Gabriel's Story Read Online Free PDF Page B

right. Now I know. You go on now and help your brother.”
    Gabriel turned, for a second responding like a dismissed schoolboy. But he paused by the door, blinking in the sunlight. “You won’t never be able to say I didn’t work the goddamn land.” With that, he stepped from her view.
    DURING THE AFTERNOON, the two men ventured off to design a new room for Hiram. Gabriel and Ben worked on with the plow, taking turns leading the animals and guiding that rough tool. Gabriel couldn’t help cursing under his breath, profanity a necessary feature of the labor. He didn’t pause to survey his progress, nor to drink, as Ben often did. He turned himself to the work as if to destroy the land, the tools, the animals, or himself as quickly as possible. As the hours passed, he found none of these things easy to break.
    Ben became the silent one. His brow furrowed in worry. It seemed he was slowly coming to grips with the reality of this work and its duration. Several times he seemed on the verge of offering some confidence to his brother, but the other showed only his back, his muscles, and his exertion. As dusk came on, Ben asked if maybe they should quit for the day. Gabriel said the day wasn’t over but he could quit if he wanted to. Ben thought this over. “I’ll just go get some more water.” He walked toward the house with the empty waterskin thrown over his shoulder.
    Gabriel called the beasts into motion and found that they listened. Alone with them he struggled forward, but either they were tired or the sod had woven itself into chainmail. He made no progress, though he strained and the animals rolled their eyes and pawed the turf. The blade stuck. The plow overturned. Gabriel stumbled over it and bruised his knees and shouted at Raleigh to stop. He cursed the plow and damned it well and beyond redemption and so thoroughly prayers could not hope to save it. He kicked it, but this he regretted, as the iron cage of the thing lashed back at his foot and sent him hobbling. Raleigh and the mule watched him.
    When he had spent his curses, he contemplated the whole sad scene from a distance of twenty paces. With the day’s labor they had striated a small section of the prairie with raised lines of sliced turf. There was little sign of the soil beneath, and the lines resembled seams more than furrows, as if the turf had already stitched its wounds and begun to heal. Gabriel wondered who was getting the worst of this day, the ground or his own body. His legs were so tired that they trembled supporting him; his arms ached with a dull soreness, and certain motions sent a swath of pain across his back. He spat and stood waiting for something to come, as if the earth were entitled to the next move and he was content to wait his turn.
    But as the earth did nothing, Gabriel strode to the rear of the house and got the ax from the shelter there. He carried it back, dangling from one hand. Standing out before Raleigh, he measured the arc of his swing and sought to find the proposed line of the plow’s progress. The ax swung up, cut through the air and down into the earth. It bit. Gabriel released the handle and contemplated the angle at which the shaft projected toward him. He seemed to find a certain satisfaction in this. He cranked the blade out of the earth, took a step back, and swung once more. Without a pause, he worked the blade free and repeated the action, once, twice, and then onward, hammering into the turf a halting, imprecise incision. Each stroke was a new act of increasing fury, stronger and deeper, punctuated by grunts and profanities. The horse and mule watched him with nervous eyes, as if beholding some crazed woodsman who had forgotten the true target of his trade.
    Ben returned with the waterskin. “Gabe, what the hell you doing?”
    â€œI’m learning the ground.”
    â€œLooks like you gone and lost your sense to me.”
    Gabriel didn’t protest this