“What do they ask?” I said, glancing at Josie.
“Why, they want to know who your friends are, and where all do you go as you walk from church to church. They ask where you sleep, and where you get your money. I don’t know what all they ask.”
“I don’t have much money,” I said.
“I just thought it was best to tell you,” Sister Wensley said, “in case there was anything you could do.”
“I’m most grateful to you.”
Little Rebecca began to cry and her mother picked her up and bounced her on her lap. “There’s one officer in particular that has asked about you,” she said.
“Who is that?”
“A Lieutenant Withnail people say. I think that is his name.”
“They ask questions about everybody,” I said. “It’s their business to ask questions.” I didn’t want her to see my relief.
“I just wanted you to know, Reverend,” Sister Wensley said. “The lieutenant asks if you get letters and send letters.”
“I send letters to my superior,” I said.
“The lieutenant asks who you send letters to,” Sister Wensley said.
“Thank you for walking all this way to tell me, and for the potatoes,” I said.
When Sister Wensley was gone I came back inside the cabin and Josie grabbed my hands. “I’m so afraid,” she said.
“It’s probably nothing,” I said.
“They think you are a rebel, a secret leader or a spy,” Josie said. “They could hang you.”
“I’ve done nothing,” I said. “I have nothing to hide.” I looked at Josie’s pale, worried face and realized how wrong I was. I had a great deal to hide, though not what the redcoats imagined. I was hiding what was most precious to me. It was all so mixed up and crazy it was ludicrous. I began to laugh and finally Josie laughed with me. And then I stopped laughing when pain shot through my lower back.
SIX
THE BAD BURNS ON John’s back took a long time to heal. Some were so deep I didn’t think they could ever get well. You would have thought the fire had cut into him with an ax. You would have thought he had been whipped with a barbed whip.
I HAD TO CARRY in all the water and bring in all the wood. I had to wash everything in a tub on a bench. It was cold, getting up toward Christmastime, and I liked to stand in the sun in front of the cabin to feel its warmth on a bright day. I liked to get away from the sight of pain for a few minutes.
We soon used up the supply of wood John and I had split. There was nothing for me to do but take the ax and go out into the woods to gather limbs and dead pieces light enough to drag, which was easier than trying to chop down a big tree myself. I hacked off limbs and chopped blow-down trees in two. There had been a sleet storm the winter before that broke down trees on the hill behind the cabin. I gathered poles and long skinny logs there. A lot of the wood was white pine that burned up fast. But pine was easy to chop and easy to find, and light enough for me to carry. My hands got thicker and rougher.
WHEN JOHN’S CONGREGATIONS heard he was sick they sent things to him. They brought a peck of potatoes, and a deacon from Zion Hill brought a sack of cornmeal. A woman from Beulah brought a crock of wild honey, and a man from Crowfoot brought half a ham.
“Your flocks are mighty faithful,” I said to John.
“They will drift away if I don’t return soon,” John said. “It’s the meetings that keep them together,” John said. “It’s the gathering and singing together.” He said that once the habit was broken it was hard to get a church started again. It had taken him three years to build up his flocks. He said a church had to be part of people’s lives, not just a revival meeting, but a steady part of the community.
I said it was hard for people to come to church in winter, but he said that was all the more reason to keep the congregations alive.
Because his back was in such shape, John stayed bent over even when he got out of bed after the first week. He couldn’t stand up straight, but he could crawl a little. He crawled to the bench and got a drink of water, and he crawled to the table to eat stooped over. He even crawled outside sometimes on a warm day just to look at the sun. It made him feel better to see the outdoors and the sunshine.
But most of the time he stayed in bed. It was the only place he could rest. He could read if I put the book on a bench at the end of the bed, or if I held the book tilted. But away from the fireplace there wasn’t enough light to see by. I could put a candle on the bench beside the book, but when he turned the pages he knocked the candle over.
Much of the time I read to him. I read from Ecclesiastes and I read from Psalms. I read from Matthew and the other Gospels. And I read from the book of Acts and Revelation. Revelation was my favorite to read aloud. “I am Alpha and Omega . . . I am the root and offspring of David. I am the bright and morning star.”
But the passage John wanted me to read again and again was from Luke, chapter 2. It was the story of the first Christmas. It was the story of the angels coming to the shepherds by night. And he liked best the words of Simeon when he saw the baby Jesus. He had me read them day after day.
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people
A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.
It was a song of celebration in the dark days before Christmas. John wanted to hear it over and over. I read it so many times I learned it by heart.
John had other books too. Besides The Pilgrim’s Progress he had a copy of the sermons of John Wesley. Sometimes he had me read from one of them. I enjoyed reading The Pilgrim’s Progress most. It was a story I could see so clearly as I read the words, the wicket gate, the burden on Christian’s back, the Slough of Despond, the sight of the Beulah land, the Shining Men, the city on the horizon.
We sang songs from the songbook too. John taught me song after song. He lay on his belly and sang and I sang with him. He was in pain but he sang.
“You’ll strain yourself,” I said.
“Song will help me heal,” he said.
When we sang, the music did seem to heal the hard moments of worry and fear. The music softened time and put things in order. The music sweetened the hours. Before I met John, I’d never thought music was worth so much. But I saw that music fed us, nourished us the same as grits and bread did. Music was like a cool drink of water on a hot day. The music was warm as a fire on a cold day.
Sometimes we stayed up far into the night to read and sing. I kept the fire going bright and made fresh coffee. We sang all the songs over again. One night John seemed better than he had before. The pain had gone from his face, and he raised himself on his elbows and looked into my eyes.
“I’m not much of a husband since our marriage,” he said. He stared at me as he hadn’t in a long time. He stared at my neck and at my bosoms under the shirt. “Come closer,” he said.
Resting on his right hand, John reached out with his left and pressed my chest. He started to unbutton my shirt.
“You will hurt yourself,” I said.
He looked into my eyes and put his hand inside my shirt. He hadn’t touched me that way since before the fire. I was going to say he shouldn’t stretch his back and break the scabs. I was going to say he might make himself worse. But all I said was, “You be careful.”
I had worked so hard to nurse him I’d almost forgotten we were lovers too. I was taken by surprise. It was a good surprise.
I had long ago taken the strings off the bed so John could raise himself up on his elbows and knees. He raised himself like that with the blanket on his back. I stripped away my pants and slid myself under him.
Something I found out about loving that night was that you don’t have to be completely free, and you don’t have to be completely well. With his back only partly healed, John could move only a little bit. When I was under him and opened myself t
o him, he eased down on me and lay that way a long time. My heart was galloping away and my pulse was flying, but he didn’t move. He was waiting till he couldn’t help himself. He was waiting till the perfect moment.
I would not have thought sickness and weakness would have made loving sweeter. I would not have thought waiting and waiting would make the blood burn and the heart tremble. When John moved it was like he was singing with his body. But he was singing so low he made time stretch out. He made the seconds bigger. He made time swell up and ache as one second strained and touched into another.
“I don’t care,” I said, but I could hardly get my breath.
John could barely move at all, he was so stiff from the burns; but everything he did was magnified in me. Everything he did was right. I could move farther than he could, but I followed him like a dancer dancing around her partner.
“Where are you?” I said, and slid a little sideways and aimed myself at him. I gulped air and said again, “I don’t care.”
When John was leading me it was like I was skipping. You know how a child likes to skip and skip along the edge of a yard or trail? A skip is a step and a half. A skip has a slide to it. We skipped and skipped and the slides got sweeter.
But I was too easy to think. I was waiting for his next skip. I was holding my breath.
When John started again it was like he was backing away. He backed away a little at a time and I followed. He backed a little this way and he backed a little that way. And every step I followed, and followed again. Where is he taking us? I thought. Each step back got smaller. His steps got so little I could hardly feel him moving. His steps were so little they made me throb and sweat. I thought I was going to burst open. His little steps made me ache. But it was the sweetest pain somewhere down in my belly. I was waiting and I thought I couldn’t wait any longer.
“Where are you going?” I said.
But John didn’t answer. He was still and then he made a little move. It was just a little step forward. I waited and he made another step forward. And then he made another. There was something dry at the back of my mind, like bright velvet, like somebody was rubbing the back of my brain with velvet. The cloth was pulled right through my thoughts, and it was dry and soft. My head, the back of my head, was cradled in velvet and satin. My mind was caressed and floating.
“Where are you going now?” I whispered. It was all I could think of to whisper.
The land swooped under me and lifted me. The ground swung under me and slid me away and away.
“Where are you going?” I said, but it came out more of a cry than a whisper.
But halfway up the hill John stopped again. He stopped and turned to the left, and he turned to the right. He felt no bigger than a nerve inside me. But where the nerve touched it was like a spark from a flint, and it burned a needle of candle flame. Where were we going up the hill? Was there nowhere else we could go?
And then I felt John touching me. He touched me on the nipple and on the throat. He touched me on the shoulder and on the back of the neck. And he reached down under and touched my behind and streams of sparks and flutter ran all through me.
And I felt myself opening up. I opened deeper and wider than I ever had. I opened wider than I could, stretching myself and flattening myself to him. I opened so wide I thought I was turning inside out, and I thought I was going to fall backward.
If I open wider there will be nothing left of me, I thought. I will disappear into the spread of my legs.
John was reaching into me so far I didn’t want him to reach deeper. If he reached any farther it would kill me. Stop, I wanted to whisper. Stop that, I wanted to say. But I was too weak, and too busy, to say anything.
When he took one more step, and then another, I felt a distant roar, like wind on the other side of the mountain. Something had broken loose inside me, but I couldn’t tell where it was. Something had broken loose and was on its way.
“Where are you going?” I said under my breath.
John moved sideways, and then he moved sideways again. He couldn’t move far, but he moved just enough. He moved to the left and then he moved forward.
What had broken loose in me couldn’t be stopped. I couldn’t even tell where it was, but something was on its way. Something was veering and ticking and banging inside me, and I thought, I will finish climbing the hill now. I will claw my way up and look over the top.
But what happened was I felt wings under me and in my thighs, and the wings started moving. The wings bore me up. And I felt bright velvet on my back and bright velvet rubbing the back of my thoughts and lifting me up. And the wings opened wider and flapped faster. I’d never felt such a lifting. I lifted John in the cradle of my wings, right up over the top of the hill into the sunset. And we were soaring in the wind so high I could see to the end of the mountains.
And I thought: The fire of love doesn’t burn big and red and hot. The fire of love is purple and blue and tiny and burns in the dark. The fire of love is so bright and tiny it seems like something you remember from a long time ago.
IT WAS GETTING UP closer to Christmas and John was growing stronger. Most of the burns on his back were closing up. He could move better and twist around a little more. But the worst burns on his back and backside had not healed up. They were still runny under the scabs and under the corruption. They got inflamed like they were infected all over again. The longer his back went without healing the more discouraged John became.
When we loved, or when we sang hymns and prayed together, he would feel better. And then his confidence would wear away again and a change would come over him.
“If the Lord is in charge of everything and knows all, why would He let me suffer?” John said. There was bitterness and fear in his voice. “I have tried to serve Him in these woods. I have walked through mud and rain and high winds to my services.”
It bothered John that members of his flocks came to see him less often. I told him they were all miles away and working hard at their own places. And nobody wanted to travel in these troubled times.
“I have gone to visit the sick,” he said. “I have gone to comfort the grieved and afflicted.”
I didn’t know what to say to John. He was the one who had read the Bible and studied on it. He was the one who knew the proper thing to say. I told him that people depended on the preacher. They didn’t expect the preacher to depend on them.
When he was most discouraged and when the pain was worst, John cursed like anybody else. When I tried to wash the worst of his sores he yelled out, “Damn me if I don’t get over this.” As he fussed and cursed I saw that under his commitment and talent to preach and sing, he was just like everybody else. The pain and the long sickness stripped away his talent and inspiration. When he got well and strong again he would get them back. But the pain had taken away his strength and purpose. I was ashamed to see it. I was embarrassed to see him naked of what made him special and kind and above the meanness of the world.
“You’ll feel different when your back is healed,” I said.
John turned to me with anger in his eyes. “Who are you to tell me that?” he said, as if he blamed me for all his trouble. He was like a hurt dog snarling and snapping at the thing closest to him. And he didn’t want to give me any authority to comfort him.
I had to get out of the cabin. I had to get away from his glare and accusations. I put on Mr. Griffin’s gray coat and wrapped a scarf around my head. It was an overcast December day. As I closed the door behind me I heard John call out, “Are you going to abandon me?” But I didn’t answer. Such a question didn’t need an answer.
It was still around the cabin, but wind roared on the hill, on the other side of the hill. I figured I would look for Christmas greens. I needed something to cheer me up. I needed to do something that would give me hope. I tried to remember where there might be a little pine or cedar for a Christmas tree. There were cedars back in the gully below the hill. Cedars liked to follow a ditch or stream. I got the ax an
d started walking toward the hill.
Cedars make better Christmas trees than white pines because they have thicker limbs. And cedars have a perfect flame shape, a tear shape. But their color is not as pretty and blue as a white pine, and their scent is different. A cedar doesn’t smell as good in a house as a white pine. A cedar smells a little musty.
I found a cedar tree by a branch before I even got to the bottom of the hill. It was as tall as I was and so dark it was almost black. It had cedar galls on it that looked like little potatoes. They seemed like decorations. I chopped it down with the ax and dragged it behind me.
I looked for a holly tree with berries on it, and turkey’s paw moss I could string over the door, and some galax for greenery. The only way to get some mistletoe would be to climb an oak tree to pick it. I didn’t have a gun to shoot it down.
I walked along the hill dragging my tree, and I did find a holly with bright berries on it and broke off several limbs. Holly berries are so red they light up the woods. And on the north end of the hill I did find some beds of turkey’s paw moss and pulled up half a dozen strands like garlands. But I wanted some mistletoe. Maybe mistletoe would cheer John up. I could hang some over his bed and kiss him.
I looked around in the woods for mistletoe. Staring against the sky, it was hard to tell mistletoe from a squirrel’s nest. There were dark little wads in trees here and there. But farther out the ridge I saw a big oak tree with a huge cluster in it. The mistletoe was big as a bushel basket.
When I was a little girl, I loved to climb trees. I’d climbed hickory trees and oak trees and dogwood trees. I’d climbed the tallest pines and sat in their tops. I dragged my cedar and carried the ax and greenery across the hill. I found an oak with mistletoe in the top, but it had no limbs until about ten feet above the ground. The trunk was too big to shinny up. Even if I took off the coat I couldn’t put my arms around the tree.
I looked around and saw the shaft of a dead maple lying on the ground. It was partly rotten, but I thought it might bear my weight. I broke it off and leaned the pole against the trunk of the big oak. I took off the coat and laid it on the ground. Gripping the pole with both my hands and elbows and knees, I shinnied up to the first limb. From that perch I was just able to reach the next limb. From there I pulled myself up the big tree. There was only one place about halfway up where I had to shinny between limbs.
Brave Enemies Page 14
