So he tiptoed down the hall and down the stairs, just close enough to hear, just far enough to be around the comer and out of sight.
After just a few minutes, he forgot about being out of sight, too. He crept farther down, until he could see into the big room. Papa sat on the floor, surrounded with wood. It surprised Al Junior that Papa was still doing that, even after coming upstairs to kill roaches, even after so much time had passed. He was bent over now, his face buried in his hands. Mama knelt in front of him, the biggest hunks of wood between them.
“He’s alive, Alvin,” said Mama. “All the rest ain’t worth never mind.”
Papa lifted his head and looked at her. “It was water that seeped into the tree and froze and thawed, long before we even cut it down. And we happened to cut it in just such a way that the flaw never showed on the surface. But it was split three ways inside, just waiting for the weight of the ridgebeam. It was water done it.”
“Water,” said Mama, and there was derision in her voice.
“This is fourteen times the water’s tried to kill him.”
“Children always get in scrapes.”
“The time you slipped on a wet floor when you were holding him. The time David knocked down the boiling cauldron. Three times when he was lost and we found him on the bank of the river. Last winter when the ice broke on the Tippy-Canoe River—”
“You think he’s the first child to fall into the water?”
“The poison water that made him throw up blood. The mud-covered buffalo that charged him in that meadow—”
“Mud-covered. Everybody knows that buffaloes wallow like pigs. It had nothing to do with water.”
Papa slapped his hand down hard on the floor. The sound rang like a gunshot through the house. It startled Mama, and of course she started to look toward the stairs to where the children would be sleeping. Alvin Junior scampered right back up the stairs and waited out of sight for her to order him back to bed. But she must not have seen him, cause she didn’t shout anything and nobody came up after him.
When he tiptoed back down, they were still going at it, only a little quieter.
Papa whispered, but there was fire in his eyes. “If you think this doesn’t have to do with water, then you’re the one that’s a lunatic.”
Mama was icy now. Alvin Junior knew that look—it was the maddest Mama knew how to get. No slaps then, no tongue-lashings. Just coldness and silence, and any child who got that treatment from her began to long for death and the tortures of hell, because at least it would be warmer.
With Papa she wasn’t silent, but her voice was terrible cold. “The Savior himself drank water from the Samaritan well.”
“I don’t recollect that Jesus fell down that well, neither,” said Papa.
Alvin Junior thought of hanging onto the well bucket, falling down into the darkness, until the rope bound up on the windlass and the bucket stopped just above the water, where he would have drowned for certain. They told him he wasn’t yet two years old when that happened, but he still dreamed sometimes about the stones that lined the inside of the well, getting darker and darker as he went down. In his dreams the well was ten miles deep and he fell forever before waking up.
“Then think of this, Alvin Miller, since you think you know scripture.”
Papa started to protest that he didn’t think nothing of the kind.
“The devil hisself said to the Lord in the desert that the angels would bear Jesus up lest he dash his foot against a stone.”
“I don’t know what that has to do with water—”
“It’s plain that if I married you for brains I was plumb cheated.”
Papa’s face turned red. “Don’t you call me no simpleton, Faith. I know what I know and—”
“He has a guardian angel, Alvin Miller. He has someone watching out for him.”
“You and your scriptures. You and your angels.”
“You tell me why else he had those fourteen accidents and not one of them so much as gave him a scrape on his arm. How many other boys get to six years old without no injury?”
Papa’s face looked strange then, twisted up a little, as if it was hard for him to speak at all. “I tell you that there’s something wants him dead. I know it.”
“You don’t know any such thing.”
Papa spoke even slower, biting out the words as if each one caused him pain. “I know.”
He had such a hard time talking that Mama just went on and talked right over him. “If there’s some devil plot to kill him—which I ain’t saying, Alvin—then there’s an even stronger heavenly plan to preserve him.”
Then, suddenly, Papa didn’t have no trouble talking at all. Papa just gave up saying the hard thing, and Alvin Junior felt let down, like when somebody said uncle before they even got throwed. But he knew, the minute he thought about it, that his papa wouldn’t give up like that lessen it was some terrible force stopping him from speaking up. Papa was a strong man, not a bit cowardly. And seeing Papa beat down like that, well, it made the boy afraid. Little Alvin knew that Mama and Papa were talking about him, and even though he didn’t understand half what they said, he knew that Papa was saying somebody wanted Alvin Junior dead, and when Papa tried to tell his real proof, the thing that made him know, something stopped his mouth and kept him still.
Alvin Junior knew without a word being said that whatever it was stopped Papa’s mouth, it was the plain opposite of the shining light that had filled Alvin and the Shining Man tonight. There was something that wanted Alvin to be strong and good. And there was something else that wanted Alvin dead. Whatever the good thing was, it could bring visions, it could show him his terrible sin and teach him how to be shut of it forever. But the bad thing, it had the power to shut Papa’s mouth, to beat down the strongest, best man Al Junior ever knew or heard of. And that made Al afraid.
When Papa went on with his arguments, his seventh son knew that he wasn’t using the proof that counted. “Not devils, not angels,” said Papa, “it’s the elements of the universe, don’t you see that he’s an offense against nature? There’s power in him like you nor I can’t even guess. So much power that one part of nature itself can’t bear it—so much power that he protects hisself even when he don’t know he’s doing it.”
“If there’s so much power in being seventh son of a seventh son, then where’s your power, Alvin Miller? You’re a seventh son—that ain’t nothing, supposedly, but I don’t see you doodlebugging or—”
“You don’t know what I do—”
“I know what you don’t do. I know that you don’t believe—”
“I believe in every true thing—”
“I know that every other man is down at the commons building that fine church, except for you—”
“That preacher is a fool—”
“Don’t you ever think that maybe God is using your precious seventh son to try to wake you up and call you to repentance?”
“Oh, is that the kind of God you believe in? The kind what tries to kill little boys so their papas will go to meeting?”
“The Lord has saved your boy, as a sign to you of his loving and compassionate nature—”
“The love and compassion that let my Vigor die—”
“But someday his patience will run out—”
“And then he’ll murder another of my sons.”
She slapped his face. Alvin Junior saw it with his own eyes. And it wasn’t the offhand kind of cuffing she gave her sons when they lipped or loafed around. It was a slap that like to took his face off, and he fell over to sprawl on the floor.
“I’ll tell you this, Alvin Miller.” Her voice was so cold it burned. “If that church is finished, and there’s none of your handiwork in it, then you will cease to be my husband and I will cease to be your wife.”
If there were more words, Alvin Junior didn’t hear them. He was up in his bed a-trembling that such a terrible thought could be thought, not to mention being spoke out loud. He had been afraid so m
any times tonight, afraid of pain, afraid of dying when Anne whispered murder in his ear, and most of all afraid when the Shining Man came to him and named his sin. But this was something else. This was the end of the whole universe, the end of the one sure thing, to hear Mama talk about not being with Papa anymore. He lay there in his bed, all kinds of thoughts dancing in his head so fast he couldn’t lay hold of any one of them, and finally in a that confusion there wasn’t nothing for it but to sleep.
In the morning he thought maybe it was all a dream, it had to be a dream. But there were new stains on the floor at the foot of his bed, where the blood of the Shining Man had dripped, so that wasn’t a dream. And his parents’ quarrel, that wasn’t no dream neither. Papa stopped him after breakfast and told him, “You stay up here with me today, Al.”
The look on Mama’s face told him plain as day that what was said last night was still meant today.
“I want to help on the church,” Alvin Junior said. “I ain’t afraid of no ridgebeams.”
“You’re going to stay here with me, today. You’re going to help me build something.” Papa swallowed, and stopped himself from looking at Mama. “That church is going to need an altar, and I figure we can build a right nice one that can go inside that church as soon as the roof is on and the walls are up.” Papa looked at Mama and smiled a smile that sent a shiver up Alvin Junior’s back. “You think that preacher’ll like it?”
That took Mama back, it was plain. But she wasn’t the kind to back off from a wrestling match just because the other guy got one throw, Alvin Junior knew that much. “What can the boy do?” she asked. “He ain’t no carpenter.”
“He’s got a good eye,” said Papa. “If he can patch and tool leather, he can put some crosses onto the altar. Make it look good.”
“Measure’s a better whittler,” said Mama.
“Then I’ll have the boy burn the crosses in.” Papa put his hand on Alvin Junior’s head. “Even if he sits here all day and reads in the Bible, this boy ain’t going down to that church till the last pew is in.”
Papa’s voice sounded hard enough to carve his words in stone. Mama looked at Alvin Junior and then at Alvin Senior. Finally she turned her back and started filling the basket with dinner for them as was going to the church.
Alvin Junior went outside to where Measure was hitching the team and Wastenot and Wantnot were loading roof shakes onto the wagon for the church.
“You aim to stand inside the church again?” asked Wantnot.
“We can drop logs down on you, and you can split them into shakes with your head,” said Wastenot.
“Ain’t going,” said Alvin Junior.
Wastenot and Wantnot exchanged identical knowing looks.
“Well, too bad,” said Measure. “But when Mama and Papa get cold, the whole Wobbish Valley has a snowstorm.” He winked at Alvin Junior, just the way he had last night, when it got him in so much trouble.
That wink made Alvin figure he could ask Measure a question that he wouldn’t normally speak right out. He walked over closer, so his voice wouldn’t carry to the others. Measure caught on to what Alvin wanted, and he squatted down right there by the wagon wheel, to hear what Alvin had to say.
“Measure, if Mama believes in God and Papa doesn’t, how do I know which one is right?”
“I think Pa believes in God,” said Measure.
“But if he don’t. That’s what I’m asking. How do I know about things like that, when Mama says one thing and Papa says another?”
Measure started to answer something easy, but he stopped himself—Alvin could see in his face how he made up his mind to say something serious. Something true, instead of something easy. “Al, I got to tell you, I wisht I knew. Sometimes I figure ain’t nobody knows nothing.”
“Papa says you know what you see with your eyes. Mama says you know what you feel in your heart.”
“What do you say?”
“How do I know, Measure? I’m only six.”
“I’m twenty-two, Alvin, I’m a growed man, and I still don’t know. I reckon Ma and Pa don’t know, neither.”
“Well, if they don’t know, how come they get so mad about it?”
“Oh, that’s what it means to be married. You fight all the time, but you never fight about what you think you’re fighting about.”
“What are they really fighting about?”
Alvin could see just the opposite thing this time. Measure thought of telling the truth, but he changed his mind. Stood up tall and tousled Alvin’s hair. That was a sure sip to Alvin Junior that a grown-up was going to lie to him, the way they always lied to children, as if children weren’t reliable enough to be trusted with the truth. “Oh, I reckon they just quarrel to hear theirselfs talk.”
Most times Alvin just listened to grown-ups lie and didn’t say nothing about it, but this time it was Measure, and he especially didn’t like having Measure lie to him.
“How old will I have to be before you tell me straight?” asked Alvin.
Measure’s eyes flashed with anger for just a second—nobody likes being called a liar—but then he grinned, and his eyes were sharp with understanding. “Old enough that you already guess the answer for yourself,” he said, “but young enough that it’ll still do you some good.”
“When’s that?” Alvin demanded. “I want you to tell me the truth now, all the time.”
Measure squatted down again. “I can’t always do that, Al, cause sometimes it’d just be too hard. Sometimes I’d have to explain things that I just don’t know how to explain. Sometimes there’s things that you have to figure out by living long enough.”
Alvin was mad and he knew his face showed it.
“Don’t you be so mad at me, little brother. I can’t tell you some things because I just don’t know myself, and that’s not lying. But you can count on this. If I can tell you, I will, and if I can’t, I’ll just say so, and won’t pretend.”
That was the most fair thing a grown-up ever said, and it made Alvin’s eyes fill up. “You keep that promise, Measure.”
“I’ll keep it or die, you can count on that.”
“I won’t forget, you know.” Alvin remembered the vow he had made to the Shining Man last night. “I know how to keep a promise, too.”
Measure laughed and pulled Alvin to him, hugged him right against his shoulder. “You’re as bad as Mama,” he said. “You just don’t let up.”
“I can’t help it,” said Alvin. “If I start believing you, then how’ll I know when to stop?”
“Never stop,” said Measure.
Calm rode up on his old mare about then, and Mama came out with the dinner basket, and everybody that was going, went. Papa took Alvin Junior out to the barn and in no time at all Alvin was helping notch the boards, and his pieces fit together just as good as Papa’s. Truth to tell they fit even better, cause Al could use his knack for this, couldn’t he? This altar was for everybody, so he could make the wood fit so snug that it wouldn’t ever come apart, not at the joints or nowhere. Alvin even thought of making Papa’s joints fit just as tight, but when he tried, he saw that Papa had something of a knack at this himself. The wood didn’t join together to make one continuous piece, like Alvin’s did—but it fit good enough, yes sir, so there wasn’t no need to fiddle.
Papa didn’t say much. Didn’t have to. They both knew Alvin Junior had a knack for making things fit right, just like his Papa did. By nightfall the whole altar was put together and stained. They left it to dry, and as they walked into the house Papa’s hand was firm on Alvin’s shoulder. They walked together just as smooth and easy as if they were both parts of the same body, as if Papa’s hand just growed there right out of Alvin’s neck. Alvin could feel the pulse in Papa’s fingers, and it was beating right in time with the blood pounding in his throat.
Mama was working by the fire when they came in. She turned and looked at them. “How is it?” she asked.
“It’s the smoothest box I ever seen,” said Alvin Junior.
>
“There wasn’t a single accident at the church today,” said Mama.
“Everything went real good here, too,” said Papa.
For the life of him Alvin Junior couldn’t figure out why Mama’s words sounded like “I ain’t going nowhere,” and why Papa’s words sounded like “Stay with me forever.” But he knew he wasn’t crazy to think so, cause right then Measure looked up from where he lay all sprawled out afore the fire and winked so only Alvin Junior could see.
Visitor
REVEREND THROWER ALLOWED himself few vices, but one was to eat Friday supper with the Weavers. Friday dinner was more accurate, since the Weavers were shopkeepers and manufacturers, and didn’t stop work for more than a snack at noon. It wasn’t the quantity so much as the quality that brought Thrower back every Friday. It was said that Eleanor Weaver could take an old tree stump and make it taste like sweet rabbit stew. And it wasn’t just the food, either, because Armor-of-God Weaver was a churchgoing man who knew his Bible, and conversation was on a higher plane. Not so elevated as conversation with highly educated churchmen, of course, but the best that could be had in this benighted wilderness.
They would eat in the room back of the Weavers’ store, which was part kitchen, part workshop, and part library. Eleanor stirred the pot from time to time, and the smell of boiled venison and the day’s bread baking mingled with the odors from the soapmaking shed out back and the tallow they used in candlemaking right here. “Oh, we’re some of everything,” said Armor, the first time Reverend Thrower visited. “We do things that every farmer hereabouts can do for himself—but we do it better, and when they buy it from us it saves them hours of work, which gives them time to clear and plow and plant more land.”
The store itself, out front, was shelved to the ceiling, and the shelves were filled with dry goods brought in by wagon from points east—cotton cloth from the spinning jennies and steam looms of Irrakwa, pewter dishes and iron pots and stoves from the foundries of Pennsylvania and Suskwahenny, fine pottery and small cabinets and boxes from the carpenters of New England, and even a few precious bags of spices shipped into New Amsterdam from the Orient. Armor Weaver had confessed once that it took all his life savings to buy his stock, and it was no sure bet that he’d prosper out here in this thinly settled land. But Reverend Thrower had noticed the steady stream of wagons coming up from the lower Wobbish and down the TippyCanoe, and even a few from out west in the Noisy River country.
Seventh Son Page 8
