World Made by Hand

Forty-three

The last length of cast concrete water conduit was laid down around two that afternoon. It was obvious we’d eventually have to replace more of the main trunk below, but for now the system was restored. We got the trench filled in and the worksite all squared away by late afternoon. Our boys put the word out around town about the levee at Bullock’s as they filtered home. Tom Allison sent his boy off on horseback to alert the farmers outside of town, and many of the successful ones like Deaver, Weibel, and Zucker, who employed townspeople, let their hands off work early. Brother Jobe sent a wagon around with two “sisters,” Helen and Emily, offering to take anyone’s little children to an evening of babysitting over at the old high school with the New Faith youngsters. Even the weather seemed to cooperate as a cooling northerly breeze cleared out the persistent haze and dropped the humidity.

I went around myself to alert the music circle members about the engagement at Bullock’s request that night-Eric Laudermilk, our guitar player, Dan Mullinex, flute and clarinet, Leslie Einhorn, cello, Charles Pettie, our bass player, Bruce Wheedon, second violin, and Andy Pendergast, who was delighted to hear we were called to play. I distributed the rest of those new wound steel strings I’d picked up in Albany. As far as I recalled, Bullock had a piano on the premises somewhere, but Andy wanted to bring his harmonium out just in case. On my way home, going down Van Buren Street, I ran into Loren pulling a handcart heaped with manure from Allison’s stable, I suppose for composting in the rectory garden. Loren’s face was bright red with exertion, and half moons of sweat darkened the underarms of his frayed blue shirt from pulling the load uphill. We both paused by the cemetery fence in the shade of a horse chestnut. “Remember Gatorade?” Loren said.

“You know me. I don’t think of the old days as much as you.”

“Well that stuff could really pick a guy up. I miss it. I really do.”

“Try some honey and sumac punch. That’ll work.”

“For what it’s worth, I never gave a shit about the chemicals or the fake coloring they put in it.”

“Give me an ice cold beer,” I said. “Straight out of a refrigerator. With dewdrops running down the side of the bottle.”

“Dream on,” Loren said.

Screen doors slapped and voices carried all over town as households prepared for levee, singing as they pulled clothes off the line, neighbors visiting among neighbors to borrow finery, harnessing their horses-the few who had one. Children caught the spirit and squealed as they were packed off for babysitting.

“We got the water back on again,” I said.

“Hooray for that,” Loren said. “I had to jump in the river last night or Jane Ann wouldn’t let me in the bedroom.” Loren looked momentarily uncomfortable, as though a passing cloud had brought on a chill. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “You’re quite the hero. First the fire, then you shove Dale off the plank, then the Big Breakout, and now the water system finally gets fixed.”

“Do you think I’m out for brownie points?”

“Gosh no.”

“We can’t not have running water,” I said. “That would be the last straw for civilized life around here.”

“It’s been a harsh week without it. I can tell you that.”

“Anyway, it was the New Faith and Bullock that solved the water problem, not me.”

“Remember that laundry idea of mine?” Loren said.

“Yeah?”

“This Brother Jobe seems interested in getting it going. We had a sit-down about it, him and me.”

“Did you?”

“He likes the idea.”

“They must have a lot of wash every week.”

“They’ve got manpower too. I believe he’s serious.”

“Kudos to you then.”

“Not out for any kudos. But I could still use your help.”

“Okay. Sure. I’ll help,” I said.

“Can you get someone to make sure the titles are clear on the Wayland-Union Mill property?”

“I’ll ask Sam Hutto.”

“And then maybe you and I can walk through the place and talk about what it would take constructionwise, where things might go.”

“Sure, I’ll do that.”

“Brother Jobe’s got a decent metalsmith over there.”

“I saw that they put a new copper fitting on the water line outflow.”

“I expect they could fabricate some big pot kettles.”

“I expect that’s so.”

“Things are happening again in this town, aren’t they?”

“Apparently.”

“It’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Loren said.

“I think so.”

“It’s like we’ve been living in… in Jell-O. Trapped. Immobilized. Watching everything around us slowly fall apart through this thick, gummy, transparent prison of Jell-O, and unable to do anything about it.”

“To me, it was like time had stopped.”

“So, what do you make of him?” Loren said.

“Jobe? He’s not so bad beneath all the bluster, if you can get beneath it,” I said. “Well, I really don’t know what they’re up to over there. I mean, underneath the trappings of brotherhood and fellowship, who knows what they do amongst themselves.”

“Like what? Orgies?” Loren said.

“That wasn’t what I was thinking.”

“Human sacrifice?”

“I don’t know. After all, it’s what we used to call a cult.”

“Then we better not drink the Kool-Aid. Have you been drinking the Kool-Aid, Robert?”

“No.”

“Because right now there’s our people, you know, us, the town, and our church, and there’s this New Faith bunch that has all of a sudden become a rather large presence in our world here. I’m hoping we can coexist, Robert, because they obviously have something to offer as long as we don’t drink that old Kool-Aid.”

“I’m not going over to them, if that’s what you mean,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

“Because it could be a kind of narrow line we’re walking.”

“We’ll walk it.”

“Not to mention we’ve got Mr. Bullock setting up like a Scottish laird with his own peasants and everything, and Wayne Karp and his maniacs up North Road on top of everything else. And sometimes lately I worry about us getting squished in the middle of it all.”

“I know. I think about it too.”

“I’ve heard there was gunplay down in Albany.”

“I think I killed a man there, Loren.”

He flinched slightly.

“Wow. Tell me about it.”

So I did. All of it. The Raynor farm. Brother Minor probably killing that donkey drover. What Joseph told me that night in Slavin’s hotel about their difficulties in Pennsylvania. Dan Curry. The guy with the red beard firing at me.

“I don’t know if I feel bad about taking somebody’s life or just afraid that I’ll be held responsible for it,” I said.

“By whom? God?”

“I keep on thinking about the legal system coming after me. And then I realize that there isn’t any. There’s nothing left. No real police, courts. No state government. Nothing. But I’m pretty sure I killed the man.”

“Your conscience is weighing on you,” Loren said.

“Yes. And now I’ve got Shawn Watling’s widow in my house.”

“I’ve heard. That kind of complicates things, doesn’t it?”

“I’m sure people will get the wrong idea,” I said. “They already have.”

“How’d she come to settle under your roof?”

“Well, her house burned down, you know.”

“I know. There are empty houses in town.”

“Do you think I should throw her out?”

“Not at all. Are you banging her?”

It was my turn to flinch.

“No,” I said.

“Because that could make you feel bad, given that her husband’s only been in the ground a few weeks, and you happened to be present when he got killed.”

“Do you think I did it, Loren?”

“No. But I understand why things are weighing on your mind.”

“It’s pretty straightforward,” I said.

“I’m sure it is.”

“These really aren’t normal times.”

“Quite so.”

“Plus, there’s the child.”

“God bless the child.”

“Are you being facetious, Loren?”

“I shouldn’t be even if I am. Forgive me.”

“All right. Are you going out to Bullock’s tonight?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Loren said. “I might even tie one on out there.”