Harvest Home (31 page)

“Morning,” I said.

“Good morning.” From her tone, I felt it was not. I yawned widely.

“You’d better roll over and have another six hours.”

“Why?”

“You didn’t get very much last night.”

“No.”

She brushed crisply for ten or so strokes. “I suppose the urge was irresistible.”

“No.”

“What, then?”

“I went for a drive.”

“Oh?” She gave me a look in the mirror. “Till three in the morning?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a long drive, over to Main Street. They say the murderer always returns to the scene of the crime.”

“I drove to New York.”

She swiveled on the bench, brush poised at the downstroke. “You what?”

“I said I drove to New York.”

“What on earth for?”

I threw the covers off and headed for the bathroom. “To buy Kate some proper chili.”

When I got downstairs, my breakfast was cooked and in the warmer. There was a note saying Beth had gone to Mrs. Brucie’s to pick up some quilts. When I opened the refrigerator door to get the cream for my coffee, I found another note pinned to one of the paper cartons from Pepe’s Chili Palor. It read:

Not for breakfast! ! !

(and watch for the man with the sofa)

The recovered sofa was returned about midmorning, and was ready for Kate when I carried her downstairs at noon. I laid her on it, with pillows and a blanket, then pulled the rocker up and sat beside her.

“Want the T.V. on?” I asked.

“In a bit. Not just now. Doesn’t that bird know winter’s coming?”

“He waited till you got better.”

She nodded an absent affirmative to my remark, scrunching up her nose like a rabbit. Then she sniffed, and turned to me wide-eyed. “That smells like
chili!
”

I went into the kitchen, dished up a bowl, and brought it back on a tray with a glass of milk. “Pepe sends love.”

“Oh, Daddy—” I settled the tray on the table and held the bowl and spoon.

“I can do it.”

“You just lie there and let me spoon-feed you. You’ve been a sick girl.”

“How many’d you get?”

“Two. We can freeze what you don’t eat and you can have it another time. But not for—”

“Breakfast. I know.” She swallowed the spoonful I held for her and waited for the next. “Did you and Mom make up?” she asked, blowing.

“You heard us, huh?”

“Mm. It sounded as if you were doing toasts, like in
War and Peace
.”

“I think it was more war than peace.”

She let the subject drop then, and ate in silence, blowing on each spoonful as I held it for her. “Want some milk?”

“Mm.”

I handed her the glass, she took a few sips, then lay back against the pillows while I used the napkin on her mouth.

“Anything else?”

“Could you open the window? It’s sort of stuffy.”

I raised the window behind the sofa. From the other side of the hedge came the Invisible Voice. We listened together, trying to determine what it was today. Neither of us recognized the work. I lowered the window slightly and turned on the television, handing Kate the remote control so she could choose her channel; then I carried the tray to the kitchen. When I came back, Kate was watching June Allyson struggle valiantly with a bull fiddle on the television screen.

I made sure she had what she needed, then went back to the studio to continue preparing a gesso board for my new painting. While it dried, I straightened up my paint taboret, sharpened my pencils, threw out a bunch of old sketches, and packed my drawing kit. From Robert’s open window, the Invisible Voice continued reading, though I still had not yet caught enough of it to identify the work. When I came out the studio door, I found the buggy in the drive, the tethered mare contentedly chewing the grass along the hedge. The kitchen door popped open and the Widow appeared on the back stoop, fists on her hips, glowering.

“Chili!” The way she spat the word I decided it had a bad taste for her.

“Chili?” I replied mildly.

“Don’t you go giving that child none o‘ that foreign muck. You want to upset her stomach? You feed her, you feed her what I leave to feed her, hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She gave me another look, then retired. Passing the hedge, I heard the Invisible Voice:

“ ‘I am Charles Hexam’s friend,’ said Bradley; ‘I am Charles Hexam’s schoolmaster.’

“ ‘My good sir, you should teach your pupils better manners,’ replied Eugene.‘ ”

I called over to Robert. “You’ve got me, Robert. What’s the book?”

“Try
Our Mutual Friend
.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Dickens.”

By spring, I decided, Robert would have read his way through the entire works. I climbed on my bicycle, and pedaled out into the lane.

I stopped at the post office to mail the letter I had written to the gallery in New York. As I dropped it into the box outside, I could see the postmistress behind the counter, weighing a package. Her head was down, her face obscured by her hair. Suddenly she looked up, as if she knew I was watching. She stared back at me, her face a mask, then she picked up a rubber stamp and stamped the top of the package. I walked back to the bicycle.

Coming along the roadway in front of the church on the far side of the Common was the pink Oldsmobile. I got back on my bike and rode south along Main Street; I could hear the car behind gaining on me. When I got to the intersection of Main and the River Road, I made a sharp left, and the pink car went roaring past. Glancing back, I saw Old Man Soakes behind the wheel, while two other faces peered at me through the back window. I heard their hoots and jeers as the car disappeared beyond the end of a cornfield, and a plume of blue exhaust dissolved in the air.

Ten minutes later, I was seated on a box at the corner of the small plot where Jack Stump’s bait shack stood. I spent an hour sketching the structure, then, dissatisfied with the results, concentrated on some of the details. There was a particular window I liked, with a piece of tattered shade, and a mud-dauber’s nest in the corner by a broken pane of glass. I contented myself with this small particular for the better part of the afternoon, until the sun caught the broken pane, reflecting in my eye so that it became difficult to work. I made one or two brief erasures on my page, then reversed the sketch against the light to check for errors. Turning it again, I held it up and compared it with the original. Suddenly something odd about the sketch caught my eye. Or, rather, something odd about the window itself. In the drawing, as I had completed it, the window shade hung down only four or five inches, but now, in the shack, the shade was drawn to the sill.

Sliding the pad into the case, I zipped it up and approached the door and listened. From the other side I could hear a faint scraping sound. I knocked.

“Jack? You in there?”

There was no reply. I backed away, studying the house-front. Inside I heard a slight cough, and another shuffling noise. I tried the door. It was locked.

“Hey—Jack, it’s me, Ned Constantine.” I waited for a few moments, then walked around to the back where a small door was cut into the crude siding of the shack. I turned the broken porcelain handle and stepped in.

It was a small, dark room, with little more than a dripping faucet over a sink and a disreputable two-burner stove marking it as a kitchen. A kerosene lantern sat on a rickety table; beside it was a sack of groceries. On the window sill was a shaving mug and an ivory-handled razor which I thought I had seen before. I went around the table and pushed open a door, beyond which was a small hallway. I crossed the hall and opened the other door.

With the shade drawn I could discern only vague shapes —a table, some chairs, a bed with rumpled covers against the wall. Making my way to the window, I raised the shade; it flew up on the roller with a clatter. I heard a sort of whimpering sound behind me and turned to see the bedcovers moving. A hand emerged from under the blanket to pull it up. I stepped past a pile of magazines and looked down.

“Jack?”

Again there was movement, and I reached to turn down the blanket. The hand reappeared, fiercely gripping a corner.

“Hey, old-timer, it’s me, Ned Constantine.”

The whimpering sound continued, and I bent closer. “Hey, Jack—what’s the matter?” As I pulled the blanket back, the peddler seemed literally to be shaking with fright. Cowering, he threw his head to one side and covered it with his arm. His skin felt hot and feverish, and the effort to restrain his tremors brought on greater ones, the shudders racking his frame.

I drew the blanket down farther, and knelt. He kept his head turned away, and it was only by my gentle insistence that he eventually turned it toward me, sliding the tattered sleeve of his shirt over the lower half of his face and gazing at me with red-rimmed eyes. The stubble on his face was shorter than usual, no more than a night’s growth.

“Are you sick?” I asked. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Did you just get back? You’ve been gone a long time.” He nodded wearily. As I was used to doing with Kate, I reached for his wrist to feel his pulse. Instinctively he snatched his arm away, revealing his face.

“Oh, no.
Oh, no
.” I stared in horror. “Jesus, Jack, what’s happened to you?” Even in the dim light, I saw the pitiful wound that passed for a mouth, the scabbed-over scars not fully healed. He huddled against the wall in fear, and I reassured him that I wasn’t going to harm him. Little by little, his hand slid down to the blanket, his fingers plucking at the worn fabric. I patted the hand, bending forward trying to see in the dim light.

“Nobody’s going to hurt you, Jack.” Clearly, he was terrified of something. I carefully took the face between my hands and stared at the scars. They were set half an inch apart, top and bottom, with more random ones at the corners. As though in protest against my seeing such obscene work, he made a gurgling noise in his throat. He tried to stop it, couldn’t, coughed, choked; the mouth opened and I stared into the dark maw. My stomach heaved at what I saw and I released the pained face.

I leaned across him and held him by both shoulders, shaking him slightly. “Jack? Jack, listen to me. I’m going to get a doctor. Can you hear me? I’m going to get help.”

I heard a step behind me, then a voice. “Leave him be— he’s been molested enough.”

The Widow came in, set her valise on the table, and came to the cot. I looked from her to the huddled shape under the blanket, then back to her again. She took a flashlight from her valise and pulled a chair close to the cot.

“What’s happened to him?” I asked.

Paying no attention to me, she switched on the light and held the lens against her skirt as she put her hand on his brow and felt it.

“Well, Jack, how is it this evening? Better?” The head turned slightly, nodded. As I had, she took his wrist and felt his pulse, then laid it back across his chest. “Yes, better, I’d say. Comin‘ along nicely.” Then to me, “Wants a cup of tea, I expect. Maybe you’ll put the kettle on?”

I started the gas burner, filled the kettle under the tap, and put it on the fire. When I came back, the Widow was holding the flashlight over his open mouth and gently urging him to open it. “Come now—you devil, you—don’t be coy with an old lady. Open up and let me see how things are.” At last he opened his mouth and permitted the examination. She looked for a moment or two, moving the beam around inside, then nodded for me to bring her valise.

I fetched it, and she gave me the light to hold while she took a bottle and dipped a cotton swab in it, then inserted the swab and ran it carefully around inside.

“There, now, that’s good. Close now, Jack.” She returned the bottle to the valise and took out a tin of ointment, which she applied to the scars around the lips. “Last time I used this was when they took to you with their fists. But they had worse than fists about them, didn’t they?”

I stared at her. “The Soakeses?”

“Hush,” she told me. “Now then, Jack, what you want is some tea, en’t that it?”

He nodded; she gave his hand a pat and rose. I followed her back into the kitchen, where she took a box from the shelf and a teapot which she rinsed at the sink. I sagged against the doorway and must have made some sort of sound, for she spoke impatiently. “None o‘ that, now. There’s trouble enough around here.”

“
They cut off his tongue
?”

“Appears they did.” She spooned some leaves into the pot, wet her finger, and touched the outside of the kettle. “Another moment.” While the water continued to boil, she removed the linen napkin from the top of her splint basket and began laying out things on the table—several foil-wrapped packets, and the thermos jug. “Didn’t know you was feedin‘ the unfortunate, did you?”

She had been taking the food from our house not for herself, as I had thought, but for Jack. She filled the teapot from the kettle, then took up a rolled parcel from a chair and unwrapped it. It contained some shirts and a pair of pajamas, freshly washed and ironed.

“How?” I asked.

“Simple. They caught him. They hid in the woods—
their
woods, damn their eyes—and they caught him. They caught him and they savaged him. Old Man Soakes and his boys. A nice, well-mannered bunch. I always said Jack’s nose would get him in trouble one day.”

Unconsciously I touched the end of my tongue, thinking how close I had come to a similar fate. Old Man Soakes with his sharp knife, the boys with their—

“Canvas needles.” I voiced my thought.

“Aye, canvas needles. They cut and stitched him up for fair.”

“How did he keep from bleeding to death?”

“We stopped him.” She took a cup and saucer from the shelf and set it on the table. I recognized the box of One-B Weber’s tea.

“It’s steamin‘, Jack,” she called to him, “so we’ll let it cool a bit before you try it.” In the other room, she resumed her chair and held the cup and saucer on her lap, testing the rising vapors with the palm of her hand.

“But almost bled to death he did, didn’t you, Jack? Here, try a sip.” She held the cup up, waiting for him to drink.