Red Whitshank and another friend of his, Ward Rainey, stood talking with two workmen at the lower edge of the lawn. One of the workmen had a chainsaw, and Red and the other workman were carrying axes. All around them, in a massive tangle, lay thick branches and cross sections of trunk. That tulip poplar must have been gigantic. (And nowhere near dying, if you judged by all the green leaves.) The remainder of the trunk, some ten feet tall, still towered near the front porch, as flat-topped and perfectly cylindrical as an architectural column.
“… figure when Mitch gets here he can tell us how much he wants left,” Red was saying, and the man with the chainsaw said, “Well, I can’t see as he’ll want any left, because he’s not going to haul it out roots and all, is he? That would leave too big of a hole.”
“What, you’re thinking he’ll bring in a stump grinder?”
“Seems like that would make more sense.”
Abby called, “Hi, everybody.”
They turned, and Red said, “Hi, Abby! Hi, Dane.”
“Red,” Dane said, impassively.
Abby had always thought Red’s looks didn’t go with his name. He should have had red hair and that pinkish skin that went with it; he should have been freckled and doughy. Instead, he was all black-and-white, lean and lanky, with a boyishly prominent Adam’s apple and wrist bones as distinct as cabinet knobs. Today he was wearing a T-shirt that was more holes than fabric, and khakis with dirty knees. He could have been one of his father’s workmen. “These here are Earl and Landis,” he was saying. “They’re the guys who took this thing down.”
Earl and Landis nodded without smiling, and Ward lifted a palm.
“You took it down just the two of you?” Abby asked the men.
“Naw, Red helped plenty,” Earl said.
“Only with the muscle power,” Red told her. “It was Earl and Landis who knew how not to take everything else with it.”
“Laid her in place like a baby,” Landis said with satisfaction.
Abby lifted her eyes to study the canopy of leaves above them. So many trees remained that she couldn’t detect any change in the filtering of the light, but still, the loss of the poplar seemed a pity. The cross sections strewn about looked perfectly sound, and the sap filled the air with a scent as vital and sharp as fresh blood.
The men had returned to the subject of stump removal. Earl was of the opinion that they ought to just go ahead and cut the last of the trunk level with the ground, while Landis suggested waiting for Mitch. “Meantime we can strip these branches,” he said, and he set a foot on the nearest branch and gave one of its shoots an experimental tap with his axe. Abby liked hearing workmen discuss logistics. It made her feel like a small child again, sitting on her father’s counter swinging her feet and breathing in the smells of metal and machine oil.
Earl yanked the cord of his chainsaw and set up a deafening roar. He lowered the blade to the thickest part of a branch while Ward bent to grab another branch and haul it out of the way. “I don’t guess you brought an axe,” Red shouted to Dane.
Dane, who was lighting a cigarette, shook out his match and said, “Now, how would I ever have gotten my hands on an axe?”
“I’ll fetch another from the basement,” Red said. He propped his own axe against a dogwood. “Come on, Ab, I’ll take you up to the house.”
“You’re sure I can’t do something here?” she asked. It seemed a shame to go off and leave Dane.
But Red said, “You can help my mom fix lunch, if you like.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Dane cocked an eyebrow at her in a silent goodbye, and then she and Red turned to climb the flagstone walk. Leaving behind the din of the chainsaw, she felt as if her ears had gone numb. “You really think this will take until lunchtime?” she asked Red.
“Oh, longer than that,” he said. “We’re lucky if we’re done before dark.”
She supposed that was just as well. She would have more time to reassemble her composure in front of Dane. By evening she’d be a whole different person, self-possessed and mature.
They arrived at the porch steps, but instead of leaving her there, Red came to a stop. “Say,” he said. “I was wondering. You want a ride to the wedding?”
“I’m not sure I’m going to the wedding,” Abby said.
She had about decided not to, in fact. The invitation (on paper so thick it had required two postage stamps) had come as a surprise; she and Merrick weren’t close. Besides, Dane wasn’t invited. Merrick barely knew Dane. So Abby had been meaning for weeks now to send her regrets.
But Red said, “You aren’t going? Mom was counting on it.”
Abby wrinkled her forehead.
“I was, too,” he told her. “Because who else will I know in that crowd?”
She said, “Don’t you have to be an usher or something?”
“It never even came up,” he said.
“Well, thank you, Red. You’re nice to offer. I’ll let you know if I decide to go, okay?”
He hesitated a moment, as if there were more he wanted to say, but then he smiled at her and split off toward the rear of the house.
Crossing the porch in three long strides, tall and craggy as Abraham Lincoln and dressed not all that differently from Lincoln, Junior Whitshank inclined his head a quarter-inch in Abby’s direction and then swiftly descended the steps. “Morning, young lady,” he said.
“Good morning, Mr. Whitshank.”
“Merrick’s not up yet, I don’t believe.”