,” she said.

  “Elliot.”

  “Elliot, I own many acres beyond these ruined ones. More than I could ever manage myself. I don’t plan to sell any of them. What I will do is give you a proposal. I will allow you your own slip of land to farm. I won’t ask for any of your harvest, or any money. It’s yours to keep for a year, perhaps two—enough time for you to get on your feet before I give someone else the same opportunity. But in return, I want you to help me with that ruined land down the hill, that same land my husband tilled. I want you to give me a few days a week of your service. I’ll be out there, and I’d like you to join me, and together we’ll do everything in our power to make it not just beautiful again, but prosperous.”

  Elliot was silent. His hair was one great tuft, and he ran his hand through it as he pondered her proposition.

  “You gonna give me my own land to work and all you want is some help. And there ain’t no more to it?”

  “That’s it,” she affirmed.

  “But why?”

  She looked upon Elliot squarely and minced no words.

  “I mean to do as my late husband did,” she said. “Even if only to avenge him. To restore his land.”

  She surveyed her rose bushes, the petals shriveled and drooping, ready to be snipped, and pictured the display come winter if she put in the proper work.

  “That’s a very pretty flower, by the way,” she said, nodding to Elliot’s breast pocket. “Where did you pick it?”

  “My wife. She said I should look my best.”

  “You’ve managed well on that front.”

  He laced his hands together, cleared his throat.

  “I don’t mean to say too much, and you tell me if I have, ma’am, ’cause I got nothing but respect for you, but there’s a bunch of men in town w
ho seen that sign, and they too afraid to come up here. We heard about those brothers. Heard what happened to the big one. Nobody wants trouble, is what I’m saying.”

  A chill coursed through her.

  “His name was Landry,” she said. With a hand, she guided Elliot’s sight to the forest. “And he is buried there, right beside my husband.”

  “Ma’am, I—”

  “Allow me to finish. I’ve lost more than I ever imagined, but they’re the reason I’ve brought you here, and will bring as many others as I can. Why I intend to make this the most gorgeous and bountiful bit of land in the county. There’s a risk, yes, but there are more soldiers in town than ever before, ones who look like you, and have your interests in mind. The Freedmen’s Bureau sends them around every week to assure that things are safe. Still. Anything might happen, it’s true. And I would understand if that prospect frightens you too much to accept.”

  His face was closed to her, and she thought of what lay under the surface—how his eyes might grow wide at the telling of a joke, or the pleasure he might show as he danced to a tune with his wife. The blossoming of his personality under the proper circumstances.

  “I’ll take the land,” he said, finally. “However much you offerin’.”

  “Fifteen acres,” she said.

  “That’s a deal,” he said, his voice registering surprise.

  “And you’ll help me fix up that land down the hill?”

  “That’s my promise.”

  They did not shake hands. He simply nodded and shuffled over to the stairs.

  “Ma’am,” he said. “Expect me back next week.”

  “Until then, Elliot.”

  As he walked off, she called out that he should tell the others they could have the same deal. Space was limited—she had only so much land to go around—but all were welcome, just as the signs proclaimed.

  CHAPTER 28

  Autumn was brilliant. The sun became tolerable and the walnut trees so yellow they looked like enormous dandelions just flowered. Others were vibrant tones of pumpkin orange. Isabelle made her rounds in the morning on the back of Ridley, surrounded by the gorgeousness, checking in on the handful of men who’d arrived these past few months after Elliot. Many of them still lived in the camps beyond town, but some had taken up residence on the farm, setting up makeshift tents wherever pleased them on the plots that were theirs.

  On any given day the acreage was so extensive that if Isabelle wished to, she could avoid seeing them at all, but she enjoyed watching them work the land, knowing their own visions were being met, their goals attained. They were all freedmen and most had brought their families in to aid them. Often she was met with skepticism, as though she were simply the latest incarnation of an overseer, but in time they were eased to her presence by the nature of routine, the comfort built through her questions on how to tend the land, and eventually by their toiling beside one another on George’s plot. She had help from at least one of them every day, and already the reseeding efforts—with nothing more than hoes, along with some manure being spread with an eye toward healthy growth—had begun to heal the damage done by the fire. There was little optimism that the produce would be plentiful that initial season, she was told; it would be a year at least for it to return to its former condition. But a year seemed not far off.

  Her last stop after working was always the forest. She would see Landry’s grave first: the blue of the sock upon the cross, a beacon bright in the pending darkness. She would sit in the space between his grave and George’s and speak as though they were there with her—catch them up on her work, promise to return with roses once they came in. George had never liked them but if he could tolerate them in life he could tolerate them in death. Landry loved all things pretty, all things holy. He would be happy for the gift.

  Sometimes she’d try to speak out loud to Caleb, to tell him of her life, just as she did with George, but it was never the same. To speak to Caleb carried an unsettling sense of finality. Hardly anyone asked of him in town, knowing what had transpired, but when they did she could only give a glazed smile, wish them well, and excuse herself. The memories of her son and of Prentiss were preserved for things far more valued than casual conversation: a prayer late at night when the loneliness crept over her, when she would pull her knees to her chest and ask God to keep them from harm, wherever they may be. Or sometimes she’d bring them to mind in the morning when she needed that extra push to keep going, to get dressed for the day, to go forth with the pride she demanded of herself and meet whoever was waiting in the field to help with the work there. The boys would want her to carry on living, she thought. So she aimed, by every means, to do just that.

  Indeed, she’d had herself a typical day and was exhausted when she returned home one evening to find Mildred on her porch, pacing ceaselessly. She was in her riding wear, black trousers and white gloves, and she faced Isabelle with a fervency much in contrast to the slow pace of the past hour in the forest.

  “You are quite dirty, aren’t you,” Mildred said.

  “Had to fix the water pump in the morning. I’ve been in the fields ever since.”

  “Of course you have. A man dropped by with some turnips and said they were for you.”

  Isabelle came up the stairs and Mildred pulled her in for a kiss on the cheek. She could smell Mildred’s sweat and was sure Mildred could smell the soil on her, though neither shirked from the other. The turnips in question were beside the door. Isabelle picked them up.

  “It must have been Matthew. He hardly has his own crops in but he told me he’d give me a bit of what his mother was growing over in Campton. A taste of what’s to come on his own land. I didn’t think he’d follow through but he’s kept his word. Will you come in?” Isabelle asked. “I don’t have much to offer but company, unless you want a turnip of course.”

  Mildred was already following her through the door.

  “You must take better care of yourself,” she said. “You look slight.”

  “Without George, I live on not much more than the plants in my own backyard and a few eggs here and there.”

  The big room had many of George’s planting books laid out on the table in front of the couch. On a large piece of parchment on the floor she had drawn a map of the land, with names representing the plot she’d given to each person who’d agreed to take it.

  “Good Lord, Isabelle, it gets worse by the day.” Mildred shuddered. “We’ll need to get you a maid.”

  “I suppose I won’t show you my bedroom, then.”

  “Joke all you want, but you’ll come screaming for assistance when vermin are tramping around the place.”

  Isabelle lit a candle on the dining-room table, then went to the kitchen and washed her hands and her face before removing her sun hat and returning to the table. She sat down and unlaced her boots and Mildred took a chair beside her. Since George’s death her friend had visited quite a few times, and always they talked late into the night, invigorated by their own private musings, with neither having anywhere to be come morning. Recently Mildred had announced that her son Charlie was getting wed, and it had come as both a shock and a delight, although Isabelle got the distinct sense that Mildred was taking it as a loss—a gesture of abandonment—and so didn’t ask any more about it.

  “It’s going well?” Mildred asked, taking her gloves off.

  “I’d say so. They need nothing of me and it’s comforting to know I’m not alone out here. Elliot is a friend. I believe we get on. He introduced me to his wife and children. And I’m friendly with Matthew, too.”

  “Yet you are alone in your house, miles from town. I don’t like it. What if someone has ill intentions? You don’t even lock the door.”

  Isabelle nearly laughed. “Please. I sleep more peacefully than ever.”

  “Better than with George?”

  “Oh, George is here,” Isabelle said, sighing. “He’s everywhere. He’s in the fields, in the forest. I can’t get rid of him. But much as I begr
udge him, I can’t wait to see him each day. No different in that way from when he was alive.”

  Mildred stood to resume the pacing that had occupied her on the porch.

  “You no longer need to dote on him, you know. You could retire from here. We would be wise to move to Europe, start anew. That was a thought I had. The Italian countryside would welcome us, I’m sure.”

  “Two American widows.”

  “See? We already share a title.”

  Isabelle leaned over the table, her chin on her knuckles, as Mildred ventured into the big room.

  “I’m perfectly content,” she told her friend. “I do what I do because it brings me happiness. If we could just figure out the same for you, we’d be in a very fortunate place, the two of us.”

  The candle’s light carried toward the big room, where Mildred stood tall beside the couch, peering down at the cluttered table before it.

  “You should at least allow me to draw a proper map for you,” she said. “It would be disgraceful if your poor drawing muddled up your land. One man might believe he has one area to work, and then another the same, and God knows what could result. What a mess you might make! And your kitchen.”

  She wheeled about and marched toward the kitchen.

  “It’s filthy, Isabelle. I could clean this. And if your house is in order and you have a place to return to that is even remotely unsoiled…Well then I would feel better about all of this.”

  “Mildred,” Isabelle said, and put a hand out toward Mildred’s seat. “You really must relax. Sit down.”

  Mildred quieted and her breathing slowed—the white lace ruffling her blouse had been heaving—and took a seat.

  “It’s just—I’ve just been thinking of what comes next. You continue to forge this path, while I do nothing but tarry about my home—”

  “Mildred,” Isabelle said firmly. Her friend looked up from the table, the lambent flame of the candle revealing the tremble of her jaw. “I would love your help. More than anyone else’s. You would be indispensable to me. You are indispensable to me.”