Читать книгу Watershed - Mark Barr - Страница 19

CHAPTER ELEVEN

BY WEEK’S END, CLAIRE FELT WELL ENOUGH THAT SHE began getting up and helping Irma in the kitchen, keeping her company in the quiet afternoons while they prepared the men’s meals. The medicine that Doc Peters had gotten for her had defanged the pain that still occasionally bit her womb, but those stirrings were becoming rarer with each passing day, giving way to a renewal of her strength. It was a blessing to have good health once more, and she swore she wouldn’t take it for granted ever again. With this thought in mind, on Friday afternoon she set out for her mother’s to visit with her children.

It was a long walk from town, but the day was pleasant, with a breezy, indecisive wind that blew this way and that, keeping the heat from feeling too overbearing. Within the first mile, though, she began to doubt her decision. She wore a straw sun hat that her aunt had lent her, but even with its shade, she found herself fading in the hot afternoon sun. Soon her frock was damp with a sweat that smelled unhealthy and foreign to her, the tang of her sickness in it, rising up from some deep well within her.

There was nothing but to keep going. She walked more slowly and found she felt somewhat better, but the afternoon was fading, the sun slanting from the western sky. Once she reached her mother’s, she decided, she’d send Tom to borrow the Clemmons’ wagon for a ride back to town.

When she approached her mother’s house, Claire saw Tom in the front yard, idly pulling at weeds. He stood when he saw her, but wavered a moment. Claire imagined some internal struggle between child and man. After a moment’s hesitation he dropped the handful of grass and ran to embrace her, calling “Ma!”

It felt even better than she had imagined to squeeze him in her arms. She kissed the top of his head and they went together towards the house. Her mother came out on the porch now, Nan on one hip.

“Well, well, it’s lady Lazarus come for a visit,” she said with a grin. “You’re mended?”

“A lot better.” Claire took Nan from her mother. Tears welled in her eyes when she felt Nan’s small arms grip her. My babies, she thought.

“Come on in and sit down,” her mother said. “You still don’t look full well to me. Can you stomach coffee?” Claire nodded and followed her mother into the house.

“Tom,” her mother called.

“Ma’am?”

“Fetch me some more kindling for the fire. It’s dying out on me.”

They watched the boy go out.

“He’s a good, strong chopper,” her mother said. “You sit now. Go on.”

Tom and Nan’s bedding had been folded and set on the floor at one end of the couch. Claire settled herself in beside it, tired from the walk and marveling at being served like a guest. Nan climbed onto her lap and Claire hugged the girl to her.

After she had stoked the fire, Claire’s mother came back to the living room and, knees cracking, sat in her chair in the corner.

“Doc says I’m to take the pills for another ten days,” Claire said. “It’s give or take, but getting better.” After a pause, she added, “I’ve been helping Irma with the cooking and cleaning.”

“Well, you should. We’re beholden.” Her mother stirred her coffee. “Now that you’re getting up and about again, you given any thought to what you aim to do?”

“Irma has said that I’d be welcome to bring the children and live there until I can find a permanent place.”

“Oh, you can’t take children to the boarding house,” her mother said, shaking her head. “Those men are paying for quiet.”

Claire frowned. “She’s had children there before.”

“Irma’s never had any children of her own. She won’t like them. You’ll see.”

“Ma, I have to do something. And I’m not moving back in with Travis.”

“How are you going to pay for your room? Irma’s charity is only going to go so far.”

“Well, that’s another thing. There’s a man at the boarding house, one of the federals. He’s offered me a job.”

“A job?” Her mother frowned, suspicious. “Did he say doing what?”

“He needs help signing people up for the electricity.”

“What do you know about that?”

“I don’t know anything. He just thought I might could help.”

Her mother side-eyed her, skeptical. “You watch yourself girl. I don’t like the sound of this, not one bit.”

“It’s a real job, Mama.”

“Why mess with that when you and the children can just live here? I’ve been thinking. We could get another bed in here. There’s room back there in the bedroom for two of them, if they’re small.”

Claire laughed at this. “We’d be at each other’s elbows in this place,” she said. She was taken aback when she saw the wounded expression on her mother’s face. “Now, Mama. You can’t really want us. I’ll bet the kids have been running you half crazy.”

“We been getting along.”

Claire sat back and scrutinized her mother.

“What are you up to, Mama? Two weeks ago you didn’t like us on the front porch. Now you want us to move on in here?”

Her mother sucked in her chin with affront. “Can’t a grown woman change her mind?”

“Did Travis ask you to?”

“Now, Claire,” her mother said, but Claire already knew that she had nosed out the right track from the way the old woman avoided her eyes, busying herself with setting her spoon on the table.

“Nan, honey, why don’t you go find Tom?” Claire said, easing the girl from her lap. “He might need some help.” She waited until the child was out the door, then turned once more to her mother. “This is his idea, isn’t it? If I moved back out here, he figures I’d be halfway back to him. And I’d have you in my ear everyday, coaxing.” This last thought touched flame to her temper and she stood, incensed. “Why are you taking his side?”

“Why are you so mule-headed? That man is the father of your children. He’s trying hard to change.”

“What he did to me, Mama. What he did. There’s no going back after that.”

“You can’t raise those children alone. Go back. Men make mistakes. They’re mostly just good for two things, giving you babies and breaking your heart, but it’s Christian to forgive.”

“He made me sick!” Claire said. “Struck me down the same as if he’d beat me.”

“Claire, you turn the other cheek. It’s in the Bible.”

“I won’t run back to him, Mama.” She turned and strode out the open front door past Tom. She showed the boy a weak smile, but continued on, her anger fueling her quick legs. No one pursued her, nor were there any calls for her to come back and talk. Taking hold of her skirts to give her legs more room, she continued on.

She hadn’t rested nearly enough. That was clear before she was out of sight of the house. Her breath took on a medicinal taste, a sharp note that echoed the scent of her perspiration. She was a fool not to have sat longer, but her mother siding against her, trying to wheedle her into going back to Travis, it made her want to spit. Claire covered a good bit of ground while lost in her silent arguments, until at last, her anger flagging, she began to perceive her predicament. Beneath her skirts, her legs had gone slippery and her heart beat against her ribs at a panicked, runaway pace. She wiped her brow with a sleeve and tried to keep on, but her strength was suddenly gone vaporous, dissipating into the afternoon air. A wave of nausea struck her and she stopped, resting her hands on her knees until it had passed. A group of pines stood nearby, where a creek cut across the road. When she reached their shade she dropped against one of the larger trees.

Her rest was short-lived. Before she had even full settled herself amidst the pine needles, there was the whine of a mosquito in her ears. She swatted it, and another appeared. Glancing up, she found a cloud of the insects descending upon her. One gave her a prickling bite at the neck, and she forced herself up, began walking again.

Nathan was working on a long line of figures, calculating load balances in a cribbed, neat hand. It was his second time to tally the figures. The first set of numbers had been rejected by Maufrais, who had glanced at them and said they were off. The head engineer had been sullen since, waiting.

Nathan surprised himself when he arrived at a new set of sums, and then set about checking them. He took them to Maufrais, who looked them over and gave a gruff nod.

“That’s more like I expected,” he said. “You double checked these?”

Nathan nodded, and Maufrais stubbed out his cigarette.

“All right. Tomorrow morning, first thing, start on the next set for the west branch. They’re going to be shipping the ceramics and steel at the end of the month.”

The others had departed with the five o’clock whistle, and the room had the hushed quiet of a library in the early evening. Nathan gathered his hat and coat. Maufrais remained at his desk, his head down over a set of papers.

He had submitted the first of his extra assignments to Maufrais the day before. Fitzsimmons had been sent east to bring to heel a supplier who’d twice sent copper wire that had visible impurities. It’d been a minor boon for Nathan to turn his work into Maufrais himself, although if Maufrais was forming an opinion about the quality of his work, he was reticent about sharing it.

“Goodnight, Mr. Maufrais,” Nathan said. He expected no response and received none. He retrieved his hat from the peg near the door. When his hand was on the knob, Maufrais spoke.

“You don’t like it, do you?”

“Sir?”

Maufrais looked up now. “Taking orders. It rankles you. I thought it was Fitzsimmons at first, but I see now that it isn’t it.”

“I’m not sure that I understand,” Nathan said. “If I’ve done something, Mr. Maufrais—“

“Remind me, Mr. McReaken. What was your previous position?”

Nathan stilled his pulse. “I was a senior draftsman, but the supervisor let me design the wiring diagrams from time to time.”

“You don’t take orders like a senior draftsman, though, do you? You want to be in charge.”

Nathan considered the question and the various ways he might answer it. The simplest was the honest one. “There’s probably some truth to that, sir.”

Maufrais watched him closely for a long moment, and Nathan felt a moth of panic flutter in his chest, sure that he was going to be fired on a caprice. “It’s not the worst of traits, Mr. McReaken, to know your own mind. Look where it has carried me.”

Was this a compliment? “Thank you, sir,” Nathan said, uncertainly.

“Mind it doesn’t interfere with your doing the work set out for you, though.”

“I won’t, sir.”

Nathan stood arrested at the door, unsure what to say further. The head engineer turned a page over on his desk. “Say goodnight and go home, Mr. McReaken. We’ll need you rested for tomorrow’s tasks.”

“Goodnight, sir,” Nathan said, and went out.

Only when he was out of Maufrais’ sight and safe from being called back did he stop to fish a cigarette from his crumpled pack. Since his first day, he’d been maneuvering with Fitzsimmons, trying to get around him, to get noticed by Maufrais, but the man had been watching him all along.

He climbed out of the valley towards the hillside lot that held a few cars, and beyond that the empty road that led through the trees. The truck carrying workers back to Dawsonville had been gone more than an hour. Dinner would already be underway at the boarding house. He checked the sun’s position over the river, gauged his chances of making it back to the boarding house before dark. It didn’t look good.

He greeted the few men who were drifting into the lot with “Dawsonville?” None were going that way.

The north side of the river was quiet, his alone. The sun setting over the valley was orange shifting to red, its double reflected on the oily surface of the river in its western course. From his vantage on the hill he could see the smoke rising from the cook stoves on the south bank, a dozen or so in the main camp, half as many from the Negro camp to the east. The men were moving between buildings, gathering for their evening meals. Between Nathan and the camp lay the dam’s foundations. The concrete now stood twenty feet above the open floodgates. Nathan paused on the broken shale of the hillside, letting his eyes play over the works. When the main wall reached a hundred feet, they’d close the gates. By July, Maufrais would have his second stage.

Another pickup came now from behind him, climbing the hill. He turned to look as the truck strained, the engine roaring, unmuffled. It was an old model with wooden slats along the bedside pieced together out of scrap, and a paint job that said that the vehicle had been revitalized with parts from other trucks. The truck’s engine died back and it slowed beside him.

“Dawsonville?” a fat, gray-haired man inside yelled. Nathan nodded and approached the truck. A snarling came from the bed when he got close, and he pulled back. Through the slats of wood, he could make out black eyes, a boxish head snapping back as the beast barked at him. From the sounds, there was more than one.

“Come on,” the man said, waving him in.

It took three tries to get the door to open.

“Just lift it straight, boy,” the man said. Nathan worked it this way and that and with a clunk, the battered door opened. He climbed inside.

“Thanks,” he said.

“When I seen you was a city boy, I figured you must be heading for town,” the man said, smiling at Nathan with tobacco-browned teeth. “Just the same as a duck heading for water.” The man poked Nathan on the arm to show it was a joke, then set himself to getting the truck back into first gear.

The truck had a narrow, padded bench and a bare dash. A collection of coffee cans crowded around the floor at Nathan’s feet. They were filled with a burned brown stew of fleshy patches.

“Pig’s ears,” the man said, following Nathan’s eyes. “I feed it to the dogs. Get the ears for a penny a pound, cook them in coffee. Makes dogs fight like hornets.”

Looking back through the rear window, Nathan could now see the cage. The dogs had their blunt muzzles shoved against the enclosure’s wire, scenting as the truck rolled along. The man took up a length of pipe that sat on the seat beside him, passed it to his left hand and, reaching out the window, beat it against the animals’ cage. The dogs snarled and snapped.

“Got some bull dog in them. Fightingest dog I ever seen.” Again the brown flash of teeth. “You work on the dam? One of them government boys?”

Nathan nodded. The cab of the truck smelled of exhaust. Nathan’s head buzzed with it. He shifted closer to the open window. Outside, houses were passing with people sitting on the porches. Some waved. The grizzled man waved at all of them.

“So, whereabouts in Dawsonville you staying?”

“Boarding house,” Nathan said.

The driver considered this. “Any lice?” he asked.

“How’s that?”

“In the beds. Any lice? I stayed at a hunting camp once that was full of them. Had to shave myself bare head to toe to get loose of them.”

“No,” Nathan said. “It’s a nice enough place.”

“Well,” the man said. They passed a few Negroes walking along the roadside and the dogs began to bark, thrashing in their cages. The old man grinned, took the length of pipe up once again and beat it against the cage. The dogs snarled. “They hate the blacks.”