Prayers the Devil Answers Page 9

  Years later, Albert traced his finger along that old scar on my wrist, white now, but still visible if you looked close enough. “I made up my mind to marry you on account of that day, Ellie. I guess everybody else sees a quiet, ordinary girl, but I’ll always know that my wife has a wellspring of courage, and the strength of chestnut wood.”

  LONNIE VARDEN

  After he heard more or less the same sentiment from several other local residents, Lonnie Varden decided that the Sycamore Shoals suggestion was a good one. Despite its technical difficulty, the idea of painting a frontier battle appealed to him. He envisaged a scene of buckskin-clad frontiersmen fighting off marauding redskins wielding stone axes: bodies in the nearby creek, arrows in flight, little tongues of flame at one end of the fort. Yes, it had dramatic possibilities.

  In his notebook he made a quick sketch of a log-walled fort, surrounded by a canopy of trees, laid against a familiar backdrop of rounded green mountains. Perhaps he would put an eagle in the sky to symbolize the future United States. A horse somewhere in the background would add a picturesque touch; people always liked to see a horse in a painting. He could scatter a few pretty pioneer ladies somewhere about. With all these colorful elements he could create a powerful historical scene, familiar to the local community and appealing to the casual viewer. It might be hard work to depict such a complex scene, but he wouldn’t mind the effort it took. Compared to everything else he had ever done, it wouldn’t really be work at all.

  One of the supervisors had mentioned several important historical events connected to the fort that he insisted merited commemoration, and the more Lonnie thought about those suggestions, the better he liked them. Apparently, those few acres by the river at Sycamore Shoals had cropped up time and again in frontier history. It was there that Daniel Boone and his fellow investors had brought six wagonloads of trade goods to barter with the Cherokee for the land that became the state of Kentucky. Then, in 1776, the Cherokee attacked the fort in their anger over the influx of settlers moving into their territory in what is now east Tennessee. Four years later, during the Revolutionary War, the militias from the surrounding areas met on that same patch of ground to form a volunteer army, in response to a message from a British army officer threatening to burn their farms and kill their families. They finished the dispute—and the officer himself—in a battle a hundred miles or so southeast, but the campaign began right there at Sycamore Shoals.

  He couldn’t think of any place within a hundred miles of there that could rival it in historical importance. At first, he had thought of painting the gathering of the Overmountain militias during the revolution, but then he remembered that Lloyd Branson, the famous Knoxville painter, had already depicted that scene. Maybe the Cherokees’ attack on the fort would be a better choice anyway for drama and visual interest. By the time the last layer of gesso had dried, he had decided to paint the 1776 battle between the frontiersmen of Fort Watauga and the Cherokee attackers. That decision seemed to please everyone. The supervisor said he had an ancestor who had helped to found that fort, and the postmaster said having that scene to look forward to at work each morning would be just like spending every day watching a cowboy movie.

  Everybody was happy, most of all Lonnie Varden, who felt that he finally had his chance to become a real artist.

  chapter five

  Through all the days of Albert’s lingering death I was too dazed to think any further ahead than getting through the next hour or two. Early on, when I still thought his fever would break, I busied myself shining his shoes for when he would go back to work, as if by preparing for it I would make it happen. For an hour or more I sat there by the bedside, rubbing the rag over a black shoe and staring out the window at the rain, just waiting for life to start up again, and go on like it always had. I stayed too tired and too busy to think about the future going any other way.

  Every hour or so, day and night, I would dip a clean cloth into a bowl of water and squeeze a few drops of it into his mouth, because he couldn’t take water any other way. Early on, I had tried to give him broth that way, but he moaned and made choking noises, so I was afraid to try again. After the doctor came I made the mustard plaster the way he told me to and put it on Albert’s chest, but his breathing was as ragged as ever. I told myself that I hadn’t waited long enough to see a difference, but the hours passed, and by nightfall nothing had changed.

  Once, in his delirium, Albert’s eyelids fluttered, and he began to mumble a few words. I thought it was a sign that he had come through the worst of it. Surely soon he would wake up, but after a few minutes he went quiet again and lay as still as ever. I think I knew then that it was all over but the waiting.

  Just past dawn on the fifth day after he took sick, Albert died. The night before, when the boys came to the door, wanting me to put them to bed, I brought them into the bedroom and told them to say good-bye to their father.

  Eddie stared at the unmoving body in the bed, at the hollowed cheeks and the sweat-soaked hair, and he went pale, but he didn’t cry. “Will he hear us?”

  “I don’t know, son. He might.” I didn’t think Albert would hear them, but this leave-taking was for their sake, not his.

  The boys stood there a few feet from the bed, Georgie holding on to Eddie’s hand, but they didn’t go any closer. Eddie saw my tears, and he seemed to understand what was happening, but Georgie reached out to the foot of the bed and tugged on the edge of the sheet. “Wake up soon, Daddy.”

  Eddie and I looked at each other. By now both of us knew that Albert would never awaken. After a moment Eddie put his arm around his little brother and led him off to bed. I heard him promising to tell Georgie a bedtime story about Jack, an imaginary rascal who was the hero of the tall tales Albert used to tell them.

  By the time they woke up the next morning, Albert had departed this life. Just before dawn, when the ragged breathing stopped, I drew the quilt up over his head to cover his face, though he had still looked as if he were only sleeping. It felt right to cover him, but I wondered why. Are we protecting the privacy of the dead when we do that, or are we beginning our own process of letting them go?

  At first light the boys found me still sitting in the chair by the bedside where I had been all night, neither sleeping nor crying—just staring at the wall on the other side of the bed. I knew that as soon as I stood up and walked away I would be heading into a life without Albert, and I wasn’t ready to face it yet. I didn’t know where I was going.

  Eddie stood in the doorway, holding Georgie’s hand so that he shouldn’t wander too close to the bed. He didn’t know what had happened. Young as he was, he might not understand it for a long time.

  For a while none of us made a sound. Finally Eddie said, “I’ll see to breakfast, Mama.”

  I looked up, trying to smile. “I’ll be along directly, son.”

  He led Georgie toward the kitchen, and I heard the scraping of the chair, as Eddie settled him at the table. We had some rice left over from a batch I had cooked the day before. They could help themselves to that easily enough. Mixed with yesterday’s pint of milk and a few spoonfuls of sugar, it would do for breakfast.

  Awhile later, after he had mixed the rice and got Georgie to eat, Eddie came back to the sickroom to tend to me. I could see that, for him, the end of childhood had already begun.

  I was still numb with realizing that Albert’s death was no longer just a possibility; it had become a fact. I’d had a few days to get used to the idea, but part of my mind had been thinking all along that it wouldn’t happen.

  Gone forever. That thought dazed me so that I didn’t even hear Eddie come in. He stood in the doorway for a while, and, when I did not look up, he said softly, “Mama, do you want me to go fetch the doctor again?”

  “Too late for that, Eddie.”

  “I know. I was thinking of bringing him in to look after you.”

  “No use wasting the
doctor’s time when there’s other folks who will be in need of him. He can’t cure what ails me.”

  “You’ve hardly eaten or slept for most of a week, so I reckon you need him as much as anybody.”

  “No. I’ll try to sleep a little, and then I’ll get on with all the things that need to be done.”

  “I can do some of it.”

  Perhaps I should have told him to go to school, because he had been out all week, but I wasn’t ready yet to manage things alone. “I reckon you ought to go tell the reverend, son. He’ll know what must be done next. Ask him to please send the undertaker. I don’t want you going over there.” Death is a more complicated business here in town than it is up home. If we had still been on the mountain, I would have known what to do.

  “Tell the preacher.” Eddie nodded. “Ask him to send the undertaker. Shall I get word to Uncle Henry?”

  Henry. Like as not, Albert’s brother would come as soon as he heard, but that would be more of a trial than a consolation. I should have told him sooner, but that would have meant that I had accepted Albert’s death as a fact. He might still wake up, I had convinced myself, in hopes that I wouldn’t have to summon Henry.

  I rubbed my hand across my forehead trying to think. My head hurt and I wished all this could be left for later, but things needed to be done as quickly as possible. Seeing Eddie being so brave made me determined to bear up as well. I felt like as much of a child as the boys were—alone and frightened. If Albert could see me now, he wouldn’t recognize that brave girl who had taken a red-hot poker to her wrist so long ago. This hurt worse.

  I tried to keep my voice steady when I answered him. “Yes, Eddie, the family will have to be told first thing. I’m glad you remembered about your uncle Henry. After you tell the reverend, go down to the railroad yard and find Cousin Willis. Tell him I asked for him to drive up the mountain and let the folks up there know that Albert has passed away. Tell him to bring them back to town if anybody wants to come.”

  “Do you think they will?”

  “No.” Leastways I hoped not. If they intended to stay here with us, they would be intruders more than consolation.

  Eddie nodded, and thought for a moment. “Anybody else?”

  There weren’t many people in town that I would count as friends. Up home we mostly made do with family for company, and somehow I felt that telling the sad news to those I considered acquaintances might make them feel that we were asking for something from them. I would not shame Albert by taking charity or even appearing to ask for it.

  “That will do for now, Eddie. If I think of anybody else who needs telling, it can wait until later. Let me be quiet a while longer.”

  “You ought to sleep, Mama.”

  “When I can, son.”

  Eddie still stood on the threshold, watching me. He seemed to be waiting for me to say something else, but grief was winning over practicality, and I couldn’t think of anything. I should have spent these last few days making plans in case the worst happened, but I had not. I shook my head. “Nothing else now.”

  Eddie shifted from one foot to the other. Finally he said, “What about the jail, Mommy?”

  I turned to look at him then. The jail. The shock and weariness had made me forget all about Albert’s job. He’d only been in charge a little more than two months, after all.

  My husband was dead, but so was the sheriff of the county. I would have to work out what to do about that. Who to tell. They would wonder why I hadn’t let them know before, I reckon, but the truth is I had forgotten all about them.

  Eddie came back from his errands midmorning, while I was making pancakes for Georgie. I had fixed a plate for myself, too. There wasn’t time to sleep now, so I figured I might as well eat. I put out another plate for Eddie.

  “Did you find Cousin Willis?”

  Eddie nodded. “He says he will go up the mountain this evening and tell them the news.” His voice quavered a little, but he was determined not to cry.

  I knew I mustn’t cry either. “Thank you, Eddie. You have been a world of help. Your daddy would be proud of you.”

  “I told Preacher,” he said, pushing bits of pancake around on his plate. “He said he was mortal sorry, and he’s gonna get word to the undertaker. He said for you not to worry. They’ll be along this afternoon. He said to expect more company too. Not just him.”

  There it was. I closed my eyes. If the Lord meant that as a blessing, I wish He had asked me first. When we moved to town, I tried my best to get used to strangers in bunches, but it didn’t come naturally to me. In gatherings where there were clumps of people, I tended to talk to one person—whoever had approached me first. I can be sociable well enough that way, although I couldn’t think of much to say, but that was all right. People like it when you just listen. Most of the time the strangers were so busy talking about themselves that they didn’t even notice I wasn’t saying anything. But sometimes I’d find myself surrounded by people, bent on trying to rope me into the conversation. I could not manage to divide my attention among them to save my life. When they began to talk about the latest books, which I had not read, and of movies playing at the theater, which mostly we had not seen, I couldn’t find anything to contribute to the conversation, so mostly I would just smile and nod while I waited for them to go away. I did read books, but not the right ones, I suppose. We had a Bible, a volume of Shakespeare, and some old books Albert had bought at an auction as a birthday gift for me. I didn’t much bother with the leather-bound volumes of sermons, but I liked what I read of Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Washington Irving, and the poems of Mr. Henry Longfellow. Nobody ever seemed to talk about them, though.

  As for movies, we took the boys to a show now and again, but only to westerns, and the ladies I met never did talk about those either. I guess I’m too old to get the hang of talking to strangers. I think being social is a matter of practice rather than a gift, and I never got many chances to try it out. I also had a feeling—I don’t know what to call it, there’s probably a fancy word for it—but to me it felt like otherness, that no matter what I said or did, I would never be a part of any group except family. I hadn’t known that about myself before we came to live in town. Anxious as I was to leave the mountain, I never gave a thought to what it would be like to be moored forever among strangers.

  Company coming. Clumps of them, all expecting me to talk. Like as not, asking me questions that would be too painful to answer.

  Albert could talk to anybody. But he was gone. Now the ladies from church—I knew them by name, but they were still strangers—would come to visit, with every intention in the world of being helpful. Most of them wouldn’t come empty-handed, either. They would be bringing a pound cake, a chunk of ham, perhaps a bowl of potato salad, and I knew they were the soul of kindness, but it still meant I would have to think of something to say to them beyond thank you. Maybe, though, they would take my bereavement as an excuse for the awkwardness. Some of it was.

  I knew the custom, of course. It was probably as old as Moses: the bringing of food and sympathy to folk after the recent death of a loved one. We did that up home as well. I reckon everybody does, all over the world. My mother and grandmother were always the first to bake a pie or a loaf of bread to take to the grieving family, and no one ever thought of it as charity. In our settlement on the mountain that tradition was always a kindness between relatives or lifelong friends and neighbors. That kept it from feeling like a handout. Sooner or later the folks who gave and those who received would end up being the same people. But the people who would be calling on us now with bread and casseroles were not the neighbors and kin we had known forever. The news would not have reached them yet, and even so, it was too far to town for most of them to travel.

  If the burying took place back up the mountain, we would see them then.

  Oh, Lord, what should I do about the burial?

  I was
so mired in grief that I had not spared a thought for the funeral. But Preacher told Eddie he would come to call this afternoon, and I decided to ask for his advice about the funeral service and the burial. I would have to make a decision soon, but I didn’t yet know my own mind. He would know best about what should be done. Albert and I had never talked about deaths and funerals. We thought we were too young yet to concern ourselves with such matters.

  There were so many decisions to make. Should we hold the services here in town or in our little church up the mountain? Would Albert want to be laid to rest amid family graves on the farm now that it belonged to Henry, or would he rather stay forever in the public cemetery in this little railroad town where he had been someone ­important—the county sheriff—for all of about three months, anyway? Either way, I suppose he would be forgotten soon enough—except by me and the boys. It’s the way of the world to let go of the past, good or ill. Dust to dust.

  The boys. That was another decision I had to make quickly. Where would we go now? Back home to live on Henry’s charity and under Elva’s rule? Anything but that. Surely there was another choice, but we had no savings and now there would be no money coming in. We couldn’t even stay in the house unless I could find some way to pay the rent. I didn’t think I would ever marry again. The idea of marrying a stranger for security and support made me shudder.

  Eddie could probably find some sort of job, delivering groceries or doing odd jobs around town, but I couldn’t bear to let him do it. Albert wouldn’t want his education disrupted for the sake of the few dollars he might earn. I knew he would offer to get work, because he felt he had to be the man of the family now, but I was bound to tell him it wasn’t necessary. At least I hoped it wouldn’t be.

  The best solution would be for me to find work myself. The boys were getting old enough now not to need me at home all the time. But what sort of occupation was I fit for? With the Depression dragging on and on, it was hard enough for a man to find a job these days, much less a woman. I was not young anymore; I wasn’t good at being around strangers; I supposed I could be a store clerk, but I’d be no good at it. I’d have to write Smile on the back of my hand. I never learned how to type and I didn’t get enough education to be a teacher. What other job could a woman get? Being a waitress or a cleaning woman didn’t pay a living wage, not if you had a family to support. What chance did I have?