When they park, he exits the truck and lays the baby atop his shirt on the vehicle’s windward side, near the front tire. Temple goes and drops the tailgate. “The sun’s the proper angle here,” he says, while together they lift the first jute-wrapped sapling from the bed, gripping its heavy root ball from underneath. He scans the terrain, kicks at the dirt in a few places, and selects a spot. “Soil’s right. And they’ll cut the wind here just fine.” When the baked hardpan refuses a few stabs with the spade, they take turns swinging a pick to loosen it. While they’re both shovelling out the hole, a nearly imperceptible wail causes Everett to bolt back behind the truck. Temple follows and watches him flick away the spur-throated hopper clinging to the child’s cheek. “You little bastard,” he says, stepping on the bug. “Not you, Pod,” he adds, taking her up for a moment to soothe her whimpering.
When the hole is knee-deep, they shovel in some blood meal then lower the tree, which he rotates to face north, claiming he can tell how it was oriented before it was dug up; Temple can do the same with a wheat sheaf, but trees are a language prairie dwellers don’t speak. When the time comes to refill the hole, his face reddens. “I usually relieve myself in there, before closing the dirt over,” he says bashfully. “It tricks them.”
“Tricks them how?” Temple asks, straining to take his primness seriously.
“It may be a superstition, but I’ve heard it convinces them that the soil’s better than it is. So they try their best from the outset,” he says.
“Have at it then,” she says, turning around and crossing her arms.
When he finishes, they cover the root ball over with dirt, tamping it with the backs of their spades. Over the course of the afternoon they manage to drop six more maples into the ground, placed at five-foot intervals. They sit mute during the ride back, neither of them able to lift their arms over their head, the child asleep in Everett’s lap like a cat.
“Only ninety-three more to go,” Temple says exhaustedly when they reach the barn. At this rate of planting, Everett will be here two weeks. Even so, she’s not worried, given that McSorley’s visits land every month, give or take, a stopover he makes while cutting across the prairie by rail. Everett and the baby will be long gone by then.
“I keep some books in that old church over there,” Temple says after they’ve unloaded the tools. “You’re welcome to any volume you’d like. Just bring one back someday to replace it.”
“I’m ashamed to admit that I can’t read,” Everett says. “But it’s good what you’re doing here. People speak highly of this place all down the line.”
Back at the house, Temple parts the leafy skirt of the willow that hangs all the way to the ground. “I’ve got some water in here if you’re thirsty,” she says, leading him into the canopy. Inside, the ground is cool and moist, the high dome forming a green, leafy room. Everett lays the sleeping infant down on his shirt, and he and Temple sit with their backs to the trunk. She fills two pewter cups with a wooden dipper from a bucket as the willow’s switches sway, allowing cuttings of light between them.
“I prefer it in here to those dusty fields of yours,” Everett says. “I’m not used to seeing that far. Too much distance makes me dizzy.”
“This farm’s previous owner was English,” Temple says. “And when he first settled here he encircled the house with willows and Garry oaks, except they all came up dwarfed and stumpy from lack of moisture. But somehow this one willow thrived. Must be an underground spring feeding it, the same one that feeds my well, I expect. Where it runs to or from I have no idea.”
After they’ve replenished themselves, they both sit quiet for a while and listen to the sighs of the leaves.
“So how does a child get a name like Pod?” she asks. He’d used it when he shooed the hopper from her face, and for a moment he looks stunned, as though he’s never heard the name spoken aloud before.
“Oh, it’s more a nickname,” he says dismissively. “Like ‘seedpod.’ Those little whirlers that maples send out—she reminds me of one. She’ll have a different name someday. A proper one.”
“When’s that?”
His eyes go vacant and seem to look inward. “When I get her where she needs to go.”
“She yours?” she asks, as lightly as she can.
“I’m her uncle,” he says. “We’re headed out West. Her family lives there.”
“You know, nobody ever accused me of nosiness,” she says. “I don’t pester those who turn up here with questions about their past. I figure if you’re here, you need to be. But there’s something I have to say. A short while back a railroad detective came around, a man named McSorley. He said he’s hunting a tramp who beat a man and has taken to the rails with a kidnapped infant.”
“I’m her uncle,” Everett repeats tensely, though he reddens at the ears.
She exhales. “That child doesn’t look a thing like you, Everett.”
He turns from her gaze and pours himself another cup of water, then holds up the cup but doesn’t drink, using it to conceal his mouth while he speaks. “Think what you like. I didn’t kidnap anyone.”
“You’re an awful liar,” she says, patting his head as if he’s a boy. “But no kidnapper ever fussed over a child the way you do that one. So I’m going to act like I believe you. Still, you’d best not linger here. Once we’ve got those trees in and you two are back to full strength, I’ll pay you for your work and you can be on your way. McSorley is about the only person in the world my men are afraid of. But they value this place even more, so I expect they’ll keep your presence here to themselves. In the short term, anyway.”
“You’re kind,” he says, taking another sip of water. “We’ll get those trees in. Then we’re gone. You have my word.”
THE HISTORY OF SEED CRUSHING IN GREAT BRITAIN
THE NEXT EVENING, after the tree planting is done and Everett and Pod have eaten dinner on the porch with the others—who have allowed them a place at the table, but still greet their presence with disdain—Everett sits at a pew in the ramshackle library, where beleaguered books climb the walls in toppling towers. By lamplight he wills his eyes to read Pod’s journal, hoping that the great surplus of words collected on the shelves will somehow rub off on him, just from his sitting close by. Though the jam smears are permanent, as is the coal dust blackening its pages, he hopes to someday repair the journal’s cracked cover and preserve it for Pod as a gift. She may care to read it someday, once he finds her a good home and someone to teach her how. It will be a comfort in a life lived without kinfolk. If Everett had something like that when he was a boy, something written by his true mother, whoever she was, maybe he would’ve turned out better.
He hears the door come open, and swiftly he snatches a book from the nearest shelf and stuffs the journal into the gap it left behind. He splits the new book before him and leans in close, feigning intense concentration.
“Where’s the little one?” Temple says beside him, her hand alighting birdlike on his shoulder, a gesture that steals his breath whenever she does it.