Nevada Barr - Bittersweet

Near dawn there was a scratching at the window, the sound Sarah had been waiting for. She slipped quietly out of bed and padded across the cold planks. David scratched again. She unhooked the latch and pushed the window open. It was hinged at the top and opened out like a trapdoor; two small chains tethered it to the sill to keep it from opening more than eight or ten inches. “You okay, Davie?” Sarah whispered. His face, drawn and bloodless, showed wan in the night and he smelled of vomit.

“I’m okay, Sare. Been getting rid of some bad drink is all.” He reached up behind the glass and took hold of her hand. “Sare, I got to go. You understand that?”

She started to cry.

“Don’t, please. Oh Jesus.” He squeezed her hand. “Sare, listen to me. I can’t be too long; it’s pretty near daylight.” She sucked in her upper lip, biting it, and fought down her tears. “That’s girl.” David smiled at her through the glass. “Can you get me something to eat?” She nodded and tiptoed out of the room. She was back in seconds.

“Pa’s asleep on the kitchen table.” She thrust her hands out through the window and clung to her brother’s arm. “Please don’t go, David. Mam’ll talk to him. Please say you won’t go!” Tears coursed down her cheeks and she held on to him with all her strength.

David gently pried her fingers loose and patted her. “I got to, Sare. You tell Mam good-bye for me. And the little girls when they wake up.” Sarah clutched at him, trying to catch his clothes and his hands, her forearms scraping splinters from the windowsill. David caught her wrists and held them still. “Good-bye. You’ll see me again, Sarah. I promise. I promise.”

Her hands clawed at the empty air; tears blinded her. Desperately she scrubbed her eyes on her sleeve and pressed her face to the glass.

David loped across the barnyard and disappeared into the inky shadow of the cowshed. A moment later he reappeared, leading his father’s prize stallion. When he was out of earshot, he pulled himself into the saddle, waved once, and cantered out of sight into the trees.

Sarah crept back to the bed. Lizbeth pushed close to her. “I’m cold, Sare.” Sarah put her arm around the little girl, tucking the covers snug.

“Me too, Lizbeth.”

THOUGH THE TREE BRANCHES WERE BARE IN NOVEMBER, THE FOREST floor was still fired with color. The dirt wagon track between the Tolstonadge place and Sam Ebbitt’s farm was bordered closely with trees and occasionally a field hacked out of the forest and put to the plow. The narrow track dipped and turned around outcroppings of rock and stands of trees that had proven too formidable for pick and ax. The road was littered with bright scraps of autumn; leaves, bitten red and gold, picked up the sunlight until each leaf seemed to glow of itself.

Sarah held her hands out from her sides as she walked, watching their shadows flicker over the ground. Gracie, skipping beside her, scuffed her feet through the fallen leaves.

“You’re going to wear your shoes out before they’re too little,” Sarah said mildly. The air smelled of winter; she pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders and tied it. She laughed, spinning herself forward in great leaps. “Look, Gracie, I’m a gypsy dancer!” Gracie tied her shawl at her thick middle, following her sister’s lead. They twirled until they couldn’t stand up, then threw themselves onto the bank by the roadside.

“I wish there was more Saturdays. I hate school,” Gracie said.

“You do not.”

“I do so. You’re the only one doesn’t. You like it ’cause Miss Grelznik is all the time letting you draw your pictures.”

“Only if I finish my work early. You could draw too, if you’d stop messing and finish.”

“I don’t mess.”

Sarah rolled her eyes.

“You got a crush on the teacher,” Grace said spitefully.

“I do not.”

“Do so. I see you sneaking looks at her when you’re supposed to be at your lesson. I’ve seen you sneaking peeks at her in church. That’s a sin. You got a crush,” Gracie chanted.

“You don’t know what’s what, maybe I’m making her likeness,” Sarah retorted. “Ever think of that, Miss Smartypants?”

“Let me see it.”

Sarah scrambled to her feet. “Leave it go, Gracie. It’s getting late. You’re stuck up with leaves. Come on, I’ll dust you.”

“Show me or I’ll tell Mam you’re making pictures in church. It’s a sin.”

Sarah grabbed her sister’s pigtail. “I’ll tell Mr. Ebbitt you like to look at his belly when he laughs.”

“Sare! You wouldn’t dare.”

“Quits?”

“Badger face,” Gracie muttered. “Quits.”

“You ready to go?” Sarah pulled her to her feet and picked the leaves out of her hair.

“I don’t mess.”

“Okay.” Sarah tugged a brown plait.

The road widened out, and a split-rail fence replaced the trees to the north. Beyond the fence lay a field, harvested and plowed under, looking rich with its jeweling of colored leaves. They climbed over the rails and struck out across the plowed ground toward the Ebbitt house and barn, a quarter-mile distant.

Gracie stumbled and caught her sister’s skirt to steady herself. “Mr. Ebbitt don’t like us walking through the field,” she said peevishly as the clods broke under her small boots, turning her ankles and tripping her. “Mr. Ebbitt says we’re to go around on the road like people, ’stead of traipsing through the field like rabbits.”

Sarah raised her skirts a little and picked her way daintily over the uneven ground. “Road’s the long way ’round, Gracie.”

Gracie gave her sister a baleful stare.

Beyond the barn, Sam, his shirtsleeves rolled down and his collar buttoned to his throat, stood with his back to them. Lifting his powerful arms over his head, he squeezed the wooden legs of a post-hole digger together before plunging it into the ground.

“Hey, Mr. Ebbitt,” Gracie called. She waved as he put his beard over his shoulder to see who was hailing him.

“Afternoon, Gracie, Sarah.” He set the post-hole digger against the rails and mopped the sweat from his eyes with a grayish handkerchief. “How’s your ma and pa?”

“They’re fine, Mr. Ebbitt; we come to ask you to dinner before the hayride, is all.” Sarah chewed on her underlip. She stopped when she realized he was noticing.

“Sarah,” Gracie piped, “Mam said I could ask, and now you went and did it!”

“You ask me too, punkin, and I’ll come sure. How’s that?” Sam leaned down, putting his hands on his knees; his torso was big for a short man.

“Come on, Gracie, we’d better be getting back.” Sarah squinted at the sun. “It must be after two.”

“Whyn’t we ride back with Mr. Ebbitt?” Gracie jumped onto the fence and sat on the top rail with her feet curled behind the lower one to steady herself.

“We ain’t been asked. Besides, we’d best be helping Mam with dinner.” Sarah took her sister’s hand and tugged, but the little girl clung like a monkey.

Sam pulled his watch out of his pocket and flipped it over in his palm. “It’s near three. You may as well stay put and I’ll run you home when I go over. No sense walking all that way.” Sarah started to protest, but Sam had turned back to his work. “I’ll square it with your ma.” Gracie shot Sarah a triumphant glance before bestowing all of her attention on Sam Ebbitt.

Sarah leaned against the fence, her face tilted back to catch the sun. The regular chuff-chunk of the post-hole digger biting into the earth was hypnotic and the day was still and dreamy. Sam worked on, lifting and plunging mechanically, a pile of dark earth growing beside the neat round hole. Gracie chattered, sometimes eliciting a grunt in return, but not seeming to mind when she didn’t.