Harvest Home

sort of whimpering sound behind me and turned to see the bedcovers moving. A hand emerged from under the blanket to pull it up. I stepped past a pile of magazines and looked down.

“Jack?”

Again there was movement, and I reached to turn down the blanket. The hand reappeared, fiercely gripping a corner.

“Hey, old-timer, it’s me, Ned Constantine.”

The whimpering sound continued, and I bent closer. “Hey, Jack-what’s the matter?” As I pulled the blanket back, the peddler seemed literally to be shaking with fright. Cowering, he threw his head to one side and covered it with his arm. His skin felt hot and feverish, and the effort to restrain his tremors brought on greater ones, the shudders racking his frame.

I drew the blanket down farther, and knelt. He kept his head turned away, and it was only by my gentle insistence that he eventually turned it toward me, sliding the tattered sleeve of his shirt over the lower half of his face and gazing at me with red-rimmed eyes. The stubble on his face was shorter than usual, no more than a night’s growth.

“Are you sick?” I asked. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Did you just get back? You’ve been gone a long time.” He nodded wearily. As I was used to doing with Kate, I reached for his wrist to feel his pulse. Instinctively he snatched his arm away, revealing his face.

“Oh, no. Oh, no.” I stared in horror. “Jesus, Jack, what’s happened to you?” Even in the dim light, I saw the pitiful wound that passed for a mouth, the scabbed-over scars not fully healed. He huddled against the wall in fear, and I reassured him that I wasn’t going to harm him. Little by little, his hand slid down to the blanket, his fingers plucking at the worn fabric. I patted the hand, bending forward trying to see in the dim light.

“Nobody’s going to hurt you, Jack.” Clearly, he was terrified of something. I carefully took the face between my hands and stared at the scars. They were set half an inch apart, top and bottom, with more random ones at the corners. As though in protest against my seeing such obscene work, he made a gurgling noise in his throat. He tried to stop it, couldn’t, coughed, choked; the mouth opened and I stared into the dark maw. My stomach heaved at what I saw and I released the pained face.

I leaned across him and held him by both shoulders, shaking him slightly. “Jack? Jack, listen to me. I’m going to get a doctor. Can you hear me? I’m going to get help.”

I heard a step behind me, then a voice. “Leave him be- he’s been molested enough.”

The Widow came in, set her valise on the table, and came to the cot. I looked from her to the huddled shape under the blanket, then back to her again. She took a flashlight from her valise and pulled a chair close to the cot.

“What’s happened to him?” I asked.

Paying no attention to me, she switched on the light and held the lens against her skirt as she put her hand on his brow and felt it.

“Well, Jack, how is it this evening? Better?” The head turned slightly, nodded. As I had, she took his wrist and felt his pulse, then laid it back across his chest. “Yes, better, I’d say. Comin’ along nicely.” Then to me, “Wants a cup of tea, I expect. Maybe you’ll put the kettle on?”

I started the gas burner, filled the kettle under the tap, and put it on the fire. When I came back, the Widow was holding the flashlight over his open mouth and gently urging him to open it. “Come now-you devil, you-don’t be coy with an old lady. Open up and let me see how things are.” At last he opened his mouth and permitted the examination. She looked for a moment or two, moving the beam around inside, then nodded for me to bring her valise.

I fetched it, and she gave me the light to hold while she took a bottle and dipped a cotton swab in it, then inserted the swab and ran it carefully around inside.

“There, now, that’s good. Close now, Jack.” She returned the bottle to the valise and took out a tin of ointment, which she applied to the scars around the lips. “Last time I used this was when they took to you with their fists. But they had worse than fists about them, didn’t they?”

I stared at her. “The Soakeses?”

“Hush,” she told me. “Now then, Jack, what you want is some tea, en’t that it?”

He nodded; she gave his hand a pat and rose. I followed her back into the kitchen, where she took a box from the shelf and a teapot which she rinsed at the sink. I sagged against the doorway and must have made some sort of sound, for she spoke impatiently. “None o’ that, now. There’s trouble enough around here.”

“They cut off his tongue?”

“Appears they did.” She spooned some leaves into the pot, wet her finger, and touched the outside of the kettle. “Another moment.” While the water continued to boil, she removed the linen napkin from the top of her splint basket and began laying out things on the table-several foil-wrapped packets, and the thermos jug. “Didn’t know you was feedin’ the unfortunate, did you?”

She had been taking the food from our house not for herself, as I had thought, but for Jack. She filled the teapot from the kettle, then took up a rolled parcel from a chair and unwrapped it. It contained some shirts and a pair of pajamas, freshly washed and ironed.

“How?” I asked.

“Simple. They caught him. They hid in the woods-their woods, damn their eyes- and they caught him. They caught him and they savaged him. Old Man Soakes and his boys. A nice, well-mannered bunch. I always said Jack’s nose would get him in trouble one day.”

Unconsciously I touched the end of my tongue, thinking how close I had come to a similar fate. Old Man Soakes with his sharp knife, the boys with their-

“Canvas needles.” I voiced my thought.

“Aye, canvas needles. They cut and stitched him up for fair.”

“How did he keep from bleeding to death?”

“We stopped him.” She took a cup and saucer from the shelf and set it on the table. I recognized the box of One-B Weber’s tea.

“It’s steamin’, Jack,” she called to him, “so we’ll let it cool a bit before you try it.” In the other room, she resumed her chair and held the cup and saucer on her lap, testing the rising vapors with the palm of her hand.

“But almost bled to death he did, didn’t you, Jack? Here, try a sip.” She held the cup up, waiting for him to drink.

“Now, then, no recalcitrance today,” she told him. “One-B Weber’s is a restorative, if ever there was. And when you’re done I’ve got soup and some good roast meat, courtesy of our friend here.” Though he did not seem to want the tea, she waited, cup poised, until he sipped. She watched him carefully, her eye never wavering as she made him drink, and while he drank she related what she knew of the tragedy.

She and Asia Minerva, along with Mrs. Zalmon and Mrs. Green, and Tamar Penrose as well, had been quilting at Irene Tatum’s house on the Sunday evening, when they heard a ruckus across the road in Soakes’s Lonesome. There were gunshots and they had trooped out on the porch to investigate. Then out of the woods Jack had appeared, crazed with pain and hardly knowing who he was or where he was going. He saw the light and came to them, blood pouring through his sewn-up lips. They had cut the stitches and discovered the severed tongue. The Widow herself had put the poker in the stove and cauterized the wound; then they had laid him on the davenport in the living room and kept watch until he came out of shock.

“Ashes there were everywhere, en’t that so, Jack?” she continued. The peddler nodded dazed agreement.

“Ashes?” I asked.

“Ashes. When they’d done with their fishing knife and canvas needles, they dunked him in water, then poured ashes from their still over him. En’t that so, Jack?”

I saw him nod. Ashes. White ashes. Then it dawned on me. The phantom in the windstorm. Not the Ghost of Soakes’s Lonesome, but the mutilated Jack Stump, his mouth stitched up into the grim red smile, the face ash-smeared. I remembered seeing the Soakeses as I was driving to Saxony to visit Mrs. O’Byrne, recalled the decoy-making implements, saw again the skiff on the water.

Patiently the Widow waited until the cup was empty, and when he wiped his mouth she gently took Jack’s hand away. “Don’t do that; you’re wipin’ off all the salve. Now you just content yourself until I get you shaved; then