Across the Field

Short story of love found and lost

The heron came down into the pool of water. It poised, then uncurled its neck to the surface of the water, probing here, then there. It took another step forward, probing again. It raised its neck momentarily, tilting its beak upward, then started to stoop, and again to probe in the mud beneath the still water of the marsh. It, however, did not finish its movement. A rush of water came and the heron, cackling, flew up, going across the weeds and water, and into the dark forest beyond. 

The large fish that had come to the surface sank back into the water's depths, to await its next prey. 

Clay jerked at the bib of his overalls, then took up his hoe, delivering it into the earth, shattering, gouging the soil, as if it were the newspaper from that morning. 

The sweat ran down his forehead, gathering into drops to fall from his nose. His large spreading hand went back to his hind pocket, taking the dangling handkerchief. He pushed the red cloth across his face, and stashed it back into its position. He took another jab at the earth, sinking the blade down.

He had just lain the paper aside, staring at it, when his housekeeper, from down the road, had come in, getting ready to leave. "Did you see about Mattie Carey, in the paper?"

"Yes, I saw, I saw."

He pulled at the handle, and the blade did not give. He tugged again, then stopped, seeing the bright splash of red color to his side. The red was a prairie flower, nodding, symmetrical, lovely, even good for the soil. Gazing at it, the blossom began to take him back to the night that Mattie and he-- Then his eyes moved to the wooden handle, and they ran down it to the clods lying by the metal joint.

Then Clay was dragging a foot across the earth. Then he was bending at the knees, crooking at the elbows, heaving, yanking out the blade. Arcing, it swung up over his head, and Clay wielded it as he would a sledge hammer, gripping it, hand over hand, bringing it down, slicing and splitting the red flower.

He looked at the remains. The petals were scattered around his feet. One of them was on his dusty boot. He let the hoe fall, then knelt. He scooped out a hole in the earth. He brushed the petals, and the torn stem, into the hole, refilling it.

He stood, looking out across the broad stretching bean field. To the one end was the white building that looked like a doll's house. It was his home. To the other the field went out to a short, but steep hill, its crest meeting the sky. A solitary mailbox interrupted the line. To the sides, the field spread out to the road on one border, to a creek and a marshy woods on the other.

 

Clay looked down to the patch, where he had buried the petals. Then there was a ripple in his jaw as a muscle tightened, and wrinkles formed between his brows. Then he was suddenly swinging the hoe up, bringing it down, driving it. 

Clay, close into the short hill, heard a crunching of wheels upon rocks. Looking up, he saw the blue and white car driving at the skyline. It pulled up at the mailbox and then against the sky, there was a girl in a white blouse and a long green skirt. He thought back to the destroyed prairie plant, back to the chopping blows he had been giving the whole field. Looking upon Mattie, the stone that had been in his stomach, rose up into his throat.

 

"Can I talk to you, Clay?" Mattie's hair, long and black, tossed in the breeze, her blouse and skirt rippled, and she was no longer framed by the sky, but by grass, as she descended.

Clay ignored the stone. "If you'd like." He let the hoe fall, and he saw the large gold ring on Mattie's left hand. "Would you like to sit, or walk, or what?"

Mattie was before him, the brown eyes, the black hair parted in the middle, fluffed up at the ends. She was clenching a fold of her skirt in one hand, holding it up slightly, showing the ankles. "I want to walk." Her hand brushed at a strand of hair. "To the willow."  Her head turned from him, nose pointed towards the far end of the field.

Clay jammed his hands into his pockets, kicked at the soil. "Let's go."

Now they began crossing the field, their eyes looking at the dirt clods, Mattie letting the fallen strands remain against her cheeks, Clay letting the perspiration run down his face without wiping it. Mattie no longer having her arms loose, but having them crossed over her stomach, the ringed hand delved into a crook of her arm. Clay no longer having his handkerchief, because it had fallen out. Mattie's black hair losing its fluff and Clay's boot losing the fallen petal. Mattie's white blouse with a mosquito and Clay's bib needing jerking again and not getting jerked at. Mattie and Clay--striding across the bean field, stepping over and through the plants, eyes away from the white house, the blue and white car, eyes upon leaves and the dirt clods.

"I'm getting married." 

"I know."

"Do you mind?"

"No, but I still love you."

 

"I loved you."

A lizard was before them, lidless eye gazing. The lizard was scampering away.

"Clay--

"Mattie--

"Clay--you're so different--

"Mattie, you're so lovely--

Clay's hand came out of his pocket, and Mattie's arm was stretching out.

"Do you love him so much?"

"I'm sorry, I do."

Clay's hand was back in its pocket. Mattie's arm folded. Now the farmer in the overalls was stepping over a row of bean plants. The girl was pushing through the plants jerking, and the farmer was unfastening his from the horse nettle. Now they were going on, on across the field.

"This is the way I have always thought of you."

"Yes?"

"Coming across the fields, perhaps a wheat field would be better. Arms spread out, eyes on the horizon, but yet on all the grains on the way."

"That's nice."

"--Then why are you getting married?"

Clay had taken up a stone. He flung it now.

"We crossed here before."

"We did, and at night."

"The blue and white car was at the mail box."

"The white house wasn't lighted."

"The willow was rustling."

"Mattie--

Clay was jumping a gully. Then, Mattie. Their arms and hands went back to their former places.

"Remember here--at night, when we crossed."

"Mattie--

"You tripped--

"Mattie--

"And we fell--

"Mattie--

"And we were laughing--

"Mattie--

"All muddy."

His large hands went to clasp her white covered arms. It was a brief moment, and his coarse brown hair was being beaten by a flapping strand of black.

"Clay--

"I'm sorry."

"I'm getting married."

The large hands crossed over the stomach, digging into the pits at the elbows. The white bloused arms moved behind, the gold-ringed hand twining around the other.

"Why won't you marry me? You're from a farm yourself. I am too."

 

"He loves me."

"I love you too. I love you very much."

Now they were across the field, now they had come upon the creek. They went in under the willow, the water was high, they could see a turtle sunning itself on the opposite bank. Instead of talking, they stood, side to side, remembering when the water was low, remembering the water's gurgle that they could hear in the dark. 

Mattie had been in jeans and a plain shirt. Clay had been in jeans also, his shirt had been white. Mattie had been in the crinkling weeds, Clay had been in Mattie, Mattie and Clay had been muddy.

"How do you feel?"

"Like a harvest moon."

"You look like one too. Feel like one."

 

"These plants are lovely." Her hands had clasped the flowers. "I'm glad we found them on the hillside."

"We're the moon, the moon, the orange harvest moon." 

The turtle was submerging itself. Sunlight glittered, the water was close up to the willow.

"It's all gone now, Clay."

"Is that why you came?" Clay took up a stone and tossed it in his hands. His eyelids had narrowed.

"No, not to see this again. Not for that reason."

"Then why did you come?" He catapulted the rock into the stream. "Mattie--you'd best go."

"Clay--

"Why'd you come? I'd have seen it in the papers." He twined his fingers in with the others.

A yellowed leaf, fallen from some place, drifted by them.

"I don't know."  Now the tips of the gold fingered hand were up on the lower lip. "I don't know. I was driving, you know--" her brown eyes were looking at him, enveloping him. "And I turned on the signal at the highway, and came." The brown eyes kept at him, not turning to the creek, to the ground.

"That means you care. It's got to."

"It does, but I still care for him more."

"Mattie--you'd better go." The stone in his throat had changed, from granite, to sandstone, to coal.

Mattie was looking away now, out to the field. "Clay, why can't you see? I don't want to leave you hurt."

"I'll be hurt no matter what. Go." He wished he could fling the stone in his throat away as he had the others. "Go--I tore up a prairie flower this morning."

Mattie was up, green skirt with grass upon it. "A flower--a red one?"

"Yes. In the field. God damn it, yes." Clay clenched at some weeds, he continued to look to the creek.

"The one in the night?" She'd take a step towards him, strands of hair across her face, neck, brows jetting up into her forehead. "The one we planted?"

"Yes, god damn, yes." The stone was a rock.

"Clay, I'm--

"I want you." Clay swivelled, shuffled his feet, started striding towards her. The stone was a boulder.

"Clay--no--

"Mattie, I've got to." The boulder was rolling.

Then Mattie was running, her shoes pushed at the bank, she tripped, she fell into the creek. Clay was on her, his hands reached at her.

 

"CLAY--CLAY--CLAY!"

He looked down at Mattie, the stone still there, not so enlarged. Her green skirt was drenched, her blouse drenched, her black hair was parting into a multitude of strands, undulating as the water flowed through it. Her brown eyes could not be seen and there were patches of water over her face.

Clay was seeing the water that could not be seen without the moon that had gone behind a cloud.

"I faint sometimes."

"You do?"

"When I can't have my way."

"Have you done it a lot?"

"Ask anyone who's tried to make me obey."

They'd been the moon, the moon, the harvest moon. Clay went into the water, the water pouring into his boots. He knelt. 

"I brought you across the field. Would you like to come to the house for some dry clothes?"

The stone was no longer in his throat. It was back in his stomach.

 

The voice, Mattie's voice, was back of him. The rustle in the grass told him she had sat up. "No, I better go."

"I've been feeling bad all day. All since yesterday."

"I'm sorry. I fainted, didn't I?"

"Yes. I'm sorry I frightened you." Now there were two stones, one in his stomach, one in his throat.

"It's okay." There was pressure on his shoulder.

"Don't!" He jerked, then added quietly, "It's your hand with the ring."

"I'm sorry. We're at the bottom of the hill, aren't we?"

"Yes--I brought you across the field." Clay recalled going past the gully, carrying Mattie, his overalls becoming damp from contact with Mattie's blouse and skirt. On his way to the hill, he had seen the fallen red handkerchief. He had left it where it lay.

"You came without me, then."

"Came without you?"

"I wasn't there when you took me across the field. I was swimming in blackness."

"Oh."

"I don't see how you could have--destroyed the flower." The swishes in the grass told him her back was to his.

"Can you blame me?"

"No--I guess I'd better go."

"Yes." The stones were swelling.

"Well." She was on the hill, he turned to look at her, her skirt was at his shoulder's level. "Goodbye."

"Mattie-- She halted at the mailbox, she looked at him.

"Clay--I feel terrible too. I don't want you hurt. But you give me nothing else." Her voice came down to him, as if it were from the sky. "You keep talking to me. Clay, oh Clay."

Clay saw the crumpled handkerchief again. He tried to remember a heron. "You know why you came?"

"Why?"

"You wanted to be sure your feeling is gone." He stared out to the field, trying to get the picture of graceful, serene bird in his mind. He could only get the heavy, daggerish beak.

 

"I'm afraid it is." She was moving around the car now, but her voice was still coming.

 

"I'll be alright. Don't worry. You go to him."

"That's what I was wanting to hear. Goodbye, Clay."

"Goodbye, Mattie."

"Goodbye."

The blue and white car roared, then it was gone, and there was only a swirl of dust remaining.

Clay turned to the field, approaching the hoe where he had left it. He took it up, still trying, still failing to picture the heron, the long neck, the legs. He moved on down the row, stopping at the patch of the buried plant.

Heron, heron. He had to get the heron in his mind. He moved across the field again, running, each step a thorn his and Mattie's walk had produced. He reached the creek. He bent down, pulling off his boots. To wade, to get to the marsh, to forget the blue and white car, to forget the field.

Clay started to step down. A movement caught his eye and he looked. A heron, coming from the direction of the marsh, was coming down in the water. It was taking a step in the edge of the creek, probing. It took another step, and Clay sank back to the bank. Then the heron was fluttering, and coming over to the bank just opposite Clay. It was probing for snails. It was--

The water was threshing. A fish, its wet scales flashing iridescent rainbow of colors, was nibbling on an aquatic plant. Then there was a rush of wings, and Clay was seeing the heron of the red eyes, of the black cap, and of the two white head plumes, clouting the fish.

And Clay sank forward, wishing he had not crossed the field of beans...

copyright reserved by publisher

Cathleen D Collins Wesemann