Gabriel's Story (8 page)

Solomon emerged from behind the curtain with a lamp in hand. The light illuminated the downpour and caught the erratic bounces of the hail, like jewels thrown about the table. A second later, Hiram tumbled through the door. The light caught the surprise on his face as he stepped from one downpour into another. “You can't escape the flood!” he yelled, finding sudden humor in the situation.

Solomon was more serious. “Ben, see to Raleigh and the mule. See they don't get too spooked and are tied up properly.” Ben jumped into action immediately, reaching for his boots and coat. He was out the door in the space of a few seconds. “Hiram, we gotta mend this roof.”

“Directly,” Hiram agreed.

“Gabriel, go fetch some of the cut sod. We'll layer it over top as best we can.” He and Hiram lifted the table and chairs out of the way. Eliza appeared with the quilt from her bed. She tossed it across the floor, covering the larger part of the rain-soaked area.

Gabriel went so far as to sit up and survey the chaos. He blinked and said, “Let the damn roof leak, for all I care.”

Solomon had just set the table down. He swung toward the boy. His hand came up and flew at Gabriel, so fast neither of them seemed to know it was happening. He smacked the boy open-palmed across the cheek, snapping his head around and sending him sprawling back against the pallet. Gabriel was up in a second, chest thrown out and fists at the ready. Solomon met him head on. “What the hell's wrong with you, boy? What kind of creature you got eating at you?”

“Nothing's eating me except being here.”

“You're a fool, Gabriel. You're a damn fool child. If you would put away that anger, you'd see we're making a life here.” A fresh gust of wind tore through the open door and around the room and fled through the roof, rocking them all where they stood. But Solomon kept his gaze on Gabriel. He spoke just loud enough to be heard over the noise. “I'll accept you into this home like a son. I'll love you like one if you let me, but I ain't gonna tolerate you forever. You can make it with us or not. I don't care. You can be damn sure we can do it without you.” He turned and shoved the door aside, Hiram following close on his heels.

Eliza eyed Gabriel angrily. “Get out there and help.”

Gabriel pulled on his boots and strode out into the rain without even a jacket to protect him. Ice balls pummeled his back and shoulders, sending his muscles into convulsions that he overcame by turning them into a full-tilt run. He could barely see the ground before him, and he ran with his arms outstretched, feet kicking out in a clumsy, stiff-legged gait. He stumbled over the sod before he knew he'd reached it and landed flat on the slick earth. He jumped up with all the speed of a man who'd tripped over a dead body, but then he stood, gasping, forgetting his mission and staring back at the spectacle that was their home. A jagged line of white lit the sky and a foul, misshapen world flashed into view, outlined in blinding detail. One could have mistaken the soddy for a dinghy afloat in a raging sea. The prairie's contours were suddenly waves, moving with a slow and ominous bulk. The moment passed and all went black. There followed the slow rumble of thunder, a sound that in its breadth and depth overcame all other sounds, like God clearing his throat.

This spurred Gabriel back into motion. He felt for the sod with his hands and feet, found it, and shimmied his fingers under a block. He hefted it up, sank beneath it, and let the dead weight lie on his shoulder. His footing was loose and sloppy as he struggled toward the house. By the time he reached it, the two men had leaned a ladder against the wall and Solomon had scaled it. He was hard at work on the roof, sorting through the material with some plan that Gabriel could scarcely conceive. Hiram greeted the boy but motioned him to stand back. He began handing short pieces of wood up to Solomon.

Gabriel stood with soil running down one half of his body, rainwater washing down the other. It was only then that he noticed the hail had stopped. But to make up for it, the rain fell much harder. He could just hear the commotion coming from the barn. Raleigh and the mule were anxious. The roar of the wind and rain made it hard to hear what was going on over there, but Gabriel could make out brisk whinnies and hoofbeats, intermingled with Ben's soothing voice, his explanations that all would be well.

Gabriel jumped when Hiram called him. He helped the man push the block of turf onto the roof. Hiram climbed onto the ladder and Gabriel held it as best he could, but the crooked wood shifted and bucked and rocked precariously as the men worked.

Eliza appeared in the open door and stood silhouetted there, her eyes hidden until the sky flashed again. Then Gabriel saw that she was looking at him. Her face went black again before he could read it. Solomon called for another block. This time Gabriel headed off without delay, so consumed in the work, the elements, and the electricity in the air that he didn't even consider any further protest.

THE NEXT MORNING THE FAMILY SURVEYED THE DAMAGE with somber eyes. If the house had once been an ogre, now it was that ogre's diseased and feeble grandfather. Inside, mud clogged the floor and seemed to have climbed up objects of its own accord, staining clothes and beds and even worming its way into the sealed trunks. The door was propped open to promote drying, but this succeeded only in merging the mud inside with the puddles outside. The wildflowers so patiently nurtured by Eliza had been pummeled to naught, both by the downpour and by the men's frantic feet. Their patch job cluttered the roof like rubbish that has collected at the bend in a river—sticks crooked and cross-hatched, chunks of sod thrown over them every which way, like finger bandages over a gunshot wound. Looking at it, all agreed it was a wonder the house had sheltered as well as it had.

The fields were flooded, knee-deep in mud and more like the rice paddies of the Far East than Kansas wheat fields. It was impossible to say whether the ground might hold the seeds still or whether they were likely to float away and sprout in some distant spot, or whether they would just drown outright. Hiram speculated that the better part of them would be just fine, but nobody else voiced an opinion on the matter. Raleigh and the mule seemed largely unaffected, if a bit bedraggled. The sow was not disturbed at all, slogging about in the mud with obvious pleasure.

Solomon took it all in impassively. He shook his head but said not one downhearted word. Once the survey was complete, he shrugged his shoulders and met the earnest gazes of the others. “Let's get this place cleaned up,” he said.

The others nodded and went silently to work. Gabriel helped his mother clean out the house, watching her for some sign that she saw the futility in all this. One storm, he longed to say. One storm and look at the place. He yearned to name the plagues that would follow, as if they were Biblical prophecy preordained and unavoidable. He would have asked her if she'd had enough yet, if this wasn't proof that the land could wreak upon them any whim that took its fancy, save that he knew she would not allow him questions. He would have fallen to his knees and begged her to see reason but that he saw no reason himself and was sure that reason no longer played a part in her decisions. So he aided her efforts in silence, watching for any indication that she might be swayed.

Yet again, Eliza gave no sign of regret. She simply went to work, shaking her head in an almost amused manner, as if somebody had played a joke on them all and she couldn't help but acknowledge the humor in it.

GABRIEL WORKED HARD OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS. Nobody commented on the outburst of that stormy evening, but it hung over the homestead like a cloud that would neither rain nor blow on. It lingered in Eliza's reproachful eyes, in Hiram's exhaled breaths and in the slow shake of his head at his internal dialogues, and in the polite, distant manner in which Solomon spoke to the boy. Gabriel even saw something different in his brother. It seemed that the younger boy had stepped away, looked back and found his older sibling deficient in his role, no longer one to look up to unquestioningly. Gabriel sometimes wanted to rage at them, to take them on, stir the fire and have at it—anything other than the purgatory of the wary looks and quick sighs. But no one spoke, and the week wore on, uneventful and tiresome, until James arrived.

He found Gabriel and Ben at work around the house. The day was sunny and bright, June's beauty having returned in its blueskyed glory. The boys had dragged many of the house's contents out into the sun and were spreading them on the ground to dry. James surveyed the damage with wide-eyed wonder. “Damn, you all did get whupped,” he said. Once his initial surprise faded, a new look came over his face, an anxious quiver that told Gabriel he had some news to deliver but for some reason dared not do it in front of Ben. He worked with the boys, unfolding sheets and laying out linens with clumsy hands, creating a patchwork of fabric, furniture, and clothing that from above must have looked like a giant, ragged quilt being sewn on the prairie.

It was only when Ben went into the house to fetch the waterskin that James grabbed Gabriel by the wrist. He waited till Ben was inside and then finally exhaled his words close to Gabriel's ear, and loud. “I might have got me a job, and you too if you want it!”

Gabriel pulled away from him and looked over his shoulder toward the house. They were surely out of earshot, but still he silenced James with a hand. A second later he asked, “What're you talking about?”

“I talked to Mr. Hogg.”

“Hogg?”

James stamped his foot in exasperation. He explained that Mr. Hogg was the man they had watched hold forth at the auction the other day. James had come upon him out by the stables that morning and considered asking if he had any work. Before he could make up his mind, some other boy had put the same question to him. James had listened to all that was said, most notably that the man was indeed looking to take a few new hands back with him to Texas and that only general skills were required for the particular openings he had to offer.

“He told you this?” Gabriel asked cautiously.

“Naw, not me exactly. He told it to the boy that asked him. He told him to come on back tomorrow afternoon and they could talk about it. What do you think?”

“About what?”

“About getting jobs with Mr. Hogg. Texas, Gabe! Man's got a full ranch, cattle, horses like we seen. You saw the way he ran that show.”

“I saw.” Gabriel contemplated the sky above him, unable to share his friend's abounding enthusiasm. “Why would he hire us? Neither of us has ever worked a day on a ranch.”

“He didn't tell that other boy no. He was scrawnier than either of us, little sick-looking white boy, but Mr. Hogg told him to come back anyway.”

“He probably don't hire coloreds.”

“Does too! Had a colored man standing right there with him like his right-hand man.”

Gabriel thought this over for some time. “Thought you didn't care for cowboys.”

“Shit,” James said. “I never said that. They might act a fool sometimes, but I never did say a word against the work. Gabe, two days ago I met a cowboy wasn't fifteen years old. Not fifteen, but had him a horse, a Stetson hat, spurs clanking when he walked, and a six-shooter. Had him a six-shooter like he's ready for a gunfight. Don't that sound sweet?”

Gabriel didn't answer immediately. A hawk rose from a distant field, hung in the air for a moment, then dipped down toward the earth. He stared at the place where it had disappeared, as if it would appear again and award the vigilant. It did not. “Yeah. That sounds all right. I'll see if I can't go in there with you. See what Hogg has to say.”

This brought a whoop from James, who talked on without pause, sure that tomorrow was going to be a day that changed their lives for the better. He attributed to Mr. Hogg such characteristics of wealth and benevolence that one would have thought he'd passed a good few years with the man. He asked Gabriel if he could feel it in the air, this force finally come to move their lives toward a greater providence than they'd yet imagined.

Gabriel didn't say whether he could or not. “We'll see” was his laconic answer.

NOBODY PROTESTED WHEN GABRIEL ASKED TO GO TO TOWN. The previous week's work had tired them all, and the chores left to be done that morning somehow didn't seem so urgent. The men walked the grounds, shaking their heads and laughing at the way God overdoes his bounty sometimes. If Ben had any interest in going with Gabriel and James, he didn't show it. He spent the morning tending Raleigh in the barn, something he had taken to recently. He stroked the horse's nose and spoke to him softly, telling him things for his ears only. The horse responded by stepping closer to him, as if he would push his shoulder up against him and rest his weary bones there. Only Eliza worked on that morning, taking advantage of the empty house to wash the walls and clean out the corners of the place. She wished the boys a good day and asked only that Gabriel make it back for supper.

Gabriel said that he would. He walked to the door and paused, looking back at his mother. She lifted her eyes and met his, a curious, loving look. “Hmmn?” she asked. The boy shrugged that it was nothing, and as an afterthought asked her if she needed anything from town. She said she didn't. With that answer, Gabriel walked away, turning his back on her with no intent of malice but with a nagging feeling that such was somehow the result anyway.

The boys had walked only a half-mile or so before they were picked up by Mr. Mitchell, the family's nearest neighbor. He was a kindly Mennonite man who spoke with well-measured words and long pauses. He asked Gabriel about the progress of their farm and seemed well pleased to hear that things progressed in accordance with the Lord's wishes. It was a long ride for Gabriel, but he spoke with the man in the polite tones he always reserved for white folks.

Outside the general store, Mr. Mitchell bade the boys enjoy the day, telling Gabriel to meet him no later than four for the return trip. Gabriel thanked him and turned to survey the streets. There was a busy weekend atmosphere; the streets were filled with cowtown traffic, as new herds were being driven in daily for transport via rail to points east. Wagons full of merchandise and loaded high with baggage rolled by. People strolled: some cowboys and many farmers; some women dressed garishly, whether respectable women or prostitutes, Gabriel wasn't sure. Cowboys patrolled the streets on horseback or on foot, swaggering and proud and a bit louder than necessary. A few people hawked homemade goods, and a row of quiet but poor-looking Indians sold the wares of their people.