Amy Greene - Long Man

On the day Gracie was born, she was sitting up in bed when James rose at first light. She told him the baby was coming but when he started after Beulah she put out a hand to stop him. “It’s not time. I’ll let you know.” A little after noon when the pains got closer together she gave in and went to the chicken coop where he was checking nesting boxes, as much as she dreaded seeing the old woman. While he was gone she waited at the window watching the whirling March snow flurries, lacy skeins blowing across the yard. When she heard the front door open and steps groaning up the stairs, she hopped into bed as if she’d been caught at something. James came in with Beulah behind him. He took Annie Clyde’s hand as Beulah unwound her shawl. Then she went to the window and cracked it enough to let in the crisp air. She turned to James and said, “Go fix you some coffee. This is woman’s business.” When James kissed Annie Clyde and headed for the door she reached for his sleeve, afraid to be alone with Beulah. By the time Gracie was ready to be born it was dark. Beulah scrubbed her hands and examined Annie Clyde under the lamp, moths circling up its glass chimney, the night so hushed Annie Clyde believed she could hear the papery rub of their wings. She was careful to look away from the pouch around the old woman’s neck, into the unlit corners of the room. As Gracie came she stared into the lamp so hard the flame made a stamp on her vision, giving birth in the same bed her mother died in. It wasn’t a difficult labor. The pains were distant. When she looked at her newborn for the first time, she felt grief over anything. She should have been happy but she couldn’t help missing her mother, left alone to share the birth of her baby with somebody she’d always feared.

Now as she stood at the edge of the clearing leaning on the rifle like a crutch, looking at Beulah’s dilapidated cabin, she supposed among all the other reasons Beulah made a foul taste in her mouth there had always been Amos. For as long as she could remember she had known about the one-eyed man, whose marred face she saw up close for the first time in the hayfield during early autumn. Her father and the neighbors were out that morning with the hay baler, the valley flooded not with water but with mist the bluish gray tint her newborn daughter’s eyes would be ten years later. Wandering among the haystacks she stopped to pull out a straw to chew on. When she looked up, Amos was under the apple tree watching her as if he had never not been there, dew glimmering on his shoulders. Annie Clyde felt like they were the last ones alive, the sound of the baler and the voices of the farmhands far away. Then Amos asked if she’d fetch him a drink and her paralysis broke. She ran through the door into the kitchen where her mother was cooking and panted that Amos was out in the field. Mary didn’t look up from the biscuit dough she was rolling but told Annie Clyde through tight lips, “You keep to the house. He can get his own water.” Annie Clyde understood then there was more wrong with Amos than a missing eye. That night in her bed she imagined him standing in front of this cabin looking down on the farm, thinking of her. It was possible he was hiding here now but she doubted him being that careless. Beulah probably had a notion where he was, though. If the old woman was keeping a secret, Annie Clyde intended to make her tell it. She wouldn’t let herself think of Beulah stooped over those odd-shaped fortune-telling bones. She wouldn’t ask if there was such a thing as second sight.

She drew in a shuddering breath and started across the lot to the cabin, wind clashing through the leaves. She braced herself before mounting the steps and knocking on the door as she had just yesterday. When there was no response she pounded harder, until she heard the shuffle of footsteps inside. At long last Beulah opened up with a broom in her hands. She looked as tired as Annie Clyde felt. Her puckered face browned with age, the folds of her neck grimed it seemed with years of soil, wearing a shawl over her checkered dress in spite of the season. As soon as Annie Clyde saw her time seemed to stop and the words tumbled out. “I know you lied.”

Beulah studied Annie Clyde, her rheumy eyes gleaming out of wrinkled pits. “I didn’t know where he was, though,” the old woman said. “That was the truth. And he ain’t here now.”

“But you know where he could be.”

“If I did, I wouldn’t tell it. Look at you. You might shoot him.”

“I’d shoot anybody over Gracie.”

“Well. I’d take a bullet over Amos.”

Beulah pressed her mouth into a line, her chin jutting. The sun came out some. Annie Clyde felt the light on her back. “He’s my son,” Beulah said, as if that was explanation enough.

Annie Clyde saw herself reflected in the old woman’s glasses, a gaunt shadow holding a gun. She lowered the rifle from her shoulder, overcome with sudden regret. She looked down at the rain blowing in on Beulah’s feet. “Would you let your son take my daughter away from me?”

“If I believed for a minute Amos had that baby girl,” Beulah said, “I’d put the law on him myself. I’d take a bullet for him, but that don’t mean I’d let him get away with nothing like that.”

There was another silence. Annie Clyde opened her mouth but her voice cracked.

“Lord, youngun,” Beulah said. “You’re plumb peaked. Get yourself in here.”

Annie Clyde sighed through her nose as she stepped across the threshold. Beulah put aside her broom and took the gun from Annie Clyde’s hands. She leaned it against the pie safe in the corner. She steered Annie Clyde to the table at the back of the room and pulled out a chair. It was straight and hard but Annie Clyde was glad to be off her feet. Beulah must have heard the click of her throat. She poured Annie Clyde a cup of water from an aluminum pitcher and sat down across from her. Annie Clyde drank deep, tasting the bitter minerals of the spring. There was no sound in the gloom of the cabin besides a clock ticking somewhere. Then Beulah asked, “Why don’t we get down to it, honey?” There was such compassion in her voice that Annie Clyde felt like crying. But she wouldn’t let herself. If the tears came out, she might be unable to stop them.

“I don’t believe in fortune-telling,” Annie Clyde said.

Beulah smiled. “That’s all right.”

“Seems like if anybody could see where Gracie is, it ought to be me.”

Beulah reached across the table to touch her hand. “It’s a mystery why certain ones have the sight. I never know if I’ll be showed anything. A lot of times it ain’t what I want to see.”

Annie Clyde flinched away. “I shouldn’t have come in here. I just needed to know if there’s a chance you could help me someway.” She swallowed hard. “Have you tried to look?”

“For your little one?”

Annie Clyde nodded.

“I been looking ever since you left here yesterday.”

“Have you seen anything?”

Beulah’s eyes were sad behind the scratched lenses of her glasses. “No,” she said. “I ain’t seen a thing.” She lifted the pouch from around her neck. “But if you want me to, I’ll try again.”

Annie Clyde’s pulse quickened. She put down the cup. It was what she wanted, but she recoiled at the thought of the bones. Beulah got up and stood at the head of the table. After a moment, Annie Clyde rose from her chair at the opposite end. Beulah loosened the neck of the pouch, her face lit by the drizzly window between them. She looked into Annie Clyde’s eyes. “Now, you be sure about this,” she said. Annie Clyde wiped her lips and nodded again.

Beulah turned the pouch up and spilled its contents. They bent over and studied them together, heads nearly touching. Annie Clyde wanted to see something herself, maybe Gracie’s face, but she couldn’t discern any pattern in the bones. After an agonizing minute or so she lost patience with Beulah’s silent concentration. “What is it?” she asked. “Do you see Gracie?”