The Orchardist (40 page)

C
aroline Middey was not the only one who remembered the rifle. When Angelene first saw it, held within the low boughs of the apricot tree, she caught her breath. But why? Because she had discovered her birthday present? She put her hands on it and disengaged it from the branches and thought—or some part of her
registered
, for memory still worked hard within her to locate where she had seen the rifle before—that it was simply uncannily familiar to her. She must have seen one like it in town, she thought, or in a catalog: but those two possibilities failed to ring true to her. She carried the rifle out of the orchard, across the grass.

And that was when she knew, when she saw how Talmadge looked at it, and how the other men—Clee, the wrangler—feigned surprise, and how it caused Caroline Middey’s sudden, alert confusion; all of this, but mostly by Talmadge’s face, which was a touchstone for her, she remembered, she
knew
, the gun had belonged to Della.

It’s her gun, isn’t it? she said to Talmadge, two days after her birthday, when they were alone again in the orchard.

He sat at the table, the lantern lit—it was after supper—polishing his boots. He was planning to leave for Chelan again in two days.

Yes, he said, and put his fist, which held a flannel scrap, on the tabletop, held still.

She stood before him.

Are you angry? he said.

No—

They remained still, each one waiting for the other to condemn, to burst out with anger or apology, explanation.

Angelene, for a moment, could not remember if she was angry or not. She was—had been—impressed by the gun, by the majesty of it, and also by the fact—and this is where most other girls her age would disagree with her—that the rifle was not brand-new, but used. The wood had a fine patina that made Angelene appreciate it, its worn beauty. About who had used it—Della, in the beginning—she harbored feelings of helpless anger, but also—she hated to admit this—a certain tender fascination: young Della, the Della she remembered, toting this weapon on her early excursions into the mountains. She appreciated this too, despite herself.

But Talmadge had not explained any of this to her. This, the accompanying story, seemed like part of the gift, but instead he had marred it by more silence.

But this desire—to have it all, the object and the history—was unconceived in her mind, and she knew only that she was unsettled, unsatisfied.

I’m sorry, he said. You don’t like it?

I like it—

Then, a minute later: It is very beautiful. I love it. But—I wish—

And what did she wish?

I wish—you would tell me about her.

She was alarmed she had said such a thing, for she did not think she meant it. She did not want to know about Della, did not want to hear about her. Had said it, perhaps, to hear how it would sound. That was all.

Talmadge was looking into the corner of the room. He too looked alarmed.

Oh, I don’t know! she cried. You are so—quiet!—about it! You won’t tell me anything! And Caroline Middey won’t either! Or—not all of it. There’s something you’re not telling me, and I don’t know what it is—

She held out her arms in front of her, as if trying to shape in the air all that she could not say, all that she did not understand.

He looked at her, and she regretted everything. Her arms returned to her sides. She regretted stepping out of her room—it had been a whim, after all—to speak to him.

His face was full of immense sadness.

F
rederick came close to the bars and said that Michaelson would speak to her, if she still wanted him to. He would come and stand outside her bars after lights-out that evening, and she could say what she had to say to him then.

Let me go see him, she said. Let me go see
him
in
his
cell.

Frederick was incredulous. He tipped his hat back on his forehead, then pulled it down. Laughed shortly. You’re crazy, he said.

A
ngelene entered the canyon. Entered the orchard. It would be there, he said, at the bend in the path. It was afternoon, the road was lit up. The rest of the orchard was shadowed by the overhanging canyon wall, but this part was still illuminated. And then the road bent, up ahead, and she could see the tree he was talking about. She saw it and then looked away from it. And then looked again.

How many times had she looked at this tree? Not once like this. She stood now at the base of it. She had thought in some indirect way, throughout her life, about how large the tree was, how it stood there like a sentry, marking the bend in the road. After the bend the road leads—where? She had never followed that road, never. That amazed her, suddenly. At what point did the road end? She would ask Talmadge about it. No, better yet—she would see for herself.

But now she looked at the tree. How did one get up into a tree like that? She went to the trunk and looked at the bark. A galaxy of cracks, rivulets. Shining, porous, fibrous skin. She looked up. The nearest branch was maybe fifteen feet up. She scouted the ground as if she would see some sign of how her mother had gotten up into the tree; as if some clue would have waited all these years for her to find it. Of course she found nothing. She rounded the tree slowly, looking at it from different angles.

Jane would have been there, higher up on the limb. And Della would have been there, a little farther down. It was not hard to imagine two girls sitting on the branch, their legs dangling, fitted with their own nooses. Like a game. And the one on the left—her mother, Jane—saying to the other: The men are coming. I’m going to do it. Come on—and then she jumped. The moments before, that conversation leading up to the moment of jumping, were not hard to imagine. But the moment itself—a girl leaping from a tree, the rope suspended in midair between them, the girl and the tree—that was difficult to imagine. How does a girl get up into a tree such as this and at the same time fix her own circumstances of death? Where did the rope come from? How did she tie the noose? How did she know it would work?

But an element even more difficult to imagine—even more so than the body of Angelene’s mother hanging in the air—was that what was coming had been more terrifying to the girl than the actual experience of hanging. This was what Angelene could not comprehend.

She thought of Della. Who, in order to have survived, in all likelihood must have hesitated; she must have watched her sister jump first, and paused on the branch. Why was this other one not as afraid as Angelene’s mother? What was it about the life they had shared that made her, Della, want to remain in the world, when the other one did not? And Jane, Angelene reminded herself, had a child. She had just given birth to an infant who had lived. But the one who hesitated, who somehow found life worth living, had just suffered enormously, had lost two children who had lived inside her. But she, and not the other one with the living child, had hesitated.

But, thought Angelene, looking up into the tree, Della
had
jumped, in the end. Something had persuaded her at last to jump. It could have been her sister struggling. It could have been the despair and the realization of what was happening. It could have been that.

Angelene could not find a way to climb the tree. And so she returned to the cabin for a ladder.

M
ichaelson stood before the bars now. In the dimness Della could barely make out his facial features. From his outline she could tell he held his stomach as before. She had heard him come shuffling down the hallway ten minutes after the lights turned off; Frederick had escorted him, but now he left them alone. You best not try anything, Frederick had said, dead serious now, to Della before leaving. This is a favor, now. You best behave.

She said nothing.

Michaelson stood in the dimness, unmoving as a statue.

What do you want? he finally said. And his voice was low, gravelly, almost slurred.

Despite herself she came closer to the bars. Hung on to them and pulled herself up so she could get as close to him as she could. She tried to pick up his odor but could not; he smelled of nothing.

Come closer, she said. But he did not move.

What do you want, he said again.

You know who I am?

Again he was silent. But then he sighed.

There are so many of you.

And then it was silent.

I’m Della, she said. Della Michaelson. Then, when he didn’t say anything: I’m named after you. You gave me your name! I can’t even remember my other name!

He shifted slightly. That is what I did, he said. Sighed again. That was the way I used to do it, it made things easier. But—that is over now. I am not that person anymore. I have changed. Do you not know it is possible to change?

She had been waiting for it without even being aware that she was waiting for it: the old familiar note of self-righteousness. He had hit it perfectly. She gripped the bars and pulled herself up, almost off the ground. Her hands were sweating. Liar, she said, quietly.

Hush, said Michaelson.

Hush, she said.

That was before. I am a new man now. I have—changed my ways. And he coughed quietly while holding his stomach.

She whispered again: Liar!

He ignored her, said: It’s true. While I have always been sensitive to the Lord’s instruction, I have now learned to—reinterpret—some of His teachings—

I’m going to kill you, she said.

No, he said sadly. I believe this sickness will do it first. This sickness is doing things to me that you are not capable of. You should be thanking the sickness, if anything.

She tried to shake the bars, but of course they did not move.

I’m going to kill you! said Della. You killed my sister!

In the silence she could tell that he did not know who she was talking about. Before she could stop herself, she said: Jane! You killed Jane!

And then the air between them changed. Michaelson did not speak for several minutes.

Jane, he said. Ah, yes.

You remember her—

There was another silence, and then he said, Yes. And then, several moments later, And you must be that pesky sister of hers—

Della, she said. Della!

And she felt him study her anew in the dark.

Look what you’ve become, he said. In prison, and threatening to kill a man of God!

A man of God! she bleated. A man of God!

Mock me if you want to—

You’re a liar! You are not a man of God! And if you are—then I do not believe in God!

Blasphemer!

She was crying and shaking the bars. She hit her head on the bars. She reached through the bars and tried to catch him, but he stood too far back from her.

Look at you, he said. Ah, now I remember! Now I remember you well!

She screamed, and in between her screaming—living in her scream—she could hear him laugh. But she did not know if he was laughing now, or if it was her own scream that contained his laughter that she was hearing.

A
ngelene sat on the limb from which her mother had hanged herself. From there she could see out over the orchard and beyond a portion of the field. It was the best vantage, she decided, from which to observe people entering the canyon mouth. It must have been this factor—the ability to witness the shaking trees, the hides of the men’s horses and the flesh of the men themselves glimpsed through the foliage below—that spurred Della at last to jump. Jane could imagine what was coming, and that was enough for her to act, but Della needed the rawness of the calamity opening right in front of her to urge her off the branch.