Watermarks

by Jarvis, J. L.

  When the singing stopped, Beth sat and silently prayed for God to deliver her from her anguish. She did not feel like the saint Maggie accused her of being. She felt angry and bitter that life had afflicted her so. Still, she knew she had chosen Hank. She could not blame that on God. As the preacher lifted his voice and took the crowd on a turbulent journey through hellfire and damnation, Beth's mind wandered.

  She was seventeen, with life ahead and nothing to fear, when a big strapping man with a coal-dusted face chose her over the others to receive his attention. A naïve girl with no reason to doubt, Beth fell deeply in love with the man who became part of her dreams. A simple girl, her dreams were similarly fashioned. Love, a home and children were all she needed or wanted. Beth smiled with rue to recall it.

  A young Beth stood on a wooden crate outside the grange hall, peering in the window at the forbidden dancing. "Why don't you come inside?"

  Beth shied away, smiling in spite of herself.

  "Dance with me."

  He frightened and fascinated her. "I don't dance," she confessed.

  "You don't dance? Well, here, I'll teach you!"

  He was so sure of himself, so virile and strong. Beth was drawn to his vigor. He had an energy that drew both men and women to him, but especially women. And when he smiled at her, she melted into his waiting arms. They danced on the grass until she found herself at the threshold of the dancehall, and it took but one step more to bring her inside. Once inside the forbidden place, Beth wondered what the sin was in dancing. For each step and each turn and each breath she drew in filled her with delight. As he walked away to get something to drink, Beth overheard two men talking not far away.

  "What're you looking at?" said one to the other.

  "I'm watching the girls' heads turn as Hank walks by." They both laughed enviously.

  Hank was not exactly a handsome man. His features were too big, his body too large. Yet he was all brawn and bravado, and women responded. He exuded maleness--or perhaps it was the way he looked into their eyes. He seemed to have discovered that by searching their eyes, he would get to their hearts. And from there, he could get what he wanted. Beth lacked the experience to understand it, but her reaction was no less profound.

  When he returned with the punch, he handed the two cups to Beth, and then pulled up two chairs, one of which he retrieved from beneath one of his friends. When Beth held out the punch cup for him to take, he looked into her eyes and those eyes glimmered, holding her gaze. He had beautiful eyes, gray as dusk. When he said in a voice that was husky and low, "Thank you, dearie," she was his.

  How she'd loved him. But that was so long ago. How had life become so sad?

  She sat in the tent meeting and prayed for God to deliver her from the pressing weight of regret. She would never leave Hank, there being no Biblical basis for doing so. Yet, for all of her faith, she could not understand why the Bible permitted divorce for adultery, but not for a woman who was beaten. But there was no point in wondering. Marriage was a covenant before God, and she had made that covenant with Hank.

  The preacher walked through the crowd. The air was filled with sounds of whimpering, cries of praise, and murmured prayer. Beth stood praying silently, when the preacher stood before her and placed his palms on her head. An explosion of lightness and warmth flooded through her and made her feel weak and off-balance. Supporting hands caught her and lowered her gently to her seat. She emerged from what seemed like a dream. Sounds grew louder. Her head cleared.

  Music played as the meeting ended and people filed down the aisles. As the crowd thinned, Beth stood but faltered, still sore from her bruises. The same pair of hands again came to her aid. Beth said thank you, and turned around to see a man perhaps a bit older but not very much, with kind eyes and a pleasant manner that put her at ease. There was something about him.

  "I'm sorry. For a moment, I thought I might know you," she said, averting her gaze.

  "Eben Wakefield." He offered his hand.

  "Beth Garvey," she said, taking the hand that he offered. They held on long enough to be cordial, and a brief instant longer. He let go, but the gentle touch lingered. With an unassuming smile and a nod, he turned and walked away. Beth noticed a slight limp as she watched him disappear into the crowd. She looked down at her hand and touched where he had touched.

  "What am I doing?" she whispered, as she dropped her hands to her sides. She walked as briskly as she could through the crowd and out of the tent, and then as fast as she could without running toward home. With every step she tried to drive away what had happened. But nothing had happened or changed--except how she felt. Her heart had come alive again and she liked it. And it was wrong. She told herself she was lonely and making too much of what was really nothing. People met and shook hands every day. To make more of it was the stuff of school girls. She was a grown woman. And yet, with every breath she recalled each breathless moment. She leaned against a tree and hid in its dark shadow and silently wept. She wept for her heart so parched that it could so easily be revived by a gentle touch of a stranger's hand. For so long her heart had been deprived of tenderness that she'd believed it was dead. Now these stirrings reminded her that she was, indeed, alive. She could feel, after all, and her feelings were wrong.

  Deep into the night, the furnaces at the Cambria Iron and Steel Company throbbed. Sparks sprayed from white-hot pits of glowing iron and lit up the sky. It was a sight that might have been beautiful, were it not for the grueling work.

  At the open-hearth furnace, where Jake worked, the deep clang of metal and shrieking machines filled the air and made the ground tremble. The cacophony drilled through his mind. Sweat dripped from his face and down his neck, until his clothes were wet through every layer. But the heat was too intense to strip down without burning his skin. Even in the heat of summer, the men dressed in such layers to shield them from temperatures close to 3,000 degrees. No one wore rings or jewelry. Any metal against the body would burn the skin it touched.

  Jake's job was to add carbon and manganese to the molten steel. He would lift a sack of coal to his shoulders, and then run toward a hundred-ton ladle of molten steel. He had to get close enough to hurl the sack into the ladle and run from the resulting flames and sparks before they could burn him, for the heat would hurl the flames and anything near them to the roof. Next, he would rush to the ladle and shovel manganese into it, hard and fast, while the brutal heat wore at him and weakened him until he was no longer a man, but a beast with no thought in mind but to muster the strength do the next task, and the next. Eight hours of tasks, six days a week, Jake toiled at this job. Hour after hour, he pushed himself onward.

  He hated the way it burned the spirit right out of a man. What remained was the basest of beings, devoid of thought or feeling. In time one became just another moving part of the machine. Yet, these days, Jake found himself welcoming the mind numbing, sense dulling drudgery of hard labor. It took him to a place where thoughts and feelings could be laid to rest. All that mattered was the present task, and then the next. Into the ladle he poured coal, along with his anger, frustration and pain. Again and again he repeated the sequence, his powerful back and shoulders taut with the weight they bore. Drenched clothing stuck to his body. Rivulets of sweat trickled down his face and neck unheeded. In his eyes, a narrow glare was ever focused on the brute labor he was performing. Sometime well into his shift, it was lost to the red heat of the furnace: all the love and all the dreams. The hillside was black with them.

  Came five o'clock and everybody quit. For a few minutes before, they sat around and wiped their sweat and waited for the whistle. Jake sat down with a laborious growl--a long, weary, bone-deep, throaty sigh. Not a day passed when he did not think of fate's cruel whim, which tore him from his schooling and his hope of escaping the steel mill. He looked about him at the men and boys, sitting, sprawling, and some nodding off to sleep. Life's harshness lined their faces and broke down their bodies. The mill went through men like worn machine part
s. A man was lucky to work past forty. At twenty, Jake felt in peak condition, but he knew very well there were precious few years remaining for him at the mill. The steel left its mark on all men. His turn would come.

  He closed his eyes and tried to block out the thoughts and feelings that threatened to rise to the surface. He had not adapted to the work as well as most. Oh, he had learned to go through the motions. He worked like the others. But he thought too much. His mind would not rest. At first, he had tried to share his ideas with his superiors.

  "You're not paid to think," they told him.

  So he became a machine. He performed the work, but his thoughts were his own.

  "Hot enough for ya?" A man about Jake's age slumped to the floor beside him.

  With a weary grin, Jake nodded. "Ed."

  "Hey, Bobby? Over here," Ed Davies called out to his little brother. Along came Bobby Davies, who looked no older than ten. He sat beside his brother long enough to roll his jacket into a pillow and rest his head upon it. Within seconds he was asleep, no longer the worker, he looked every bit the child.

  The three sat in comfortable silence, allowing the sensation of rest to radiate through their depleted bodies. Too weary to bother looking at Jake, Ed stared ahead and spoke. "I hear they're hiring over at Homestead."

  "Oh?" Jake asked wearily.

  "I'm going."

  "Pittsburgh?"

  "Well, you know Ida's from McKeesport. She don't like living so far from her family."

  Jake nodded. The day shift was filtering in now. The night workers started stirring, getting up and gathering by the exit. Jake stood and started to walk. "So, when are you going?"

  A firm slap on the back diverted Jake's attention. "Mornin' Jake," said his brother, Will.

  Jake looked up and grinned. "Your turn."

  It was a trivial exchange that had become part of their daily routine, comfortable and familiar. Jake followed the parade of men who walked through the exit and into the morning sunlight. Jake squinted. The glaring daylight hurt his eyes. His body was spent.

  But Jake liked working the night shift. He liked being able to go to the library when he woke up, although there were too many times when sleep won without a struggle. Many a time Jake was nudged awake as he slumped over a book at a library table, but he was never late for work. He had come close, but Maggie had always looked out for him. She often sent him to work with reluctance, for a steel mill was no place for a man who was anything less than alert.

  Beth knelt down by the wood box and filled her arms with firewood until it was piled to her chin. With a startled jump, she dropped the armful of logs and frantically swiped at her sleeve, where a black spider crawled toward her neck. It fell to the ground and met its demise beneath her stomping foot. With a shudder, Beth picked up the wood, and swept up the mess.

  She wiped her hands on a dishrag and looked about with a contented sigh. Hank was at work. Robin was at the library with Maggie. The house was empty, the solitude welcome. It was the kind of day, rare until later in summer, when the warm day cooled to an evening chill. Beth pulled a sweater around her and sat alone by the empty fireplace. She and Robin might sit here tonight and read or play a board game together. With Hank spending more and more time in saloons, and Maggie so involved with Andrew, there was more time alone with her daughter. Beth told Robin these were their special times, and they were.

  She stood by the window and waited for the teakettle to rattle. She was in no hurry. The view through the kitchen window comforted her. Not far from the house, the hill rose steeply, covered with trees firmly rooted in the solid earth.

  Unaware she was scratching her wrist, she glanced at the cup and saucer that waited so invitingly. As she looked idly out the window, the itching worsened. She examined her wrist and found two tiny red bumps. Her arm was reddening, but she had to scratch it harder. It spread to her neck, which now itched unbearably.

  "The peace and quiet must be too much for me," she said to herself as she rubbed her neck. "I'm breaking out in hives."

  She walked toward the mirror to look at her neck, but before she could reach it, her head became clouded and thick. "Air," she thought, "fresh air."

  Her head was swimming, her thoughts scattered and confused. "I need help."

  She grabbed for the doorknob but stumbled. Lifting herself up, she crawled outside and was able to stand with the help of the handrail on the front porch. She struggled to focus her mind on one goal: to get help.

  "Maeve."

  She battled the thickening fog in her mind, determined to make it next door to the O'Neill house despite her darkening vision. She was halfway to Maeve's when the darkness engulfed her. There was no more sound, no sight, and no body. She knew only her thoughts in a senseless void. Her thoughts struggled to break through. She fought to get help, to survive, to breathe.

  Chapter 13

  A voice broke through the fog in her mind.

  "It's alright," said a man's voice.

  A hand touched her forehead, then her wrist. He straightened out her legs and body until she realized she must be lying down on the floor--no, the ground. Someone was here--where? Outside on the ground? She sensed the air against her skin, and his hands touching her, lifting her. Still she could not move or speak. She barely could breathe as she fought to gasp air through a space like a straw in her swelling throat. She tried to get up, but he said to relax, and she tried to obey.

  The struggle abated. Beth felt herself slip away and float into the air where she hovered above her own body. It was dark, but she heard the man's voice speaking soothing words. He was too far to reach.

  "But I'm not finished yet," pled her thoughts. "Oh, God, help me."

  "It's not your time," said a voice with no sound, yet she knew someone spoke it.

  It was not her time. She accepted the words and waited in darkness, still hovering and hearing and knowing what was happening in one world, but acutely aware of another. But she would not go there. Not yet. The voice brought her peace, and she knew she would not be alone.

  Now there were voices. She heard them close to her. Once more, she began to feel her body about her. She was back. Her throat was tight, but she managed to draw air to her lungs, although not yet enough to be comfortable.

  "Robin. Where--" Her head throbbed with a tremendous pain. She moaned and tried to sit up, but could not.

  "Just lie back." A firm hand slipped beneath her head and supported her as she fell back, halted by the pain.

  "Robin is fine."

  Too weak to sigh, Beth gave in to relief and rest. "Hank?"

  "No, it's not Hank."

  Beth was weary and confused. Her thoughts were as hazy as her vision as she tried to open her eyes, to see. Then she remembered what had happened.

  "Where?"

  "Shh...."

  Too weak to do anything else, Beth had to trust. Someone was there. He would take care of her or not; she would live or die. How strangely peaceful she felt as she waited. She drifted back to a place that was not quite sleep. The pain lifted for a time. She was lifted and carried up stairs.

  "Beth."

  She heard, but was too far to answer.

  "Beth, it's Maeve. Can you open your eyes?"

  Beth opened her eyes as though facing the sunlight. As her vision cleared, she saw Maeve smiling down upon her. She was lying in a bed.

  "Well, there you are. How are you feeling?"

  Beth looked around. "Where?"

  "You're in my house. You're safe."

  "Maeve. Something stung me--a spider."

  "You've had a time of it, my dear."

  Beth tried to look about, still feeling disoriented.

  "You're in my house. We'll take care of you." Maeve patted Beth on the hand. "I'll go get you some tea." Beth watched her leave the room. A man stood near the doorway.

  "Mr. Wakefield?"

  The man from the revival meeting nodded. His eyes were lined faintly from smiles or from sorrow. She could not quite t
ell. He was really quite good looking, in a subtle way--not the sort of man one might notice in a crowd. His presence somehow reassured her.

  With no warning, Beth's body began to tremble. Uncontrollable muscle spasms shook her body until she could only breathe in gasps. The spasms came and went for several minutes. Mr. Wakefield found a quilt and pulled it over her the bedding that already covered her. She gripped the bedclothes and shook until her teeth chattered. He sat by her bedside and watched over her silently. When the episode subsided, he took a rag from a bowl of water and rung it out. Then he stroked her face and forehead with its soothing coolness until she was calm. The spasms returned and went on in the same way, coming and going several times until, Beth lay weak, her head pounding.

  She looked wearily at Mr. Wakefield. She wanted to tell him he had kind eyes. But she had no strength to do so.

  He opened his mouth to speak.

  Maeve walked in with a tray. Mr. Wakefield arose to make room at the bedside. "I've brought tea."

  "Thank you," mouthed Beth to Maeve.

  "Drink some of this, and then get some rest," said Maeve.

  Beth managed a slight nod, which caused her to wince. "My head."

  Her eyes closed, and she drifted off to sleep. She was safe. Beth never heard Mr. Wakefield leave.

  "Sit back down. Now." Maggie gave Beth a stern look that made Beth laugh. But she sat down obediently, nevertheless.

  Robin grabbed her mother's arm.

  "Robin, leave your mother alone."

  "Can I see it, Mommy?"

  "There's really nothing to see." But she closed her eyes, shook her head, and extended her arm for Robin to see where the spider had stung her.

  Maggie pulled a tray of cookies from the oven. "I don't understand. Who is this man who carried you to Maeve's?"

  "A handsome Prince Charming took her away," said Robin.