Beneath the Apple Leaves(35)
Andrew stopped swinging the miner tags and peered into the warped metal for answers. “I don’t know how to do this,” he whispered to his father. His nostrils flared. “I don’t know what to do.”
His chest was bare and he forced his eyes to his torn left shoulder. He wanted nothing more than to turn away, but he kept his focus on the curled and unnatural flesh, the raw ugliness of it. The very sight of the amputation site nauseated to the core and yet this body was all he had—an ugliness he would own for the rest of his life.
Finally, he pulled his eyes away and dropped the tags on the patchwork quilt. A coyote howled plaintively far away in the woods. Another followed and then a series of devilish yaps crowded the previously calm night. He peered out the window, couldn’t see another light or house. He wondered if he was the only one awake, wondered if the woman with green eyes and golden hair was asleep in her bed.
He pushed the density of the day away, ripped the telegram in his mind and focused on the young woman up the road. Andrew grinned then, his mood levitating with the breeze. There was a wildness to Lily Morton but a grace as well, the way a meadow can be wild and overgrown with flowers—a simple, natural beauty that fills the heart with hope that such a land will never be tamed and will always bloom freely.
Thank God she delivered those babies, he thought to himself for the hundredth time. Andrew flopped back to his pillow, ran his fingers through his hair so the strands stood up by the roots. He smiled in reverence. He knew she had been scared delivering those twins, but no one else would have seen it. He wasn’t sure why he could, but he knew she had been as terrified as he had been.
He waited for exhaustion to take over as his thoughts drifted off to a woman in a torn green dress and old work boots with a smile that blinded everything around its edges. Yes, Lily was the meadow. He rolled over and the nerves pinched painfully around the missing limb. And, he reflected contritely, he was the severed stump on the outskirts.
*
The cows arrived from the dairy farm in Cumberland County, filled the stalls of the barn. The new hogs grunted in the pen behind. The horse and chickens would arrive in a few days. And the Kiser clan left the grind and the hardness of the city behind and eased into farm life one animal and chore at a time. The transition left them cringing at first, until they sighed into the new routines, the way one pulls thick socks off blistered feet.
Andrew and Wilhelm patched the holes and cracks in the barn with new wood. They lined rocks and mortar along the foundation. Wilhelm covered the holes in the old roof with new shingles Andrew handed up to him. Hay stocks, fresh and dusty, filled the lofts and stacked the sides of the barn. The lane, still impassable, necessitated the use of pitchforks and bale hooks to transport the hay squares from wagon to hand-pushed wheelbarrows, the work long and prickly.
The privy was long bloated and honey dippers were called to dig a new one, bury the old and move the ratty wooden closet atop the new hole. Edgar and Will delighted in calling down the clean pit while their voices ricocheted against the black sides.
After supper, Andrew worked in the chicken coop, scooping out the years of compact feces and seed husks from the floor, nearly a foot high. The stink had long been removed, but the feathers and history of warm chickens itched his skin. He took a thick shovelful of muck out and was leaning the wooden handle hard against his shoulder for leverage when Will came running up the hill.
“Andrew!” Will hollered from the lane. Little Edgar ran close to his heels. Andrew propped the shovel against the coop.
“Somebody’s out there!” Edgar cried. The boys screeched to a halt, their eyes wide and nervous. “He’s throwing rocks at us!”
“Big rocks and sticks and stuff,” Will huffed between breaths, showing a small scratch on his cheek. They pointed down the lane in unison.
“All right,” Andrew said. “I’ll check it out.”
Will grabbed his arm. “He’s a big man. Like a monster.”
Edgar nodded. “Like a big, hairy monster.”
“All right.” Andrew patted Edgar’s head. “Stay here and I’ll be back in a minute.”
But the boys looked all around in a panic. “We can’t stay here. What if he finds us?” Will whined. “He’ll lock us in the coop and eat our brains or something.”
Andrew grinned. “Okay, come with me then. Show me where you saw this monster.”
Andrew walked steadily down the lane while Will and Edgar hid behind his back, weaving unnaturally like a Chinese lion parade.
“Ouch!” Edgar rubbed his arm.
“What’s wrong—ouch!” The small rock bounced against Andrew’s chest before another one knocked him on the forehead. Will cried, retreated to the house.
Andrew grabbed Edgar by the collar and pulled him to safety in the barn. More rocks pelted the sky, the source of the assault stemming from a large arm throwing in a steady pitch. Andrew put Edgar in one of the stalls. “Stay here. Got it?”
Stealthy as a fox, Andrew shimmied around the back of the barn, saw the back of a mammoth of a man crouching around the corner. Andrew picked up a slender metal pipe and tiptoed closer to the form. Without a sound, he jabbed the pipe between the man’s enormous shoulder blades. “Stand up.”
The man stiffened and began to shake, started to turn around.
“Look straight ahead!” Andrew ordered. “Put your hands up.”