Woodsburner (8 page)

The stout man watches the carpenter flee, looks at Henry, and says only, “Lord Al-might-y!”

They continue on, but they do not need to travel as far as Henry has come; the fire graciously meets them halfway. The dog runs at a syncopated gait, as if the ground were hot, and barks ecstatically, not at the fire but at the legion of woodchucks and squirrels and rabbits racing toward them, a rippling carpet of brown and gray fear.

When they finally arrive, they cannot believe that they could not see it before, cannot believe that there are not flames reaching to the heavens. The fire has spread out along the ground, and its path seems at least a half mile wide. The woods beyond are obscured by dark smoke, and they can hear the sounds of chirping birds fooled into thinking it is dusk. Henry and the stout man stomp along the leading edge of the flames thinking they can fight it back, slow its progress. It is only a grass fire among the trees, they lie to themselves, an ankle-high intruder. Henry's foot is
large and leaves a substantial black imprint. The other man's feet are smaller, but he works with apoplectic determination, short legs pumping high, elbows flying. The dog is of no help at all. Henry remembers a centuries-old woodcut he once saw reproduced in a book: a line of grinning skeletons dancing knock-kneed amid orderly tongues of flame
—Der Totentanz
. Together they perform their own death dance, hopping madly over the burning earth, before admitting that it is a hopeless job for two men and a well-meaning dog.

The stout man says that he and his dog will go for help since, after all, his property is a part of the land engulfed. Henry agrees to remain behind to keep an eye on the fire. He is momentarily relieved; spent from running nearly two miles, he can barely lift his legs, and his chest feels as though it were being squeezed in the steel jaws of a trap. The stout man suggests that Henry retreat to higher ground. Fair Haven Hill is near and will provide an excellent vantage point from which to observe the destruction and wait for aid. On his own, Henry can do nothing to deter the fire's advance, but both men agree that it is best not to leave the cunning flames unwatched.

“
Odd-mund!”

Her voice, when it finally reaches him, has its usual effect, makes him feel as though he is already drifting toward her. His body responds without waiting for consent, shifting its center of balance forward, and he leans on his pitchfork to ride out the dizzying current. He tries to acknowledge her call, but the shout catches on his tongue. Emma Woburn hollers for him again, her voice high and clear in the crisp air, stripped of its Irish lilt by the distance it travels from the weather-beaten porch of the white house, and in the far corner field Odd feels his throat constrict. He knows why she is calling. He knows she sees the smoke rising from the woods. It is a heavy cloud now, impossible to miss, no longer something that might be mistaken for morning vapors. Odd sucks at his tiny dead tooth and twists his pitchfork in the brushfire. Emma will want him to look into the cause of the smoke, or worse.

Odd wipes his brow with the back of his hand, checks the flecks of ash smeared like drops of ink across his knuckles. Sweat darkens his shirt unevenly, making him look as though he had spent the morning napping on his side in a patch of damp grass. Parts of his body are dead at the surface, stiff as untanned leather. His left forearm and the left flank of his chest no longer perspire, not even when he is hard at work under the summer sun. As he
watches the menacing smoke thicken in the distance, the whorled skin from elbow to wrist begins to tingle, restraining what lies beneath. There is no denying it. Something has sparked a fire among the trees. Emma calls out again, and Odd wishes he could cup her voice in his palms, scoop it out of the air like so much water, and hold it to his ear behind locked fingers, a sound to be heard only by him.

Odd lays the pitchfork on the ground, picks up a shovel, and throws a heaping of dirt onto the small fire within the circle of stones. He grimaces as the impact sends forth plumes of expiring cinders like swarming gnats; he watches how eagerly they fly overhead, weightless fragments of disorder floating impossibly far, darting erratically toward the trees just as the frightened mouse had done earlier. Surely his cinders could not have drifted all the way to the woods, he thinks; surely he is not the cause of the smoke hanging above the trees. But he knows people will look for someone to blame, and he can already hear the accusations. It was too dry, they will grumble, much too dry to burn brush safely, and only a fool would do so in such a wind. He should never have agreed to clear the far corner today, even if it meant suffering Mr. Woburn's unpredictable anger.

Odd heaves more dirt onto his fire. Flyaway sprigs ignite, but there is little to sustain the fire now; he has doomed it to expire from hunger. Still, he dares not leave it unattended. He will make sure it is dead before he answers Emma's call. Perhaps he can pretend not to have noticed the smoke rising from the woods. For a moment he hopes that she has not seen it, that she will not ask him to go looking for an explanation. He rehearses what he will say to her, observations about the morning, the condition of the fields, and perhaps a compliment for her appearance. No. That will never do. He will make no comment on how she looks. He must be sure he takes no notice of what she is wearing. Any
expectant pleasure is blunted now by the thought of the unmentionable thing on the clothesline. There will be no way for him to resist looking for hints of it beneath the contours of her dress. He shovels dirt onto the fire slowly, taking his time, trying to delay the inevitable. If Emma asks about the smoke above the woods, he will not make excuses.
He set out a circle of stones, kept the fire small, fed it slowly, extinguished it as soon as the wind became too strong
. He will simply do whatever she asks of him, and he will not let his eyes wander in search of the undergarment. Odd tamps a smoldering tangle with the back of the shovel. He cannot understand why the troubles life throws at him do not arrive one at a time instead of by the handful.

He wants to close his eyes and sink back into the dream he awoke from that morning. Already the exact details have left him. He remembers only a large ship and a bright sea and a suffocating calmness. The dream is familiar, but there are many others. His dreams are vivid, and on occasion they are so very like his real experiences that they confuse him, mingling with his memories until he cannot tell them apart. Emma is in them, though not always. Sometimes his dreams are lustful, and he wakes in need. Sometimes the dreams themselves bring satisfaction. And in his dreams his understanding of the world and its mysteries often seems greater than when he is awake, as if he were too simple a creature for daylight. He has only brief glimpses of this understanding. It is more a feeling than a knowing, a vague sense that there are truths sleeping within him, waiting to be roused.

Faint ribbons of smoke, final, desperate gasps, push through the little mounds of earth Odd has piled within the stone circle. He throws more dirt onto the last bit of smoldering brush and drops the shovel next to the pitchfork. He will have to finish the burning later. He waits a moment longer, then turns slowly and walks toward the farmhouse, stopping every few steps and glancing
over his shoulder to see if the fire has only been waiting for him to leave before it crawls out of hiding.

Woburn Farm sits on a low rise that looks as though a giant elbow were gently pushing upward from beneath the carpet of rich soil. The house and barn sit at the southern edge, hidden from the far corner by the swelling at the farm's center. Odd trudges toward the swell, rehearsing what he will say to Emma, reminding himself of the things he cannot say, reminding himself not to think of what he has seen hanging on the clothesline. He unrolls his sleeves as he walks. One sleeve clings more tightly than the other. He buttons the cuffs, lowers his head left and then right to wipe his face against his forearms, looking for a moment like a cat cleaning itself.

Odd runs his fingers through his hair, only half believing he might render himself presentable, while he sucks at the dead tooth behind pursed lips. Even alone in the field, he tries to keep it out of sight. Teeth are tiny blunders of creation, he thinks, brittle bits of unrealized pain, one of the many flaws in the human animal, like the soft exposed belly or the tender heart encaged by narrow ribs. He never bares his teeth unless effort or discomfort gives him fit cause to grimace, but it is not just the tiny dead tooth's appearance that bothers him. By itself, it is hardly a thing to make him stand out from other men. He has seen far worse, and most people in Concord revealed missing or broken teeth whenever they smiled. The dozen or so tobacco-stained teeth still left in Mr. Woburn's gums lie sunken in the shadows of his mouth like a clumsily harvested field. And Emma's teeth were scarcely better, gray and square, overlapping as if there were simply too many for her small mouth. When she smiled, though, Odd saw only her happiness; she appeared exactly as she should be, which made Odd all the more intent on hiding his own flaws.

What vexes him most about his rotted infant tooth is the way
it draws attention to his other teeth, which appeared unnaturally flawless, straight, white, and intact. Years earlier, he cracked a molar on a buckshot pellet in a shank of venison, but this mishap left behind a void noticeable to no one save himself. He makes no extraordinary efforts to care for his teeth, aside from scraping them clean once a month with the splintered end of a chewed stick. They were bestowed upon him like an inheritance, unasked for, unearned. Every Hus in the Old World likewise possessed a broad and brilliant smile, one that seemed as if it bespoke a flawless soul, a smile that surely aided the disreputable ones in their wicked pursuits. People might estimate a man's character by his eyes, Odd thinks, but they will gauge his intent by the shape of his smile every time.

Odd has tried to work the infant tooth loose on more than one occasion, but its sinewy resistance always made him think of meat pulled from the bone, and the sensation forced him to abandon every attempt. The roots of the dead thing would not let go. A barber once asked him where he had obtained such masterfully carved dentures, finding it unbelievable that a man entering his third decade of life might retain all of his natural teeth in so remarkable a condition. Upon realizing his error, the man offered to extract the dead tooth for free, but as he demonstrated the gleaming forceps and the practiced yank Odd swooned.

“
Odd-
mund!”

Odd hears Emma call for him again, and he quickens his pace. He knows she will see him once he reaches the top of the rise. He can already picture her: knuckles rolled inward against plump hips, rounded shoulders thrown back, one foot turned outward. He brushes away the crumbs of dirt still clinging to his shirtfront, slaps his thighs and knees, checks and rechecks his trousers, making sure there is no cause for embarrassment. His clothes are mottled with dirt and grass and animal stains, greasy imprints of
manure and feed, dried outlines and dark patches of fresh sweat. He sees nothing shameful.

Odd mounts the gentle swell at the farm's center, and with every step the horizon rocks up into his line of sight, a little more each time, until the house pops into view: first the chimney, then the weathered gray roof, then the white shingles and the second floor windows, and at last the green door and the crooked porch with Emma before it. The farm's chickens are gathered around her feet in worship. She is almost as he has pictured her. The sun lights her hair, single strands bright as fire straying from the mass of dull orange curls hanging to her shoulders. She stands with hands at hips, feet together at right angles, head thrown back, as though she were trying to balance the weight of her cheeks on her short neck. The sight never fails to make Odd catch his breath. He feels his steps stutter as his feet suddenly grow uncertain of themselves.

Emma's voice is soft and confident, like the hum of swarming honeybees, a voice capable of achieving distance-conquering volume without becoming harsh or grating. Her accent carries no remnant of what she suffered before leaving the famines and plagues of her native Ireland. When she calls him, she stretches out the first syllable like an invocation:
Odd-mund
. She is the only person who uses his full name. She listened with interest when he explained to her that his name was rich with meaning. He told her how
Odd
came from
Oddin
, meaning “the point of a sword,” and
mund
from
mundin
, meaning “protection.” Emma seemed to accept this as true. He knows that his name sounds like an American word, but the similarity is only an accident of language. No one but Emma has ever seemed willing to believe that his name could be a different thing altogether, a word unto itself. His father told him that it was the name of kings, but most people in the New World uttered the first syllable like an accusation.