Esi Edugyan - The Second Life of Samuel Tyne

The man handed the package to his wife, who held it as if it were breakable. He laughed, and squatted to ruffle his son’s hair. You’ll be a man yet , his face seemed to say. The boy’s smile was uncertain, as though he understood some rite of passage had taken place, but couldn’t fully comprehend what it was.

Jarvis dropped his bloody sack in front of the boy’s kitten. Ferocious, agile, it pounced on the sodden sack and broke it open. Even the boy’s father stepped back as the thick-pulp innards slipped out. The smell of blood summoned the other cats, and in seconds even Oliver Orange had his own fresh tripe. The boy scuffled back from the amassing crowd of cats and began to cry. Samuel flinched.

“Stand up!” said the father, and the boy stumbled at once to his feet. His father assessed him, and the boy almost managed to stop crying. His mother tried to cup his chin.

The man moved in upon his son. Samuel was horrified, and ashamed at his inability to give words to what he felt. A dark blaze descended the boy’s pants.

His mother’s face reddened, and she lowered her eyes. His father continued to stand in front of him, and in his back one could see that he’d grown angrier, his spine straighter, his shoulders tautening. No one spoke. He turned and paid Jarvis, and motioned for his family to follow him back to the car.

“You want a towel for the ride home?” yelled Jarvis. His voice hung over the yard. He hiccuped, and only after the car drove away did Samuel recognize his laughter. He watched Jarvis count the money, muttering to himself, and was relieved to see the barn door glint open. Silhouetted, Ray trod out to meet them.

Ray gestured at Samuel. “Well, look at the professor.”

Samuel admitted he was deep in thought, aware that something like a sadness had been accomplished inside him. His stomach felt bloated, and the quietest sounds in the landscape began to disturb him. He was conscious of an out-of-body feeling, as though he were merely a sightseer in another man’s flesh. For the first time, he assessed the blood on his hands.

Jarvis said, “It’s so dark Sam’s almost missing. Though I reckon we’d see more of him if he actually made a go of talking.”

“Sam and I are leaving.” Ray’s voice was resolute. “You get the profits tallied, and I’ll call tomorrow to see how Granger’s making out. And I will call early, so you better organize yourself for then.” Ray motioned to Samuel, and in a stupor, Samuel followed. As he passed Jarvis, the caretaker gave him an exaggerated bow.

“Good night, Sir Tyne,” he said, and hiccuped.

Ray scrutinized Jarvis. “Tomorrow morning.”

Samuel followed Ray out to the truck. It was full dark by now, and moonlight sat like water on the foliage. The wind teased a dry sound from the wheat field, and with the cats’ cries everything felt haunted. Ray paused on the gravel path to pull Oliver Orange, wheezing, from the weeds. He muttered to him, ripping burrs from his fur.

“You know, Samuel,” he said, “I’m awfully sorry. If I’d known how sick all this would make you, I would’ve never asked you out here. But you’ve got to admit, though, it’s a surprise; as a man coming from where you’re from, this stuff should be a bit less traumatic, right?”

“It is a thing I should never get used to.” Samuel looked at the blood on his hands. Certainly in his country they killed to eat, as everywhere. But there was something less barbaric in those old childhood slaughters (the ones he’d witnessed, anyway), and he recalled that it likely had something to do with ritual. He had seen nothing today but ridicule and cruelty.

Ray smiled. “Got to get used to it.”

They clambered into the cab, and to Samuel’s dismay, Ray brought Oliver Orange with them. He cocked the truck, and in a minute they’d found the main road.

Samuel felt sick when Oliver Orange began to lick himself. The raw, fetid smell of calf’s blood rose from the cat’s fur.

“Seen Porter lately?” said Ray. His left hand governed the wheel while the right one rested on the sullen cat. “I meant to ask you, in regards to what I was saying before, about the wheat. You probably don’t know the crop story.”

But Samuel was preoccupied. Due to the sudden cutting of his grass, he’d taken it upon himself to research Jacob’s property lines. He’d spent a fruitless few days in Aster’s library and archives, only to discover something just when he’d resolved to give up. In annals as recent as last year’s, the Tyne property occupied not two, but twelve acres. Barring that Jacob had actually sold or bequeathed Porter land, which seemed unlikely, Porter had taken advantage of Samuel’s ignorance to help himself.

Ray failed to sense his distraction. “It was the late thirties,” he continued, “one of those really dry years when fires start of themselves. Only a couple houses stood where you’re living now, and yours and Porter’s were the best of them. Because there were so few homes, people had huge lots, acres and acres. Some grew wheat, but mostly, as you know, it’s not so good for wheat as it is for roots. So one year — oh, it was awful — the worst plague you ever saw came to us. So it was said — I was still back east at the time, but this story’s carried well through the years. The worst grasshopper plague they’d had in years. Thousands, no, millions of grasshoppers covered everything for a distance of miles. They say it was like black snow. It’d happened a few years before, too, so people were a little bit more prepared then, but not much. Supposedly, as my cousin tells it anyhow, you were supposed to know it was coming because all the dogs in town got weirdly quiet, the badgers and snakes came out of their holes, and there was a ‘brown sort of tension in the air,’ whatever that means. So Porter was one of the town’s founders, you know, he’s lived through everything this town had to see, and he could sense what was going on, and supposedly took measures.”

Samuel listened only vaguely.

“He was said to have prepped something, and to this day nobody knows what. Some say it was some witchcraft concoction, others say it was nothing more than plain baking soda and vinegar, but it hissed something awful and sent a horrible smell into the air. He had a good audience, and he kept it up for hours, putting posts of this burning muck at all corners of his field. He grows mostly roots, but he did have some other things, too. So—”

“Medicine posts?” Samuel asked.

“Posts of hissing sulphur.”

“Posts of hissing sulphur …” Samuel frowned. Oliver Orange let out a rude smell in his sleep.

“Just hear me out. So, within hours the stuff has burnt itself out, and the grasshoppers come. And it’s no lie when I say it took less than four hours for those pests to eat everything down to scrub. Four hours . Nothing was left, dry as the Badlands. If a tree still had a leaf on it, they would have pinned it with a ribbon. It was a wonder the livestock still had any flesh. Absolutely everything was gone, and in the middle of it, not harmed, was Porter’s crop. Can you buy that? Not one blade of grass, not one leaf, not one piece of dirt had been messed with. Got him the nickname of Warlock Porter in these parts, and some still living here will call him a witch if you ask. I myself say it was less a miracle and more something to do with his crops. Truth be told, I think he’s got some kind of super crop. It wouldn’t surprise me, really, the way he sits in his house all day doing nothing, only coming out sometimes to sell things he’s made. There’s no other explanation for it, but he’s not talking about it. Can you buy it?”

Samuel grunted in assent. The story was not new. Ray had described Jacob’s remedy for the Tyne plantation, and here Porter, too, had used it. “Where’s he from?”