She stood, brushed off her overalls, and grabbed the clean, almost dried shirt off the branch where she’d hung it. She made her way back to her shack, where the thin, reedy trill of the harmonica floated through the air from her neighbor’s porch. She allowed herself a brief glance, and he sat with his back propped against the wall, intent only on making music. She went inside and stared at the inside of the shanty. It hit her again, like it always did. Warren is gone. Those three words always came with an unsettling jolt, and always in the quiet moments. As soon as she let them in, what happened back home in North Carolina assaulted her senses once again. Later on in bed, she hugged herself inside her husband’s shirt, hoped to dream of him so she could see him smiling, and so she could remember how it used to be.
Morning came bringing Clyde and his wagon. She hopped into the back, not meeting anyone’s eye.
Clyde said, “Hep, hep, Jackson!” to the mule, and the wagon lurched on to the worksite.
She felt their stares boring in, knew she was being judged because talk got around and they knew she couldn’t keep up. She sat where she could, meaning she sat with her back to them, feet dangling off the back end. The ways of men were still foreign to her, but as luck would have it, their silence and hers lasted until they approached the hang-up ground.
When she jumped off the back end, she overheard someone say, “He ain’t got it in him.”
Someone else said, “Why we breaking our backs when he ain’t?”
She moved away quick, found a lower limb to hang her bucket. Overhead, it was as if someone had tacked a metal sheet to the heavens, the gray clouds smooth and even. Despite the early morning, moisture trickled down her face, and the gnats and biting flies started in and swarmed around their heads. She stood in the heavy air, breathing deep, readying herself for what was to come.
Ballard called out to them all. “Git your pullers, we’re working some older drifts today.”
Rae Lynn winced at those words. Was he trying to make it impossible for her?
He said, “You look like you could fall over, kid. You gonna keep up today?”
She nodded while watching several work hands milling about, a few still hanging dinner buckets, then grabbing pullers, while some took the time to have a smoke.
He shouted again. “Come on! Let’s get going!”
Have mercy, she was sure to have a harder time. Anyone would, but her height didn’t help matters none, and neither did half a finger. Using a puller was tough going, even for the best of them. She had to show she could do it, because she couldn’t appear any less able than she already had. There was nothing to do but get back on the wagon and hope for the best.
After she was dropped off, Rae Lynn stared at the catfaces, which began near her knees and stretched to a point above her head. These faces and these trees were almost at the end of their use. Someone had moved the cups and gutters, and it tested her ability to reach above the last strip and angle the puller to chip away a strip of bark. As she worried over making quota, Crow’s threats rang in her head. Someone started singing and the call names came one after the other, adding pressure.
“Bluesy!”
“Whisky Time!”
“Sally’s Man!”
They were starting all over again before she finally was able to add hers. “Tar Heel!”
She’d worried about using the name, afraid it might create questions. She could give any manner of reasons for using it if she was ever asked, like the story about the Confederate soldiers standing their ground under heavy fire, or something, but, so far, nobody had except Del Reese. She reached up, struck the bark, and pulled the tool across. She swung the puller one way, then the other, figuring how to leverage it so the blade went deep, but not too deep. Finally, she stepped back, satisfied.
“Tar Heel!”
She kept on, scraping the angled strips. It was about finding a rhythm and keeping on until it was as comfortable as walking. After several trees, and after switching the puller around, testing what worked best, it came. Over and over, chip, chip, pull, chip, chip, pull, until she was calling out “Tar Heel” a bit more regular, or at least she hoped so. The tin gutters followed the slant on the scarified bark, and the clay cups sat at the point of the chevron so resin ran into them. This was the Herty system Warren had refused to take on. He should’ve done it this way instead of using the old box method. The gum went a shorter distance with the cup system, which meant less dried on the catface, so less needed to be scraped off. It was actually called “scrape” and could be used, though it was a lower grade of gum.
She swiped her forehead with her sleeve and swatted at the mosquitoes landing everywhere, and then there were the gnats trying to fly into her mouth, up her nose, and into her eyes. Battling the insects wasted time. She noticed a few workers carrying buckets working in the distance. They were dippers and had to scoop gum from the cups and into buckets, which were then emptied into barrels and hauled off by the wagons back to the distillery. Their numbers were high too, with daily totals anywhere from eighteen hundred to three thousand cups a day. Thinking about the numbers made her move quicker between each tree. The overcast sky gave relief from the sun, yet the humidity continued to climb, and before long sweat was stinging her eyes, as well as any part of her that had a scratch. She didn’t stop, though. Every second counted.
At noon dinner, with aching and burning muscles, she made her way to the hang-up ground. In a way, she wished she could’ve kept on; she needed the time, but Ballard wasn’t taking counts, and she needed the rest, even if she wasn’t hungry.
Ballard came by and spoke to her. “You’re off by four hundred trees, but if we go till dark, you might make it, but you’re gonna have to hustle this afternoon.”
She said, “Yes, sir.”
Four hundred. If she could do one more tree every minute, she might make her numbers.
She unhooked her pail and moved to a quiet spot to eat alone, sitting on a stump, while facing the woods. She bit into the biscuit and chewed, willing herself to eat. After the men finished, most laid down and closed their eyes. Some went right to sleep, some smoked, some talked, eyes drooping, their voices like a crooning lullaby, quiet and soft. Rae Lynn moved to stretch out on the pine straw, crossed her feet, put her arms under her head, and stared at the trees above her. She noticed how when Crow came around, anybody who’d been smiling quit, while eyes fell to study gum-stained feet or scrappy shoe tips, looking near about as wilted as flowers without water. Their uneasy feeling put her in the same mood. Meanwhile, Ballard carried an air of patience, and the men who worked for him didn’t cower like stray dogs.
Altogether she was uncomfortable being among men in general. For one, they were like a bunch of overgrown schoolboys sometimes with their cutting up and expressive body functions. And it seemed to her no one ever went too long in any conversation before it eventually turned to the opposite sex. Right now there was talk going on she couldn’t help but overhear.
One man said, “How y’all doing now? She forgive you yet? ”
The other said, “She ain’t speaking to me. She ain’t over what went on over to the juke joint.”
“You mean that fun with Lucinda who works in back?”
“Man’s got needs.”
“What you got is a whole heap a trouble you thinking Alice gone tolerate you being a fool.”
Snickering and sneaky glances went left and right, shifty and nervous-like. She worried someone would try to bring her into one of these conversations, and if they did, would she be able to hold her own with that sort of talk. At least she wasn’t the only one who didn’t join in. Del Reese never talked about anybody special. He sat some distance away, tooting on his mouth harp. Sometimes the talk grew serious, expressing worry over being abused for some small thing. They talked of that contraption, the sweatbox, of the people they knew who went in and came out really bad off, or who’d died. Some said a little prayer as soon as it was mentioned, so great was their fear of it.
Crow and Ballard appeared and yelled out to their men. “Get back to it! Hurry it up! Get a move on!”