Turning off the track and onto firmer ground, ah saw mah father stop suddenly by the side of the road and bark at Mule – and even from where ah stood ah could detect a certain urgency in his voice. And after beating the brute to a standstill, ah saw him throw down his stick and squat by a ditch at the roadside, transfixed by whatever it was before him.
Ah scrambled forward, climbed through the wire fence and peered through the wall of rotten cane trash a few feet in front of him. In a ditch filled with water by the side of the track, one thin white arm floated like a blaked eel upon a silvery blanket full of holes. Ah watched him fish the blanket out, lift her livid body from its watery grave and lay it down – stiffed already, ah think, from the ungainly attitude of her limbs. Taking a box of matches from Mule’s saddle bag, he set about burning off the leeches that fed upon her body. He wiped her hair from her eyes and looked down at her ravaged face. Even from mah coign of vantage ah recognized the fine-boned nose – broken, her top teeth gone, her eyes puffy and dark and her skin broken in parts by a raging pemphigus. Her once luxurious body was wasted to death and the water had left her skin blanched and wrinkled.
With the help of Mule, Pa carted the body of Cosey Mo over to the cottonwoods. He did not look up and ah was undiscovered – nor did ah care, so thoroughly numbed did ah feel. Ah looked on as Pa dug a hole and lifted her in, first making sure that she was covered by the blanket. The hole was off the track, a little closer to the swamplands but still on firm ground. He dug it deep, covered her over, and then patted the mud down with the back of the shovel. Then he took his whittling knife and a little chunk of wood about the size of a deck of cards, and, sitting on a rock which he had rolled over the grave, he set about carving something into the chunk, then wedged it unner the rock. After he had gone I rolled off the stone.
C. MO
R.I.P.
1943
Ah had never seen Pa do anything with such tenderness and feeling as when he buried the harlot of Hooper’s Hill.
Ah got the urge to return to town. All mah bones were knocking up a notion that something was brewing.
XX
In the year of 1940, Ukulore Valley had been, in anybody’s language, a model town. It had prospered, and each citizen shared in the communal wealth – provided that he or she was a Ukulite, and hence an equal partner in the basic but sound co-operative system upon which the town and its surrounds had been founded.
Joseph Ukulore, brother of the prophet Jonas, had laid the foundations which would provide, many years after his death, sufficient lucre to support an entire township for three years; but even these sound securities could not prevent Philo Holfe’s initial duty as leader of the Ukulite community through the rain years being, under the supervision of Doc Morrow and Pal Weaverly (owner of the liquor store by Wiggam’s General, one of the last remaining private enterprises in town), a reduction by fifteen per cent in the monthly general allowance paid out to each adherent – a necessary course of action if the Ukulite sect wished to remain together as a family of the Lord. Three months later, Philo was forced to reduce the payments by yet another five per cent.
With each reduction in the family allowance, the amount of traffic in and out of the stores dwindled, the Ukculites becoming less and less inclined to venture forth from the grim surrounds of their homes.
Nevertheless, by the early afternoon of 19 May 1943, just about every soul in Ukulore Valley knew of Doc Morrow’s discovery. Most of the denizens were uninterested; others, namely a number of the womenfolk, changed that day from the nightdresses which had become their habitual garb into habiliments of coarse black flax and smocks of white, each one plaiting and coiling her long, loose locks and covering them with a strip of white lace.
By three o’clock around fifteen or so women huddled under the shelter of Doc Morrow’s porch, their heavy shoes clopping upon the bare boards. This huddle of women included, among others, the invalid Wilma Eldridge, with her truckling companion Hilda Baxter rubbing constantly the handles of the wheelchair; Hulga Vanders – a xylocephalic ogress, deep disgruntled furrows carved upon her face, great arms folded across her vast bosom; Nena Holfe and Olga Holfe, precious wives of the brothers; and, clinging to the arm of Nena, Edith Lamb, a shivering miniature porcelain antique of eighty-three, bent and blind and bloodless.
Three years had come and gone and not a day had passed that was not infused with God’s drumming displeasure. The soot-and-ash sky, the rain, its incessant racket, the absence of sun and light and warmth, the damage to property and land, the ruined crops, the dwindling numbers, the flagging assets – all the calamities resultant from His wrath had ceased to be questioned by the band of believers who remained in the valley. The rain simply endured, stolidly suffered by the long-suffering Ukulites; but hot without its toll.
One could see, in the group of womenfolk serried together on the porch, that something had indeed changed, or rather had gone missing. In the prolonged hibernal existence of the rain years, something had been worn from their once hard-lined faces – washed away with the waiting. Something that had been rooted deep in the hearts of these pious souls, that had shone through their eyes, had now vanished. Certainly, the redolence of calm was gone, as was the look of inner confidence, of exclusiveness; and no longer now did the quiet belief in their own supernal destiny colour their expression.
Gone was the God in them.
Instead there was a look of resignation, of defeat, of shame – a flabbiness about their faces that reflected a flabbiness of the soul.
As they awaited the doctor, they spoke amongst themselves and their voices, flat and world-weary, were swallowed up by the drumming downpour and by their own muzzy dumfusion.
‘… swathed in a swaddle and blue as a plum!’ said one.
‘It vill be a miracle zat it should live…’ intoned Olga Holfe, and Nena Holfe, cupping her monstrous man’s hands to her great brawling black-clad breasts, added, ‘And such a tiny zing.’
‘And wearing our Prophet’s very robe! Unthinkable!’ fumed Wilma Eldridge.
‘And wearing the Prophet’s sacred crown upon its little head,’ elaborated Hilda Baxter, a chronic fabulist by nature.
‘Rubbish!’ spat the crippled Eldridge. ‘Utter rubbish! Sacred crown indeed…’
Then, as if struck dumb, the women hushed, each drawing breath as the door to Doc Morrow’s surgery swung open.
Across the road, perched on a public bench, sat Euchrid. He removed one water-filled boot and emptied it. He removed his other boot and did likewise. Bare-footed, his boots beside him on the bench, he peered through the inky precipitation at the black-clad sorority that milled about the doctor’s office.
Euchrid watched as the surgery door swung open and the women, unanimous in their sudden breathless silence, formed a neat half-circle about the doctor. In his arms he cradled a bundle swathed in a clean white blanket, and smiling broadly he appeared to address his audience, though his words never reached Euchrid, drowned as they were in the fremitus of the rain.
Euchrid slid back into his boots and, unable to contain his curiosity, began to walk cautiously across the road. He heard a cheer rise from the onlookers, and as he reached the porch, he caught the last of the doctor’s speech rising from the huddle.
‘… it’s a God-given miracle that she is even alive…’ And then the doctor’s words were lost in the coos and clucks of admiration, the squeals of delight that issued from the gathering.
Hesitantly, Euchrid climbed the steps, craning to glimpse that which inspired so much attention. He heard the doctor’s voice booming again ‘… gently with her… try not to wake her…’, then, her eyes fixed on the little pink face that peeked from the swaddle, Nena Holfe took the bundle from the woman next to her, rocked it gently, hummed a little, turned, cooed, and without looking up, pressed the babe into the arms of Euchrid the mute.
Euchrid looked at the babe and the babe looked at Euchrid.
A second or two passed in deathly silence.
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Then a consentaneous cry of alarm leapt from the lips of the women as they comprehended the situation. Euchrid stood, overcome with panic, juggling the tot in his arms, unable to run.
Then the babe reached from her woollen swaddle and dug her tiny fingernail into Euchrid’s neck.
Hulga Vanders retrieved the child with one massive paw, while beating Euchrid across the head with her umbrella. Nena and Olga Holfe followed suit, striking him repeatedly about the head, and soon the entire platoon, armed with umbrellas and walking sticks, had fallen upon Euchrid with a rain of blows served across his hunched and bucking body.
Eventually Euchrid was able to see clear of his attackers and take flight, tumbling down the steps into a deep and muddy puddle, and lurching off like a beaten dog into the rain and all down Maine, while his assailants remained in the shelter of the balcony, waving their umbrellas at the retreating figure.
Head down and hunched, Euchrid made his way through the thrashing rain, his paces reckless and irregular as he skidded and stumbled and slipped down the treacherous roadway.
Watching the ground for potholes and puddles, he became aware of the faint but frantic stain of his shadow pooling about his feet, and was overcome by a curious sense of having found something that he thought he had lost for ever. As he ran and jumped and barrelled homeward, he saw, with increasing rapture, his long-lost companion grip ahold of his heels, and passing the city limits sign, he slowed down – the reason for his mad flight forgotten in the light of his recent reunion – and with eyes glued to the ground drew to a halt, half expecting his shadow to keep on going or fade away again just as it had come. But it did neither, and he marvelled at the dark shape as it steadily deepened in intensity, hunched and squat about his feet.
Overcome by a thousand conflicting emotions, Euchrid bit his bottom lip and choked back a sob. So consumed was he by matters of the heart that when he tasted blood, the source of the flow did not register in his mind until he noticed a drop of it break the still surface of a puddle of muddy rainwater.
‘Hey, shadow, ah’ve got a bloody nose,’ thought Euchrid, as he pinched his nostrils and tilted back his head. His eyes closed, he felt his face glow warmly. He opened them to a dazzling light that was almost blinding, and squinting, he saw that the sky above him was of infinite blue, cloudless and warm. The sun spun aloft, an erumpant orb of balling glory thrilling the blue sky with its brilliance.
Face lifted to meet the sun, Euchrid felt the hotness, heard the silence, breathed the new air, sensed his new-found shadow cringing at his feet.
‘Well what do you know, the rain has stopped. The sun is out and the rain has stopped. What do you know?’ said Euchrid to his shadow.
Then he heard the cries of jubilation coming from the town, but he was running now. Away. Away.
XXI
So the infant came and the rain stopped, and the vast black cloud parted across the firmament like a leaden curtain and all the people of the valley beheld the glory of the blue and saw the great sun in the sky. And they raised the babe heavenward so that she might be I the first to feel the warm breath of atonement and so that their God would see that the incarnate token deposited upon the monument steps had not passed unnoticed and that the dual miracle was indeed fully understood, one to one and never to be forgotten. And, falling to their knees, wailing and weeping, it was God and the babe whom they praised and praised – this frail bundle juggled, hand to hand, so brightly glowing, bound in its swaddling cloth, this miracle, this reward of faith – upheld and jostled, thus, aloft.
BOOK TWO
BETH
(Six Years On)
I
Six years passed. Six young gunfighters down on their luck. Six pine boxes to carry them in. Six crooked miles walked. Six broken stiles crossed. Six passing bells swinging but making no sound. Six widows weeping. Six plots of cold ground. Six blackbirds throwing six crooked shadows. Six sinking moons. Six wounds. Six notches. Six muddy crutches broken in two.
So rolled the years of mah springtime.
Six wicker baskets.
Into these did the years of mah youthhead roll.
II
Night fell suddenly upon the little valley and the moon menaced the heavens like a terrible fang – a gilded scythe, flung into the hushed nocturnal pastures of the sky. And from midst the teeming cedars that clung to the east- and west-side scarps, the clicking fritinancy of a million cicadas burst in shrill unison upon the humid night. They fell dumb with equal precision and the baited silence hung heavily, a weird and fully different din. By moonlight the rich crops could be seen to swell and rock, bumped by a lazy zephyr that swept the fields and the near empty streets, catching dust and coils of smoke, occasionally turning fragrant with lavender, lily or peach blossom, gooseberry rose or pine, all borne away by the breeze to whirl within Memorial Square and to set the world a-rustle, lifting dead leaves and dust to dance upon the sepulchre of the martyred prophet and squall at the feet of the marble angel, there, beneath a moon tinted scarlet now, each sinister tip as though dipped in blood. Lit from beneath by four footlights, the monstrous angel loomed wraith-like against the pitch backdrop, sickle raised and ready, as if awaiting some sort of signal to bring the golden tool down and murder the little one that sat huddled on the steps at its feet.
They had christened her Beth, this little one.
Shoeless, she crouched upon the bottom step, arms wrapped around her knees, the form of her slender body lost in the folds of her white cotton smock. She rested her chin in the crooks of her arms, looking neither here nor there, wriggling her toes in the dusty gravel of the path leading up to the monument steps and shining white in the glow of the lights, like a spectral companion to the great marble angel that towered behind her. Her little black pumps sat, side by side, next to her. Her blonde plaited locks shone golden as the pall of night descended all about.
As she sat, she sang, soft and slowly chiming,
‘There is a sleepy river I know…’
until the slam of Doc Morrow’s door and the sound of her father’s voice cut short her song.
‘Beth! Time to go home!’ called Sardus Swift from the doctor’s porch, and the child was already buckling her pumps and tramping down the path to the road.
Sardus lifted his daughter into his arms and kissed her lightly upon the forehead. Beth smiled at some secret thought of her own, showing her new teeth, small and white.
‘Home,’ she sighed, putting her arms around his neck, her blonde bangs bright and strangely out of place against the coarse black bush of Sardus’ beard.
Humming softly with the child asleep in his arms, Sardus Swift looked to the winking stars and saw the moon – a smirk on the face of heaven – as he made his way home.
In the golden days of reprieve that followed the end of the rain, when sheets of mudded water rose in veils from field and road and valley floor, and the Ukulites rejoiced at each bright day that passed, and thanked in prayer their God most merciful, a certain doctor by the name of Morrow had stolen from the heart of jubilation to visit one still unlit corner that he might chase the chilly spirit from its last, dark hiding place.
At first Sardus Swift would neither answer nor unbolt his door and the doctor would return to his office further down Maine with the then unnamed foundling cradled in his arms. But on the fourth visit, the doctor knocked and the old plank door gave, unlatched, and swung slowly open.
Doc Morrow entered, stepping over a pile of mail that lay unopened upon the floor. Such was the arrant squalor of his friend’s hermitary that the doctor recoiled at the sight before him. A surge of anger rose in his throat, but the more he plumbed the depths of self-loathing written in the very swinishness of his surrounds, the more the feelings of anger gave way to a sadness of heart toward the impossible lot of his brother.
He walked down the hall, coming to a halt upon the threshold of the old living quarters, once so bright and so fair, of the mad and barren Mrs Swift.
Mid
st the debris of his undoing, rotten and morbific – the sordid amassment of the sorrow-worn – sat a terrible Sardus Swift, unwashed, jaundiced, gaunt, his face besieged by a black matted beard and obscured by long greasy hair. His hands were folded in his lap. He sat in an armchair cluttered with newspaper. Balls of screwed-up paper, grimy clothing and rotten food surrounded him, and he looked upward, toward the door, where Doc Morrow stood speechless, bundle in arms.
Barely allowing his blistered lips to part, Sardus spoke in a hoarse whisper, his voice drifting off at times to become little more than a hiss. He did not move his hands from his lap, but sat, neck craned toward the door, eyes fixed upon the doctor. Doc Morrow rocked the baby nervously, unable to call to mind a single word of his proposal, and the seconds crawled by as the wretched recluse whispered word upon bitter word.
‘The noise of the rain… has stopped. Are we entering the days of reprieve, Doctor? I gather the Almighty has… granted us clemency. Praise the Lord.’
He broke off, looked at the palms of his hands loosely clasped in his lap, and then continued, returning his attention to the doctor, with a look of anguish in his face.
‘O Doctor, I despair… so grave our misdeeds… countless… Wicked! And my wife mad, bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh, riddled with debauchery! Wicked woman! And vice! O terrible, O wicked Rebecca. So horribly wrong was she to think that just because God… the Preserver… the Comforter… deemed it fitting and just to strike her dry of womb, to take from her… the one damnable desire she felt! Her sole reason to endure! “Thou shalt not want.” And my wife wanted, and Doctor Morrow, so did I… O so did I!!’
Sardus fell silent and the doctor moved a little further inside, hesitated, and then with the babe in arms crossed the dark and fusty room. Holding the infant in one arm, he pulled the cord on the bleached and tattered blind, letting it flap and roll upwards. A refulgent block of sunshine, quartered by a thin cruciform of shadow, spilt into the fetid interior of the room. Doc Morrow banged with his one free fist the rusted catch atop the dazzling window and, freeing it, wrenched the swollen frame upward and open. Immediately a fresh breeze filled the room.