Virgin Earth

Winter 1651

In a dark afternoon of December as Hester was closing the shutters in the rarities room and the parlor she heard a horse walking steadily up the road. She went to the window and looked out, as she always did whenever she heard a single horseman riding by the house. She looked without expectation of seeing her son, but she looked, just as she burned the candle: because he should always be looked for, because a vigil should always be kept for him.

When she saw the size and solidity of the horse, she blinked and rubbed her eyes because for a moment she thought it must be Caesar. But she had thought that she had seen Caesar so many times before that she did not start forward and cry out.

He came steadily closer and she realized it was indeed Caesar, and that on his back, slumped in the saddle, was Johnnie, his warm cape wrapped around him, bare-headed, finding his way home along the darkened road as much by memory as by sight.

She did not scream or cry or run; Hester had never been a woman for screaming or crying or running. She went quietly to the front door and opened it, opened the garden gate, and stepped quietly across the little bridge over the stream, into the road. Caesar pricked up his ears at the whisper of her skirt, gray against twilight, and quickened his pace. Johnnie, who had been half-asleep in the saddle, glanced up and saw the figure of a woman, waiting in the lane, as if she had waited for him at the gatepost ever since he had left.

“Mother?” His voice was a little hoarse.

“My son.”

He reined in the horse and tumbled down from the saddle. He dropped the reins and stepped toward her outstretched arms. She took his weight in the embrace as his legs buckled as he hit the ground.

“My son, my son,” she said.

He smelled different. He had gone away smelling like a well-washed boy, he came home smelling like a hard-worked man. There was a tang of woodsmoke in his hair, which was tangled and matted. His woolen cloak was heavy with grime, his boots muddy. He was thinner but hard-muscled, she could feel the strength in his shoulders and back as he held her tightly.

“Mother,” he said again.

“Praise God for you,” she whispered. “I thank God that he heard me pray and sent you home.”

She did not think she could bear to release him but after a moment more she stepped back and led him into the house. Caesar, knowing full well that he was home, walked riderless around the house into the stable yard and as Hester and Johnnie came in the front door there was an explosion of noise from the stables as the lad and John recognized the horse and came running into the house.

“He’s home!” John yelled as if he could hardly believe it.

He ran through the kitchen and into the hall and then checked at the sight of his son’s weary face and dirty clothes. Then he spread his arms to him and enfolded Johnnie in a powerful hug. “Home,” he said.