Beneath the Apple Leaves(49)

A faraway cry carried upon the wind and his legs hurried, crested the ridge, followed the growing volume. Upon flat ground, he ran, found the babies between rows of dead corn, bundled together tightly in Wilhelm’s large coat, their limbs struggling to free themselves. Andrew sat on the hard earth and gathered them against his chest, their wet faces soaking his shirt, the cries raspy and sore and painful. He held them, rocked them, kissed the tiny heads.

His heart thumped in dull beats. There were no thoughts, only a mournful solidity that seemed to drill him into the dirt amid the dead stalks. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He rocked them gently against his warm body until the crying waned, their snoring wheezy from clogged nostrils. It was difficult carrying the two in one arm and he had to stop often to lift their sliding bodies with his hip. But they were peaceful now, warm, as he brought them back to the house and laid them into the crib in the heated kitchen.

Andrew removed his hat and coat, hung them on the hook behind the door. The lamp glowed from the parlor. Wilhelm sat in his chair reading the paper by the dim light, his glasses near the bottom of his nose.

“The twins are sleeping,” Andrew announced coldly.

Wilhelm didn’t look up. “Good.”

Andrew pulled back his shoulders and straightened his spine, stared down at the man. “They could have died out there.”

His uncle turned the page of the paper. “Well, they didn’t, did they?”

Andrew watched him from that angle, studied him. He hardly recognized the man he had ridden in the caboose with. That man had been full of muscle and brawn, hard humor and wit. This man was as grayed as the walls, in tones lighter or darker but always gray. They were both men but as different as two genders.

*

Andrew rose well before the sun, his sleep restless. He woke often to rock the twins when their crying started up again. Wilhelm usually milked the cows, but he’d do it this morning. He lit the lantern and went to the back of the barn to the youngest cow, set down the three-legged stool and milking pail beside her. The hay that had been left out the night before still remained untouched. The cow stared at it listlessly, drops of drool dripping in long strands to the straw along the ground. He touched the cow’s neck, bent down to listen near her mouth, her breathing labored. “What’s going on with you, girl?” he asked softly.

The cow stared straight as if she didn’t know he was there. He sat down on the stool and reached for the udder, but it shook. The back legs vibrated. He kicked the stool out of the way and touched the hind leg, felt the thigh tremble uncontrollably under his hands. Words flashed from the recesses of his mind, long ago in his medical books. He touched the lower back of the cow, the shaking fierce, and then he went numb. No. Pieces joined, collected and clicked into place. Oh, God. No.

Andrew grabbed the lantern and sprinted from the barn through the fields to the beginning edge of the dark woods. Please don’t be here. He fanned the lantern over the dark, moist ground, the leaves thick, and he pushed them away with his foot to uncover the underbrush. Please, no. He stooped along the edge, kicking up damp leaves and crunching sticks. And then he saw it. The round, white flowers, most dead but a few still vibrant atop long green leaves. He dropped the lantern to the ground and covered his face with his hand, the biliousness stirring his insides. Fiercely, he pulled at the plant, jerking up the roots from the soil and then grinding them dead with his boot heel.

By the time he made it back to the house, the light in Eveline’s room shone and he didn’t pause to think, ran up the stairs and bolted through the door. Wilhelm was buttoning his shirt. “What the hell you think—”

Andrew grabbed the bottle from Eveline’s hands. Before she could say a word or close her mouth, he panted, “It’s the milk.”

The babies roared in her arms. “What are you talking about?” she yelled over the cries.

“The milk.” He tried to catch his breath. “It’s poisoned. The cow’s been eating white snakeroot. You need to get the doctor here. Now.”





CHAPTER 26

Otto died first, cradled in Eveline’s arm. The declining cry faded until the baby slept and then the breathing stopped. Eveline held the dead infant as if the child simply rested, as if the unmoving chest were just pausing and would start up again in moments. And she spent the night in this way, cradling one dead child in one arm and one living one in the other. And she watched them in the dark, too tired to sleep, too numb to move. Wilhelm slept soundly next to her, his broad back hunched over the pillow that lay crunched at his stomach instead of under his head.

A light flutter floated from Harold. And with it, the air of life glided away and did not return. Still Eveline sat, her ears ringing from the quiet, perhaps the loudest quiet she had ever heard, the kind that made the blood throb in the ears.

Eveline closed her eyes and a tear squeezed and dripped down her cheek, but it was not of sadness but of disgrace. She wasn’t sad. She looked at her babies in horror with her own stoicism. I’m not sad. Tears of infamy slid down her face. I’m holding my dead babies and I don’t feel anything. Dear God.

God. Dr. Neeb had scratched his head, said it was up to God. The same doctor who told her to stop nursing and give the twins only cow’s milk; the same doctor who suddenly remembered that the previous owner had lost a quarter of his sheep to the same snakeroot plant. It’s up to God now, the doctor had said. And so it was.