Wild Card Run

A bright chain of colored lights winked out of the darkness from the direction he’d gone, following the route of the monorail. They curved and snaked toward me, a submerged glow flowing through the dark field, but all I could hear was the restless breeze.

“Just about time. Give me a hand with this rope, Ruth?” It was Joshua leaning over the porch rail.

“Oh. Sure.” I straightened and stepped down into the light from the bobbing lantern, turning to look up at him.

“Marda wants this—Ruth?” He broke off, his mouth hanging open. “Blazes! For a second there, I thought . . .” He shook his head and grinned. “Hit me with a heat wind if you don’t look like a gal tonight, Ruthie! Come on.”

I helped him spread the plaited straw rope Marda had interwoven with papery blue wildflowers into a loose circle around the largest fan tree. He stepped back to admire it. “There! Looks real pretty. Just like she did for our binding party.”

“That was only four years ago, wasn’t it?”

“Yep. Glad Peter’s binding in, I missed him.” Peter was one of Joshua’s childhood friends. “And we can sure use the help in the fields.”

I picked up the traditional copper lantern to hand him. “Then you don’t mind having a little less of Marda already?” I spoke without thinking.

He paused in the act of hanging the unlit lantern from the lowest bough, giving me the old look of incomprehension. “You always did say the darnedest things, Ruth.”

He grinned and waved as Marda and Thomas appeared with the children. There was a faint murmur of voices beneath the wind as the lights flowed toward us through the field. David came pelting out of the dark, taking his place with us in the family circle and proclaiming breathlessly, “They’re coming!”

Then in a swirl of wind and bobbing lanterns and music they burst out of the night. The singers went before, the players on instruments followed after. Amongst them were the maidens playing with timbrels.

The Book of Words came alive in a riot of voices, ringing bells, and swirling skirts as the women, singing and playing their instruments, scattered into the yard. Horns and flutes took up the tune of the binding song, and the rich voices of the matrons followed them. Children swarmed into the yard and formed a circle, hands clasped as they turned and joined the song in a merry round. Deep bass tones filled in as the children spun faster in their bright colors, and the men broke out of the night, bellowing their song and pulling the flower-and-bell-laden wagon to a stop at the edge of the lights.

The dark-haired young man sitting on top grinned sheepishly and stood. A cry of welcome rose from the throng.

Bells and horns and tambourines tumbled into the racket, and the dancing circle exploded into a rush of bodies to surround the wagon. A cheer went up as the men hoisted the groom onto their shoulders and carried him once around the yard, trailing the excited crowd of children. They set him on his feet before the family circle, and everyone fell back in an expectant hush.

Peter, the white groom sash tied in its complicated knot around his waist, touched his hands to his heart and then held them out to Marda. He remained silently standing, his eyes sparking as they fixed on her.

She smiled, and I understood his ardent look. She was the perfection of Poindran womanhood as she stood poised in her pale-blue gown among the excited crowd, small and delicate and rounded, smooth porcelain tinted with soft hues beneath a dark crown of hair interwoven with a blue ribbon.

“Welcome, Peter.” Her low voice fell into the hush. Thomas and Joshua echoed her.

Two small boys came forward from the crowd, walking with nervous care as if afraid they might drop the thin sheaf of grain and the lighted lamp they gave into Peter’s hands. He walked slowly toward us.

As Marda reached out her hand to guide him over the plaited rope, Joshua took the sheaf and Thomas reached up to light the copper lantern from the flame of Peter’s lamp. The underside of the rustling leaves lit up in a bright green canopy overhead.

Marda and Peter turned outward to the guests, raising their clasped hands, and a roar of approval met them.

A young man burst from the throng in a series of handsprings across the dirt yard. A tumbling knot of his friends followed, tossing and catching each other as their strong bodies flashed in arcs above the ground, honed by their work high in the windtowers. I caught an eager breath as I watched their play, the springing forms launched by quick arms and caught by others, the exuberant leaps through windy air. Around the lithe figures a great spinning wheel seemed to take shape, tower arms rising into the wind and sun, catching a gleam of holding lines as Joshua and I counted out the rhythm of the cycle and launched ourselves from the arm into a flying leap for the next rising spoke.

Freedom in the high air . . . I sighed as the young men took their last springs backward and the crowd rushed in to engulf us.

oOo

The night was a blur of laughing faces, music, bobbing lights and shadow, and skirts swirling in the dust of the rowdy festival dances. I took my proper place behind the refreshment table, cutting cakes and pouring juice for the matrons who came in curious flocks. I pretended not to notice their shifting glances, the whispered conferences, the slight hesitations before they accepted food from the hands of a spacer.

I tried to imitate Marda’s gracious smile and not see the young bachelors gathered by the mead barrel, laughing and throwing looks my way and daring each other to talk to me.

“Go on, Luke, you—” A brown-haired young man was pushed away from the laughing group.

“Hey! Blast you!” He whirled in a cloud of dust to grapple the arms that had pushed him. Amid shouts and jeering, a wrestling, struggling knot of sun-browned bachelors writhed across the dirt and knocked over the mead barrel, sending it rolling toward the dancers and leaving a moist, pungent trail behind it.

“By the Founder—!”

“Merciful cybers, what’s gotten into them?”

The matrons fluttered back in shock and the music rattled to a stop, the dancers turning in bewilderment. As the dust settled, Joshua and Thomas strode through the silence to disentangle the contentious young men.

“Here, now, you young pups!” Thomas took two by the back of their unembroidered bachelor vests. “What’s got into you?”

Joshua separated two more who were rolling and thrashing through the dust. “If’n you can’t handle your mead, then don’t drink with the men!”

A pale flutter of blue drifted through the milling crowd, and behind it the music rose again into the night. The dancers resumed their circular patterns. Marda moved gracefully from matron to matron, drawing them away to help her unwrap and display the gifts brought by the guests. But I still stood isolated by a circle as plain as the family’s flowered rope. The matrons shook their heads as they moved off, and even above the wind and music I caught snatches of words. “Whatever are they thinking?”

“Inviting a spacer to bring more trouble! As if we haven’t had enough! You know what they say about them.”

“It’s not fitting. Why, just look at her face, and you can see what sort she is! Probably one of those . . .”

I busied myself tidying the table and helping Joshua and Thomas put the cups to rights near the rescued barrel.

“You’re not going to get away with it, you know.”

Startled, I looked up, and then up the husky height of the stranger into the snap of very blue eyes. “What?” Had they found me out already?

He winked, and a humorous smile animated his pleasantly homely face. “Prettiest gal here, and not dancing! Would you do me the honor, Mistress?” He held out his arm.

“Oh!” I hesitated, seeing the faces still staring at me across the yard. I raised my chin. “Thank you, I will.” The stares followed as he walked me across the yard and the music announced a festival dance. I held my back straight, my lips in a careful smile.

But my partner grinned and winked as the music swelled, and I couldn’t help joining his laughter as his large hands caught me around the waist and swung me into the opening twirl. His exuberance was irresistible, and all the dancers smiled, jumping with one will into the flowing circular patterns. I dove recklessly into the passing line, weaving and brushing the twisting bodies, laughing and peering through the gold-lighted haze of rising dust, slapping the palm of my returning partner, spinning, then away again, gasping into the quickening beat of drums. Then he was back, that great grin, and up! My head swept the night air and my skirts flared in a gleaming circle around and around in a bright blur of light and laughter.

His big hands guided me gently through the settling dust, and he smiled. “I thank you, Mistress.” He glanced up at the night sky and back to me, winking again. “Give my regards to the stars next time you’re out that way.”

I stood watching after the broad back of his embroidered vest, then slowly smiled. I nodded and threaded my way through the noisy flock to the deserted house.