After Eli (10 page)

“I know the three of you must be tired to your very souls,” he said. “I’ll be workin’ in the field. The diggin’s easy after the rain. Tell Rachel and Sarah I’ll see them in the afternoon.”

“The fence,” Dora said suddenly. “When’s that fence goin’ to be built?”

The expression did not change in Michael’s face.

“Soon, Miss Dora,” he answered softly. “Soon.”

He watched as Dora crossed the yard and entered the house. He could see the vague outline of Rachel standing close to the screen of the window, staring out at him.

* * *

It was late in the day when Sarah found him resting in the woods beside his stack of blackgum posts. He was stretched across a soft bed of pine needles that he had raked together with his fingers, watching a bluejay darting through the limbs of a hickory. It fought for balance on a twig, flapped noisily, screamed, then dove away from the tree.

“Mr. O’Rear?” Sarah said quietly.

Michael rolled to his right and in one move was on his feet, leaning forward in a coil. He recognized Sarah and stood upright, laughing.

“You ’most had a corpse on your hands, Sarah, girl,” he said. “Comin’ up on me, not makin’ a sound like that.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Them’s words I don’t like hearin’. Never be sorry, Sarah.”

“But it scared you.”

“And well it should have, me daydreamin’ like I was when I should have been workin’. It’s water you’ve got, is it? And that was what I was thinkin’ about. Whether to go to the house or to the creek, and, lo, here it is.”

Sarah handed him the jar of water and stood away from him as he drank.

“It’s good,” he said. “Nothin’ better, and I’ve had my share of ale, bein’ around the circus. But nothin’s as good as good water.”

“Mama said you’d be thirsty,” Sarah mumbled. “She started to bring it up, but she told me to.”

Michael smiled. He knew what he could expect from Rachel—reserve, caution, withdrawal. She had violated her loyalty to Eli and it would need time to heal.

“Your mother’s a carin’ person,” he said. The smile widened on his face. “And a givin’ one,” he added lightly. “Don’t know that I’ve ever met a better lady, in every way.”

“Mama made Dora go to bed,” Sarah told him.

Michael placed the jar on the ground and sat beside it, curling his feet beneath his legs.

“It’s good she did,” he replied. “Miss Dora looked weary enough. She must’ve not slept.”

“She tried doctorin’ Mama Ada with some herbs, but they didn’t work.”

“Your Aunt Dora knows a lot about herbs, does she?”

“Some. She makes me take some. Used to, when I was little.”

“Well, you’re a woman now. Pretty as a flower.”

Sarah smiled. She shook her head and turned to look across the field below the woods.

“What’s that?” bellowed Michael. “You denyin’ you’re pretty as a flower?” He laughed easily. “Just goes to show you’re not lookin’ at yourself in the right mirror.”

“A mirror’s a mirror,” she answered. “They all the same.”

“And that’s where you’re wrong, Sarah. There’s all kinds of mirrors. Why, in the circus there’s a house of mirrors that can make you look fat or skinny, or wide or tall, or like you’ve got two heads instead of one. There’s all kinds of mirrors, but there’s only one that’s worth seein’, Sarah.”

She stared at him suspiciously.

“What’s that?” she asked.

He stood and stepped to her and took her face in the palms of his hands and lifted her eyes to him.

“It’s the mirror in the eyes of the man who cares for you, Sarah,” he replied. “You’ll see it someday. Someday, you’ll be lookin’ into some lucky man’s eyes and you’ll see yourself dressed in a robe and a crown and you’ll know you’re a true princess, you will.”

His eyes pulled her into him and she stood without moving against his palms.

“Do you believe me, Sarah?” he asked gently. “How do you think a butterfly comes from a worm? By believin’ it’s got beauty inside it that no one else can ever see. And that’s the way it’ll be with you, Sarah.” He leaned forward and kissed her tenderly on the forehead and then released her. “Now that’s a private kiss, Sarah. Just between you and me. Just to tell you there’s one man who already thinks you’re a butterfly. Will you keep it that way? Between us? Not tell your mother or Miss Dora, because they’d not understand. Just between us? Will you?”

She nodded.

“I—I’ve got to get on back,” she said hesitantly. “Mama wants me to watch for the doctor’s car. When it comes back up the road.”

“I’m thankful for the water, Sarah. I’m glad it was you that brought it up.”

“Mama—Mama said we’d better not miss the car goin’ back. She—she’s worried about Mama Ada.”

“I’ll help out later,” he said.

Sarah looked at him, then turned and ran from the woods.

“You’re a butterfly, all right,” Michael said to himself. He smiled. “Ready for spreadin’.” He began to whistle.

* * *

The doctor’s car passed by the house in early evening, speeding recklessly over the rough dirt road, and Michael sat until late night with the three women on the front porch of the house and watched for the car’s return, but it did not appear. The following morning, as he left the barn for breakfast in
the fading darkness, Michael saw the weak yellow beams of headlights drifting slowly in his direction, as though searching the ground in resignation. He knew intuitively that Garnett Cannon’s funereal pace was his own private processional. He decided he would not speak of seeing the car; the news would come soon enough.

* * *

The first bell struck as they were completing breakfast.

It was a very faint chime, a dull, metal ringing that floated into the kitchen and then died away.

Dora spread her hands over the table, palms down, in a hushing gesture, and lifted her face to the ceiling. No one moved.

Then a second bell. And a third.

Rachel pushed quickly away from the table and slipped through the kitchen door into the backyard. Sarah and Dora followed. They stood together outside, facing the sound, facing Yale.

A fourth bell. And a fifth. The three women pulled closer.

Michael watched them through the window and listened attentively. He did not understand what was happening, but he knew there was a private message in the ringing, that each striking of the bell spoke to them in a dreaded voice.

Again and again the bell struck. Minute after minute, like a drugged ticking riding up the funnel of the mountain valley, echoing faintly. And then it stopped.

Dora turned away and walked back into the house. She paused at the door and looked at Michael, then passed him and went into her room. Sarah stood beside her mother and began to cry. Rachel held her and said nothing.

“Is there somethin’ I could do?” Michael asked gently from the kitchen door.

“No,” answered Rachel. Then she added, “Mama Ada’s dead.”

“That was the ringin’?”

Rachel nodded yes. She embraced Sarah, taking the girl’s face to the cradle of her throat.

“Are you for certain?” Michael asked.

“There were eighty-five rings. That’s how old Mama Ada was,” Rachel told him. “When somebody dies, they ring the bell in years, so people’ll know.”

Michael walked to Sarah’s back and put his hands on her hair and stroked it.

“It’s a sad day,” he whispered. “But the best thing to do for sadness is to let go of it, Sarah, and not be ashamed of it passin’ through you. Stay close to your mother. She’ll be needin’ you as much as you’ll be needin’ her.”

Rachel looked into his face, then dropped her eyes and pulled Sarah closer.

“I’ll be workin’ in the woods, if you’ll be needin’ me,” Michael said. “You’ve things to do. The wake and the funeral, and it’s best for me to keep from troublin’ you, bein’ I’m not family or friend of the sweet lady.”

He left them standing in the yard. He crossed the field and walked in the hem of the woods until he was above the house, at the place where Sarah had guarded the grazing cows. He sat with his back against the giant cedar and surveyed the valley. A haze covered the land in its thin fog-skin and the sun broke over the mountains like an unfolding Chinese fan.

“Ah,” he said to himself in a relaxing sigh, “it’s a lovely day, it is. A lovely day.”

* * *

The minister sat behind the pulpit in a tall chair with the wingspread of ornate angels carved in the thick oak tips above his shoulders. He stared transfixed at the opened coffin before the altar. His legs were crossed at the knees and his hands rested, left over right, on the kneecap. His hands were large and the knuckles were disfigured with knots of arthritis. His skin looked bleached against his black suit and the dark mahogany
of the chair. He was white-haired and old and the flesh under his small eyes sagged from too much crying for Jehovah to forgive his sinful people.

He watched numbly as the fuzzy figures of mourners moved slowly before the coffin, peering into the shallow wooden pit for a quick eye-stop of memory. They looked and shook their heads and forced their faces to turn their bodies away and returned to the church pews in a dragging walk of holding back the terrible final moment—not realizing the terrible final moment was over. He watched as they marched before him, swaying, one by one, old and young, in the custom of a last praising. They came in a prescribed order—first friends, then neighbors, then relatives, until only the family remained. And then Floyd and his wife and children, the last of the processional, gathered in a tight bow at the coffin’s edge and drank with their eyes from the still, small figure that lay like a flower on a white pillow. Floyd reached timidly across the space of his life and his mother’s death and touched her face lightly, almost involuntarily. A film of tears filled his hollow eyes and someone tugged at his arm and led him away to the front pew.

A baby whimpered and was stifled against a mother’s shoulder. An old man coughed. A woman cried in a soft monotone, like a brook. The minister nodded once and the pianist began to play a subdued lead, and three people, a man and two women, stood together beside the piano, facing Floyd, and began to sing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Their voices were high and harsh.

The old minister closed his eyes and leaned his head against the flying angels of the tall mahogany chair. The words and music and the voices of the song were like an extension of him. He had heard it hundreds of times at hundreds of funerals. His mind repeated the words with the voices and his right index finger tapped the rhythm against his kneecap.

Then the song was over and he opened his eyes and stood slowly and walked to the pulpit. The Bible was open before him
but he did not look at it. He lifted his face to the exact center of the ceiling and his lips parted and his throat quivered with the beginning of a word.

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want—” he recited in a voice that rose in a roar from his chest.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil—”

His voice rumbled in a song cadence and the words were flung far across the small church, driving the sword of David into the breast of every listener.

He ended the psalm with a breathless “Amen” and stood trembling, washed in the rush of the echo: “…dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” He stepped from the pulpit and walked unsteadily to the front of the coffin. He looked once into the frozen face of Mama Ada and gently whispered, “Ada.”

He watched her for a long moment, as though expecting a reply, and then he turned to the congregation.

“Ada,” he said again. “Ada liked singin’. Told me once to bury her with singin’, with a sermon about singin’. Said to make it soft and sweet, like precious Jesus. Said to make it loud and strong, like God laughin’. Said to tell people to go to her graveside with singin’ on their lips and in their souls.”

He raised his deformed hands before him and locked them at the wrists. He stared at a pinspot of the ceiling, the space-map linking him to God, and his mouth opened and his voice flew from his throat like a wind.

“Sing your songs, O people,” he said happily. “Sing of light, not darkness. Sing of joy, not sorrow. Sing in celebration, not in lamentation. Sing with spirits soarin’, not laggin’.”

A voice from the congregation muttered, “
Amen,
” and the minister bowed his head and pulled his hands to his chest and smiled triumphantly.

“Death’s not a draggin’-down angel to them that’s fearin’ God,” he began again, quietly, patiently. “Death’s not mean-faced to the lover of Jesus’ name.”

“
Amen. In Jesus’ name.
”

“Death’s a turnin’ loose of everythin’ that’s knotted up and tiresome. Death’s a heart filled with laughin’ to them that’s been hurt with burdens. Death’s a roomful of happy faces to them that’s been alone. Death’s a whirlwind trip over the whole universe to them that’s never traveled anywhere except in dreamin’.”

“
Praise God.
”

“Death’s a clean mountain mornin’ to God’s child. It’s the first snow of first winter. It’s spring’s bloom. It’s summer’s goodness. It’s autumn’s harvest.”

“
Glory be to God.
”

The old minister paused and his head lifted and his smile broadened and his arms spread in an embrace of the room. His voice became a whisper.