CHAPTER 5
By November the harvest neared its end and so did the collection of pickers. Only a handful of workers remained, although they, too, would soon be gone. The fields were once again as bare as that eternal damnation that spread during this time of year, where the long running of a picket fence met the sparseness of trees and their bald exteriors cast out over the plains and that flatness. Fletcher worked beside me in the barn, feeding the hogs and collecting whatever eggs the chickens reluctantly laid, while Jesse remained in the fields with Floyd. There was increasingly less work to do, and the boys would soon move on just like the other workers, to farms farther out that still held scattered blooms in the fields or find work in town if it was indeed available. Fletcher had grown fond of me during those weeks following the harvest and took to calling me “Miss Bernie” like his brother, relinquishing that formal title of my first and last name that he’d held to so firmly.
Fletcher had been at my side the majority of the day, his young mind troubled with questions that, if only a year or two older, he would surely never ask. Still, I indulged his curiosity, as he was a sweet boy and meant no harm, and there was no need to break his inquisitive spirit so early in life, though any other adult would surely have him mind his manners.
“Miss Bernie,” he started on this day, his hand twirling a piece of yarn he’d found amongst the stash of hoes and rakes. “Where’s your husband?”
I stared into his young eyes for a moment, allowing the shock of his question to settle into a smile before I continued.
“Someplace far from here,” I said, picturing him now.
“Heaven?” he asked honestly.
“Not that far,” I laughed.
“Well, why aren’t you with him?” He scrunched his face as he pulled apart the yarn into strips.
“That’s a good question, Fletcher. But only God knows.”
Fletcher found a stick to break once the yarn was completely torn apart. He looked down and used the stick’s pieces to scoop a metal shard into his hands then flipped the jagged square into the air from the perch of those twigs.
“So do you stay once the picking is over, too?” Fletcher asked, now using the shard to scratch lines into a piece of wood, having left the stick on the ground.
“I reckon I’ll be here for a long time,” I said.
“Me too,” he smiled. “Mama says both me and Jesse can work here from time to time as long as Mr. Kern don’t mind. And as long as we stay outta his way and be nice to Miss Lula.”
Fletcher dropped the shard and returned to the stick as if it were something new.
“Well, if you wanna stay, you gotta do less talking and more working,” I said, patting him on his bottom and sending him inside with a basket of eggs. “Take it straight in,” I instructed. “Then come back.”
His shadow followed him as he ran, that stubby stranger that knew not the height the young boy would soon obtain. A rustling grew in the trees and stirred the chickens inside the coop, yet nothing so unsettling as to warn me of approaching trouble, as within minutes of Fletcher’s departure the Missus’s screams made their way from within the house. The Missus had been in one of her moods lately, and I feared I’d sent the boy smack dab in the middle of her tirade. By the time I’d entered, Fletcher was already in tears.
Miss Lula stood near the sink where Silva dabbed her dress with a damp rag. Broken eggs covered the floor and seeped along the tinted caulk between square tiles while the basket sat upside down at Fletcher’s foot, the smoking gun resting in plain sight for everyone to see.
“Bernice!” Miss Lula shrieked once she saw me.
“Yes, Miss?” I answered, fully aware of my crime.
“Don’t you ever send someone inside the house for something you should be doing yourself! If you don’t want the job, then we’ll take it away.”
“Yes, Miss,” I replied even quieter than before, merely gathering the eggs and their yolks into the basket.
Just then Mr. Kern entered, his hands at his side like a gunslinger and eyes poised for the draw. He surveyed the calamity in silence then watched Silva’s efforts with the rag. Yet in the corner where the culprit stood was where his eyes remained the longest, locked on Fletcher and the boy’s tiny sniffles, which wavered in their intensity like a puckering flame when caught in the wind. For indeed Fletcher’s entire face burned a deep red, his fair skin unable to hide the surge of emotion that built and burst through in long sobs that left his nose somehow redder than his face as he nearly rubbed it off in his fits. Given the boy’s innocence, no one could dare stay mad at him for longer than a second, although Miss Lula seemed quite intent on doing so.
Mr. Kern observed the boy closely, a look in the old man’s eyes that seemed more wistful than angry, a kindness toward the youngster that I was sure stemmed from that ripe beauty the boy possessed.
“I’m sure he didn’t mean it,” Mr. Kern finally said.
He continued to watch the boy, ending the standoff with his final decree, saying, “Bernice, clean this up.”
The Missus gathered the soiled parts of her dress from Silva’s hands and shoved her way past Mr. Kern.
“Fletcher, go on, get out now,” Silva said to the boy.
Mr. Kern watched him leave, turning to Silva once Fletcher was gone with nothing more than a squint of his eyes as he left the kitchen for Silva and me to clean.
“I swear he just don’t pay attention,” Silva fussed once we were alone. “Sometimes I don’t knows how’s he gonna make it in this world. I swear they eats folk like that alive. Don’t make it past the start line.”
Silva and I both knew the world she spoke about and the dangers it held for those who were unaware of its malice. We’d seen it in the land and men’s hearts and our dreams and now our nightmares.
After taking several deep breaths that staved away whatever thoughts or images she had just seen of her son adrift in this world, Silva took to her duties once more in restoring the kitchen to its previous sheen. Then, when the area was tidy, she went to find Fletcher, eventually spotting the boy near the stables, where he sat alone. She lectured him for nearly an hour before returning to the house and placing the tree switch by the door. Floyd heard of the mishap and lectured the boy as well, taking that same switch in his hands and leaving the house right when the sun sat as a red afterthought in the western part of the sky and the stars had started to sprinkle upon our heads in light showers.
CHAPTER 6
Dinner was quiet that night, the Missus’s glare as sharp as a prick from a rosebush thorn. Her eyes remained on the table where her food sat unconsumed. She constantly resettled in her chair, that noise being the only sound other than Mr. Kern’s fork falling to his plate. The old man was the gentlest I’d ever seen him.