The Land Breakers by John Ehle

Author:John Ehle
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-59017-794-5
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2014-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

13

One day that spring, Tinkler Harrison took a chair down to the river and set it near a beech tree, but apart from the shade so that he could get the full warmth of the early-year sun. He enjoyed sitting of a late afternoon in the sun, sweating, feeling the fat of his body dissolve out into pure water. He had a theory which he had perhaps too often expressed to Grover that not only was it healthy to sit in the sun and lose fat, but, if one sat near the river, which was bubbling and noisy, the sound and presence of the river water would assist the fats of the body in seeking a way out, in order to join the greater body of its own kind.

Also, he liked to sit by the river because the turbulence of its waters responded to the turbulence of his mind. He had an orderly mind, but an active one. It was always busy with plans, either for the valley or for his kin and neighbors. He could not let his ideas about the settlement rest, could not sleep except that he dreamed of his planning, so that day and night he was planning always.

He could envision great open fields rich with corn and later on with wheat and rye. He could imagine that a mill could be set not far from his house on the river. He could hear the blacksmith hammers ringing out, and tinkers coming by with their wares, and a potter making jugs. He could see in his imagination a little church with a four-sided steeple, set near a big hickory tree over near the road. He had heard it said that a church should not be set under a nut tree, for the falling of nuts would disrupt the services, but he had always found diversions during religious observances welcome, and should the church also be used as a school, the nut tree would help the scholars master their powers of concentration.

He could imagine all these measures of progress for the settlement, but he knew they were no nearer realization this spring than they had been last. In fact, the settlement was in worse shape.

The pack of wolves had scattered the stock, costing him in cattle and oxen and hogs, costing the German the hog he had, costing Mooney Wright some of the best of his swine. The wolves had even cost Harrison one of his horses, which had run down to the river, had found itself on ice, had slid on the ice, still standing on its hoofs, and had skated across it. Nobody saw the sight, but the marks were on the ice next day. The horse had ended up in the twisted limbs of overhanging trees on the water’s other side, where it smashed itself beyond repair.

Chickens were lost, geese were scattered, except for Ernest Plover’s, whom even the wolves had ignored, and for days the populace had been out seeking and driving home what was their own, what was left, for the wolves continued to prey on the defenseless animals.

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