hen the sun hit full noon, John William cooed a gentle “whoa” to the team and brought the wagon to a halt.
“Time to rest,” he said, as he'd said every day at this time. The horses were unharnessed and allowed to drink from a stream if they were near one, from water poured from thedrinking barrel into the washtub if they weren't. A cold lunch was assembled from whatever bits and pieces of food were available. A measure of canvas was laid out on the grass, and the babies, free from their diapers and gowns, were allowed to lay and roll and squirm, their naked bodies exposed to the fresh summer air.
Often, once the horses were taken care of, John William would pluck a flower or a long stem of grass and run it, lightly, up and down the babies’ bodies. He delighted in burying his face in baby Kate's belly and blowing as she kicked and squealed with laughter. This was a game he enjoyed with Danny, too, even after learning the hard way that it's much more fun when a little boy has his diaper on.
Gloria didn't play She busied herself with putting away the lunch things, wiping down the plates. But the corner of her eye never left the frolicking scene on the canvas.
She marveled at the controlled strength of this man. She'd seen him use his bare hands to snap branches into kindling, and now those same hands gently held her infant son aloft in thrilling flight. The man who could walk alongside the wagon for hours in total silence now seemed a fountain of noise. Gibberish and song poured from his lips. His uneven features—misshapen nose, scarred skin—seemed to soften, giving him the appearance of a lovable monster, an overgrown troll.
He set Danny down and turned his attention to Kate. She lay on her stomach, struggling to hold her head up and view the world. He loomed, like a giant bear set to maul. He even made a comic growling sound before pouncing, his body creating instant shade for the little one, and running his beard up and down her spine.
His beard.
He didn't have one back in Silver Peak. Gloria wondered just when the whiskers took over his face.
Then, as it happened every afternoon, the yawn. It started always with a squinting of his eyes and a scrunching of his nose. Then his mouth opened as if the jaw were about to unhinge. He brought his fists to his shoulders, stretched his arms and arched his back, all in accompaniment to a massive, primordial yawp.
“Those babies wear me out,” he said, as he did every day “Think I need to rest up a bit. Close my eyes.”
“You do just that,” Gloria said, as was their routine. “I'll wake you in a little while.”
Today they were stopped near a little grove of trees, and John William sought out the one with just the perfect roots to cradle his head. Once that spot was found, he stretched flat on his back and almost instantly began snoring into the heavy silent afternoon.
Gloria dampened a soft washcloth and brought it over to where the babies played. One by one, each little body was washed and let to dry in the warm summer air. Then Gloria tied a fresh diaper around each tiny belly and settled in to nurse. This afternoon, Danny was first. She brought her son to her breast; baby Kate lay in the nest of her skirt. She leaned herself against another tree, where she wouldn't be in full view of John William should he suddenly wake, yet keeping him well within her sight.
With one hand she held Danny firmly; the other hand played gently across Kate's soft, clean skin. Gloria ran one finger from the top of Kate's brow to the middle of her tummy then back up for a bop! on the tip of Kate's button nose.
“What a pretty, pretty girl,” she whispered. “You're such a pretty girl. Do you look like your mama?”
Gloria spoke to the wide blue eyes that seemed so entranced by Gloria's own face. She'd only met Katherine MacGregan once. Now she tried to recall the woman's features, to see them in this little one's face. Gloria had never seen Katherine smile; Kate's face was constant, toothless joy. Katherine's eyes were dead, distant; Kate's eyes danced with searching curiosity. Katherine's hair was shiny, blue-black. Gloria ran her hand over Kate's soft head— perfectly bald since her second week of life.
“Or do you look like your daddy?” At this, Kate emitted a moist gurgle and kicked her little feet in delight. Gloria laughed, softly, and glanced over at the sleeping form a few feet away. The man Jewell wanted her to fear.
Her hand abandoned its job of tickling Kate and came to stroke her own son's face. Danny's eyes were closed in the contentment of suckling, but they opened wide at his mother's touch.
“And you? Do you look like your daddy?” Danny's eyes held her gaze, almost as if demanding an answer. Having none for him, Gloria looked away.
With both babies fed and dressed in clean cotton gowns, Gloria went to John William, knelt, and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“MacGregan, wake up now. Time to go.”
He was instantly alert, eyes open midsnore.
“How long did I sleep?”
“Long enough.”
John William laughed. “Can't argue with that. Are the babies still awake?”
Gloria sighed and rolled her eyes. “Yes, but—”
“Good. Gather ‘em up.”
“MacGregan, it's late. 1 really think we should—”
“I'm going to step over that rise for just a minute, then I'll be right back. Get everythin’ ready. The Bible's up under the seat.”
Muttering under her breath, Gloria went to the wagon seat and pulled out the thick leather-bound book. Then she gathered the babies, sat down, and settled them into her lap. When John William returned, he took Danny into his arms, sat down, and settled the little boy into a semireclined position supported by his leg.
Gloria handed him the Bible.
“Where were we?”
“How should I know?” Gloria said. “That's your book, not mine.”
She could tell he was smiling even though he didn't look up. The tiny wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were a dead giveaway.
“It is your book, too,” he said. “You should read it.”
“I don't read any better than these little ones do,” Gloria said. “And I don't understand it any better, either.”
“My family will know Gods word.” John William looked Gloria straight in the eyes, his smile gone. “Now, I think we were in chapter thirty-three.”
“We just read when the two brothers met each other again, when they're old.”
“Ah, yes. Jacob and Esau reunited. Then we're in chapter thirty-four,” he said, and he began reading. “And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob—'”
“I thought Jacob just had sons.”
“Well, I guess he had a daughter, too.”
“Why wasn't she mentioned when she was born?”
“I'm not sure—”
“I mean, we heard all about how she bore a son and named him this and she bore a son and named him that,'” Gloria grew more irritated, “why didn't we hear about the daughter?”
“I guess she wasn't important to the story until now,” John William said.
“Why is she so important now?”
“Well," John William's voice was full of patience, “why don't you let me read and we'll find out?”
John William continued reading the chapter, but was soon interrupted again.
“What does it mean to have your ‘soul clave?” Gloria asked.
“It means Shechem loved her. The verse goes on, ‘he loved the damsel and spake kindly unto the damsel.'”
“So when it says he ‘defiled’ her—”
“It means he…took her virginity.” John William was clearly uncomfortable.
“But he loved her?”
“Yes.”
“So why use such an ugly word? Defiled”
“When a woman loses—lost her virginity in this culture…before she got married, she was…unclean. Undesirable.”
“And these are God's people?”
John William wouldn't meet her gaze.
“Tell me," Gloria continued, “does God see me as unclean? Undesirable? Defiled?”
“I don't know how He sees you,” John William said. “I'm not God.”
“Is that how you see me?”
Now, finally, his gaze met hers. “No.”
Gloria wasn't sure she completely believed him, but she rewarded him with a smile steeped in gratitude.
“Now,” he said, “may I please finish? At this rate we'll be readin’ till dark.”
Gloria nodded her consent and listened to the rest of the chapter in silence. It had been their habit, a chapter or more each day, beginning in what he called the first book. This in itself had confused her: after all, it was just one book, wasn't it? But she soon caught on, and though she'd never tell him so, she somewhat enjoyed the stories John William read each afternoon.
Today's was especially exciting. Dinah and her lover, the wrath of her brothers, the slaughter of Shechems family. She had one pressing question, but was reluctant to interrupt the reading again. She filed it away until they resumed their journey
When John William finished the chapter, he closed the Bible and bowed his head to pray Sometimes Gloria closed her eyes, too, but not today Today she looked at John William as he prayed the familiar words—thanking God for the Bible, asking for a safe journey, asking for health and strength—and she wondered if he had felt the same passion for his wife that Shechem felt for Dinah. She wondered if any man would ever put himself in danger of of a love for her. She wondered if she would have known her father if she'd been a son instead of a daughter. She wondered if she was undesirable. Defiled.
John William's deep, reading voice always put the children to sleep. Now, as a continuation of the routine, Gloria tucked them into their little crates in the back of the wagon while John William hitched up the team. He helped Gloria up into the seat and settled himself next to her.
“I'm still a little beat,” he said. “Think I'll ride a while.”
He slapped the reins softly against the horses’ flanks and made a clicking noise with his tongue. The horses began their plodding stride.
“Dinah was lucky,” Gloria said after they'd been riding in silence for a while.
“How do you figure?”
“I was…defiled…when I was thirteen years old.” Some part of her had been dwelling on the memory since John William first read the word, but the voicing of it seemed to be out of her control. “It wasn't anybody who loved me. We were in California. My mother was extremely ill. We were kicked out of the house where she…worked. We found a room in a building on the edge of town. Cheap, but not cheap enough.”
While she spoke, John William stared straight ahead. For a second she thought about just how much time he spent not looking at her. Then she continued.
“We had nothing. Just a few dollars and the clothes on our backs. The owner of the building took one look at us and knew what we had. What we were.”
The horses were taking them through a green, lush valley. The sky was clear, the air was sweet. But as Gloria spoke, she was in the small, stuffy room at the mercy of Stan Corsetti.
“We didn't have enough money for rent,” she said. “But my mother would not be turned away again. 1 remember she grabbed Mr. Corsetti's arm and said, ‘Look at her. She's beautiful, isn't she? Wouldn't you like to be her first?'”
“Dear God,” John William whispered, still not looking at her.
“So, right there, with my mother in the room, Mr. Corsetti defiled me. I don't remember much, only that he stank, and 1 was worried that 1 would smell like him.” Gloria gave a short laugh. “Unclean. After that, he visited regularly to collect the rent, and he sent up a few of his friends so we could…live.”
“I'm sorry Gloria,” John William said, still not looking at her, but looking down. “I'm so sorry.”
“So when I think about how I have never been loved even once,” Gloria said, “I can't help but think that Dinah was so lucky.”
John William cleared his throat. “I s'pose,” he said.
“Did you love your wife?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Done anything for her?”
“Of course. I took up minin’ because she wanted me to.”
“Did she love you?”
“I hope she did,” he said. “1 tried to give her everything. Do everything.”
“I hope she did, too,” Gloria said, never envying a woman more than she did the late Katherine MacGregan. Not because John William had loved her, but because somebody had.
“Any other questions?” John William asked. “Or can we give the horses a break from all this chatter?”
“Just one,” Gloria said. “What's ‘circumcised'?”
John William turned to look at her, his face puzzled. “I beg your pardon?”
“Circumcised. That's what caused all the problems in the story today. What is it?”
“It's…well…” John William stammered through a definition, breaking eye contact once again and, as far as Gloria could tell, blushing. When he finished, he gave a short laugh, looked at her, smiled, and looked away.
“What's so funny?” Gloria asked, a little embarrassed herself, but amused at his obvious discomfort.
“It's just…” he began.
“What?”
“I figured, if anyone should know…” His voice trailed off as he shrugged a gesture in her direction.
“I never looked,” she said. “It was easier that way.”
They retreated into silence again, an oddly comfortable silence that gave Gloria a sense of the beginning of healing. The feeling intensified when John William reached over and covered her hand with his own.
“That's all behind you now, you know,” he said, giving her hand a small squeeze.
“It's never really behind you,” Gloria said, drawing her hand away.
“It can be, with God.”
“I know what God thinks of me. I know what I am. I just never had a word for it until today.”