Unrestricted Vision

R. Boon

November 23, 2013

Unrestricted Vision

            “Where is that good fer nuthin cow?” Lily called out, not quietly.  She was a stout woman, with a ridge of gray hair streaked through her black bun, which people whispered about, connecting the mark to her powers.  She expected to be listened to.  “Uriel?” she called, stepping out the screen door onto the sagging porch.

            Uriel Vanoy, her husband, walked back down the road, his work boots half-laced, flopping, his overalls loose.  His big brown mutt, Gabe, followed him, touching his hand every third or fourth step.  “Lily, darlin’, they can hear you cross the river and three counties into Illinois.”

            “Maybe they can, but you don’t seem to.”  She lodged her hands on her hips, elbows flared out.  “Where’s the cow?  Where’s my bucket of milk?”

            Uriel smiled.  “I kept out a good quart, for us tonight.  But that old widow up the hill with all them kids, well, she had some need, so I let her have the cow for a few days.”

            Lily opened her mouth, said nothing.  The screen door slammed behind her.

            They both heard the loud engine noise of Jed Miller’s pickup running down the road, hard.  Lily stepped back out on the porch, as the truck slowed.  Jed, their nearest neighbor here in the bottoms, leaned out the window, and said, “it’s the boy.  Pete broke his damn arm rollin’ them logs up to our woodcut.”  He nodded at his son.  “Looks bad enough I’m gonna take him to the clinic, up on the bluff.” 

            “Better stop for Rosy and take her along.  You’ll never hear the end tof it otherwise,” Uriel called out.

“You’re right,” said Jed. “I’ll get her.”  He touched his hat and roared off.

            Lily set her mouth hard.  “Didn’t I tell you to get right down there to Pete and warn him about that log?  I saw it clear.  No reason for that arm to be broke or them to have to pay for a doctor.”

            Uriel shuffled the dust and didn’t look up.  “Well, Lily, I was gettin’ the cow up the road, the other direction.  I was on my way.  Just not fast enough.”

            “Forty some years, and you still have no respect for my vision.  Next month, we’re getting a phone line put in here.  There’s no depending on you to keep people safe.”  She returned inside, slamming the screen door again.  The hinge wobbled.

            Indeed, Lily had vision and people for fifty miles around would come ask her advice.  Louise Becker came in to ask about her daughter’s engagement, Brick Henry needed to know about taking those “damn St. Louis tourists” out on his john boat, Suzy Jackson asked about the weather next month when she wanted to go to Little Rock, others came in to ask about canning, or which dress pattern would get the most attention.  She refused to talk to George Robinson about the stock market, calling it “immoral gambling.”  She sent a note to Wanda about the blacksnake that was going to get into her henhouse. 

            By six, everyone knew it was too late to call.  Uriel came into his wife’s little parlor that doubled as her meeting room.  “Lily, I feel bad about Jed’s boy, not listening to you and getting over to there fast enough.  Let’s walk up the hill and catch a ride into town.  We’ll have a real nice supper at Richardson’s Café.  I bet Freida’s got some of her peach cobbler fixed up.  Might even have some nice cold cream to pour over it.”

She refused, righteously.  “You need to fix that hinge,” she said, and went back to making vision notes for folks tomorrow.  Uriel let her alone, and cooked up the best meal he could, set out the dishes nice, and even opened the last jar of raspberry jam.  They didn’t talk much, but Lily smiled when he piled two extra scoops of butter and jam on her biscuits.

            After supper, he took her hand.  “Come on, just you and me, old gal.  Let’s walk up to the bluff and look out at the river and watch the stars.”

            She smiled back at him.  “Oh, Uriel, you may not ever have a responsible bone in your body, but you are the sweetest man.”  She squeezed his hand.  “I’m tired.  Let’s get to bed.  Long day tomorrow.  I have a dozen visions I’ve got to get out to folks.”

Uriel nodded.  “Let me check the critters, and I’ll be in.”  Outside, he whistled at Gabe, who bounded up, all enthusiasm.  Uriel bent down, rubbed his cheeks and ears.  “Gabe, old boy, time for you to get out of here.  I’m gonna open up the pen, let them damn pigs out, and I want you to head em up to high ground over there.  And you stay there.  You stay up there.”  He pointed, walked two steps, pointed.  And so it was, when he let the pigs out, Gabe was at their heels, headed in the right direction.  “Bye, Gabe,” he whispered, low enough not to distract the dog.

            Uriel went in, washed his hands and face, and climbed into bed with Lily, who was already fair asleep.  He held her tight, through the first tremors that no one would notice if they weren’t up, walking around.

He remembered the terms of his gift, way back when he was a kid, way before he met Lily, crying out into the blackest night, and the great voice out of the penetrating light had answered, blessed him to know, to really know, yet had added, “the greater the vision, the more restriction—suggest, lead, but you can’t tell people the future, you can’t control the great events of the world.  People must have their own will, choose their own destinies.”

In bed, he whispered, “Aw, Lily, I’ll always love you.  Wish we could a had another forty years.”  He kissed the back of her neck, and stroked her cheek.  She turned and looked at him, blinked a couple times, and smiled back.  She kissed him, lightly on the lips, as the great fault in the earth slid loose, and the whole valley sunk fifteen foot in a second, and the great river rushed in, killing everyone and everything that hadn’t already gotten to high ground.

© 2013, Robert E. Boon