Wash (33 page)

I went off most days collecting and I always came back home. I knew what he’d do to the rest if I didn’t. My heading out would mean a whipping for them and that lever worked both ways. Their staying in the fields was what let me wander, so when they came to me for fixing, I put my whole heart into it. I used to worry I’d kill somebody by accident, but the more parts I learned, the more they grew together till I was living inside a real house of knowing. And I just got better and better at it.

Miller watched people stepping onto my porch and then leaving healed up. Saw he could earn some real money off me. He even decided to let me learn to read and write. Didn’t want me poisoning anybody by accident, getting him in trouble.

Said he’d found him a new Phoebe, he sure did, and without even having to look. He was so pleased, he gave me a horse.

∞

I almost rode right up on top of Wash next time I saw him. It was at that same southwest facing slope, wrapped round by the river, where he’d sent me to find the goldenseal.

And there he was. Kneeling in the middle of that patch. Doing something with his hands. Whatever it was, he quit before I could see good. Laid one palm flat down, then he laid his other palm over the first.

I remember seeing those hands, blunt and thick. Nothing tapered about him. Veins running across the backs of his hands like roots.

He stood up from that patch of goldenseal so smooth and tall. Looking at me, keeping his face flat. Asking what did I want without saying nothing. And I didn’t say what I wanted since I didn’t know. We stared at each other like that for a little while. I let my horse graze so I could keep on looking.

I had been wondering about him. How was he feeling since I healed him? Had Richardson already put him back at it?

But the answers to my questions floated right to the top where I could see em clear so there was no need to ask. I knew he was feeling good because he was looking good. His eyes shone dark and clear against their whites and the inkiness had come back to his skin. I could tell by the way he stood up so smooth, he wasn’t hurting no more.

I knew Richardson well enough to know the rest, and besides, I’d heard about it every which way I turned. Where Wash had been, what he had done at each place, and how he felt about it. All from people who had no way of knowing anything about him.

I had to wait for my other questions to rise up. Not that I’d ask him those either. Funny how some people stay begging for a chance to explain themselves and others, you can spend all day working up the nerve to ask about the weather. Wash was that second kind.

Except for much later when I was lying against him afterwards, in that quiet close time that don’t last long. Inside that little slip of time, he’d answer almost anything. But then, when we were dressed again, separate and apart, crossing paths on the road or in the barnyard, that wide open place inside him felt so far away it was like something I’d dreamed.

He couldn’t talk about it very well but he finally found the right words. Made me think of Phoebe when he said just cause it’s in there, don’t mean you got to be touching it all the time. No need to wear it out. But you know that, he’d say. You know that.

As for what he was doing with his hands that first day when I rode up on him after I’d healed him, turns out he was visiting his mamma’s grave. Leaving offerings. Wouldn’t let me see and didn’t tell me till later, but said she’d like us crossing paths again right there. In that very spot.

Wash

I guess the thing Pallas knew was how to be with a body without having to grab hold of you. Having everything yanked from you can teach you. Some people, it makes em need a stranglehold but Pallas was not like that.

Pallas let me come and go. When she needed to grab on to something, she had something besides me. It was way down inside her and sometimes she’d drop me to catch hold of herself. You couldn’t expect Pallas to carry you too far. She already did enough fetching and toting is what she would say. But that was all right with me. I wasn’t going nowhere.

We inched up on it, Pallas and me. We kept slowing down and slowing down. Seemed like the shorter our steps, the more ground we covered.

Took me a while to get to where I could sit there by her without thinking about getting up on her. She’d stop by to see me on her way back to Miller’s and we’d sit there, facing each other across my big hayloft window, looking over the road leading out of here winding through the fields just like a snake. Her saying mmm hmmm real soft but I’m not saying anything.

I felt my wanting reach through that soft night air between us but I was always glad when that feeling faded. I’d learned a little bit about how she was by then. I knew exactly how my reaching for her was the best way to be sure she’d slip through my fingers.

Long as I left her alone, she’d come closer. Took her forever to come across that empty space between us. Said she was in no hurry. Said she’d forgotten all about wanting to get next to somebody and she liked that feeling, a thread pulling up through her middle, twanging in her belly.

And my hands want to pull her to me but she’s just smiling. Saying you best keep it to yourself because I sure won’t be sitting here when all that wanting makes its way to me. You start that grabbing and I’m gone.

Made me mad at first but it was like she said. There was a whole other place on the far side of wanting and it was right peaceful. All quiet and still, like I’m stretched out inside myself, fields as far as my eye can see, and I’m feeling the night breeze coming through those fields, making me wonder is there a road snaking through me too, and where is the barn in me and how do I get to it?

Once I started seeing what Pallas was showing me, she liked to come sit by me and lean her head on me, with us falling in and out of sleep. Then one time, I woke up in the flat middle of the night with us curled together in the straw. I fell asleep on my back with my arm flung out to the side and her nestled in my armpit with one long thin hand laying on my chest. But I rolled towards her while I was swimming in sleep and my leg started wrapping over and round her like it can’t help it.

Before I was even awake, I felt her leaving. She was still laying next to me but she started feeling real heavy and thick, like wood, and I was pulling something dead towards me. All her clear water pouring grace left just that quick and I got a feeling in the pit of my stomach, like sinking.

When I open my eyes, her face tips towards me but she’s looking over my shoulder like she’s seeing a ghost and ain’t even scared. She drags her eyes off the wall behind me, trying to pull herself back to now, but I can see she’s looking at me from down a long rope and I know that feeling myself. What I don’t like is knowing I’m the one who sent her there.

I roll onto my back, letting my hands fall slack open, praying to turn back into a man she can sit next to. She curls into a ball facing away from me but at least she’s still pressed close against my side. We sleep like that till first light then she sneaks out of the barn in time to make it home, with some people seeing her leaving and thinking they know everything about everything, but I’m just shaking my head.

Pallas

Ain’t nobody using me for nothing is all I can say. I ain’t no boot scraper to get the mud off. I’m not no road and that’s what I told him. You will not get wherever you’re headed by rubbing up on me. I know that much for a fact. I’ve been down that way and back. I’m not even thinking about turning my head to look over there. Not in this tiny sliver of my life that’s mine.

Even if I was foolish enough to think it might be different this time, my body knows better and she ain’t having it. You can’t see her stubborn like a mule but I know. She’s not going through that stream. Y’all can stand out there all day if you want, but she ain’t stepping in that water.

I’m saying this to Wash but he knows it already. And I know he does, but still, it feels good to hear my own mouth saying my own words. Setting em out there like that, all in a row, one after the next, in the warm falling deep blue of a late summer night.

And he nods his head, saying yes ma’am, you better tell it to me so I know where to tip and not to tip. Come on now, you best tell it all to me. And I know he’s just liking the sound of my voice pouring over him, same way I like his voice on me. And he’s hearing me too, saying lemme see that mule some more. How do she look exactly?

And him asking like that makes me laugh about it a little. He’s finally catching hold of it, thank the Lord. I guess I’ve left him enough times, he knows I mean it. It can’t feel good being left like that, after the sweet of sitting next to the only somebody you really want to be by.

And I did want to stay most times. I did want to stay and I thought about Phoebe praying over me that night, telling me my body was my door into this world, and what a shame for me to come all this way and then leave again without ever being able to walk in and out of my own house whenever I felt like it. Have company over if I want.

She said it would be a damn shame if I let those Drummonds take that from me too. Said we all got our Jordan to cross in this lifetime and it looked like this was mine, so I needed to find me a way.

It was Phoebe I was hearing that one night when I turned towards Wash from where I was sitting right there by him. It was only when he managed to leave me alone for a minute that I had a chance to reach for him. Wrapped in the silvery curve of that blown down tulip poplar. Sitting side by side, leaning against the trunk. Watching the moon on the water.

I put my hand out to him, laying it palm up in his lap. He looked down into my hand and then over at me for a long time. I dipped my chin, yes, all slow like molasses, so he carried his palm to meet mine. I felt the air thick between our hands before they touched. Then I felt the solid weight of his hand in mine. My belly turned over but I stayed.

I lifted his palm so I could lay it on my throat where he could feel me breathing. It was heavy and warm resting there. I laid my other palm on my low belly, saying to myself, just stay. Using my own hand on my own belly to pull myself back inside myself when that runaway part kept trying to skitter away.

I turned to face his side and wrapped my legs around his hips. I scooched my front up against him and it felt good. Like when I’m bareback. I lifted his arm, wrapped it around my shoulders. I scooched closer against him, saying pull me to you, and his hip felt good and hard against my crotch. I laid my head on his shoulder, tucked in under his chin, and felt his arm wrapped around the top of my back nice and tight, like a vine up a tree.

Just checking him, or maybe it was panic from thinking about those bird bones fluttering, I flinched back, pulling against that tight vine holding me and yes, he was seeing me and hearing me because it gave, gave as sudden and light as it had been heavy before. His arm lifting off me like that was what made me able to come close again. I felt him smiling over me as I burrowed in there.

He looked out at the night for a long while then he turned to me, tipping me back a little with his hands on my shoulders so he can see into my face, then dropping a hand down to each of my hips and dipping his chin to look at me with a question. I leaned forward as my answer and he cupped his hands around my behind to lift me into his lap before wrapping his arms back around me.

I tipped into panic but did not lurch. He got me settled good with my front up against his front and my cheek against his throat. His chin resting on the top of my head and my feet hooked together behind him. We’d sit belly to belly like that and everything was fine.

Sometimes I’d sit behind him with my legs wrapped around, my feet in his lap, and I’d rub his back. Tracing each tight knot down its long muscle to the root, telling it come on out of there now. He’d grunt and I’d get tickled.

Other times, I’d feel something else welling in me. A hand reaching up from inside the middle of me, wanting to grab on to something without knowing what it was. Hot flooding my belly, making my arms and legs feel full, with steam rising through my chest and I’m wanting to press against him or else bite down on something.

It was nice but it was new and I was tipping too close to those Drummond boys and I couldn’t see how to walk right past that hellhole without it reaching out and grabbing me.

I remembered how long it took for Phoebe to lift me from that pit. But now Phoebe’s gone and I wondered who can pull me out this time. Wash didn’t know enough yet, no matter how sweet he was being. And it wouldn’t be me, since I’d be laying there in pieces on the floor.

I did feel the wanting well up in me and carry me over to him. But I was stoking the same fire that had burnt me already. So I’d start out and then I’d stop, snatching myself back to myself. I’d reach to pull him close but soon as I’d feel him coming back at me, I’d freeze, with my hand turning into something not my own like it used to do at Drummond’s, and I’m gone.

I couldn’t talk about it much but I tried. He’d say see can you tell me. And I’d say it’s a rising up, like a storm. It’ll toss me and break me apart till I’ll be all in pieces. Broken open. I’m saying it so soft and into such dark, I’m not even sure I’m saying it out loud till I feel him hearing me. And he’s saying it’s a storm but it’s just trying to carry you some place new.

I’m looking at him.

“You know how clean and smooth and wide open it gets after a big storm? The sun shining new on all the colors, making em double what they was before, with everything quiet and still, like God trying to catch some breath after all that?”