A Parchment of Leaves

  A rolling fire had been built within the pen, over which hung a black pot that was attached by a chain to an iron tripod. The hog kept going near the fire, then backing away. Seeing his fear of the flames made him all the more real to me. Him being afraid when he drew near the licking flames seemed to make him more alive.

  “I ain’t shot in a while. I’d rather one of you all done it,” I said, trying to make my voice as solid as I could. “I won’t be able to put him down with the first shot.”

  “In my day we just stuck a blade in its neck and let it work itself to death,” Esme said. She seemed very small in her mackinaw coat. Plumes of white slipped out of her mouth and they swelled bigger than her whole face.

  “Well, it’s too cold to stand and wait for that,” Serena said. “Shoot it, Vine. You’ll do all right.”

  This miffed me, as Serena would never have to worry about killing a hog. A midwife—whose hands caught life—would never have been asked to kill so much as a gnat.

  I propped the rifle on my shoulder and held its butt in the palm of my hand, the way Daddy had taught me to do when I was packing a gun. “One of you all do it, now,” I said.

  “Lord God!” Esme said, and seemed to slide across the froze ground to me. She jerked the rifle away and cracked the barrel open. She closed one eye and looked down into the cylinders. Her closed eye jerked and trembled as if afflicted. She held her hand out flat, the rifle tucked between her arm and side. “Give me the shells, Vine.”

  I dropped two shells into Esme’s hand. They fell as easily as coins.

  “Never seen six big women that couldn’t kill a hog.” She jerked the rifle up in one strong swing to lock the barrel in place. It was just about as long as she was.

  The hog started to back away real slow. I looked into its small eyes and saw that it did know what was about to happen. Surely a hog couldn’t sense such things, but it seemed so certain of its fate. Its short legs went backward, one at a time, like a bull fixing to charge. It bent its great head, sniffed the ground, then raised its snout high, as if to give one final sign of courage. The hog snorted once and two streams of steam rushed out of its snout.

  Esme held the rifle up, set her sights, and fired right between the hog’s eyes. It wobbled for just a moment, as if drunk. It stomped one foot in a feeble way, tried to take a step forward, then fell over with the heft of an ancient tree. The mud cracked beneath its weight. All down the yard the hens and guineas got quiet, like they knowed there was a death in the yard. The only sound was that of everybody’s heavy breathing and the crackle of the logs in the fire.

  “Poor old thing,” Bess Morgan said quietly, and broke into a coughing fit. Her cheeks were very red.

  “You’ll think ‘poor old thing’ when you’re eating them chops this winter,” America said. America was round and warm-looking, even in the icy wind that blowed down the holler in thin lines. Her body had always made me think of biscuit dough that had just started to bake.

  Esme kept her eyes fixed on the hog, watching for signs of life. No steam showed at its face, and its big sides were still and fat. “He’s down,” she said finally.

  She handed the rifle back to me and hooked her finger in the air, a signal to go on in and start scraping. Out on the big stump by the pen laid two butcher knives, two razors, and two tobacco blades, looking like instruments of war. We took our knives and walked down to the gate real fast, except for Serena, who climbed right over the fence. She was wearing a pair of dungarees that Whistle-Dick had left behind. The rest of us were wearing our skirts, which I now saw to be awful foolish in such weather. I wished that I had put on pants, too, as the cold air seemed to pass right through the long underwear I wore beneath my clothes.

  Esme dipped a small kettle into the pot and poured the boiling water onto the hog’s side. We all lit in on scraping the hard bristles from the body. The heat from the water felt good but damp against our faces. The smell of burning flesh was always the most sickening part. It rushed up our noses and lit on our tongues, but there was work at hand, so none of us said a word about it. I imagined that we all looked like a mess of buzzards picking at a corpse as we run our knives down the hog’s wide flanks and bulging belly. We had all scraped hogs before, and we were good at it. This part had always been the women’s job anyway. It didn’t take us long to get one side done.

  “Esme ought to be leading the war,” I whispered into Serena’s ear as we watched Esme and America tie a rope around the mule, back it into the pen, then wrap knots of the rope about the hog’s legs. Esme drawed her hand way back and slapped the mule’s rump.

  “The littlest general,” Serena said, but did not have time to laugh.

  “Push on it!” Esme yelled. “This old mule can’t do it all.”

  The four of us shoved at the carcass as the mule pulled. America and Esme directed the mule and laughed at us for being so clumsy and weak. Bess pushed so hard she fell onto the ground, but the mud was long since frozen, so she gathered herself up right quick without a word. Slowly the hog started to turn. When its feet were sticking straight up into the air, Esme run around to spread out an old sheet. She backed away, and the hog rolled over all the way as America splashed ladles of water onto it.

  We scraped the other side, then put the mule to work again when we strung the hog up. The rope cried out from the weight, but the singletree we used as a pulley was solid, and before long the hog swung over the pen, reminding me of just what it would become: a big ham hanging in the smokehouse.

  Bits of snow started to fall. I took just a second to turn my face up to the sky and let some of it light on my mouth. The flakes were so tiny that they looked like grains of sugar blowing in from a long distance. The sky was low and gray.

  Esme drawed the long tobacco blade across the hog’s throat, and blood—hot and black—come out in three big spurts, then a steady stream that hissed into the bucket setting beneath. We all huddled close, watching, gathering one another’s heat. Serena locked her arm within the crook of mine, and our breath all come out together like a large cloud in front of us, blocking our view. I listened for a minute and realized how quiet it was without the men. When men were present at a hog killing, the event took on the feel of a celebration. The men would have all been slapping one another on the back, taking snorts from a bottle of liquor to put heat in their own blood, and going on about the promise of food swinging in front of them.

  “That hog weighs four hundred if it weighs a pound,” I said. I thought it something that Saul would have said.

  Serena had knowed all along what the men would do, too. From the pocket of her dungarees she brought out a pint bottle of corn whiskey and held it up to be admired. “This’ll warm us up right quick,” she said, and we all laughed.

  Even Esme took a drink. “I believe the Lord will forgive me,” she said, and laughed in a clever little squeak, the liquor shining on her lips. “I don’t think He’d ruther me freeze to death.”

  It was then that we heard an automobile grinding gears. We were not used to company and could not help but run around the house to see who was approaching. I reckon we all thought it was some of our own men returning. I said, “Saul,” beneath my breath, and America spoke the name of her son. Bess run on ahead of all of us; she and her husband had only been married two months when he was shipped off to Italy. Serena was the only one whose face did not change shape. She didn’t miss Whistle-Dick and didn’t wish him back.

  We run down Esme’s yard and stood in the middle of the road. I looked down the holler to where Serena’s sister, Belle, stood on my porch with Birdie on her hip and Luke at her side. Belle hadn’t even took the time to put on a coat, but she had wrapped a quilt about Birdie and hustled Luke into a mackinaw.

  A black car slowly made its way up the rough road. The snow had stopped but blowed down from the trees, shining like bits of glass. It was midday, but the day was so dreary that the driver had turned on his headlights. They seemed very dull and yellow in the half-daylight
.

  As it got closer, I could see the outlines of a man and a small woman who was setting on the seat right beside him. I knowed that it was Aaron. Disappointment run down the backs of my legs, but I couldn’t tell if this feeling was from it not being Saul or because it was Aaron who’d returned.

  Only Serena knowed what had happened in the creek, and it was she that put her hand on my shoulder. “Jesus Christ,” she hissed.

  ESME COULDN’T GET OVER Aaron’s return, but she kept her head enough to tell us that we ought to go finish the slaughter while she went to the house so she could greet him. I was surprised that Esme had not bid me to go along, but I was glad she put more store in fresh meat than sentimentalities, as I had no desire to see Aaron again. I could only hope that he was changed.

  It was near last light by the time we got done. I wrapped up a big slab of meat—mostly tenderloin—in wax paper for each of the women before they left. I thanked them and promised that anytime they needed salt pork or chops or anything throughout the winter, they could call on me. When Serena put Luke into the car and offered the women a ride, they were too tired to refuse, even though all of them lived within walking distance. The car Serena had took from Whistle-Dick was old and so banged up that it was painful to look at, but it possessed an engine that ran.

  When they were all gone, I went down to the creek and bent to the freezing water. I scrubbed my hands with lye until they near about bled. We had all washed there together as soon as we were done with the slaughtering, but I still didn’t feel clean. As soon as Serena’s car sputtered down the road, I had felt the need to soap up again. Belle had gotten Birdie to sleep—a nap too late that would surely keep her up far into the night—so I had left the baby long enough to wash alone. Hog blood stood black beneath my fingernails, and I scraped the soap over them so hard that one of my nails broke off. My white breath danced atop the water of the creek.

  The holler was silent and so lonesome that I didn’t think I could bear it. There was no sound but that of me splashing in the water. I knowed that when I went to Esme’s, the house would be loud with Aaron. It had been a long time since we had had a man about, and men always caused much noise and commotion. Their simple presence seemed to change the shape of the air, the amount of breath that was in a room. Even Saul—who was so quiet and careful in the amount of words he used in the course of a day—was full of racket. His way of getting into the bed was a noisy affair. He was a man of much movement, his feet thudding against the floor.

  I dreaded seeing Aaron again and would not know how to say hello. It looked like he had found a bride during his travels—I was sure I had seen the shape of a woman riding in the car beside him—and perhaps this was good. I hoped that we could forget the past. I wanted to forget it all. I hoped that I could rid myself of remembering the way his eyes had burned through me that day in the creek. I wanted to love Aaron as a woman is meant to love her brother-in-law.

  I looked up to the black mountain, where the trees stood naked and skinny, and watched for a long time. Plain as day, I could hear my mama saying into my ear, Hush. That’s Him passing over. She had always said this, every time we had been in the woods together. I kept my eyes opened and offered a prayer to the trees. I prayed that the tightness in my stomach did not speak of bad things to come, but was only a knot of anxiousness. Aaron and me had to go about the business of repairing the damage between us, but it was not something we would be able to do fast or carelessly. It would have to be something that happened one day at a time, such a buildup that it would be almost unnoticeable to either of us.

  I couldn’t help it, though; a shiver run up my back as I remembered him, watching me from amongst the trees up there on the mountain. The way he had run off, like a boy caught in the act of something criminal.

  The cake of lye was nothing more than a dull brown sliver now, not even big enough to pack back to the house. I dropped it into the creek. It bobbed on the surface for just a wavering second, then drifted down to the bottom, spinning round on its way down.

  I was so tired that I had to force my legs to move. It had been a long day, and my work sat like a wooden block on the small of my back. All of us had worked like people fighting a fire all day long. We had slaughtered the hog, butchered it, and salted down its meat, and tomorrow I would have to render the fat to make lard. That was the worst part of all, and I would’ve rather died than to have done it. I wanted to lay down and sleep until noon the next day.

  When I got back to the house, Birdie’s screams met me at the door. She always was scared if she woke up and thought she was alone. She was sitting upright in the bed, her mouth wide with cries. She started to shudder and calm as soon as she seen me, but it still made me feel terrible to have left her. I gathered her up in one arm and run my hand down her face. “Hush,” I said. “It’s all right. Mama’s here.” I felt a strange sense of remembering that I could not explain. I had heard Serena call this déjà vu.

  I knowed that I would have to go to Esme’s to greet Aaron. If I didn’t, Esme would be down to my house puffed up with many questions. I found that all at once I wanted to go, even while I dreaded it at the same time. My curiosity was large. I had to see that girl. Had he married her? Where had he been all this time? And was he back to stay? I didn’t know how to feel about any of it.

  I always kept a quilt on the back of the chair nearest the fire. Saul frowned on this, saying it was dangerous about catching the sparks, but I never had had trouble with flames, and there was nothing better than a hot quilt for Birdie on evenings like this. I turned it inside out, wrapping her in the warmest side, then put Saul’s topcoat on myself. It was big enough to button Birdie against my chest, even with the quilt. I set out walking to Esme’s, the sky spitting snow again.

  On Esme’s porch, I stomped my boots—as much for announcement as cleanliness—and went in without knocking. Nobody in the family knocked. Esme had sometimes walked right into my house without even making herself known first.

  From the front room, I could see Esme moving about the kitchen, cooking a breakfast supper. Aaron and his woman were setting next to each other at the kitchen table with their backs to me. Men and women never sat beside one another at the table. I could tell that none of them knowed I had entered, despite the racket I had made on the porch, so I stood between the two rooms and unwrapped Birdie without a word. Grease popped. I could smell biscuits and bacon and coffee that mixed together into one warm, dark scent. Syrup bubbled on the stove. Esme caught sight of me about the time she broke an egg with one click of her hand and dropped it into a cast-iron skillet.

  “Here she is!” Esme said, smiling. “We thought that butchering had done give you out.”

  “It has, but I had to come say hello,” I said. I was shocked at how normal my voice was. Aaron turned his body a little bit, one elbow on the table to support himself as he set twisted in his seat, and his whole face smiled as if nothing had ever happened between us. The look on his face was so true that I wondered for a moment if I had only dreamed of harsh words being spoken between us. Maybe Aaron didn’t even remember it.

  The woman turned, too, and I heard myself suck in my breath. I couldn’t help it. Later I would know why, but at that moment, I simply thought it was the girl’s beauty that stunned me. She was not a woman at all, only a girl, not more than seventeen. I knowed right away that she was a Melungeon. She was as dark skinned as I was, but her features were that of a white girl, without a doubt. Her nose was long and narrow, her eyes a cloudy blue, her brows perfect in shape, like curved lines had been painted below her forehead. Her face was heart-shaped and her lips were very pink. Her hair hung in little corkscrew curls. She smiled, and in doing so she showed blue gums and white teeth that were crooked but charming in their own right, the way they lapped over one another like sisters that longed to be close.

  “Hello, Aaron,” I said at last, but here my voice wavered. I could not remember speaking his name since he had left.

  “Lord, m
y baby is grown,” he said, and stood, opening his arms. He hadn’t changed a bit. Birdie dug her knees into my side so that she would be let down, and when I put her on the floor, she run right to Aaron and kissed him on the cheek. I had not even realized that Birdie had missed him.

  Aaron felt down in his shirt pocket. “I brung you something,” he said, and pulled out a ball-shaped sucker. It had been wrapped in wax paper and fastened with a rubber band about the stick. Birdie tore the wrapper off without asking me if she could have it, but I didn’t say anything. I clutched my hands together in front of me, waiting for Aaron to introduce me to the girl.

  “This is Aaron’s woman, Aidia,” Esme said. “They got married in Tennessee.” Esme held a pan of biscuits and wore a look on her face that I couldn’t distinguish. Esme was so happy to see Aaron again that I couldn’t tell if the old woman approved of Aidia or not.

  “Aidia,” I said, feeling the way the word felt in my mouth. “That’s the finest name ever was.”

  “Thank ye.” Aidia pushed her chair back and in standing revealed she was heavy with child. It was not more than a slight paunch, but I could see she was about three months along. Aidia extended her hand and I shook it, smiling like a fool. A woman had never offered to shake my hand before—it was something that only men did. Aidia held my hand tight, though, the way I imagined a banker might do. “I feel like I know you. I feel like I know this whole big creek, and Esme and your man, Saul.” She put her hand atop Birdie’s head. “And Little Bit, here, too.”