Orchard by Larry Watson

Author:Larry Watson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307431561
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

20

Even when Henry finally shook off the lethargy he had been draped in following his accident, he still had trouble getting back to work. He set out to prune his trees, and with his first attempt to work a saw back and forth the pain in his shoulder became so severe he had to stop. He tried shifting the tool to his left hand, but if he kept working that way the job would take forever, so the saw was soon back in his right hand and he was trying to push and pull his way through the pain.

It wasn’t pain alone that hindered him. Whenever he extended his arm beyond a certain point, something in his shoulder seized, as though bone suddenly jammed against bone, and he had to turn his entire torso to free the joint. Then, for a minute or two, his whole arm hummed with an ache that felt like an electrical current.

Frustrated, he brought the saw down, and stepped back from the tree. He looked up and down the orchard’s snowy lanes and wondered when— or if—Max Sherry would appear.

Max Sherry was a sour, tough little man who had worked in the House family’s orchards for decades, though not in continuous service. At irregular intervals—just often enough so relying on him became impossible— Max would vanish without warning or explanation. Some said he was running from the family of a man he had come close to killing with a wrench when they worked together at a shipyard in Sturgeon Bay. Another rumor assigned to Max a wife and children somewhere whom he occasionally visited. Still another story, the most improbable of all, made Max a wealthy eccentric who worked only because he wanted to rub elbows with the common folk. Henry’s father had dismissed all these theories. “He’s a drunk, pure and simple,” Mr. House used to say. “And like all drunks, he goes off on a bender now and then. Either that or he’s holing up somewhere drying out.” But Henry’s father also spoke highly of Max Sherry as a worker. “He knows the apple business, and if he shows up, he ’ll give you full value for your dollar.” When Max wanted to work, the Houses were always willing to hire him.

Today, however, Henry was not at all confident he would see Max. That morning, the thermometer outside the kitchen window read only twelve degrees, and what little relief daylight brought was more than offset by the wind that rose with the sun. The cold, as if it had teeth, eyes, and a black heart, went unerringly for any exposed skin—Henry’s face or wrist when he lifted his arm to saw—and bit hard. Henry couldn’t blame Max if he chose to stay indoors and count his fortune, write to his wife, or see how much space he could free up in a fifth of whiskey. Henry wondered too if he had started the job too early. You didn’t want to do the dormant pruning until you could be sure the temperature wouldn’t drop below zero again.

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