A Bucket's Depth

Pike stepped down into the ford between the boy and the far bank and lifted the mule's lead rope out of Abel's hand, the way a man takes a parcel from a lady, and held it clear of the water. His cuffs dripped. He had kept one hand dry all morning out of habit, and it was the dry one he used.

Since the Deep Well had gone under a padlock, the carts filled here below town, by bucket, from the last green pool in a bar of drying stones. Abel's cart stood axle-deep with half its barrels empty. Across the water the Ditch Company's rider sat his horse with the book open on the saddle horn. He had taken the books at noon. Now he was taking the drivers, one morning at a time, aloud.

"Abel, you've carried those buckets since morning and your arms are shaking," Pike said, "so let Mr. Vance and me answer the gentleman across the water for the cart, and we'll say it kindly and plainly, the barrels and the river, as the river is what the gentleman has come to hear about."

Cole came through the shallows and set his hand flat on the rope above Pike's fist. With the other he dipped a bucket and brought it up full.

"The pool's down a hand since noon, Pike. Say weather and the carts roll back dry; say the Conservatory's draw and the book says why they turned. I'll answer the gentleman myself, and the barrels get filled while I do."

Neither of them let go. Neither of them, Pike noted, had asked the mule.

Jonas waded in, took the chalk stub off the cart rail and pressed it into the boy's palm. He raised his slate to the far bank. ABEL. Then he put himself between Pike's hand and the boy and struck the handbell on the tailboard once.

"Abel speaks. Write it as he says it."

Abel closed his fist on the chalk and reached back for the rope.

"Two mornings the cart came back dry because the Deep Well was padlocked and I was turned back at the gate, Mr. Pike, and I'm not saying it for you, I'm saying it for the book. Last night I filled at Mrs. Delia's fence and chalked Delia Marsh, no initials, because she wrote it herself. Mr. Pike, give me back the rope, I'm not shaking."

The pool broke at its lower lip with a wet suck and went out between the stones in a long hiss. What was left was a bucket's depth of warm silt in a hollow no wider than the tailboard. Across the ford the rider dipped his pen and called the next name on his page, which was the boy's.

Pike gave Abel the rope. He stepped into the hollow where the pool had been and stood close, between the boy and the rider's eye.

"Of course, Abel, you have it, and we are glad of your arms, and we would only ask, since the gentleman is waiting on the far bank in this heat, that you tell him what you saw at the barrels and the river."

He had not asked the boy to lie. He was fairly sure of that.

Cole knelt, scooped the last of it up with both hands and poured it into an empty barrel.

"That's the pool, gone. Barrel's a third full and the Conservatory's draw is why. Abel, tell him that part first, then the gate."

Jonas wiped the slate and held it high. ABEL SAYS, WRITE ALL. The bell was in his other fist.

"Let him say the gate. Nobody tells him what comes first."

Abel stepped around Pike, chalk held up so the far bank could see it, and tugged the rope once to settle the mule.

"Mr. Pike, I'm going to say the gate first, because that's what happened first. Mr. Pike, you chalked your initials beside my load two mornings, and I never knew if that was an order or a favor, and I want the book to say I didn't know."

Across the water the rider's pen was moving. Pike stood in the warm silt with his dry hand open at his side, and the boy beside him was still holding up the chalk.