Day 10
Four days.
Opal stood at the window of the hotel room that Nathan had insisted she stay in until she was well enough to go back to the farm and looked down at the street below. *Four days*, she thought again, numbly. *It's been four days since I died*. A movement below caught her eye and she saw that it was Julianna crossing the street to enter the hotel. Opal sighed and turned away from the window, then sat down wearily in a chair against the wall. She heard her friend's rapid light tread in the hallway, and then the gentle rap on the door that she always used before she entered. The door opened slowly and Julianna came in, shutting it carefully behind her. Opal noticed that the bruises on Julianna's face and arms were starting to fade, and thought idly that she should probably feel happy about that. But she couldn't feel anything at all, so she did her best to smile and look happy as Julianna settled herself on the foot of the bed with a rustle of skirts.
"Are you through for the day at Mrs. Lansing's?" Even Opal was surprised at how flat her voice sounded, but when she looked at the listless way Julianna was staring at the pattern of the rug she realized the other woman hadn't even noticed. A sudden much heavier knocking on the door startled both women so much that Opal involuntarily gasped in fear.
"It's Josiah," said a familiar, comforting voice. "May I come in?"
The women looked at each other and Opal nodded, trembling, to Julianna. The younger woman stood up and cautiously opened the door to the preacher, who stood in the doorway regarding the two women with bright blue eyes that seemed to penetrate the dark corners of the room in a series of quick flashes before coming back to rest lightly but intently upon each of the women in turn.
"I hope I'm not intrudin'--" he began.
"No. No, of course not, Josiah." Julianna gestured awkwardly. "Come in."
The big preacher took a single step into the room and smiled. "Actually, I was wonderin' if you ladies might help me out over at the church for a while."
"We'd be happy to." Julianna patted her hair into place as Opal stood up. The small woman hadn't been out of the room since coming over from Nathan's, and although the thought of facing the street and all the people in it made her shake with nervousness, the thought of feeling the sun on her face out-weighed it.
"Well, let's go then." Josiah's smile broadened as he held the door for both women and followed them into the hall.
It wasn't long before the three people were sitting on pews and chairs wiping off dusty hymnals with damp cloths. Opal went slowly, working one-handed since her injured arm was splinted and in a sling, but she was glad that Josiah had not seemed to notice how inept she was now and had simply treated her the same way he'd treated Julianna. She has lost herself in the sight of the pebbly texture of the book cover changing from dusty beige to dark brown with the passing of the rag when Josiah's voice suddenly rolled her back into the present. She looked up, realizing she didn't know what he'd said to her.
"Penny for your thoughts," the big preacher repeated. He was smiling. Opal ducked her head shyly, shaking it silently from side to side with a half-shrug.
"All right, two bits then." Josiah laughed at the look that darted across Opal's face at his joke, and settled back in his chair with a sigh. "Really," he said, his gaze moving to settle now on Julianna, "what are you two ladies thinking of doing now?"
Julianna stopped wiping the hymnal in her hands and looked up slowly at Josiah. She licked lips that were suddenly dry. "Opal has her farm," she said slowly.
"Gonna' move on out there, make a go of it, eh?" Josiah swung his gaze to Opal, who shook her head miserably and lowered her gaze even further.
"What?" Julianna turned to face her friend. "What do you mean you aren't going to go out there?"
Opal's throat worked a moment, and when she finally looked up at Julianna and spoke, her voice was small and tight. "I can't," she said.
"Whyever not?" Julianna felt like the church was spinning around her. What was Opal saying? After all that, NOT to go back to the farm? What was she talking about? "Opal, you love that farm. Hell, you love the trees there.told me so yourself. How can you leave all that?"
"It is not to be," said Opal softly. She looked at Josiah with glistening dark eyes. "I think it is not God's will."
"What makes you think that, Sister?" Josiah's voice was very gentle, and he leaned foward in his chair so that he drew near enough to Opal to reach out one of his big hands to lay it over her small one, atop the hymnal she had been wiping. The small woman studied the large man's face for a long moment before she answered. Then she sighed, looked at Julianna, and began to speak in a soft voice that whispered like the pages of hymnals being turned.
"My father," she began, "is Chickasaw. He told me that his grandmother could remember the old days, from when she was a little girl. The days when --" She paused a moment and then went on in a breathless rush for several words: "when the white men first came." She looked quickly at Josiah, and seeing no judgment there she went on. "Grandmother told him that when this happened, the people sent out their best men to talk to the other tribes who had already had dealings with the white men. They came back and said that always it was the same. The white men traded furs and other things, then they came to settle the land and grow their corn and beans and tobacco, and then they said that the Indian people there were savages. And then there was . . . killing." Opal shuddered, and went on.
"So our people planned how to avoid this thing. We knew we were civilized people, not savages. So we decided to live so that the white men could see this. We decided to live in the white man's way. We built houses like theirs, and wore their clothes and shoes. We spoke their language, and took white men's names. We became good Christians and built churches in our towns, and had schools. Everything we did like they did. Then when my father was a young man, the United States went to war against England. Andrew Jackson promised us that if we sent our men to fight alongside his, he would make an agreement with us, to always preserve our people and their land. So my father and his brothers and many, many other of our men went to fight for Andrew Jackson. And my father came back home, but two of his brothers did not." Opal sighed again, and was silent for a long time. Julianna and Josiah waited.
"Of course, you know that Andrew Jackson became the president after that. And when he did, he --" Opal's voice broke, and then she continued on with her eyes on Josiah's hand laying over her own. "--he made a treaty with us all right. A treaty that took our lands, our homes, and our towns. Our fields and livestock. Our churches and schools." She looked up at Josiah, and her eyes snapped with bitter anger. "My father and mother and all their family were rounded up one night as they ate supper. The soldiers came and put them in wagons and took them off. They saw white settlers coming into the house even as they left it, taking their plates of warm dinner right off the table. They were taken to a prison place on the river, where the people were held in by wire, in pens. Like animals. Men and women were separated, and many children were separated from their families and no one knew where anyone else was. After some weeks, people began to get sick. My father's father died there of this sickness."
Julianna gasped, her eyes large with horror. Opal's own father? Her grandfather? It seemed impossible.
"Months. Months they were there," said Opal. "Then when winter came, do you know what they did?"
Josiah nodded sadly. "Yes," he said. "The Trail of Tears."
"Yes." Opal's voice was bitter and sharp. "The Trail of Tears. They sent them then, in winter, on flatboats and then on foot, to the Nations. To a place where there were no houses, no crops, no food, no stores, no churches, no schools, no blankets, no clothing. Nothing. And those who did not die on the way of cold and sickness and a broken heart looked at the winter still left ahead of them and despaired. It was then that my oldest brother, who I never knew and who was only 2 years old then, died in my mother's arms. My white mother's arms. She had come to our town as a school teacher and stayed. But when the soldiers came, she was a savage just like the rest of us."
Opal drew her hand out from beneath Josiah's and set the hymnal on the pew next to her with a thump. "You see it does not matter what I do," she said angrily. "We are not to have justice. It does not come to us any more. I tried. I married and left the Nations and tried to make a life that would escape what they do to us. But you see what happened. There is no escape. If I go out to the farm now, then something else will happen. It is not to be."
Opal fell silent, and the silence was loud. Julianna reached wordlessly across to set her fingers lightly on Opal's shoulder, still bound in the sling. She tried to find words, but found there were none. When she realized Josiah was shifting around in his chair to speak, she looked at him with hope.
"Opal," he said. "Do you know about the cloud of witnesses?"
The small woman looked up at him cautiously, and shook her head.
Josiah's voice was gentle. "One a' the apostles wrote one time about the fact that all during the long time that the Jews were waitin' to be delivered, they suffered. People were killed unjustly, bad things were done to the ones that were left alive, an' there was a lot of misery. But," and Josiah paused to take a deep breath and fix Opal with a penetrating look, "But the time had come, when this apostle was writin', when deliverance WAS at hand. The messiah HAD come. An' you know what he told those people?"
Opal shook her head slightly, her eyes locked in Josiah's gaze.
"He told them that they had better enjoy what God had given 'em, an' that all those ancestors were lookin' on from heaven like a cloud a' witnesses -- cheerin'. Because somebody in their family finally won one. And they figured it was about time."
Julianna felt a hot tear slide down one side of her face as she thought of her own sister, her mother, her friends. She felt a sob break loose in her heart that spilled out onto her lips and fell into the silence of the church. Josiah reached forward to lay his right hand upon her shoulder. "It's time," he said, "for both of you to claim the victory you have here, and now." He looked at Opal. "With all your kin lookin' on, cheerin' for you to be the one that finally makes it. For all of them."
Opal looked up at Josiah, then into the eyes of her friend. She felt the church tip around her somehow, as if reality had stood up on end and she was sliding to the other side of it. She reached out her good hand to catch onto Josiah's, suddenly afraid of falling, and he caught her and held tightly.
"I think," said Opal softly, "that maybe you are right."
"With all your kin lookin' on, cheerin' for you to be the one that finally makes it. For all of them."
It had been a week since Josiah had spoken those words to the two women. He'd then left them alone for a few minutes, his words hanging heavy in the air between them.
"I will go back," Opal's voice held more emotion than it had in several days. "And you can come with me." It was a statement with only a hint of question at its edges. Julianna let the words sink in for several minutes before speaking.
"I would like that. Thank you."
They'd moved their meager belongings out to the farm two days later, once Nathan felt like Opal was well enough. That first day after moving Julianna had walked the three miles into town just after dawn. She wasn't relishing making the trip back and forth each day, but her reluctance was outweighed by her gratitude that Mrs. Lansing had not dismissed her after her ordeal. The money she made would be enough to cover their necessities until they had peaches to sell and trade.
But when Julianna had left work that first day she'd been surprised to find Buck waiting for her with a horse and wagon. The horse seemed familiar and after a few moments Julianna recognized it as the one she'd riden back from the river. Buck explained that he and the others knew that nothing could ever make up for what had happened to Julianna and Opal. But they hoped that the horse and wagon would at least make things a little easier for the women.
Both women seemed to flourish at the farm. Their attitudes lightened and a smile came easier as each day passed. At nights though Julianna became sullen and withdrawn. Opal knew the younger woman needed to talk. Julianna was carrying a heavy burden in the unshared memory of her time with those men.
Opal also knew that Julianna would have to come to the decision herself as to when she was ready to talk.
The two women knelt in the dirt at the near end of the orchard. The afternoon sun hung lazily in the sky as they dug, laughter coming from the far end of the row where Buck and Vin were digging up one of the peach trees. The tiny sapling was doing poorly and Opal wanted to replant it to a site that got better sun and water. While the men dug up the tiny tree, the women were digging it a new home.
"How wide does it have to be on this side?" Julianna wiped sweat from her face with the back of a forearm and gestured to the area she had been digging up with a spade.
"It's wide enough now," said Opal. She leaned down into the hole to scoop out more of the loose dirt with the hand of her good arm, and Julianna smiled at her.
"I could get that loose stuff out of the bottom of the hole with the spade, you know," she said.
"That's all right," said Opal, glancing up with dancing eyes. "I don't like feeling so useless while my arm heals. I can't wait 'til Nathan says I can take the splints off."
"So I've noticed," chuckled Julianna. She sat down cross-legged on the ground as Opal finished her own task and sat down next to her. The dark woman saw a cloud of sadness cross Julianna's face and realized suddenly that the time had come for Julianna to speak of what had happened. When she began, her voice was low.
"I wanted to die out there, out there with those men," she said softly. "You were so brave. You stood up to them . . . and I . . . I just stood there. I did nothing." Opal could see Julianna's hands begin to shake. Her voice cracked as tears formed in the corners of her eyes.
"Your blood. We rode away and you were just laying there. I saw your blood and I knew you were dead. I wanted to die too. Wanted to kill myself for being so weak."
"But it wasn't ---" Julianna held up her hand stopping Opal.
"Everyone in my life that I've cared about has died and in some way I've always felt responsible. Something was different this time. I thought of you and how brave you were. If I'd killed myself, what you'd done would have been in vain. I knew I couldn't let them break me, couldn't let them win." Opal reached out and squeezed Julianna's hand as her voice turned triumphant.
"I did it. I beat them. And I did it, I survived it, without cutting. With every other bad thing in my life I'd cut to get through it." Opal could feel the wave of relief that flowed over Julianna like cool water. "I know it won't be easy. I've relied on it for so long. But if I could get through that, then I can get through anything, without cutting."
Julianna pulled a handkerchief from her pocket unfolding it slowly. The sun glinted off the broken glass in the middle of the cloth. Opal understood what Julianna wanted to do. With her good arm she reached down into the hole and scooped out some extra dirt. Julianna rewrapped the glass before laying it in the bottom of the hole. Each woman took a handful of dirt and covered the cloth.
From behind them they heard approaching voices and turned to see Buck and Vin. Buck was hauling the tree while Vin followed behind carrying a shovel in his good hand. Buck had made jokes about Vin and Opal making a good couple with their matching slings, but Julianna had asked him to stop after the first couple of times when she saw how uncomfortable the comments were making Opal. The women stepped out of the way as Buck grunted loudly and thumped the base of the sapling down into the hole.
"I think it's leanin', pard," Vin leaned on the shovel watching Buck trying to adjust the tree. "Still not straight. Tip it a little that way." Vin motioned with his sling.
"All right, Vin." Buck threw his hat on the ground. "One more crack outta you an' you're gonna be the fertilizer in this hole!" Buck's joking tone elicited muffled giggles from the women.
"Aw, Bucklin, then Opal here wouldn't give you any peach cobbler when her peaches come in. Ain't that right, Opal?" Vin smiled at Opal, causing her to look away in embarassment.
"I think it looks just fine." Julianna stepped up and held the tree in place. Buck winked at her as he took the shovel from Vin and began to fill in the hole. It only took a few minutes for him to complete the process. He patted the dirt down satisfied with the job. "Anything else we can do for you ladies?"
"Only one . . . stay for supper."
"Well, I think that's definitely a task that we can both handle, eh Vin?"
Vin looked at Opal, noticing that her face was beginning to fill out and look less pinched. He smiled. "I'd be right honored." His words and tone of voice flowed out and over Opal, and the dark woman returned his smile shyly.
Julianna linked her arm with Opal's as Buck threw the shovel over his shoulder and smacked Vin on the back of the shoulder playfully. The smaller man growled in mock pain and swiped at Buck, who danced away, laughing. The others laughed, too, and the group began to walk with light voices and laughter down the row of trees towards the little farmhouse, and home.
The sapling, behind them, stretched its roots out into the dark soil, found the sun with its branches, and began to grow.