by Jeffrey Lent
“You ain’t answered my question.”
She walked on a bit, ahead of him now.
He stopped. Because he was holding the horse’s reins, the horse stopped as well. She walked on a couple of paces before she felt the silence behind her and turned, looked at him, and shook her head. But she was smiling.
She said, “I’m going to catch the first boat I can down the Outlet Canal and stop in Dresden to get my trunk from the hotel and say good-bye to Bertha Pinckney. Then the noon boat to Geneva and the train from there overnight to New York City. I got no interest in going to Saratoga. It’s too close to Utica for me and neither place is one I want to be. I’m not looking to run into a single living soul that knows the first thing about me cept what I choose to tell em. I’m not exactly sure what comes next for me, but for a long list of Will Nots. Which I think is a pretty good place to start from and I think New York City might be a good place to do that. Still, anybody here asks, I’d appreciate it you said Saratoga. And I know you will. But I’m happy having you know otherwise. Is that enough for you?”
He nodded and said, “That sounds sensible. Shall we walk on down and see what we shall see?” And he walked off, toward her, the Pepper horse following. But she’d heard the quaver in his voice and as he stepped to move around her she also turned and fell into step beside him and reached and for a half-dozen steps squeezed tight his hand and then let it go. But not before he’d squeezed back.
They passed the steamboat landing and went along toward the canal. Behind them rose the three stories of the mill, the buggy works and tannery sprawling alongside in the shade of the high banks from the Outlet gorge. Three barges were tied up and being loaded with sacks of grain from heavy dray wagons, stevedores pushing hand trucks up the narrow gangways where crew members stacked the sacks chest-high front to rear. Teams of mules in harness stood along the towpath, flicking rattails against flies. A light buggy passed them and pulled up, the driver climbing out to hand sacks of mail up to the captain of the lead barge. This gave them a purpose to stop.
He turned to her but she walked to the horse and unhitched her saddlebags and hoisted them over her shoulder. She walked back and kissed him before he knew she was going to. She said, “I ain’t never said good-bye and won’t start now.”
“Alice Ann.”
She shook her head. “Go on. Get up on him. Don’t even think of kissing me again. Last thing you’d need is someone seeing that.”
He said her name again.
“Harlan,” she said. “Think of me time to time.” Then she turned and began walking down the landing.
He stepped into the saddle and nudged the horse with his heels and caught up alongside her and looked down and said, “You be careful, you hear?”
She smiled at him and said, “I think I done all right so far. You get on now. Go. Put your mind where it needs to be.”
She walked off and passed around a full wagon and out of sight. Then she reappeared the other side and wended through the press of the loading and made for the first boat.
He turned the horse and rode back beyond the steamboat landing toward the reed bed that ran across the head of the lake, where he turned the horse and sat, waiting and watching. Even this short a distance the figures moving around the barges now seemed small and he peered toward the first boat as a team of mules was brought up and hitched to the towline, men working to loosen the heavy hawsers and set the barge free upon the still water. Then he saw her, a faint figure snug between the load and the rail, looking away, downstream toward Dresden, and he sat the horse and knew she would not look back, and knew also however his life came to pass it would not be the same, this emptiness falling within atop the lovely fullness that was Alice Ann Labidee, how she would be within him there, then, forever.
When the barge was gone from sight he turned the horse again and a pinwheel of grackles burst from the reeds and spun outward toward the lake and he watched them, the slant of the sun on the water bright as the blade of a knife.
He kneed the horse and they went up the hill toward town, on toward the courthouse.
Acknowledgments
For their friendship, support, and encouragement beyond all reasonable expectations, I’d like to thank Sally Hostetler, Dan and Karen Morgan, Jean and Wendy Palthy, Henry Lyman & Noële Sandoz, Rob and Petra McCarron, and Michaela Findeis. My mother, Patricia Adams Lent, continues to offer her deepest faith on all levels.
For Sally Davis, an old and dear friend. By birthright, and by how she leads her life, she gives proof to August’s prediction for the endurance of the legacy of The Public Friend.
Anton Mueller understood the vision and with grace and wisdom helped me to distill it toward the novel it became.
Howard Frank Mosher and Henry Lyman read early drafts and provided keen insights and enthusiasm. In addition, I’m indebted to Howard for providing the inspiration for Amos Wheeler.
For more than a quarter century of friendship and quiet advocacy, I bow to Jim Harrison.
My English Setter, Bella, offered solace and joy when I needed it and when I didn’t.
My daughters, Esther and Clara, are the greatest pleasures of my life. As often as I’m the rock around which their waters swirl, they keep me tethered to this earth.
Finally, and always, my great love and fellow adventurer on this journey, Marion Walton Lent.
A Note on the Author
Jeffrey Lent was born in Vermont and grew up there and in western New York State. His first novel, In the Fall, was a national bestseller and a New York Times Book Review Notable Book for 2000. His other novels are Lost Nation, A Peculiar Grace, and After You’ve Gone. Lent lives with his wife and two daughters in central Vermont.
By the Same Author
After You’ve Gone
A Peculiar Grace
In the Fall
Lost Nation
Bloomsbury USA
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First published 2015
This electronic edition published April 2015
© Jeffrey Lent 2015
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ISBN: HB: 978-1-62040-496-6
PB: 978-1-62040-498-0
ePub: 978-1-62040-497-3
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Lent, Jeffrey.
A slant of light : a novel / Jeffrey Lent.—First U.S. edition.
pages; cm
ISBN 978-1-62040-496-6 (hardcover: acid-free paper)
978-1-62040-498-0 (paperback) 978-1-62040-497-3 (ebook)
1. United States—History—19th century—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3562.E4934S58 2015
813’.54—dc23
2014021632
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