Alyson Hagy - Scribe

Novels

Boleto

Snow, Ashes

Keeneland

Stories

Ghosts of Wyoming

Graveyard of the Atlantic

Hardware River

Madonna on Her Back

A Novel

Alyson Hagy

Graywolf Press

Copyright 2018 by Alyson Hagy

The author and Graywolf Press have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the authors copyright, please notify Graywolf Press at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

This publication is made possible, in part, by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund, and through grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wells Fargo Foundation Minnesota. Significant support has also been provided by Target, the McKnight Foundation, the Amazon Literary Partnership, and other generous contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. To these organizations and individuals we offer our heartfelt thanks.

Published by Graywolf Press

250 Third Avenue North, Suite 600

Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401

All rights reserved.

www.graywolfpress.org

Published in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-55597-818-1

Ebook ISBN 978-1-55597-869-3

2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1

First Graywolf Printing, 2018

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018934486

Cover design: Kimberly Glyder

Cover art: June Glasson, J. S.

For Mandy Hoy,

who struck the spark

Salutations

The dogs circled the house all night , crying out, hunting. She knew they were calling to her. Beckoning. Working their churn. The world she lived in had become a gospel of disturbances, and the dogs wouldnt let her forget that. In the morning, before she had even gone to the springhouse for milk, she saw a man waiting at the foot of her garden. It was how they did.

Summer had spun away from them all. The creek banks were whiskered with a nickel-shine frost, and she could smell the cooking fires laid down by the ones who called themselves the Uninvited. Pig fat and smoke. Scorched corn. There were more people at the camp every week, staking out tarps, drying fish seined from the river. They were drawn to her fields at the end of their seasonal migrations because of what had happened there some years before, because of their beliefs. She did not know if they planned to stay for the winter.

The mans clothes were rust-rimmed and deflated. He wore a battered straw hat. Those who wanted something from her arrived at the brick house above the creekthe Doctors House they called it, a remnant from her fathers timeand waited for her, always alone. She didnt care for ceremony, but ceremony was what they needed. Their silent arrival was part of a code they passed among themselves. It was the same for the Brubaker woman who prepared the bodies of the dead and the man from Jacks Mountain who was known to hoard crystals of salt.

The dogs began to gather. The swift brindle one, then the fawn bitch, then the rat catcher with its long, shredded ears. There were only three this time. Each bore fresh wounds. The fawn bitch, blood threaded through its eager saliva, leaned hard against her knees. It was a disrespectful habit, one that couldnt be tolerated. Animals and neighbors had to be taught their limits. She struck the bitch on the ribs with her wooden staff. The bitch yelped and went to its haunches, but it didnt leave her. None of them did.

She raised her palm and signaled to the man. You are welcome at my home, she signed. Its the time of barter and trade.

The man showed neither a pistol nor a blade. He had put his weapons aside in order to make his plea. She, herself, had given up arms some time ago. Everyone knew who she was and what she had to offer. They understood she kept nothing in the brick house anyone would want to steal.

He began to walk toward her, past the twine looped and snared around her plucked garden, past the skeletal stalks of her harvested corn. He was holding items outward for display, objects filched smoothly from his pockets. There was a stick of split wood. And what might be a precious shrivel of tobacco. These were his offerings.

I seen you pulled a good crop of squash and beans, the man said. I seen your vines. Its been a good year.

It has, she said, carefully. A good year. Are you thirsty?

I aint, the man said. I been down to your creek first thing. Its a good creek.

It can be, she said. I have sweet spring water, too. I can make you a tea.

No need, the man said, looking at the blind face of her house from under his hat. His eyes appeared to be sleep-sore and yearning. His feet scuffed the tangled grass. I brung what they say you might take in payment. I come to ask if you will write me a letter.

He raised his forearms in an awkward, stilted wayas if his request had set its own barbs into himand she took the stick of wood, and the dangling twist of tobacco. It was a generous offer. He wished to trade a supply of split hardwood, enough for the winter, and a bundle of tobacco cured in the old way. The man didnt look prosperous, no one did these days, not this far from the cities. Still, he was willing to barter things of value. The fawn bitch circled him once, its damp nose carried high in the air.

I aint from here, the man said, bowing his head as if she might expect that. But I heard about you. My wife was raised at Snow Creek, where youre known to help people in need. You make keen and proper letters, and you can write out a mans pain and ease it from his heart forever, thats what they say. Ill cut the wood myself. I seen strong black oak up on that ridge of yours. And maple, too. I brung the tobacco with me.

Lets rest on the porch, she said. The dogs were no longer paying attention to the man, no more than if he were a dusty cedar tree or a flood-stained shelf of granite. He didnt stink of threat or guile. Not to them.

I left a stone at the place by the road bridge, the man said, looking back over his shoulder. I done it after nightfall, soon as I arrived. Just like I was told. Is it true what they say about the woman and the miracles she made here?

Some of it is true, she said. I leave her a stone whenever I cross. We all do.

The man wasnt as old as she first believed. Fortysome. He said his name was Hendricks. He had spent time in uniform fighting enemies both foreign and domestic. That was how he said it. Domestic. Hed grown up just over the Carolina line.

I done my share of migrations when I was young, he told her. I was born before the war and didnt have much choice but to keep moving once it was over. Seems like nothings been the same since that battling and ruination, even way out here. Seems like were still blowed to pieces. I can read and write for the basics, enough to make myself useful on a barge or a wagon pull, which is what it come down to in the end. Me and my wife settled with the Collins-Pruitt Assembly near Danville for as long as that lasted. Have you heard of it? The Pillars was down that way first. Then one of Brother Amoss camps. Collins-Pruitt made up a strong outfit for a time, and we was all fed and organized and in agreement on the schooling of children. But it faltered when the fevers run through, like things do when men want more than they can get. Me and my wife decided to get closer to blood family at Snow Creek. They still grow tobacco down there when they got men enough to guard it. They got a cattle herd, too. Most things are done in cooperation around Snow Creek.