Brookland (53 page)

“On three,” Isaiah said. “One, two—”

And on the third count they heaved up the corpse. Isaiah clutched one naked foot, and Phineas the bloodless arm still attached to the body; the brains spilled out like entrails. Prue could now see it was a Negro worker; she had remarked nothing but the gore when she'd stood atop the ladder. The room erupted in clamor, and someone shouted, “Jim!” Tem, who could take many things lightly, turned aside. Ben and one of his new workers came in; and Prue felt she might cry for joy at seeing him, though there was nothing he could do.

“Make way,” Isaiah said as they climbed down. “Someone go to the grain bins and bring flour sacks, to cover 'im.” They placed the body gently on the floor.

Prue heard someone run out. “Hoy!” he cried in the yard. “Dr. Philpot!”

She would rather have heard de Bouton's name, but charlatan or no, she was relieved to know Tobias Philpot had arrived. Though his nose was thick from drinking and webbed with fine red blood vessels, his hair was still black as a boot. He entered, as always, at his leisure, and bearing a box containing bottles of his nostrum. Even if it had no medicinal value, it would prove a friend to the injured. His sleepy eyes lit immediately on the dead man's body. Isaiah said to him, “No, it is too late. But there are a number who are hurt.”

Prue could not stop looking at the corpse. His face was not crushed past recognition, but she was galled that she would not have known his name had someone not called out, “Jim.” Prue had seen her mother waste away, and her father bloated and distended by the river he'd so loved, his eyes eaten out by sea creatures; she had seen Johanna ravaged by her tumor; but this, she knew, was death—this ugly stink and anonymity. The body was pooling sugar water and its own fluids on the earthen floor. Dr. Philpot was scanning through the wounded to help the direst cases first; and Prue thought what a comfort it would be to all of them if some gauzy spirit would cloud up from the dead man's lips and observe the proceedings or waft out toward the straits. She watched the body intently, and if she could have willed this to happen, she would have
done so. She would have made there be a spirit ferry and a place for the dead to live across the water; but she knew all the hope and fear in the world could not accomplish this.

“Is it our fault?” Tem whispered, so quietly Prue would not have heard her had Tem not been two feet away.

“I don't know,” Prue said aloud. In all the years her father had run the distillery, she could not recall any part of a machine breaking off in use. Whatever had appeared worn during his inspection had been brought up for replacement or repair. She and Tem likewise checked their machinery often, and she wanted to say,
Who can know when Fate might choose to take a man? Yet
even to think this was callous. “We shall do what we can to find out.”

“Perhaps those of you who are hale and well can help bring the injured out-of-doors,” Dr. Philpot said, his voice deep and slow as molasses. God bless him, he did not ruffle easily. “It would be of great service.”

At once the men began to sort themselves, and those who were able, to help their brethren to their feet. The boy with the flour sacks came in, too late to be of much use. Prue thanked him, and covered the man's ruined face and shoulder. She and Isaiah stood back as if to guard him, while Tem and Ben went outside with Dr. Philpot. Prue heard Ben ask her sister what had occurred. Isaiah was dripping on the floor and smelled like small beer. When everyone had left, Prue asked, “Are you cold?”

“It shan't kill me.”

“I didn't even know his name.”

“James Weatherspoon, late of Suffolk. He's a wife and son, up in Olympia.”

“I feel we should pay the call ourselves.”

He nodded. “I'll see about a cart.”

“First change your clothes.” He raised a hand, indicating he could not bother. She handed him his watch.

In the daylight, the men did not appear so badly maimed as they had in the dim brewhouse. They were all still talking about the accident. Isaiah set out at once for the stable, while Prue stood by blinking. Tem had called for gin to be brought out to everyone and was crouched on the ground, holding a worker's hand. Someone had already dropped the flag
to half-mast. “Operations will be suspended for the day,” Prue called out, though she did not suppose the Schermerhorns would have done the same for a mere worker. “And tomorrow, for Mr. Weatherspoon's funeral. We shall resume production on Thursday.” The flag snapped as if for emphasis. “You will be paid your full wages for the missed days' labor.” Tem glanced at her, but Prue couldn't tell what she was thinking. “And I require Owen, and anyone else who would help him clean; and Jean Boulanger, Mr. Jones, and Mr. Jones's apprentice. Please gather in the brewhouse at four.” She knelt down where she was, beside a fellow named Toonis Hansen, and helped him rebind the makeshift bandage on his right hand.

Isaiah came around, leading two black horses by the reins; they were hitched to a small cart, from the back of which two of the stable hands lifted a long board. The hands picked their way through the crowded yard and into the brewhouse. Ben was coming over to talk to Prue, and she said, “Isaiah and I shall carry the body to his wife. Can you help Tem look after things?”

Ben nodded.

Prue turned Mr. Hansen over to Elliott Fortune and followed the cooling board back to the cart. Isaiah handed her up, climbed up himself, and steered the horses gingerly to turn around. They kept flicking their heads back and forth; they knew something was amiss. Isaiah stank of mashed grain; and she thought how a chill could kill him exactly as it had killed his father. She also thought how her mother had lived in terror of such an event as had occurred that day. As if he could read her thoughts, Isaiah said, “This is what Roxana always feared would happen,” as they cleared the gate.

“Exactly as I was thinking. But do you ever recall it happening, in our fathers' time?”

“No,” he said. “Never anything so serious.”

“Nor do I. The only accident was my father's death.” She still did not believe she'd ever know if he'd slipped from the retaining wall or meant to step down; but it was best to maintain the former conjecture.

“God rest his soul,” Isaiah said, as he steered them through the afternoon traffic on the Ferry Road. His teeth were chattering.

As they drove, Prue pictured the Luquers driving up the Shore Road with her father in their wagon.

That Prue had been able to imagine Ann Weatherspoon's reaction to their arrival could not lessen the pain of thus witnessing another's distress. She was a slight woman, with a toddler on one hip, and she came undone exactly as Prue and her sisters had three years before. “I am sorry,” Prue said, as she climbed down from the cart. “I realize no one desires the ministrations of a stranger at such a moment, but please allow me to offer my condolences.”

Ann Weatherspoon simply stood with her mouth open, evidently unable to catch her breath.

Prue felt she herself might begin to cry. “Please, allow me to help,” she said. The child reached his fat hands out to her, and Prue lifted him from his mother's arms. He was heavy, as if stuffed with grapeshot, and as soon as Prue had hold of him he kicked to be free. Relieved of his weight, Ann Weatherspoon collapsed forward toward the cart. Prue said to Isaiah, “I think you'd best get Mr. Severn.”

“Can you manage?”

Prue widened her eyes at him, and he ran off toward the turnpike, his clothes clinging to his body. Prue could manage because the widow did nothing those next few minutes but lean against the cart and cry out her husband's name. Prue held the struggling child on one hip and stroked the woman's thin back with her other hand. Isaiah had disturbed Mr. Severn at his lessons, but he came right away; and as the neighborhood women began to gather, Mr. Severn released Prue and Isaiah to return to the distillery and the awful business of the afternoon. Prue insisted they stop off at Isaiah's house for a change of clothing.

Pearl must have heard the machinery rumble to a halt, for she was helping the doctors as she could when Prue and Isaiah returned; half the workers from the ropewalk also seemed to be on the premises, some helping, others looking around in a daze. The following day both mills shut down, and the workers gave Jim Weatherspoon—a second-generation freeman, Prue learned, who'd been eager to advance in his chosen profession—a long funeral cortege. By the graveside, Will Severn delivered a moving sermon, in which he expressed his conviction that Jim Weatherspoon had been reborn, whole and at peace, in the Higher Realm. Ann Weatherspoon would not look at him, and simply cried into her handkerchief as her son toddled around, pulling at people's coats and skirts and digging in the dirt. When the service ended and the burial began,
the company began to stream toward Olympia, but Peg Dufresne came limping over to Prue to comfort her, as if a member of her own family had been lost. Prue had never noticed the limp before, but supposed it had come on gradually, now Peg was getting to be an old woman. She drew Prue aside, toward the cemetery fence, and said, “It's a terrible shame. I can see by your countenance you feel bereaved.”

Ben was standing by, waiting. Prue said to him, “Go on, if you like. We'll catch up.”

He touched his hat to Peg and walked out with Tem and Pearl.

Prue said, “Tem keeps saying such things are bound to occur; but I feel the worst of it is that it could have been avoided.” There had not yet been a hard frost, but the grass was crunching under their feet. “Perhaps if we'd better inspected the agitator, we would have seen it was cracked or failing. Even if not, the power could have been cut off from the machines in an instant, but by all accounts, he
dove in
.”

Peg was scanning Prue's face with her kind, dark eyes. “There's no changing that, however.”

“I suppose I lose sleep easily.”

“Are you taking care of the widow?”

“We've given her what her husband was owed, and a month's extra wages,” Prue said. “I can also employ her, if need be.”

“She already works. She takes in laundry.”

“I didn't know,” Prue said. She herself had been married less than a month, but could well imagine the woman's feelings of helplessness and loss. “Peg, what are the neighbors saying?”

Peg licked her lips but didn't respond.

Prue went on, “I know something's amiss.”

Peg said, “Oh, Prue, people will say anything. A few have called it a bad omen about your bridge; Jana Friedlander hopes it isn't the river taking revenge on you for your treatment of Losee, which I told her is absurd. Some say these things happen if you leave a manufactory in the care of a nineteen-year-old woman.”

“But the accident happened while I was there,” Prue said. Still, she had heard Peg plainly: “These things” included Marcel's accident as well. “Tem can manage without me when the need arises.”

Peg laid her dry palm on the side of Prue's face. “I know,” she said. “You know Simon and I believe in all of you, don't you?”

Prue did, even without her saying so. “Of course. You're the only people who never treated Pearl as if she were a changeling.”

Peg glanced off as if Pearl were still nearby. “Prue, your distillery provides as much work as anything else in this village. You employ more men than farm our fields. So I think it only natural people should worry what would become of them should you fail in your endeavor.”

“But we shall not,” Prue said. “That's why we're building the new model—to test our methods of construction; to be sure.”

“I understand, but I'm not certain everyone does. I don't mean to offend you.”

Prue said, “I am merely surprised to hear so many people think that way, when the bridge has already brought employment for a few, and may yet prove a boon to many.”

“Prue,” Peg answered, “you're ignoring the obvious point: People see omens if they wish to see omens. Everything is a sign, when you're looking for a sign.”

Prue shook her head. Peg was no doubt correct. “I think we should go eat Ann Weatherspoon's cake. It doesn't look right to keep away.”

Peg inclined slightly toward her. “You'll simply have to prove them wrong.”

They walked past the rising heap of the new grave toward the gate. Peg's limp seemed more pronounced, walking uphill.

Winter was drawing nigh, and Brooklyn's scrubby brown hills, black rocks, and gray sky looked bleak as anyplace Prue could imagine. She was grateful to Peg for speaking plain, but troubled that her neighbors could think an accident—brought on in part by its victim's inexperience, and certain not to recur—a sign from above. At the same time, it numbed her to think the life of a husband and father could be undone in an instant, and in service of something as ultimately meaningless as the manufacture of liquor. And she worried about the bridge. Even in building Mr. Severn's church, some had been injured by saws, mallets, and the inevitable slips of attention; a project of the bridge's magnitude could not possibly go forward without some loss of life. Prue also knew that from the ancients forward, people had believed a bridge takes a human life during its building, to propitiate the water spirits against the sin of walking above them. A bridge didn't have to span the divide between the living and the dead to require this sacrifice; to
cross a body of water is always, at one level, to bargain with the Devil.

Prue was glad to have Peg beside her when she arrived at the Weatherspoon house. It was low of ceiling and stingy of windows, and had never been meant to hold more than a man and his family, without even the comfort of a fireplace in the second room. Now more than a hundred workingmen, half with their wives and broods in tow, were filing through to pay respects, as were a few of the landowners and businessmen. Prue's own dark thoughts made it difficult to be among her men and her neighbors; but Peg's reassurance kept Ann Weatherspoon's pound cake from turning to ashes on her tongue.