He shouted, “Butler!” over and over, his voice blending with the others he couldn’t see, though he knew they were spread out in the other wooded areas.
After an hour, his clothes were soaked. He hadn’t seen any water carriers yet. They were often colored women or boys who went around with a bucket and a ladle. He kept working while thinking about that feller trapped in the box. It had to be like being buried alive. Hell, like being in the grain bin. An occasional puff of wind brought a few seconds of respite, and he hoped the man could at least feel it too, but most of the time, the air was perfectly still, not even a pine needle moving. Water finally came by way of a reticent, dark-skinned boy who refused to look at Del. He had thin scars running across the backs of his legs.
Del tried to engage him in a bit of talk, but Crow, as if sensing a moment’s pause, appeared from out of nowhere, and said, “Boy, do I need to take my whip after your hide again?”
Del dropped the ladle into the bucket and wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve. The kid took off down the path silent as a moth in the night.
Crow stared after the water boy and said, “Shiftless, like his damn daddy.”
Del made no remark. The only sound from him was his tool striking marks into the next tree. Toward dusk and quitting time, the regularity of call names was unexpectedly disrupted by shouting and followed by a hoarse scream. Del straightened up and squinted toward a section of the woods. It could be all manner of things to cause a body to carry on like that. Snake bite. Accident with a tool. Patches of grays, blues, and tans began to appear in between the thick tree trunks, the colors of clothing from the other men riding in a wagon pulled by an enormous mule. Surefooted, it wound its way around the trees expertly. Another shriek, more yelling, and the men in the back of the wagon grew restless. They kept their eyes downcast as Del hopped on the back. The wagon’s wheels squeaked and again, a distinct crack, and another scream reached their ears.
The men ignored what happened a couple hundred feet behind them, like it was an everyday occurrence. Del could not. Crow rode behind a colored man who stumbled along while Crow’s horse shimmied sideways, head bobbing, disturbed. Crow raised a whip and brought it across the man’s back. The workhand fell to his knees, then his belly, silent now. Crow left him there, nudged his heels against his horse’s sides and caught up to the wagon.
He spoke to no one in general. “See what happens when you chip too deep and ruin trees? Keep doing it, and it’s the box. Same goes for any one of you. Skip or miss trees? Right to the box. Sometimes, it’s the stupidity of your actions, sometimes, it’s the kind a mood I’m in what might put you there. Don’t none of you forget it.”
Crow scanned the group, and Del, like the others, averted his eyes until Crow rode on. The wagon stopped.
The one-eyed driver said, “Go help him.”
Del and another worker took hold of the beaten man under his arms. His shirt, if it could be called such, was a burlap sack, holes cut out for his arms. Burgundy streaks marked the back in a crisscross pattern. The man wobbled between them, his bare feet grimy and stained black on the bottom with pine gum. Del thought, That kind of camp. Maybe this had been a mistake, but, he was already indebted. Leaving when one owed meant the boss men could do what they wanted. They were law unto themselves—would, and could, do as they pleased.
They might find you, but they’d make sure nobody else did. Oh, he done run off, is what they’d say, we’re still looking him.
If a law man got involved, the boss would say, You catch him, haul him back here, he owes me.
They helped the man into the wagon and moved on. As they arrived to the outskirts of the camp, Del saw the lid to the sweat box was propped open and there was no sign of the earlier occupant. Crow was already on his porch, sharpening his ever-present knife. He didn’t lift his head, or acknowledge the wagonload of hands as they passed him by. It was as if they didn’t exist to him now the workday was done. Del looked at the beaten man in the bottom of the wagon, trying to determine which would be worse, that box, or a whip.
The next morning, Del arose before the cowbell, having had a troublesome sleep. He took a moment to walk among some older catfaced pines nearby, eyeing the scarified trunks, the marks obvious against the bark in the moonlight. He felt along the bone-hard wood beneath the old scrapes and took notice of the fresh, virgin timber beyond yet to be tapped. He figured he’d give it some time, see how it went, see if what he’d seen so far was typical or not. He only wanted to blend in, get his work done. Find the rhythm to his days here. Five thirty found him waiting for the wagon by the fence and when it came, he got in, sat on the tailboard, his back to the rest of the hands. Crow smirked at him. At the hang-up ground, he fell in with the group as they made their way to the large shade tree. He hung his dinner bucket over a branch, noticing how no one talked. They quickly hopped back into the wagon and as it pulled them through the woods, Crow called out their woods name, and one by one they jumped off the back and disappeared.
Crow said, “Butler!” and Del moved with purpose.
He walked into pine-laden forest and examined the chip marks. They were deep, deeper than he’d make, and he hoped the trees weren’t ruined. The area was marked well, the bases of the pines having been raked back during the cold months. He got started. Two thousand trees meant no time to ponder on much other than chipping and calling out his name, over and over. As he worked, he got to thinking about the longleaf they’d planted back home, wondering how it looked now. Maybe he’d plant more there some day, and no matter it might take fifty years for’em to grow, they’d outlive him and his sons, if he ever had any.
His pap once explained the trees could survive five hundred years. Del’s dream continued with him imagining himself teaching his own boys about how land and trees like the longleaf were richer than any money they might earn. How, if they weren’t careful, it could all disappear. He’d seen it. Like Crow alluded to, entire forests were wiped out after tapping the trees to the point of being dried up. Then, lumber companies came to clear-cut the wood. Shoot, someone once said a squirrel could start from treetops in Virginia and get to Texas without ever touching the ground. He’d bet this was no longer the case.
Though he had his doubts about Swallow Hill considering what he’d seen so far, he was here now, so he’d make the best of it. He didn’t stop all afternoon, though he’d not had much to eat since he’d taken to the woods and wasn’t as strong as he’d been at the Sutton farm. The work was hot and difficult, but he chipped fast and accurate, gaining confidence. He’d estimated doing 167 trees per hour sunrise to sunset. He’d make his numbers, and as long as he kept up, he’d do all right, at least this was what he chose to believe.
Chapter 6
Rae Lynn
Pain riddled, agitated and morose, Warren kept moving around in the bed to the point neither one of them slept much. It had been four days since the accident, and Rae Lynn’s head throbbed from lack of sleep and worry. She rose and went into the kitchen for some aspirin, and when she returned to the bedroom, she stopped to watch Warren swing his feet over the side of the bed and make an attempt to stand. He stayed bent over, his arm over his midsection. Rae Lynn was transfixed, holding her breath. Some part of her willed him on, willed him to move without pain, to put things back to normal for them. Gripping his side, he slowly straightened, but before he’d unfolded himself, he doubled over again, gasping in distress. Her shoulders sagged with disappointment. She went to the bedside and stood by him. Warren’s head hung down and he didn’t bother to lift it.
“You shouldn’t have tried. It’s too soon.”
He whispered, “Where’s my horse?”