Thomas Tryon - Harvest Home

“See! See him plow the furrow. Watch!”

I watched. She was not his lover, nor he hers, but both were instruments of the women, his arms bound, hers held outstretched on the earth as he probed her, and my cries broke from my lips again, mingling with the ecstatic chant that moment by moment mounted in tempo and pitch, “ ldhu, ldhu ,” thrusting their shoulders as he thrust, grunting as she grunted, “ ldhu ,” and “ ldhu ,” some moving behind him, their fingers tracing the curve of his back as it arched and bent again, rose and sank, their passion spurring his passion, she beneath him crying out in lust and pain. In the madness and the moonlight, his face contorted in spasm as he pushed his way farther. And then, in the moment of complete knowledge, they worked each other, met shudderingly, and capitulated. The corn was made.

I screamed out, but all eyes were on the locked pair. As they lay on the ground, he covering her, the handle of a hoe was thrust through his bent arms and across his back, and he was torn from her. They brought him to his knees with his spine arched like a bow. A tremendous roaring sounded in his throat. Some of them had lifted her away, and she lay panting as she was covered over with the mantle and the veil was drawn over her head. His bull-like roars continued; he knelt, dripping onto the ground. I shouted again, trying still to pull away from the hands holding me.

What followed took only seconds. There was a quick flash of movement as Tamar sprang forward. A woman whose fingers were tangled in Justin’s hair forced his head back and moved aside when with a wild look Tamar thrust herself at him. A silver crescent gleamed in her hand; she raised the sharpened sickle and, holding the tip with the other hand, in one swift movement she slashed it across the exposed throat. His roar became a wild bellow, then turned to a gurgle; a torrent of red appeared, a brightly flowing curtain melting down the neck and onto the chest. They bent him back farther and came with cup and bowl to catch the precious liquid, stumbling as they bore it to all quarters of the clearing, spilling his blood among the upturned clods.

It was an ugly death. They struggled to hold him through the series of convulsive heaves that wracked his body, the giant muscles bulging, arms flailing, a slow agony as the red life drained from him and was poured into the ground. Then the great shoulders heaved, slanted sidewise, and he buckled like a gored bull and toppled over, the blood still gushing from the crescent wound.

They had dragged me from the hollow and pushed me forward the better to see this horror, the death of the Harvest Lord. I watched as I had watched the eye in dreams, unable to do anything else. It was not happening, it could not be happening; yet I knew it was. I shut my eyes, trying not to look; yet I looked. The massive chest rose in a thickly glutted cough, there was a final eruption of blood through the mouth, the lids flickered, the eyes rolled upward, then the great heart ceased pumping and he lay still.

They changed his position, straightening him out on the earth, laying him on his side, resting his head along one bent arm. Then, the final horror: Tamar flung herself down on the ground beside him, pulling herself to him, entwining her arms about him in bloody embrace, her red lips kissing his redder ones.

The hands relaxed their hold on me as the women watched the hideous sight. I pulled free. The moon had gone behind a cloud and the clearing had become dark. Beyond the clearing were the trees, beyond the trees lay safety. I began running. But what tree was there to shelter this fugitive, to harbor the defiler of the temple, the heretic? Like nemeses, they appeared from all sides of the clearing, blocking my every way. I wheeled, my foot caught on a bared root, and I went down, feeling the taste of earth upon my tongue. It was not bitter. As I waited for them to attack, it seemed the ground was strangely warm, and I strangely comforted. In those few brief moments, I pressed my cheek against the tilled soil, the very bosom of Mother Earth, feeling it assuage the burning flesh, felt the firm yet yielding body of it under my flattened palms. It was as though, beneath my beating heart, I could sense the heart of the land itself, the heart that lay within, the heart of Mother Earth. Through all my being I could feel Her massiveness, Her power, and Her strength. She did not spurn me; She seemed to draw me to her, to embrace me. Though She, who had given me life, would give no more, She would receive me back to her, and as I had never prayed to God for my soul’s repose, now I prayed to Her, not for succor or protection, but for absolution.

She was clement. She would forgive.

Then, as I lay there on the steaming earth, out of the shambles of the night the women fell upon me.

It’s too lovely a day”-raising the window-”to keep it outside the house. Feel that glorious spring breeze.”

“Mother-your dress!”

“Like it?”

“It’s beautiful.”

“I thought perhaps-”

“No, it’s just perfect.”

“I’m glad.” She went from the bacchante room to the kitchen, leaving behind the scent of the lilacs she had arranged on the sideboard.

“What about dessert?”

“In the refrigerator, darling.”

The refrigerator door opened. “Chocolate mousse. How many?”

“Six. Two for Maggie and Robert, two for you and Jim, one for me, one for the Widow. Open the window over the sink, Kate, would you?”

The window slid in its frame and, as though in response, beyond the hedge Robert’s sun-porch window was raised.

“Morning, Robert.”

“It’s Maggie, Beth. Marvelous day for a picnic. How’s it coming?”

“In a jiffy.”

“I think you’re crazy, always doing the whole thing yourself.”

“I want to. Got the martinis?”

“Iced and ready. Here’s Robert-”

“Morning, Beth. Spring at last, hey?”

“Oh, yes. I thought it would never come.”

It was true. After the long winter, the balmy caressing air already had a hint of summer in it. And where it slipped under the window of the bacchante room it mixed with and circulated the perfume of the lilacs. From window to window, they discussed the yellow bird in the locust tree.

“I told you,” Robert said. “It comes back every year.”

The Invisible Voice began:

“‘Though certainly I don’t know why you should,’ said Dora-’And I am sure no one’ — ’Jip, you naughty boy, come — ’ I don’t know how I did it. I did it in a moment. I intercepted Jip. I had Dora in my arms. I was full of eloquence. I never stopped for a word. I told her how I loved her. I told her I should die without her. I told her that I idolized and worshiped her. Jip barked madly all the time.

“When Dora hung her head and” cried, and trembled…”

“We’re having chocolate mousse,” Kate called over to Robert’s window; Robert replied briefly over the sound of the Invisible Voice.

“Well, well! Dora and I were sitting on the sofa by and by, quiet enough, and Jip was lying in her lap, winking peacefully at me. It was off my mind. I was in a state of perfect rapture. Dora and I were engaged…”

Presently, down the drive came the clop of a horse’s hoofs, and the creak of wooden wheels sounded under the bacchante room window. Beth’s light step carried her to the sink. “Good morning.”

“Springish, ain’t it? Where’s Kate, now? Kate, come out and see what I have for you.”

Scrambling noises in the kitchen, the back door opening, feet clattering down the steps.

“Mother-come see what the Widow’s brought!”

Beth hurried out to join the others. “Oh, just look at them,” she crooned.