I stand in the growing dusk looking for the privy. I see it off to the side near a lean-to shed. A girl about my age waits at the door, and I walk over. “Evening,” I say and nod in respect, and she nods back, then faces the wooden door with the crescent moon cutout. Without turning around she says, “You reckon Allaburt’s gunna stay fer a spill? Be wither kin?”
It takes a moment to understand that she’s asking about Bert, Allie Bert, Allaburt. The girl asked me if Bert is going to stay, and I’m speechless. Unlike last time when she rode across the state with a one-way ticket, Bert has a return ticket leaving in two days, and it never crossed my mind she wouldn’t need it.
The privy door opens, and a child steps out adjusting her flour-sack dress that almost touches the ground, then she takes the older girl’s hand and they walk toward the house where they belong, like everybody else, except me. I’ve never been an outsider before, knowing no one, understanding little, standing on unfamiliar land. I’ve lived such a harbored life, sticking pins in a map on the wall, collecting ten-dollar words, pretending a story in a book was an introduction to life.
After I do my business, I sit in that chair like Bert told me to, a stranger stranded on an island, watching life flow around her, cut off from her normal footing. The dialect of Bert’s people strikes my ears as peculiar, and I remember I’m still in North Carolina, the land of my people, but not these people. This must be more like Oma’s Germany I never knew. I understand her better coming here. I know now that our dense air was hard to breathe. She must have missed her homeland terribly.
Ruth crosses the yard carrying a plate of food and a glass of water. Two little girls trail behind her. One sucks her thumb, and the other carries a piece of blanket. “You gotta be hungry,” Ruth says and places the plate on my lap. With a weary sigh, she sinks to the ground beside me, and the girls sit on the far side. She must be worn out from all the change her life has seen.
I lean forward and say, “Hey” to the little girls, but they duck their chins shy and nudge up against Ruth’s side.
She says, “They called Hattie and Nell. They mama went to Jesus a while back. This one, Nell”—she puts a hand on the girl’s tiny head—“turned sickly two months back bout the same time Pa had a sinking spell. It was a healer from Baines Creek who come all the way here to help. Miz Birdie done right by Nell, and she grows stronger, but Mis Birdie can’t help Pa make it through. We be staying at this place these weeks, but Homer got his own homestead for us to work. I hope Allie Bert might want this one.”
I had put food in my mouth when Ruth delivers the second dose of possibility about Bert staying here that makes me sick to my stomach. Why hadn’t she said anything to me? It takes effort to swallow the food.
“That’s for her to decide,” I say evenly, though my heart gallops. “I’m sorry we kept her to ourselves all this time.”
But am I sorry? Would I want to turn the clock back to that summer day at the bridge but have Bert stay sequestered at Miz Violet’s home? Our paths may have never crossed in Riverton. Her aunt may have gone crazy, and Bert would have found her way back here to a land I’d never see. She wouldn’t learn to read and write. Or do numbers and tend bees and dance the jitterbug. There would have been no return today of the prodigal daughter.
Ruth reaches for my plate of food I’ve neglected and says, “You gotta be tired. Let me take you to your sleepin spot.”
My sleeping spot is up the ladder in the kitchen to a feather mattress and quilt under cramped eaves. The murmur of prayers and footsteps on plank floors below and dishes being washed mingle. As I drift off to sleep, I hear, “That’s some kind a city talk from that girl, ain’t it? Sounds book smart to me.” Another says, “Think Allabert done gone above her raising?”
I think they don’t know the half of what Bert Tucker can do.
The whiff of dying seasoned with fried chicken and faith flavors my restless sleep. I wake to the sound of rain pounding the tin roof above my face. Water drips from holes. I climb down the ladder into the dry warmth of the kitchen. Ruth slaps a plate of eggs and thick bacon in front of me and pours a cup of strong coffee.
“Morning,” I say.
She says, “Mornin” back.
“Where’s Bert?” I ask between mouthfuls.
Ruth nods toward the parlor.
“Still there?”
“Been keeping him company all night.”
“What’s your pa’s Christian name?”
“Jacob Bartholomew Tucker, but folks call him Tuck, and that suits him.”
“That’s a fine name. He must have been a fine man.” I sound like Mama when she gives comfort, but my appetite wanes with the thought of seeing a body three days dead. I pick at the rest of my breakfast. Finally, I scrape the leftovers in the slop bucket when Ruth’s got her back to me, then wash and dry my plate to buy a little time. I head outside and run to the privy through the misty drizzle. When I come out, I stand in awe. The drifting clouds squat low, and the mountain peaks jut high. It’s like Bert said that first night at supper. I can wash my hands in the clouds. They snake over and around these blue, undulating hills.
Ruth comes out of the house and throws scraps to the chickens. At first glance, I think it’s Bert, only more serious. She comes to stand beside me.
“Bert talked about this place, but my imagination couldn’t conjure it. Where I come from, the land is so flat you can see a wall of rain march across the field. And when the rain falls, it lies like a shallow lake on the land. It’s a different place that’s hot and sticky in the warm months. These mountains have names?”
Ruth nods. “That’s Mount Mitchell.” She points to peaks and reels off names as foreign as Oma’s world. I think I hear Roan, Big Bald, Big Butt, but her accent throws me. I could be wrong about Big Butt. I look back at the cabin that Mr. Tucker likely built to house his family. It’s time I paid my respects.
Bert’s in the parlor. The open pine coffin sits on sawhorses against one wall. An odd mix of chairs placed here and there around the parlor hold people with heads bent in prayer. Bert stands beside the coffin, holding the cold hand of her dead pa. My stomach turns sour.
“Bert?” I step beside her. “You okay?” is my trite question.
She takes her time. “I missed all em days with Pa. Can’t never git em back.” The pain has her slip into her childhood vernacular. “I won’t never know if he forgive me killing Ma.”
Ruth comes up beside us and puts her arm around Bert. “He love you, little sister. Pa love you. Weren’t no blame. Weren’t no sin. Rest your weary heart. He be waiting on you to come home so he can go to heaven. You coming is a gift.”
The two sisters cling to each other, and the people in the room stand and gather the girls in the folds of their arms. I’m to the side, looking at Mr. Tucker in his pine box, his scarred hands lying still, his legs like broom handles under the fabric of slick-worn trousers, his chest empty of a beating heart. Bert puts out her arm from the knot of people and pulls me into their warm center, and I let her.
Then the serious job of putting Mr. Tucker to rest begins in earnest.
Like square dancers following calls, the people in the parlor move with defined purpose. The coffin is closed and nailed shut. The pallbearers take their places and struggle to get the coffin through the front door. The swirling clouds drift away, and the sky clears as if on command. More people appear as if summoned by the tolling of a bell only they can hear. From all points around the meadow come more men in clean overalls and hats worn low, women in gingham dresses, and quiet children who line up behind the procession with the pallbearers at the lead. They walk to the graveside and stand in a square around the waiting grave. Bert steps into their midst and gives tonal pitches as starting points. She leads a powerful harmony that bursts forth from this clan of her people. Her arm keeps beat to the somber tempo that unifies the believers sending Mr. Tucker to heaven. It is an ancient farewell grounded in faith as old as these hills and I quiver with emotion.
A young man I saw yesterday from a distance stares at Bert with broken heart written all over his face. He sings strong, but his eyes pull at Bert with a wanting she doesn’t see or chooses to ignore. Opposite him stands the girl I saw outside the privy last night. She looks at the young man with broken heart written all over her face. She sings strong, but her eyes pull at the man with her wanting he doesn’t see or chooses to ignore.
Why didn’t I know that Bert was loved and missed? Why had I conveniently forgotten she had a life before us? I know Bert doesn’t belong here, not with her hunger for more and her taste for different and her love for our family of Browns. A life beyond these blue hills was the thing that pulled at her, and I’m confident that despite a family cemetery, her sister, Ruth and Sam Logan, she won’t be staying.
Mr. Tucker’s casket is lowered. The last thing we do is drop handfuls of dirt on the pine box. I pick up two handfuls, throw one on the coffin, and put the other in my pocket. I want to take a piece of this place with me. Here makes my heart soar like the eagle drifting over thermals. It’s haunting tune calls to me. I miss it already.