A Slant of Light

by Jeffrey Lent

  He looked a final time at the strewn foodstuffs. There was much left and never once in his life had he abandoned food to waste. An oriole beside the pond trilled irritation or alarm at his presence, breaking his glance. The bird balanced on the tip of a cattail reed, plump but upright on the bent stalk. Bobbing gently.

  Malcolm looked up the hill. Bethany was gone.

  He ran after her. Up through the grass, up the hill to the lane. Vaulted the rail and came down in the dust of the lane and she was nowhere in sight. Trills of darker dust showed her track.

  He caught up with her not far beyond the plum where she’d left her boots. He’d slowed to a lope before making the turn where the plum would come into sight and when he saw her he let himself walk. She heard him and glanced back but kept going. He jogged briefly again and came up beside her.

  She’d taken off her cap and unpinned her hair, letting it fall about her face and shoulders in long dark curls. She didn’t look at him but said, “I’ll walk. It’s not so far. I made a mistake is all and I’m sorry for wasting your time. You forget, or maybe weren’t listening: I’m a woman that walks.”

  He lengthened his stride, went ahead and turned to face her. She glanced aside as if to pass him, then stopped and folded her arms over her breast. Her face without humor, a darkling cast.

  He said, “Bethany Schofield, one thing you should know about me, even if there’s nothing more you’ll wish to learn. Unlike some men, I can admit when I made a mistake. You’d grant me that?”

  “Are you toying with me?”

  “I’m befuddled is what I am.”

  “You’d swear to it?” Now a glimmer of curiosity about her eyes. She let her arms fall loose to her sides.

  He said, “Bethany. It was you came seeking me this morning. Ever since, it seems I’m chasing after you, turned one way and then another and yet there’s something about you that makes me doubt any of those turnings were intentional or malicious. Rather, a person trying to explain themselves and cautious at once. Much as I am, standing before you and doing my best to comprehend you.”

  “Go on,” she said.

  “Perhaps to have you comprehend me also?”

  “Why? Assume I might have erred this morning, seeking you. So, then. Why?”

  He made a step closer and reached to place both hands upon her shoulders. She shivered under his touch, then rose to meet it. He went on, “It was many years ago I concluded I’d likely go through life alone. And the prospect was not unpleasant; in fact it seemed to me how I’d best live. There was no event, no girl scorning me that brought me to feel this was so. Rather it seemed part and parcel of my nature. I’d come to doubt I’d ever meet another soul might understand me, my past and present both with such a great gulf between them. I’m not unhappy alone, far from it.”

  She said, “A good thing for you, I think.”

  “I’m speaking my mind, is all. So, where is it you plan to walk to, now?” He’d spied that she had her stockings balled in her apron pocket. Her feet might be summer-tough but her leather boots would raise blisters on her heels, ankles.

  “Home, I suppose.” She looked away to the west, where that destination lay, more miles than he cared to think of, unsure of where exactly that home might be. He also realized when she’d first hailed him this morning there’d been no mud on her boots, the hem of her dress. Certainly she hadn’t walked to town. She might walk about at night, but not the dozen or fifteen miles to town. He waited.

  She looked back and said, “Well, I’ve made a fair mess of this, haven’t I? My father claims I’m heedless and headstrong, willful and thoughtless. Perhaps there’s a grain of truth there I’d rather not believe. I came seeking you to discover something of who you are, and also what regard you might hold me in. Now I tremble against what that regard might be: I wouldn’t want to know.”

  All this said with his hands still on her shoulders, both very close, their breath upon one another. As if a separate conversation was passing between their bodies as their tongues and minds tangled.

  “I won’t presume to argue against your father, though I think he might be wrong most ways. Myself, I find you bold and brave, perhaps a bit fractious but I wonder if you’d interest me so, if you weren’t.”

  “You’re being kind.” She waited, the turmoil of thought clear in her eyes.

  “I think we have a choice here. I can hitch my gig up and drive you home, or to town or wherever you might wish. Or we can take this in stride as the to and fro of a fascinating and curious first meeting, walk back and finish our luncheon left for the birds and resume our conversation. Myself, I’m hoping for the second: I’m mighty curious about some things you’ve said, questions you’ve asked. I’m saying I’d rather not lose you so easy, this day—”

  Interrupted as she lifted both hands to cup his jaw, leaned up and kissed him.

  He’d caught his share of kisses over the years, hasty pecks upon his cheek, fleet lips pressed dry against his own, more than a couple of times in the dark of the loft of threshing or shelling, a wet warm mouth mingled upon his own.

  He’d never been kissed by a woman with all body and soul and heart within the kiss. After the first moment he stepped into the kiss and she responded. He closed his eyes against the vertigo overcoming him and lived then in her flesh against his, also the red and black spackling light against his eyelids. Once he opened his eyes and saw hers were shut also and closed his again and pulled her even harder against him and she came pliable and flowing, now both the all of them.

  Some moments later he opened his eyes again and was looking into her own open eyes. And her hands that had been roving his back dropped and came upon his chest and she stepped back from the kiss. Both still and knowing that always they lived in a sun-drenched hot world.

  “There,” she said. “There we are.”

  “Nowhere else,” he said.

  “The first thing we do is save the food from the birds. I’m all appetite.”

  “Yes, you are. I’m half-starved myself.”

  “More than half, I think.”

  “Is it you,” he said. “Is it you?”

  “I don’t know. Is it you?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Me,” she echoed.

  They lay back in the meadow by the pond, the food consumed and destroyed, much else also, lying back in the grass with the birds overhead or trilling from their hidden places, the steady midday trumpets of frogs, a lilting cloud toward the sun, then gone with the cool plaster over their dimpled flesh. A pair of crows chased a hawk high above, the hunter flapping slow, careless, as the two stragglers darted and cried outrage against some trespass. Likely known to all three parties, uncertain to those prone upon the earth. Grasshoppers popped stem to stem, passing over the bodies, small machineries of sunlight and heat.

  Otherwise not stirring, her first words, “How many rows?”

  Thick-tongued he said, “How what?”

  “I’m a fair hand with a fork, if you’ve got two of em. It’s early yet and I was thinking we could save your hay and, well, that would be a good thing. Maybe talk a bit as we went along?”

  They had been ardent, passionate, near violent with each other and also innocent, striving, small fumblings. Her pained gasp when after groping attempts, he found entry and thoughtless of her pressed deep. That gasp ended soon enough and they’d rocked together, his first discharge only inflaming both onward. Finally uncoupled and separate, both upon their backs side by side, yet still joined, her blood upon him, matting and drying with the other fluids commingled upon him, within her, she had been the one to find voice and without losing what had just been made between them returned them to the larger earth.

  The sodden windrows were already starting to dry along the tops and sides beneath the midday sun. They worked across from each other, using the forks to pull apart and spread the windrows to open them, the wet twined centers fluffed and lifted to the air and sun. Both barefoot, much clothing left by the pond—his go
-to-town vest and jacket, socks and boots, her apron and shawl and underskirts, also those stockings and boots. Few words at first, less uncomfortable than both stunned to a simple silence.

  Finally, still working, they spoke fragments that held worlds. She would punctuate by grunts or bursts of expelled air when a knot of hay proved tough to break apart. Or wanted emphasis. He worked on, steady and thorough, his words also, best he could.

  She said, “Rich hay. Dense.”

  “Is it fatiguing you?”

  “I’m a bit atremble.”

  “If you’d sit in the shade, I can finish this up quick.”

  “I’d stand across from you. I’m strong enough.”

  “That you are.”

  “Are you shamed?”

  He paused, stuck tines in the earth and placed his palms over the end of the handle. “No,” he said. “You?”

  “It was not what I expected when I set out this morning.”

  “I did not think so. Nor what I expected when I brought you here. But.”

  “But what?”

  He couldn’t help his grin. “It’s a fine day.”

  “Pleased with yourself?”

  “I can’t say what I am except I can’t imagine changing a thing if I had a choice to do so. How’s that strike you?”

  “The way I feel also. Come, let’s attack this hay, get the work done.”

  They went back to it.

  She said, “You are not snared, any way. I want you to know that.”

  “I’m not? Well, my arms may swing free and my feet tramp the stubble but otherwise I’m hog-tied hand and foot and thrown upon the ground.”

  “No. You are not.”

  “I didn’t say I was unhappy in that condition. Also, there may be consequences yet unknown to us.”

  “You’ll not be snared so. If I think for the first minute you feel you are I’ll rob my father’s pig money, walk through the night and ride the trains into the western prairies of Dakota Territory. Or some such a place. Regardless of the consequence you speak of.”

  “Aw, Bethany. Since you stepped out of the fog this morning nothing that happened was expected, but none of it was anything but inevitable. That I know. So set your mind at ease on that point. I was present throughout, remember?”

  “But you understand my caution.”

  “I honor your caution.”

  They’d come to the end of a windrow. One remained. Almost side by side they walked to the next but just as she was about to step to the far side, to resume work, he dropped his fork and reached for her elbow and pulled her close and kissed her.

  When they stepped apart she said, “Well!” and then dug with her fork. They now traveled west.

  She said, “So, honoring my caution, how do you propose we move forward? What is your idea of all this, Malcolm Hopeton?”

  “That we finish this row. It will be late afternoon before we could get the hay up. While waiting we should retrieve the rest of our clothing from my pond pasture. Also, delicious as it was, our picnic was no dinner and after all this exertion I think we might want a proper meal. Easily enough found in my kitchen. That should give us time to consider this idea of moving forward. Unless you’d have me drop the fork and hitch my fast mule and drive you home now?”

  “There’s a bit of devil to you, isn’t there?”

  He lofted a forkful of hay high, where it wheeled, broke apart, and settled again. He laughed and said, “No, Bethany. Only a man lit all ways he never thought he would be.”

  Then a silence fell as they worked on down the row, her face turned to the job, his upon her, the spread of land so deeply known and loved yet all shimmering, new-made as the first day. The work was opening the muscles of his legs and back, also the pleasant ache of his loins. He watched her, her body swinging with the work of digging, lifting, turning. Her hips and thighs, her sturdy calves naked below her single skirt, the sway of her breasts, the ripple of muscle in her arms, the back of her neck.

  Without looking up she said, “Never laid eyes upon you until this day and that only because of words caught in passing. The lusty man who’d not court girls, the one severed harshly from the Lord, who raised peaches to make you swoon, the farmer intent upon the life of himself. And somehow I heard myself in that.”

  He worked on a bit and finally said, “Mystery abounds in the world, might even make the world. Look—we’ve finished the row.”

  Easy together walking back down to the pond, swinging along with the newfound pleasure of each other, the hour of work adding to their physical ease, neither were prepared for the sudden awkwardness that came over them once back at the pond: the strewn food, the sacking blown by the breeze, the matted grass away from the shade where earlier they’d rolled together.

  Malcolm was quick. “Ah, was it crows smelled those oysters and made off with them or some other creature? The rest I don’t mind, but I was looking forward to the remains of those. I’ll gather all this up, just be a minute with it.” He was already doing this as he spoke. Over his shoulder he said, “Next I go to Pinnieo’s, I’ll have an extra reason for the trip. I’d guess he stocks them often, made as they are not to spoil. Would you have a sip of water? It’s still cool.” Saying this as he stood and turned.

  Her eyes were moist and red, and a hand flew to cover her mouth as she tried to speak, then choked, which she turned into a cough and bent her head as if into the cough, then rubbed her eyes and reached for the can. “There’s dust in my throat.”

  “Drink a bit. It’ll help.”

  She allowed her eyes upon him, hiding nothing, and took the can and drank. Water dribbled through the hay-dust on her chin. She said, “I’m fairly parched. A mighty thirst.” She drank more, then handed the can to him.

  He swallowed long quaffs, pleasure filling him again as the water in his belly. He wiped his mouth and said, “My grandfather once said we think we’re deep in life, until we truly find ourselves to be so and realize up till then we’ve just been skimming.”

  “That’s a fearful thought.”

  “Or a joyous one. Let’s walk up to the house, get out of the sun for a bit.” He reached for her hand and after a pause she took it and they made their way up the hillside, the bucket bouncing rhythmic against his outside thigh.

  “You were lucky to have him.”

  “I know it.” They were out on the lane through the fields now, shuffling up afternoon dust. He said, “He’d been broken and busted most all ways a man can be but he loved life tenacious as a dog holding a bone right down to the very end.”

  She said, “I regret not knowing him. I suspect I’d have liked him.”

  Malcolm said, “He’d have enjoyed you. After all, he spent the best part of ten years preparing me to meet you.”

  She didn’t say anything after that.

  He’d been waking at night, mulling the purchase of a folding-top buggy and a fast driving horse, as well. He even had a horse in mind, a fine-boned bay he’d seen at Avery’s livery, the same day in early September when he’d prowled through the shop floor of Burketts’ buggy works, running his hands upon glossy lacquered sides, dashboards, shafts, over the finely grained and supple leather of the tops, testing the strength and flexibility of the iron mechanisms that raised or folded down the leather tops. Although when the fellow upon the floor with a brimless cap and spectacles had approached, he’d waved him away with the gesture of one only browsing, passing time. Finally, at a solitary breakfast eaten far too early as sleep had evaded him since just past midnight worrying the issue, he set it aside. She’d proven more than content with the mules and the democrat wagon, the single Clown mule hitched to his open gig. A farmer with mules was what he was and a farmer with mules was clearly what she wanted.

  Still, he had the presence of mind to make arrangements at Avery’s for that Tuesday morning in the third week of September to leave his mule and gig and drive to the courthouse in a buggy drawn by a comfortable if not flashy horse. And a good thing of that, also, the
day having dawned raining steady. He’d stuffed his folded suit into a tin box, pulled his wide-brimmed straw low and driven to his marriage in everyday clothes, soaked through before he was a quarter of the distance to town. Though his blood was hot and fine, no chill upon him that day.

  He’d changed in a stall of the livery, rubbing his raw chin where he’d shaved with cold water, too impatient to wait for the kettle; pressed his summer-hard wide feet into his boots and then snapped the whip over the horse to drive the buggy to where she waited under the portico of the courthouse with Merry Struther, the young married woman from the Jerusalem community who’d agreed to be both transport and witness and was clearly more nervous than either Bethany or Malcolm, once all met before entering to stand before the justice of the peace. Both women were splashed with mud and Merry clutched a drenched spray of purple asters.

  Those flowers passed into Bethany’s hands and afterward, back at the farm, Malcolm had taken them and set them in a lard bucket upon the table. Where, wondrously, they remained through the winter, long after the water was gone from the bucket, the dense florets slowly drying over months, the stalks and few leaves turning brown, the leaves rolling and dropping away but the florets only growing muted, holding their color until the February day when he noticed the phenomenon and carefully broke a sprig free and pressed it between the pages of his grandfather’s crackled leather-bound volume of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Where he would forget it for many years.

  Bethany was kind. Once outside the courthouse she thanked Merry Struther, kissed her upon both cheeks, told her not to worry and thanked her again. The rain still streaming down. Then she and Malcolm looked at each other and she grabbed his hand and together they ran laughing through the rain to the waiting buggy, careless of their laughter, careless of the rain, careless of all things. They’d made the great hurdle.