Mister Clay! He looked up, startled.
The moment she said his name, he knew her and cried out, “Melora!”
“I’ve been hoping to see you ever since I heard you’d come home,” she said with a smile.
Clay could not believe it. He stood there staring at her, finally saying, “I guess I expected you to stay twelve years old, Melora. You’re—!” He was going to say, “You’re beautiful!” but changed his words. “You’re all grown up.” She was beautiful. Now that he knew who she was, he realized she had not changed all that much, for she had been a beautiful child. But the years had made a woman of her. “How old are you?” he asked suddenly.
Melora laughed, a delightful sound. “Wherever you’ve been, Mister Clay, they didn’t teach you how to talk to a woman! Never ask a woman’s age!”
Clay shook his head. “You’re twenty-four or twenty-five.” This was a greater shock than he had thought it would be. This young woman was not the thin girl who had fed him soup and read to him out of Pilgrim’s Progress. He felt sad in some strange way, for he had missed her growing up. He voiced this, saying, “I’m sorry I haven’t been around to watch you grow up into such a fine young woman.” He looked around the store, asking, “Do you work here, Melora?” Then the thought of the two children came to him. He glanced at them, asking, “Or did you marry one of Hardee’s boys?”
“I’m just filling in once in a while.”
“Oh. Well, I’m keeping you.” He stepped back, and she came with him to the door, pausing to lock it. “I suppose these are yours?” Clay said, for they looked much like her, both the boy who was about eight and the girl she’d called Martha who must have been about ten.
“No, this is my brother and sister, Toby and Martha.” She paused, then said, “Well, it’s been good seeing you, Mister Clay.”
“Do you live far?”
“The same place.”
“You’re still with your folks?” Clay asked in surprise, thinking that something must have gone wrong with Melora’s life. She was too attractive not to be married and yet was still at home. Perhaps her husband had moved to the home place. Then he asked, “It’s getting late. I suppose you have a wagon to come to work in.”
“Just a mule,” she said. “We make it fine, don’t we, Martha?”
The girl nodded shyly, but Clay said, “Well, I’ve got a whole buggy seat and some room in the back. Tie your mule on, and I’ll get your things loaded.”
“It would be a help, Mister Clay—but it’s out of your way,” Melora said.
“Be glad to see your folks,” Clay said. “I’ve meant to come before this.”
Soon the children were in the backseat, sucking noisily on two cherry lollipops that Melora had provided. As the buggy moved smartly down the road, Clay gave the abbreviated version of how he’d come home—heavily edited, as he had learned to do.
She sat there listening, and in the twilight shadows he saw that her face had the same stillness it had had when she was twelve—or when she was six, for that matter. She did speak from time to time, telling him a little about the farm, but said nothing about her own life.
“I guess you’re married,” Clay said finally.
“No, I’m an old maid, Mister Clay!”
Astonishment ran through Clay, and he blinked at her. “Well, I can’t understand that,” he said finally. “The men around here, they’ve all gone blind?”
“Mother died when Toby was born,” she said. “When I saw that Daddy would never marry again, there was nothing to do but take care of the little ones.” She laughed at his expression. “I’m really a widow with nine children, Mister Clay, so my prospects aren’t too good!”
“Nonsense! Royal must be—how old now? Twenty-six or -seven? And Zack and Cora are full-grown.”
“But the rest of them are sixteen down to eight,” she reminded him. “They need me.”
He said no more but was very quiet as they rode along the dusty road. When they got to the cabin, Melora said quickly, “I do have one suitor. I think you might remember him—Rev. Jeremiah Irons?”
“Why, of course I do! But didn’t I hear that he was married with two children?”
“His wife died three years ago, Mister Clay.” She got out of the wagon, saying, “Martha, you and Toby wake up. We’re home.” Clay helped the children to the ground, then, as they stumbled toward the house, picked up the bundles.
She took one of them from him, saying, “That’s Rev. Irons’s horse tied there. He comes to court me.” A humorous smile came to her, and she said, “Most of his congregation are against his choice—especially young widows or families with marriageable daughters. As a matter of fact, most people around here think he’s lost his mind. He could marry anybody, instead of just me.”
Clay took a deep breath, thinking hard. Then he said, “Melora, remember when I rode out of here years ago to slay a dragon for you?”
“I—I remember.”
“Well, I didn’t do any dragon killing—but you turned into a lovely princess, just like those in the stories we used to read!”
The warm darkness hid her face, but her voice was husky when she finally said in a whisper, “Thank you for saying that, Mister Clay!”
Then she turned abruptly, lifting her voice to cry out, “Daddy! Look who’s come to see us!”
CHAPTER 18
MELORA’S VISITOR
A whiteness of snow. Whiter than the breasts of pigeons and stretching out to infinity.
This was one of the scenes that came, but it was spinning and wheeling so that the dazzling whiteness blinded him. He tried to shut his eyes, but the lids were frozen, or so it seemed, and he could do nothing but stare at the endless stretch of pale snow.
But then the unrelieved purity of the snow was broken by a single flaw, a speck of crimson. Clay stared at it, and as he stared, it began to swell, spreading over the snow in an obscene blot of scarlet horror. He knew that it was blood and tried to shut his eyes, to run—but he was paralyzed, unable to move so much as an eyelid.
And then he saw him. A man was lying there, and it was his blood pumping out of a terrible wound that was staining the snow. At first Clay thought the man was dead, but then he lifted his face, and Clay saw that it was Duncan Taliferro! His eyes were pleading, and he lifted a bloody hand from his wound in a hopeless gesture.
And even as he did so, Clay was suddenly aware that he and Taliferro were being observed. He lifted his head and saw that they were in a huge amphitheater and that thousands of people were watching, and all of them had great, staring eyes. Some of them he recognized—his father shaking his fist; Taylor Dewitt shaking his head; his mother weeping. All of them were crying out, “Shame! Shame!”
That was one scene, and he wrenched himself away until the snow seemed to melt, and all the figures faded into a mist, and Taliferro became a specter, then vanished.
But another vision was already forming, and he knew what it would be. He began running, and he ran over a thousand plains, but the farther he ran, the more terrified he became—for he heard the sound of the sea moaning in his ears.
The sky darkened, and he cried out as he felt himself torn from the land. He shut his eyes, praying that it would not come again. But it did come. Opening his eyes, Clay saw the lifting waves, capped with frothy white, and he saw the sails of the ship overhead, swelling in the wind that howled like a demented soul.
He tried to dig his way into the deck, but an iron hand caught him up and he found himself looking into the face of Captain March.
“Overboard with them!” the captain cried in a voice like thunder.
“No! No!” Clay whispered, but his voice was snatched away by the wind. And then he knew it was going to happen.
He saw the young woman with the baby. Her eyes were fixed on him, and she turned the ragged cloth back, then held the infant up for him to see. Her lips were forming the words, “Help me!”
But March was shouting, “Overboard with them!”
&n
bsp; As he had done so many times, he moved to the woman. She watched him, hope in her eyes, thinking that he was coming to free her from the iron chains around her waist.
Then he put his hands on her, lifted her high over his head, and flung her and the child into the sea!
She sank at once, and the long line of slaves who were attached to her by the chain began to be pulled overboard. One by one they went, screaming as they plunged over the side and into the black depths.
Then March was laughing like a maniac and screaming, “Overboard with you, Clay Rocklin!”
Clay looked down—and saw the chain around his waist.
And then he knew …
He was one of them! He was part of the living chain that was sinking into the sea. Suddenly he felt himself jerked wildly toward the rail, caught by the weight of the dying blacks who had already been dragged overboard.
He hit the freezing water, and the darkness came as he died. But it was not so dark that he could not see the line of living beings as they kicked and waved their arms wildly in the murky depths.
Then he saw the woman again, but now she was laughing—and all the others had suddenly turned their sable eyes on him, and their mouths were open like gargoyles as they laughed and screamed.
“You dead, too, white man! You dead like we are! Come down, come down to hell—!”
Clay began screaming, but the dark water filled his throat and his nose, so his screams were silent as he sank deeper and deeper, toward the hideous black hole that was opening up beneath him.
“No! No!”
Clay awoke with a start to find himself drenched with sweat and crying out in utter terror. He came off the bed as though it were white-hot iron and staggered toward the door. When he lunged outside, he stood there taking great gulps of the cool night air. He was trembling so hard that he had to move to the maple tree and lean against it. The bark was rough, and he pressed against it, needing the sense of reality after the nightmare.
Finally he began to breathe normally, and the tremors stopped racking his body. He wiped the sweat off his face and stood there in the silence of the night. His cry had alarmed the night creatures, silenced the frogs that boomed their bass voices from the pond, and cut off the high-pitched singing of the crickets and katydids. The only sound, other than the heavy beating of his own heart, was the whine of mosquitoes.
With a moan of despair, he struck the maple, then turned and went back into the house. Finding a match, he lit the lantern and then stared at the bottle of whiskey. It was almost empty, and his throbbing head told him he was beginning to feel the aftereffects of a drunk.
He grimaced at the sight of it, then went to the stove and poured cold coffee into a cup and drank it down. It was tepid and bitter, but better than whiskey. Glancing at his watch on the table, he saw that it was only three o’clock. At least two more hours until the world came alive.
He washed his face, dressed, and went outside, walking slowly down the path that led to the pond. The moon was huge in the velvety black sky, and he could see his way clearly. When he got to the pond, he stood there staring at it, the silver surface rippled in spots by fish moving or by water striders. The stillness flowed into him, and he felt the weariness that came from loss of sleep.
For more than a week, he had not slept more than a few hours. The bad dreams had started without warning, coming every night, so that he dreaded to go to bed. He had never been a man to dream much, and there was something about these dreams that he knew was abnormal. They were so brilliantly clear! Not fuzzy and vague as most of his dreams had been. The sheer terror of them was beyond anything he had ever known in the real world. There is something almost evil about them, he thought as he stared at the water.
His eyes were burning from lack of sleep, and he knew that the day would be terrible. He had not mentioned his lack of sleep to anyone, and he had continued putting in long hours in the fields and about the place. But he was getting weaker, and finally he had given in to a desperate hope that liquor might make him sleep. But it had only made things worse—as bad as anything he had ever known.
“Can’t go on like this!” he said aloud.
A frog at his feet hollered, “Yikes!” and hit the water with a lusty splash.
Clay stood there for half an hour, wondering what to do, then walked around the pond slowly. He went back to the house, shaved, and made his way to the Big House at six. The sky was just beginning to turn pink, and he found his mother in the kitchen alone.
“Why, good morning, Clay,” she said in surprise. “You are up early this morning.” She smiled, but then something in his face made her ask, “What’s the matter? Don’t you feel well?”
“I’m all right. A little tired, I guess.”
She stared at him but said nothing until she had poured him a cup of hot coffee. “You’re working too hard.”
“That’s why I came.”
She moved to sit beside him and, after a moment’s awkwardness, put her hands on his, the one that was bandaged. “You’ve done so well, Clay!”
He could not help saying, “I wish Father thought so.”
“He’ll come around. As the children will. Look how close you’ve gotten to Rena!”
He looked at her and mustered up a tired grin. “Well, that makes two of you I’ve won over. Only about ten thousand more to go in the county.”
“That’s not so!” she said. “Amy and Brad are so pleased with you, and the slaves think you are wonderful!” A question came to her eyes, and she asked it carefully. “You never liked the slaves before, Clay. Now you’re so kind to them. What made you change?”
His hand tightened around the cup, and he evaded her question. “Just got older, I guess.”
Then Dorrie came in, her eyes taking him in. “You ain’t getting enough rest, Marse Clay! I gonna tie you in bed! See if I don’t!”
Clay and his mother laughed, and he said, “I guess I’m like the boy they put in college. They put him there, but they couldn’t make him think.”
“What’s dat got to do with you?”
“You can tie me in bed, but you can’t make me sleep, Dorrie,” Clay said.
“I’ll fix you a toddy tonight,” Dorrie said emphatically. “My toddies make anybody sleep.”
Clay thought of the bottle of whiskey he’d downed the night before but said, “Thanks, Dorrie. That’ll probably do it.”
Dorrie fixed breakfast, but Clay could not eat, at least not enough to please the two women. When he left, Dorrie said, “He ain’t happy, Miz Susanna.”
“No. Did you see his eyes? He hasn’t slept for several nights.”
“Fox says he’s giving up. Says he’s got something goin’ on in his head that’s gonna kill him if it ain’t took care of!”
Susanna said quietly, “It’s not in his head, Dorrie.”
The slave was very quick. “You right about dat! He’s needin’ a good case of ol’ time gospel salvation!”
“That’s what Rev. Irons says, Dorrie. He’s been to talk to me about Clay. He says about the same thing you do, that if Clay doesn’t get some peace, he won’t make it.”
Dorrie nodded firmly. “Dat preacher has got some sense! Whut he say he gonna do? Git him to come to one of his meetin’s?”
“No, he said Clay wouldn’t come. And he’s right. But he did ask me to pray that he’d have a chance to give him the gospel in some way.”
“Well, we gonna believe Gawd for dat!” There was nothing timid about Dorrie’s faith, and she took Susanna’s hand and the sound of her fervent prayers could be heard as far away as the slave quarters!
Jeremiah Irons was aware that Melora was laughing at him, though the only hint of this was a sly twinkle in her green eyes. Even worse, he strongly suspected that at least five of the other seven people who were sitting in the big room of Buford Yancy’s cabin were also amused at him. He was sitting in a rocking chair made by Buford, listening to his host give his opinion on the heresy of universalism.
; Scattered around the room in various positions were the rest of the Yancy clan, except for Royal, Zack, and Cora, the married children. As Buford droned on, Irons shifted his eyes around the room at the children, all with their father’s tow hair and greenish eyes: from Lonnie, who at sixteen was a younger edition of his father, down to Toby, the youngest. In between, in rather a stair-step fashion, Bobby, Rose, Josh, and Martha were examining the good reverend as though he were some sort of alien specimen.
Melora was washing the last of the supper dishes when she turned and gave him a certain look—that was when Jeremiah sensed that she was amused at him, and her humor had been picked up by all the rest except for Toby, who was asleep, and Buford, who was wading through the heavy seas of Calvinistic theology with a knitted brow.
“… a man can’t find nothing like that in the Bible, kin he, Parson?”
Irons suddenly realized that he had tuned Buford out and tried to fake it. He knew the arguments well but was not inclined to argue over fine theological points of doctrine. “Well, Buford,” he said, clearing his throat, “as I’ve said so often, the universalists do what most do with the scripture. They take a truth, close their eyes to what the rest of the scripture has to say about the matter, then blow that single truth up until it’s swollen like a huge balloon. In this case, men take a verse such as Colossians, first chapter, verses 19 and 20. ‘For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.’ Well, the universalist jumps on the phrase ‘reconcile all things unto himself.’”
Buford blinked; then he brightened up. “That’s it! They claim that means that every soul who’s ever been created will be saved, that nobody will be lost.”
“They go farther than that, I’m afraid,” Irons said. “They claim that even the devil will be saved at last.”
Such a thought had never occurred to Buford Yancy’s simple mind. He sat there staring at the minister blankly, then said with indignation, “Well, I’ll be dipped! Can’t they read, Parson? The whole Bible talks about people who go to hell!”
Three Books in One: A Covenant of Love, Gate of His Enemies, and Where Honor Dwells Page 23
