The Long Tomorrow

Len climbed slowly onto the shelf, and every movement was an effort. He clung there, and the carts jolted off in line, out of the dooryard and across the road and out around the margin of the west field, toward the woods.

They stopped about where the sumacs grew. They all got out and the men spoke together. And then Pa turned and said, “Len.” He pointed at the woods. “Show us.”

Len did not move.

Esau spoke for the first time. “You might as well,” he said, in a voice heavy with hate. “They’ll get it anyway if they have to burn the whole woods.”

Uncle David cuffed him backhanded across the mouth and called him something angry and Biblical.

Pa said again, “Len.”

Len yielded. He led the way into the woods. And the path looked just the same, and so did the trees, and the tiny stream, and the familiar clumps of thorn apple. But something was changed. Something was gone. They were only trees now, and thorn apples, and the rocky bed of a trickle of water. They no longer belonged to him. They were withdrawn and unwelcoming, and their outlines were harsh, and the big boots of the men crushed down the ferns.

They came out on the point at the meeting of the waters. Len stopped beside the hollow tree.

“Here,” he said. His voice sounded unfamiliar in his ears. The bright glow of the west fell clearly here ‘t along the open stream, painting the leaves and grass a lurid green, tinting the brown Pymatuning with copper. Crows flapped homeward overhead, dropping their jeering laughter as they went. It seemed to Len that the laughter was meant for him.

Uncle David gave Esau a rough, hard shove. “Get it out.”

Esau stood for a minute beside the tree. Len watched him, and the look that was on him in the sunset light. The crows went away, and it was very still.

Esau reached into the hollow of the tree. He brought out the books, wrapped in canvas, and handed them to Mr. Nordholt.

“They’re not hurt,” he said.

Mr. Nordholt unwrapped them, moving out from under the tree so he could see better. “No,” he said. “No, they’re not hurt.” He wrapped them again and held them against his chest.

Esau lifted out the radio.

He stood holding it, and the tears came up into his eyes and glittered there but did not fall. A hesitancy had come over the men. Mr. Hostetter said, as though he had said it before but was afraid it might not have been understood, “Soames had asked me if anything happened to take his personal belongings and give them to his wife. He had shown me the chest they were in. The people at the preaching were about to loot his wagon. I did not stop to see what was in the chest.”

Uncle David stepped forward. He knocked the radio from Esau’s hands, driving his fist downward like a hammer. It lay on the turf, and he stamped on it, over and over with his heavy boot. Then he picked up what was left of it and flung it out into the Pymatuning.

Esau said, “I hate you.” He looked at them all. “You can’t stop me. Someday I’ll go to Bartorstown.”

Uncle David hit him again, and spun him around, and started to march him back through the woods. Over his shoulder he said, “I’ll see to him.”

The rest followed in a straggling line, after Mr. Harkness poked his hand around in the hollow of the tree to make sure nothing more was in there. And Mr. Hostetter said,

“I wish my wagon to be searched.”

Mr. Harkness said, “We’ve known you a long time, Ed. I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

“No, I demand it,” said Hostetter, speaking so that everyone could hear. “This boy has made an accusation that I can’t let pass. I want my wagon searched from top to bottom, so that there can be no doubt as to whether I possess anything I should not have. Suspicion once started is hard to kill, and news travels. I wouldn’t want people to think of me what they thought of Soames.”

A shiver ran through Len. He realized suddenly that Hostetter was making an explanation and an apology.

He also understood that Esau had made a fatal mistake.

It seemed a long way back across the west field. This time the carts did not enter the farmyard. They stopped in the road and Len and Pa got down, and the others shifted around so that Esau and Uncle David were alone in their own cart. Then Mr. Harkness said, “We will want to see the boys tomorrow.” His voice was ominously quiet. He drove away toward the village, with the second cart behind him. Uncle David started the other way, toward home.

Esau leaned out of the cart and shouted hysterically at Len. “Don’t give up. They can’t make you stop thinking. No matter what they do to you they can’t—”

Uncle David turned the cart sharp around and brought it into the farmyard.

“We’ll see about that,” he said “Elijah, I’m going to use your barn.”