Here and Again (22 page)

When they rounded the corner of the barn, Ginger found two large squares of property to the far right of her gravel drive, each enclosed by a beautiful snake-rail fence.

“Oh.” She breathed.

“Better use for that wood than lining this here drive,” John Mitchell said.

“Wheldon said the goat would eat everything unless there was a fence,” Mr. Schaaf said. “The rail fence on the drive would have been pretty, though.”

Ginger silently agreed but the need to keep the goat away from the garden seemed the more pressing matter.

“Sometimes the best use for a thing is to add beauty. Like flowers,” he added.

“I agree,” Ginger replied out loud.

“Mama!” Oliver said. “Come look!”

With John Whitaker at her side and the other three farmers following behind, Ginger made her way past the gardens, across the front yard, and to the orchard.

“What is that?” she asked.

“It’s a chicken coop that can move,” Henry said proudly. “Me and Oliver made it with Emma and Sarah, here. They go to VMI.”

“Thanks for helping,” Ginger said to the two young women who were standing with Henry and Oliver. They nodded.

“Emma says the chickens can take care of the soil,” Oliver explained. “We just move it around the gardens.”

“I see. What is that?” Ginger asked again.

Henry and Oliver looked back at the coop, confused.

“That?” Ginger pointed.

“That is a turkey, Mrs. Martin,” Sarah answered.

“I know it’s a turkey. What’s it doing with the chickens?”

“It’s Rooster,” Oliver replied.

“No, it’s a turkey,” Ginger said.

The large black-and-white bird bobbed its head several times, turned, and wobbled its wrinkly chin. Its beard had a yellow tinge, as did its breast feathers. Two white streaks ran from its nostrils down its snood, looking for all the world like a long, thin mustache.

“No, Mama. His name is Rooster.”

“Gotta take the good with the bad,” Henry said.

Around its left eye was a circular patch of white skin, giving the turkey the singular presence of an old man wearing a monocle, reminding her of Colonel Mustard from the game Clue. The turkey not only looked like a cousin of the goat; it also looked like it was planning everyone’s demise.

“Rooster,” she said.

Upon hearing its name, the bird cocked its head and fixed her with its black beady eye.

“Colonel Mustard in the drawing room with the candlestick,” Ginger breathed.

The Morning Chorus

G
inger lay in bed listening to the silence of the night, which was rolling over in bed just as she did now—a last cozy snooze before dawn. But she wasn’t sure she had even slept. Her mind had been busy running over the day from beginning to end as a sequential set of events like a movie that perpetually restarted. Rooster and Bubba. Christian and Augustus. Little Bea planting the alfalfa with Jacob as Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Schaaf looked on in amazement. The evening coming far too soon for amateur horse farmers with Jacob Esch climbing into Mr. Wheldon’s truck. He hadn’t stayed as expected.

That was one of two points that had bothered her most of the night. She hadn’t realized how she had placed the boy in her farming plan in so short a time and now he wasn’t there. The other point that kept her from sleeping was Samuel—or more precisely, the absence thereof.

Samuel had been around the entire day. He had disappeared
on her in Christian’s stall but reappeared here and there in the field with Bea. Yet even as the military academy left with Mr. and Mrs. Rogers late in the evening after dinner and Mr. Mitchell took a few cookies and headed home with his aging friends, Samuel hadn’t appeared. They lit up the house with kerosene lamps and beeswax candles rescued from the attic of the summer house as a warm welcome to him, and all were disappointed when he didn’t show.

Pulling her arms from her blankets, Ginger rolled over again, gazing up at the window, which was lit lavender-gray in the darkness of the room. Her left hand found its way to the curls upon her head and she smiled, remembering her reflection in the window of her truck. Closing her eyes, she heard a single bird sing. It whistled high and then cut off sharply. It was followed by another bird and another. A crow cawed in the distance and somewhere the gentle, soft gobble of a turkey answered the horizon.

“Better than a rooster,” she whispered.

“Why do you suppose they do that?” The question came from the corner above Ginger’s head. She opened her eyes and glanced toward the window again.

“The sun’s coming up,” she replied.

“I know. But what purpose does singing before dawn serve the birds? The cows don’t sing. The horses don’t. Neither does the dog at the foot of your bed or the cat in the crook of your knees. Why do the birds sing?”

Ginger had never really thought about that. She just loved them singing if she had slept well and wished they would shut up if she hadn’t. Why do birds sing the sun up?

“Maybe—maybe they’re calling to each other making sure they all survived the night.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe one starts and it’s the only time they can really hear their song in the chaos of a noisy day.”

“Hmm. They like the sound of their own voices? I can say that about many a man.” Samuel chuckled quietly.

“That’s not what I mean.” Ginger sat up and looked at him, a standing shadow in the corner. “A morning chorus. A choir is only as good as its members listening to the voices of the others around them.”

“The morning chorus.” She couldn’t see it, but she knew he was smiling.

“We lit the house without electricity last night.”

“I know. I was here.”

“You were?”

“Yes.” His voice was just a shadow.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“I was . . . thinking.”

“About what?” Ginger tossed off the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. Regard lay as if nothing had happened—a lump underneath a mound of blankets.

“About being here. About a picture I once held in my hand. About a bird’s call in the cannon roar. About a friend long gone.”

Ginger had no reply. She had no idea what any of that meant and to ask would be to know something of Samuel’s past. This conversation she felt sure would be better held in the light of day when only his eyes went to shadow.

“About you,” he finished.

“What about me?” Ginger whispered.

Samuel said nothing, nor did he move. He was a frozen shadow growing longer as the sky brightened outside the window. Suddenly, she felt a great wash of sadness pour over her. She wasn’t ready for this. He was in her plan just like Jacob.

“Are—are you leaving me?”

Samuel let out an audible breath. “No.”

For herself, Ginger brightened, but at the same moment she felt Samuel’s weight. Carrying the dead. Her husband. Samuel. But he wasn’t really hers to carry. She looked at the floor.

“If what you needed to do is done,” she heard herself say, “then you should go . . . home. The kids and I will be fine.” She was lying. Well, not exactly a lie. But not a truth, either. She had no idea what she was doing with this farm and to say it would all be fine was ridiculous.

“This is home, Virginia Moon. We have to make it so.”

She nodded, relieved, but not so relieved, either. The same unsteady sense of the world that had come to her on the road when she first realized Samuel was spirit crept from her toes, which rested on the cold wood floor, up her legs, into her stomach, over her shoulders, into her mind.

“I’m unsettled,” she said softly.

“I know. I, too, feel without ease. There is something here, Virginia Moon. Something has been flowing as a wash of water for over one hundred and fifty years and I feel it creeping closer than ever I have.”

“What is it?”

Samuel shook his head. “I do not know. I see only pieces of it but no clear connection between any of them.”

“Pieces of it? Like you being here. A picture you once held in your hand. A bird’s call in the cannon roar. A friend long gone?” Ginger asked.

Samuel nodded and in the first ray of light his shadow was illuminated. First she saw his tattered shoes, then his woolen pants, then his disheveled shirt. The light stopped on his lips and there Ginger could see him mouth,
You
. She swallowed hard.

“I saw you yesterday, Samuel. In Woodstock.”

“Yes. I, too, saw you.”

“Why didn’t you answer me when I called your name?”

“Because you called me from here, Virginia. Now. I only saw you—heard my name called there—then.”

Ginger thought for a moment “Then. You mean back then? In the war?”

Samuel nodded.

Closing her eyes, Ginger listened to the morning chorus, trying to steady herself in the shifting of reality.

“I saw you in Manassas,” she said without opening her eyes.

“I did not see you. But I moved my head to find your voice in the cannon smoke, and in that moment a minié ball missed me and hit Avery.”

“Is—is that the friend you are thinking of? The one long gone?”

Samuel shook his head and replied, “No. His name was Jeb. We both deserted after the battle at Cedar Creek—”

“Ah! That’s just up the road here!” Ginger declared.

“It seemed far from here back then.”

There was a quiet rap on the door.

“Mama?”

Ginger stared at Samuel’s lips, waiting for the light to reach his eyes.

“Yes, Bea.”

“Time to get up. We have work to do.”

Her eyes sought Samuel’s, which remained in shadow as if the sun had stopped its motion.

“Yes, we do.”

Bea opened the door a crack and looked in. “We need to get up earlier, Mama. I should be finishing breakfast and heading to the fields.”

“Really?” Ginger gazed over at her daughter. The sun was cool gray upon Bea’s face.

“Daddy and I were always out in the barn when the birds started to sing.”

“Okay, Bea,” Ginger said. “Then we should set our clocks tomorrow. I don’t smell coffee.”

“Grandma went out with Henry and Oliver,” Bea replied. “She says you have kitchen duty.”

“I see.” Ginger chuckled, searching the floor for her slippers.

“Oliver will bring in eggs. Ah! Samuel! Good morning!” Bea shone like the sun.

“Good morning, Bea.”

The little girl yawned and, leaving the door open, headed for the stairs.

“She’s not used to fieldwork like me,” Bea said.

“You are used to it?” Samuel inquired as he left the shadow of the corner and walked out the bedroom door.

Ginger followed both down the stairs, thinking of the chorus and the shadow that was Samuel. He had deserted his regiment. Maybe he couldn’t cross over because he was being punished for something.

“My daddy and I used to work the fields from when I was just a baby in a carrier on his chest.”

“What does that mean? ‘A carrier on his chest.’”

Ginger reached for the light switch at the bottom of the stairs and stopped herself just in time.

“Like a backpack, only it goes on the front and holds babies.”

Walking into the kitchen, Ginger turned the knob on the side of the kerosene lamp and lifted the plunger. She pumped it several times to pressurize the fuel in its base, spun the plunger back in place, and turned the lever. A gentle hiss whispered to the mantles and she struck a match, setting the lamp aglow. She blew
out the match and lifted the lantern to its hook above the table. The day before, an electric light held that spot. But today was like when Osbee was a child. The same old lantern now hung on its same old hook, happy to be serving again in light from the buried darkness of the attic.

“You went out on your father’s chest into the fields? Virginia Moon, you agreed to that?”

“I wasn’t here often,” Ginger replied, scanning the counter for the coffeemaker. It was not in its proper spot next to the sink.

“Where were you?”

“Working. Look, the way Jesse saw it, babies go out in the fields on the backs of their parents everywhere else in the world. What’s the difference? Where’s the coffeepot?” Ginger opened the cupboard below the counter whereon used to sit the coffeemaker.

“Jesse,” Samuel said softly.

“Where’s the coffeepot?”

“On the stove,” Samuel replied. “Jesse is your husband’s name?”

On the stove was a steel pot. On the counter next to it was an old hand-operated coffee grinder, a glass jar of coffee beans, and a piece of paper.

“Yes,” Ginger answered, lifting the paper and reading. “Holy cow! I’m supposed to make coffee in this?”

“You cannot make a pot of coffee?” Samuel asked.

“Well.” Ginger looked over at him. “Not this way. I just use the coffeemaker that plugs into the wall. But you are here and electricity makes you itch, so . . . percolated coffee on the gas stove. And kerosene lamps.” Ginger pointed to the kitchen light above the table. “Changing out of deference to you.”

“Here. Let me show you,” Samuel said.

“And farming with horses like you used to do,” she added.

“It is easier to teach what you know,” he replied, motioning for her to fill the coffeepot with water. “I know nothing of tractors.”

“But you know farming. So we’ll learn what you know.”

As Ginger put the pot under the faucet and was about to turn on the water, a shrill scream filled the kitchen and without another breath Ginger was out the kitchen door, through the sunroom, and onto the stairs in the cold March morning. There she saw Oliver running toward the summer kitchen with his small basket of eggs held tightly to his chest. His eyes were white and wide as a full moon and when he reached the door he banged it madly with his right fist.

“Help!” he screamed.

The goat rounded the corner at full speed. Grabbing the broom that hung on the sunroom wall, Ginger leapt from the stairs and stormed toward Bubba. Just then, the door of the kitchen opened. However, the summer kitchen had a farmer’s wife door and Henry had only opened the top.

“What’s wrong?” Henry asked.

Without so much as an inhale to answer, Oliver dropped the basket and, as any great Olympic gymnast might do, flew over the door as if it were a vault, tucking his short legs beneath him. He then disappeared in a tackle with his brother into the kitchen. At that moment, the goat hit the bottom part of the door at full speed, setting it to shudder with the impact.

“
Neaaaahhh
,” it said as Ginger, stalking silently like Regard, stepped closer. Bubba didn’t have a chance, for by the time it turned its wicked caprine gaze in her direction, the broom came down on the top of its head. The goat didn’t even wince but did jump a little in surprise, at which point Ginger swung and batted
its rear legs out from under it. The force of her swing sent Bubba flying to the left, rolling backward, its feet flailing in the air as it tried to right itself.

“What’s it like, Bubba?” Ginger hissed as she came on. “Minding your own business and out of nowhere something nasty comes at you, scaring you to death.”

The goat pulled its feet under its body and stood, lowering its head for a run. Before it could start, Ginger whacked it on the left shoulder and the goat stumbled to the right, skidding in the dust to a stop. It hunkered down and leapt forward, coming straight at her. Before she could make another swing, it hit and the force of the impact did—nothing. Dazed, Ginger stood still for a moment, waiting to hurt or fall down or something. Nothing. Then she tossed her broom down.

“Come on, you little shit!” she yelled, and as commanded Bubba turned and came back at her, hitting her thigh.

“Is that all you can do?” she asked. Hands on hips, she turned to the summer kitchen and found Henry, Osbee, and the wide eyes of little Oliver peeping over the door at her.

“Oliver,” Ginger said as she turned her back to Bubba. “Come here.” The goat butted her in the rear end. She didn’t even flinch. “Whatever, Bubba. Oliver?” Ginger reached the door and held out her hands.

“No!” Oliver screamed.

“Look at him, Oliver! He can’t even bruise me. Come here!” Grabbing Oliver’s hand, she pulled him from the kitchen.

“
No!
” His voice was high and terrified. He writhed in her arms.

“Mama!” Bea called.

“Oliver!” Ginger commanded. “Look at me!”

Whimpering, Oliver looked with red, tearful eyes at his mother.

“I would never put you in danger—do you know that?”

Oliver nodded a little.

“Do you know that I will never put you in danger?”

“Yes,” he whispered.

“Look down.”

Reticently, Oliver looked down and the goat, at that moment, rammed Ginger’s hip.