Lee strained his eyes as the room darkened. “There’s something else, see. Did Nan tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
He cocked his head. “They hung a man in Illinois. In Collinsville, near St. Louis. A whole mob of them did. For making speeches or the like.”
“St. Louis.”
“Near so.”
“That’s three hundred miles.”
Lee shrugged. “Name of the man was Robert Prager. A coal miner. He was from a place called Dresden.”
“Dresden? He’s a German.”
“They let Prager write a letter home before they did it.”
“A letter to Dresden. I don’t suppose he said much to explain himself.”
“It was those speeches that got him in trouble. But it was just talk. That’s what Nan says. Nothing worth hanging a man about. Still it’s in all the papers. No one will leave it alone.”
“Well.” A hollowness turned in my stomach.
“So I’ve been thinking. ” The boy swallowed. “They say Wilson might lower the draft to eighteen. Maybe this fall, maybe before that.”
“The fall is months off. The war might be over then.”
Lee shifted. The wind swept through the door and fell to a hush. The yelps of the dogs grew in number. “That’s just it,” he said. “Suppose it’s not.”
“No use worrying ahead of a thing.”
He shook his head. “I’m not worried.”
“Well then.”
“See, I got to thinking. With Ray hurt and all. ”
“You can stop your thinking about that.”
“. and Elliot the way he is.”
“The man will be fine come spring. We’ll fix the channel for him, finish our own.”
“But what people are saying, the way me and Ray aren’t over there. We’ve lost five boys from town. A sixth’s gone missing. And it’s only the start. Tom Elliot would never have been in Europe if it weren’t for us. Now he’s the worse, maybe his mother too.”
“Because of the Germans, you mean. That boy was eager enough to sign himself up. And Mary, that’s altogether different. I never heard of a homecoming bringing unhappiness to a mother.”
Lee shifted again. “Suppose I drafted early. Then they’d know we’re on the same side.”
I turned to see him. Oil clung to his skin with whatever contraption he was in the shed fixing. He was always at fixing something. Now another of my boys wished to go back the way I had come. “Lee. ”
“I’ve already decided, see. Every boy who’s worth his weight is going. Even Carl McNulty. Even after he gave Nan a ring. And now they’re all talking about who isn’t. With Ray out, it’s got to be me.”
“So you’re telling me, not asking.”
He scratched his head. “If you don’t want me to go, you can say. But if you want me to, you don’t have to say a thing. I’ll go to the office next week, sign my name.”
“Your mother will never forgive us.”
Lee was silent. The cold reached inside my collar, my sleeves. It seemed we could be anywhere. The solid earth lay both below and above our heads.
“Does that mean you want me to go?” asked Lee.
I could not speak. In the near dark, only the rising pitch of the wind and the wooden cot that creaked beneath our weight. All this time we had made what we considered right. We had worked the land. We had kept our troubles to ourselves. Yet keeping to ourselves no longer seemed an option to us. Even Margrit had said it: You keep to yourself too much.
“I am not saying go.”
“But you’re not saying don’t.”
I stood and peered out the door, my shoulder against the rotting sill. The two brothers who had the place built, I often wondered where they had taken themselves. To leave so much behind. To simply vanish. I turned and reached out my hand, my palm on my son’s forehead. Lee leaned against it. His skin blazed with warmth. “I am not telling you one way or another,” I said. Lee never moved. My hand trembled. “You may think it will fix everything, but people believe whatever is useful to them. If you are going, you go for your own reasons. I cannot keep you from that.”
In the early dark the next morning, Margrit shook me from my sleep. Outside, a strange sun appeared on the horizon, our curtains colored with a furious light. My wife gathered her shawl to her throat and pressed her forehead to the window. She whispered my name.
It was a fire. One that rose from a mound of sticks in a circle of snowmelt, high enough the men seemed but children around it. Their clothes were dark. Their faces nearly hidden by scarves. In their hands, they held torches. When they saw us at the window, they turned and headed down the road on foot. Only four stayed behind. The fire spelled a crooked letter K, an R, and a cross at the end. When I spoke the letters aloud, the word came together: kraut.
In the light of the torches that remained, I could name them: Conners, Wilkerson, Elliot, and Tom.
I turned from the window. Outside our room, Nan and the boys stood in the parlor looking out. Their bedclothes glowed. The boys held their guns.
“If you’d only let us fight,” said Ray.
I opened the front door and shut it behind me. From the porch, the fire looked higher yet.
“Pay up, Prager,” they shouted.
Wilkerson stepped up, hat in hand. Council of National Defense, he might have called himself. “We’ve heard there are un-American activities taking place in this house. Snatching land. Keeping your boys from the draft. Five hundred in bonds should prove it otherwise. Eight hundred the better.”
I kept my fists in my pockets. “I will not pay. Not with your torches. Not at this time of night. The one boy I have of age has his deferment. As far as the land. ”
“We can’t scare him,” called a voice.
Wilkerson caught hold of my wrist. Conners joined him. They dragged me from the porch and bound my hands with rope. When I struggled, the rope jerked up sharp. I dropped to my knees in the snow. “I’m not afraid.”
A gunshot cracked. The men ducked. Ray hurried between the torches, a rifle in the hook of his arm. He swung the gun and the men fell back. Lee joined in, unbinding the rope. He held me so I might lean against him.
Tom shouted, “You can’t even aim that thing.”
“I heard about you,” said Ray. On the trigger, his good hand shook. “They say you went some kind of crazy.”
Tom made a grab for the gun. Lee pulled him up short, and Ray pitched the barrel at Tom’s throat.
“Stop it, the both of you,” I yelled.
“You’ve gone too far, boys.”
The group turned. Clark stumbled out of the fields. An ill man in his nightshirt and heavy boots, his cheeks slick, a coat loose on his shoulders. The others quieted. Ray lowered his gun. “My daughters saw the torches from our place,” said Clark. “Scared them to death.” He gave the men a sour look and took myself and Elliot aside. “Let’s go into the house and talk.”
“Eight hundred for those bonds, Hess,” Conners spit. “And that’s to start.”
Clark waved him off. “Get buckets for that fire or I’ll call the deputy on you.”
The three of us climbed the porch steps, Tom and Lee following. Ray stood his ground. “I’ll keep a watch.” Margrit huddled at the door, waiting. The fire behind us had faded, buckets or not. She wiped a hand across her eyes. In the hall, Nan had gathered the girls, Myrle sheltered between them like the child she still barely was. As we passed, Tom gazed at her in her gown. Elliot jerked the boy by the arm. Nan rushed the girls up the stairs at once.
In the kitchen we sat about the table in the lamplight. The men seemed rabid, a fever in them. I ached from the rub of that rope, blood in my mouth. Lee stayed quiet.