When Gabe finished bathing he changed into a clean pair of Sam’s long johns and crawled back into bed. He looked exhausted. I quickly bailed out the bath water and cleaned the tub, then returned to his room one last time to make sure his leg was all right. I had grown accustomed to having a shaggy old tramp in the house, but this new Gabe looked like such a different man that I felt like I was tending a stranger all over again. And Aunt Batty was right—he was a mighty fine-looking man.
‘‘So tell me, Gabe,’’ I said, without looking up from examining his leg, ‘‘do you have a wife and family waiting for you back home somewhere?’’
‘‘No.’’
I dabbed on some more iodine. ‘‘You’ve never been married or you’re just not married at the moment?’’
‘‘I’ve never been married.’’
Good. Then if he was Matthew Wyatt I could get him to fall in love with me and marry me and we wouldn’t lose our home. I’d won a man’s heart once before so I knew I could do it again. But wasn’t I already living with the guilt of what I’d done? I don’t know why, but I couldn’t look at Gabe. I also don’t know why, but my heart started hammering like a woodpecker.
‘‘I want to ask you something. The name ‘Gabriel Harper’ sounds sort of...phony. Is it your real name or a pen name?’’
He didn’t answer. I knew that trick and I figured I could wait him out without speaking. But he took so long that curiosity finally made me look up. He frowned at me.
‘‘Why all the questions? What difference does it make?’’
‘‘In other words, Gabe isn’t your real name.’’
He looked surprised and more than a little angry. ‘‘I didn’t say that. Don’t start putting words in my mouth.’’
‘‘Well, why can’t you just be honest with me and tell me flat out? Yes or no?’’
‘‘Who says I’m being dishonest? I’ve never lied to you.’’
Maybe not, but I was an expert at dodging the truth and I knew it was exactly what Gabe was doing.
‘‘You didn’t answer my question, either,’’ I said, planting my hands on my hips. ‘‘I asked you if Gabe was your real name and you said it didn’t matter. But it matters to me.’’
‘‘Why?’’ He pierced me with his angry eyes. ‘‘Why should it matter to you?’’
I couldn’t answer without telling him too much. Until I was certain who he was, I didn’t want him to find out that Matthew Wyatt owned everything. He’d cornered me just like I’d cornered him. Neither one of us was willing to bring our secrets out of their hidden places. I carefully pulled his pant leg back down and covered his foot with the sheet.
‘‘Shall I turn off your light?’’ I asked as I stood to go, ‘‘or would you like it left on for a little while?’’
‘‘Please turn it off. Thank you.’’
‘‘By the way,’’ I said over my shoulder, ‘‘you smell a whole lot better than you did.’’
Now that she’d cleaned Gabe up, Aunt Batty took it upon herself to get him out of bed every day and walk him all around so he could rebuild his strength. One morning she hiked down to her cottage and brought back a beautiful ebony walking cane with a silver handle.
‘‘I thought maybe you could use this,’’ she said, presenting it to him like a trophy.
Gabe looked it over with wonder. ‘‘This is almost too fine to use, Aunt Batty. It looks like a family heirloom. Are you sure—?’’
‘‘Of course I’m sure. I have no use for it. And if the day ever comes that I do need a cane, I’m much too short to use that one.’’
I glanced at the handle—it was carved in the shape of a dog’s head. ‘‘Was that Walter Gibson’s cane?’’ I asked.
‘‘Yes, it’s beautiful, isn’t it? He left it with me when he went away. I’ve always kept the handle polished so it would look nice. It’s real silver, you know.’’
But that didn’t match the story she’d told me the other day. She’d said Walter had walked away without turning back, and I got the impression that he couldn’t walk without his cane. Walter had given her a book for a present, not this. And what about shaving him? Where did that fit in? Aunt Batty’s stories had more holes than Swiss cheese.
I let her and Gabe hobble around together while I sat down in Frank Wyatt’s office and made a list of everything that needed to be done in the orchard. I’d lived here ten years so I had a pretty good idea of the routine, if not all the particulars, and I knew that during the winter months Sam and Frank had always trimmed trees. Later the trees would have to be fertilized. Then sprayed. Frank had always moved the beehives into the orchard after he sprayed so the bees could pollinate the trees. Once the weeds started growing I would have to disk between the rows, then run through them with a drag to even it out again. The vegetable garden would have to be plowed and planted, and the asparagus picked. The animals would need hay and corn. I numbered the paper from one to ten and wrote all these things down, trying not to let them overwhelm me. I would worry about picking and selling the fruit when the time came.
On a beautiful, sunny winter morning I made up my mind to start trimming trees—after I figured out how, that is. I hoped Gabe or Aunt Batty could tell me because it would just about kill me to have to ask one of my neighbors, like Alvin Greer, for help. I found Gabe and Aunt Batty down by the barn, leaning on the pasture fence while Becky swung back and forth on the gate.
‘‘There’s a branch on that big oak tree out front that would be the perfect place to hang a swing,’’ I heard Gabe saying as I approached. ‘‘But first we’ll have to find a sturdy board and some rope.’’
‘‘Can it just be myswing and no one else’s?’’ Becky asked.
‘‘Oh, but you’ll get twice the joy out of that swing if you share it,’’ Aunt Batty said. ‘‘That’s what the Bible teaches.’’
‘‘Are there swings in the Bible?’’ Becky asked in amazement.
‘‘I’m sure there must be one or two,’’ Aunt Batty said. ‘‘Let me think. ‘Swing low, sweet chariot’? No, that’s a song....’’
Winky spotted me first and he trotted over to greet me. I angled toward him so he could find me. Then Becky saw me, too. ‘‘Mama, guess what! Mr. Harper said he would make me a swing!’’
‘‘That’s very kind of him,’’ I said, bending to pat Winky’s head. ‘‘Listen, I was wondering if either of you knew anything about trimming fruit trees?’’
‘‘You do it in the wintertime,’’ Aunt Batty said confidently, ‘‘while the trees are dormant. This is a bit late to be getting started, though. Good thing we had that last snowstorm to postpone spring a little longer.’’
‘‘But do either of you know how to do it? Have you actually trimmed trees before?’’
Gabe shook his head. ‘‘I can’t honestly say I’ve done it, but I once interviewed a fruit grower for a newspaper article. I know the general theoretical principles behind it.’’
‘‘Don’t use fancy words, Gabe. Just tell me what needs to be done.’’
‘‘The idea is to open up the center of the tree so the light can penetrate and the fruit will ripen better. You also want to get rid of the smaller, newer branches that take energy away from the fruit-bearing limbs.’’
‘‘It’s just like the story Jesus told in the Bible,’’ Aunt Batty added. ‘‘The gardener prunes the branches so the tree will bear more fruit. And any branch that doesn’t bear fruit is cut off and thrown into the fire. Then—’’
I quickly jumped in to cut off her sermon. ‘‘If I drove you out to one of the trees, Gabe, do you think you could you coach me through it?’’
His jaw dropped. ‘‘You’re not thinking of tackling this job yourself!’’ I could read his expressions easily now that his beard was gone and his hair was out of his eyes, and I could clearly see that I’d shocked him. It was the same reaction that Frank or Sam might have had if I’d stepped forward and offered to do their work.
‘‘If I don’t tackle it, it won
’t get done,’’ I said. ‘‘Now, can you show me how to do it or not?’’
‘‘I’ll do it for you, ma’am. I believe I’m nearly well enough...If I take it slow.’’
‘‘Good. You can help me. The work will go much faster with two of us.’’
Gabe’s frown deepened to genuine displeasure. ‘‘But I really don’t think you can do it. I mean...Those trees are bigger around than you are.’’
‘‘So?’’
‘‘So!’’ He grabbed my arm and wrapped his fingers around my wrist. It was so slender his fingers overlapped. ‘‘The branches you’ll be cutting are bigger around than this.’’
‘‘Now, children, don’t fight,’’ Aunt Batty said sweetly. ‘‘There’s plenty of work for both of you.’’
I pried his fingers off my wrist with a smile of triumph. ‘‘And plenty of tools for both of us, too.’’
‘‘What about my new swing?’’ Becky whined as she followed us into the tool shed. I turned in time to see the look Gabe gave her as he rested his hand on her curly red hair. It was so gentle and loving, so...fatherly, that it brought a lump to my throat.
‘‘I’ll get to it, honey,’’ he said in a voice as soft as cats’ paws. ‘‘I promise.’’
‘‘And what about fixing Aunt Batty’s roof?’’ My words came out harsher than I’d intended them to.
‘‘That can wait, Toots,’’ Aunt Batty said. ‘‘But trimming trees can’t.’’ She took Becky by the hand. ‘‘Brr. I’m getting chilly out here. Let’s you and me go inside and bake a pie for dinner, all right?’’
Neither Gabe nor I spoke as we sorted through the equipment. I itched to get started, but Gabe paused to carefully examine each of the saws and tree-trimmers first.
‘‘Some of these blades look pretty dull,’’ he said. ‘‘I think I’d better sharpen them.’’ He carried them straight into the barn and went right inside Sam’s workshop like he knew exactly where he was going. He sat down at the grindstone and started treading the pedals to make the wheel spin as if he’d been doing it all his life.
‘‘Did you once write an article about sharpening tools, too?’’ I asked nastily.
He concentrated so hard on his task that several moments passed before he looked up. ‘‘What did you say?’’ It was a look of pure innocence—or perfect acting, I couldn’t tell which.
‘‘You seem to know your way around a grindstone,’’ I said.
‘‘Yes. Would you mind bringing me a little water to pour on this stone? Thanks.’’ He picked up a file and began sharpening one of the saw blades with it.
As I went to fetch some water I remembered that Gabe had cleaned out the barn for me and spent a night in Sam’s workshop. That would explain how he knew his way around. But as I watched him work, his hands seemed mighty skillful for a city boy’s.
I caught him wincing when he finished and he bent to massage his injured leg.
‘‘Is it hurting again?’’ I asked.
‘‘It’s not too bad.’’
I hurried out of the barn ahead of him and lugged two pickers’ ladders over to the truck. Gabe limped up with the tools in time to help me shove everything into the back. I climbed behind the wheel and he hoisted himself into the passenger’s seat. Snow still covered the ground so I drove slowly, not wishing to get the truck stuck in a drift. I stopped at the closest grove of trees, just beyond the barn. I could have walked there much faster, but Gabe couldn’t have.
As I pulled to a stop, I glanced down and noticed the big space between us on the front seat. That got me thinking about Aunt Batty’s story and how Lydia had advised her to make sure her thigh ‘‘accidentally’’ brushed against Frank’s. I got such a funny picture in my head of tiny little Aunt Batty trying to cozy up to my stuffy old father-in-law that I laughed out loud.
‘‘What’s so amusing?’’ Gabe asked, smiling.
‘‘Nothing...I...’’ but I couldn’t get the picture out of my mind. I knew exactly how horrified Frank would have been if she’d actually done it, and I laughed until the tears came. Gabe waited. ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ I said wiping my eyes. The story was much too complicated to explain, so I said, ‘‘My father-in-law must be rolling over in his grave. You have no idea how he babied these trees.’’
He nodded and climbed from the truck. When I walked around to his side he was already studying the nearest tree. ‘‘Your father-in-law’s attention to detail will make our job simple,’’ he said. ‘‘He has these trees shaped very nicely. See how easy it is to tell the fruit-bearing limbs from the new growth? These are what we have to trim back.’’ He pointed to several slender branches growing every which-way from the trunk and the central limbs.
‘‘Then I guess we’d better get started.’’ I brushed past him and began hauling out one of the ladders. He stood watching me.
‘‘Listen, Eliza...’’
I knew by his tone of voice that he was about to tell me all over again how I was much too scrawny to trim trees. It reminded me so much of my daddy telling me what I could and couldn’t do that I whirled around to face him with my hands on my hips.
‘‘What, Gabe?’’
He looked at me for a long moment, then shook his head. ‘‘Nothing. I just wanted to warn you that those blades are sharp.’’
It was hard work—dragging the ladder from tree to tree, climbing up and down dozens of times, reaching over my head and stretching and clipping and sawing. I kept wishing I had overalls on instead of an annoying old skirt that got in my way every five minutes. By lunchtime my toes had grown so numb from the cold that I couldn’t feel them anymore.
The trees were unending—row after row of them, perfectly spaced in straight, even lines. I recalled Sam once telling me that his father planted a hundred trees to an acre—and there were acres and acres of them. By the end of the day my legs and shoulders and neck ached so bad I wanted to cry, but I still had more trees to trim tomorrow. I was willing to bet that Gabe was hurting pretty bad, too, but we were both much too stubborn to admit it.
On the third or fourth day of work Gabe brought along his army canteen. In spite of Aunt Batty’s denials, I still suspected that he might be Matthew Wyatt, so when he sat down on the running board of the truck to take a drink, I decided to ask him about the war.
‘‘I see you brought back a little souvenir from the army,’’ I said. ‘‘Did you fight in the Great War?’’
He took a long swallow and wiped his mouth before answering. ‘‘I got this canteen from a tramp named Loony Lou. He was a very sick man the night I met him. I suspected he had pneumonia from the way he coughed. So I hung around him for a couple of days, feeding him, keeping him warm, pounding him on the back good and hard whenever he needed it. He nearly died, but when he finally pulled through he insisted that I keep the canteen as his way of saying thanks. It was the only thing of any value that he owned.’’ Gabe stood and held it out to me. ‘‘Want some?’’
‘‘No thanks.’’ I was an expert at telling lies myself so I figured I should be able to spot one pretty easily. This story had a ring of truth to it.
Gabe had climbed all the way back up the ladder again before I realized that he had neatly avoided telling me whether or not he had fought in the war.
No matter how hard we worked, it seemed like more trees always stretched forever into the distance like a house of mirrors. As long as the weather wasn’t too windy or cold, we worked at it every day during daylight hours. I fell into bed exhausted each night and dreamt about trees, with branches that reached out toward me like scrawny arms that tried to grab me and strangle me. I would wake up in a cold sweat, grateful that it was just a dream—until I remembered that I still had more trees to trim tomorrow.
‘‘You don’t have to work so hard, Gabe,’’ I told him one afternoon. He had sunk down on the truck’s running board for the third time to take a break. I thought he looked a little pale.
‘‘I’m just trying to keep up with you,’’ he said with a
faint smile.
‘‘You’re not getting feverish again, are you?’’ I pulled off my glove and felt his forehead. His brow was cool. When I realized what I’d just done, I turned away in embarrassment. I gazed down the long rows of trees we’d already finished, with the piles of brush heaped beneath them, then looked at the long row we still had to trim. When I finally risked a glance at Gabe, he was staring at me with an odd look on his face—as if he’d never seen me before.
‘‘What? Why are you looking at me like that?’’ I asked.
He blushed. ‘‘I...nothing. I admire you, that’s all. You’re an amazing woman.’’ He lifted the canteen to his lips and took a swig. ‘‘How long have you been trying to run this orchard on your own?’’
‘‘Only a few months. Just since my father-in-law died last November.’’
‘‘How did he die?’’
‘‘He dropped dead of a heart attack. The doctor said he was gone in a matter of minutes. At least he had the courtesy to wait until after the harvest was all in.’’
‘‘And your husband?’’
‘‘He passed away a little over a year before his father.’’
‘‘Listen, I know it’s none of my business, but why don’t you hire some help? There are plenty of men out there who are looking for work.’’
‘‘I can’t afford it. My father-in-law left some debts.’’
He swallowed another drink. ‘‘Do you think you can run this place all by yourself?’’ He might have lit a match to kerosene, my temper flared so hot and so fast.
‘‘I can’t tell you how sick I am of everybody asking me that! Every time I hear those words it just makes me all the more determined to hang on. This is my home! My kids’ home! Nothing and nobody is ever going to force us out of here. I may not run things the way Frank Wyatt did, but this is the only home I’ve ever had and so help me God, I won’t be homeless again!’’