What Frees the Heart

by Karen A. Wyle

  Relax her, sure. Perspective, not likely, but getting to drink sherry instead of colored water, the customers paying liquor prices for it, was treat enough. That word in her head made her think of her ice cream, not finished and melting by the door, and she burst into tears again. Mamie looked vexed. “What am I going to do about you, girl? You’re over your monthlies, aren’t you?”

  Jenny tried to stop and finally did. She didn’t want to waste the easy chair and the sherry on sniffing and blowing. Mamie, reassured, sat back and sipped her drink. “That’s better. Young or old, we’ve got to be tough in this business.”

  Jenny poured half her sherry down her throat in two big gulps. Mamie sat up and plucked Jenny’s glass out of her fingers with half an inch left in it. “That’s enough lazing around. You go on up and wash your face. Plenty of customers’ll be here before you know it.”

  Jenny handed Mamie back the handkerchief. “Thanks for the borrow. Oh, you want I should wash it?”

  Mamie’s face had gone all business, but now it went softer. “Never you mind, child. I’ll give it to the laundry. Run along.”

  Chapter 15

  Tom was sitting on the front steps reading his Bible, to sort of make up for the Sabbath-breaking he hoped to be doing sooner or later, when a cowboy rode up on a tall bay mare, sitting on one saddle with another slung along the side. Tom put the Bible down, carefully and with respect, on the porch near the steps and hoisted himself up to go meet the cowboy in the yard. Close up, both the cowboy and the saddle, the newer-looking one, looked familiar. He’d been doing the simpler cutting and shaping on one just like it — the saddle, that is — a few days before. As best he recalled, the saddle’s owner rode for the Two Rivers Ranch.

  The cowboy dismounted, pulled the newer saddle down and held it out for Tom to see. “Could’ve asked ol’ Finch about getting this fancied up, but I figured I’d save some coin and do you a favor both, just as long as you can work quick enough that my old saddle don’t fall to pieces first.”

  Tom tried to smile easy, like this’d happened plenty of times. “I should be able to oblige you. Why don’t we go to the barn, and you can set that saddle on the work bench and tell me what you’d like to see on it.”

  All of a sudden, the cowboy looked bashful. “Well, now. You see, I’ve a liking for a particular kind of bird. A bird someone around here must’ve liked plenty, seeing as they named a creek after it.”

  There might be another creek with a bird’s name on it, but Tom guessed the one everyone knew about. “Cowbird?”

  “Yup. Now I know they’re kind of plain and fat when they’re just sitting, on a cow or a fence post. But I have a sort of fondness for a bird that likes hanging around cattle, like I do. And when they take off and fly overhead, with the light coming through the wing feathers, I’d call that purty, and —” (this with a defiance that gave the lie to the words) “— I don’t care who knows it.”

  Seeing as the cowboy did care, Tom looked for a way to ease his mind. “I could maybe not trouble too much over it having exactly the shape of a cowbird flying, so long as the wings are out and the feathers look about right. Small as the design’ll have to be, it shouldn’t stand out as a cowbird unless you tell folks.”

  He thought he could picture what the cowboy had in mind. What he couldn’t quite see was him doing it, not with the swivel knife he’d used before. He’d have to come up with something thinner. And it wouldn’t help that the saddle’d already been oiled. He’d need to oil some scrap leather and figure out how to work on it. All of which would take some time.

  Tom settled himself on the seat by the workbench and said in as casual a tone as he could muster, “This’ll be a job with a lot of finicky work in it. And of course, once I set tool to leather, there’s no undoing it. So I’ll be practicing on other leather first, practicing plenty.

  “Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll charge you less’n I would normally, even though it’s more work, to make up for you having to wait a little longer for your saddle.”

  The cowboy stayed standing, and his hand twitched toward the saddle like he was planning to pick it up again. “What if you can’t do what I want, after all your practicing?”

  Tom stood up and looked him in the eye. “Here’s how I see it. I won’t start on the actual saddle unless I’m sure I can do it right, nor charge nothing. You ain’t gambling the saddle, nor any money. But you’d have to gamble a little time. Are you up for that wager?”

  Like he’d hoped, the cowboy didn’t want to back down from a bet. “Sure, I’ll do that. I’ve already seen you do nice work. And you think you can do it, right?”

  Did he? ‘Think’ didn’t mean knowing for sure and certain. “That’s right. Do we have a deal?”

  “Yup, we do.” The cowboy stuck out his hand. Tom shook it, feeling the callouses from rope and reins.

  Tom nodded toward the saddle. “Well, then, I’d best get started. How about you come back and check on things in three days’ time?”

  Good thing he’d already gathered plenty of scrap leather. It was going to take most of it, Tom figured, to get these birds right.

  He figured wrong. It took more. He had to scrounge at home, and at work the next day, and he still had to give up some chaps with plenty of wear left in ‘em. Not that he’d be riding, but it still hurt.

  Lamp oil did well enough in place of what he used at Finch’s, so at least he didn’t have to sneak some home or ask Finch for the favor. Finding a way to carve wings with sun shining through ‘em, or as close as he could come on leather, had him stumped for longer. But by the time he’d got his leather close enough to a finished saddle and could carve on it with the swivel knife, he hit on using a nail, tapping the head with a hammer to poke lots of little holes in a row. It took nigh on forever, and by the time he had it right, his eyes were blurring from working by lamplight and not sleeping more’n four hours at night.

  Then, when he finally got started on the saddle itself, he had such a scare when he made a wrong cut that he almost pissed himself. But he managed to fix it so’s it looked all right and like he’d meant to do it.

  Ma had been fussing at him almost the whole time, along of his using up lamp oil and not sleeping and getting big dark circles under his eyes. But when she got to hovering around and nagging, Pa took her arm and gave a gentle tug away from where Tom was working, saying, “You let him be, hon. He’s got this to do, and he’ll have to find the best way, which he won’t do quicker for your jawing at him.”

  It was his sister who first saw the finished saddle, wandering into the barn after she washed up before morning chores. The light slanted in, just reaching the work bench and hitting the leather so the design fair jumped out. He’d have pulled something over the saddle to hide it if he’d seen her coming, but she was good at creeping up behind. He first knew she was there when she said right behind his shoulder, “Is that what you’ve been doing these three days?”

  The way he jumped, if he’d had a tool in his hand near the leather he might have wrecked everything. He spun around on the seat and yelled, “Don’t you sneak up on me like that!”

  She blew her hair out of her eyes and rolled them at him. “Oh, pooh, you scaredy cat.” She sidled closer and took a long look.

  He didn’t mean to ask, but somehow it came out. “Well, what do you think?”

  He could see her think about teasing him and then decide agin it. “I think it’s right fine. I wish I could do something like that.”

  He relaxed and gave her shoulder a little squeeze. “Why, you stitch pictures better’n just about anybody, ‘most as good as Ma. You just keep on with that, and you’ll get even better. You and Ma can have a contest, even.”

  She laughed at that notion, but she looked pretty chipper as she trotted off to her chores.

  The cowboy showed up right when Tom was heading off to work. Tom turned right around. Finch could wait for once. He walked as quick as he could back to the barn, the cowboy falling into step beside h
im. Tom fetched the saddle and hauled it outside into the sunlight, putting it down on a stump. “There you are, and I sure hope it’s what you had in mind, because I don’t mind saying I’m pretty pleased with it.”

  The cowboy hoisted the saddle and turned it this way and that. When he looked back at Tom, his eyes were wide and his mouth a little open before he said, “And I don’t mind saying I’m pleased. And paying you what I owe.”

  The cowboy put the saddle back down to fish out coins and count them before handing them over. As the coins hit Tom’s hand, warm from the cowboy’s trousers, he mumbled, “Thankee,” and watched as the cowboy carried the saddle to his horse. The cowboy took off the saddle he’d rode in on and strapped the new one in place, muttering to the horse to keep him from fidgeting. Then he stood there for a second before holding the old saddle out to Tom. “Don’t reckon I’ll be needing this one. Even if something happened to the new one, this one’s so wore out I’d be a fool to ride it. Maybe you could use it for your practicing, next time you’ve a need.”

  Tom swallowed hard and took the old saddle. “Reckon I could.”

  The cowboy swung up onto his horse, took the reins, and said, “I’ll be showing this all round the ranch. Happen you’ll see some of the other hands here, wanting something of their own. But I’d take it kindly if you don’t make the same birds for any of ‘em. I want my saddle to stay special.”

  Tom had a moment of regret that all that practice went for only one saddle. But he should be able to use what he’d learned on some other kind of picture. “I can do that, sure.”

  The cowboy nodded, tipped his hat, and rode away. Tom stood watching until his first customer had gone quite a piece down the road before heading off to Finch’s.

  Tom walked in the door ten minutes late, which made it ten minutes later’n he’d ever shown up. Finch was sitting down smoking a pipe, and shook his head like a preacher at the funeral of someone heading to Hell. “What’s this, then?”

  Tom had no intention of telling him. “Sorry, Mr. Finch. I’ll try not to let it happen again.”

  Finch frowned at him saying try, but took another puff on his pipe instead of saying anything. Tom looked around for whatever Finch would be wanting him to do. He didn’t see any job waiting, which made him feel better at having been late and more sour at Finch complaining of it.

  Finch put his pipe aside and stood up. “We’re off to pick up some hides from the Two Rivers Ranch. You can bring my wagon around to the front.”

  Tom near choked on his own spit. “Two Rivers Ranch. Yessir.”

  Finch could’ve picked up the hides without a helper, but this way he got to sit back on the seat next to Tom while Tom drove, blathering on about everything from next week’s weather to Nebraska politics to when the grasshoppers would be coming back (any minute, seemingly). Tom did as little listening as he could manage, trying to pick out different bird calls instead. This time, he listened special for the cluck-and-squeak of a brown-headed cowbird, and smiled to himself when he heard a couple. It almost kept his mind off of worrying whether they’d see this morning’s satisfied customer, and what the fellow might take it into his head to say.

  It was an older, colored cowboy who stood by the big pile of hides when they pulled up, chewing tobacco and kindly spitting away from the hides. At a nod from Finch, Tom climbed down and started tossing armfuls of hides into the back of the wagon, while Finch got his pipe back out and lounged on the wagon seat.

  Tom was close to heaving a sigh of relief when the cowboy who’d ordered the cowbirds strolled on up, whistling. He walked by Tom and winked before he tipped his hat to Finch up on the wagon and called up, “A fine morning, Mister! Picking up more hides to make more saddles like mine? I declare I couldn’t be happier with it.”

  Tom didn’t know whether to cuss or laugh, and knew better than to do either. He kept pitching hides while Finch thanked the cowboy for the compliment and then, kind of grudging, added, “Tom here helped a bit, with the glue and oil and such.”

  The cowboy looked like he was two seconds from a belly laugh, but he held it in. “Did he now? Well, then, thank you, Tom here. Much obliged to you.”

  Tom tossed in the last armful of hides and strapped the tarp over them just as a light rain was starting, while Finch finally climbed down and walked over to the main house to pay the rancher. He was barely, maybe, out of earshot when the cowboy said in a loud whisper, “All the fellas think the world of that work you done.”

  Tom let himself grin, his back turned to the house. “Well, you know how good I am at rubbing in oil.”

  The cowboy guffawed, slapped him on the back, and loped off toward the bunkhouse while Tom pulled himself back up into the driver seat. He hadn’t thought to bring a slicker, so he had no choice but to get wet and wait for Finch, who took long enough that he might’ve been having a tipple with the owner. When he showed up again, he was wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He did a bit of grumbling about the rain and then pulled an extra tarp Tom hadn’t known about out from under the wagon, draping it over himself while Tom just got wetter.

  They were halfway back to town when Finch, who’d been dozing, sat up and said, “What was that cowboy going on about? Seemed like he was sitting on some joke or other.”

  Tom shrugged, maybe too hard, as he like to fell off the wagon. “He must’ve been making fun of me some way, but I’m not sure exactly how. I don’t know a lot about cowboys and what they laugh at.”

  Finch snorted. “Any fool thing, seems like.” Then he switched to talking about how much he wanted his dinner and what he hoped his missus would bring, and Tom was safe, at least for now.

  Chapter 16

  The miller hailed Tom, grinning, as Tom trudged homeward after the longest Monday since the world was made. “Well, young feller! I guess you wouldn’t be a proper farm lad without sowing some wild oats, now would you!”

  Tom thought about playing deaf, but reluctantly stopped and faced him. “Good evening, Mr. Burgess. I hope your day’s going well.”

  “Aw, then, don’t be shy! Why shouldn’t you blow off some steam at Mamie’s place? I don’t mind saying I do the same, which is how I come to see you there.” Burgess winked and twitched his elbow, like he’d have nudged Tom in the ribs had Tom been any closer. “You sampled much of the merchandise yet? I just saw you the one time, with that pretty red-haired girl. She’s got curves you can hang onto, don’t she?”

  Tom gritted his teeth and reminded himself that anyone looking at Jenny could say as much. It didn’t mean the miller had actually done the hanging on.

  When Tom didn’t answer right away, the miller just got louder. “C’mon, tell me how many of ‘em you’ve tried! It ain’t just the one girl, is it?”

  If Tom wasn’t embarrassed about going to Mamie’s in the first place — and if he were, he wouldn’t tell the miller so — he was hardly going to act embarrassed about sticking to one favorite girl there. “Sure it is. What of it?”

  The miller gaped. “Why, son, that’s like going to a picnic supper and having nothin’ but chicken, no potato salad or buttered corn or cherry pie!” He stopped to leer. “I guess that little gal is some kind of cook all by her lonesome, then!”

  It was time and past time to get walking. Tom did, but the miller just trotted alongside him. “Don’t go getting too stuck on that gal! Mamie’s’d be a real odd place to pick up a sweetheart.” He chortled at what he must think was his wit. Tom speeded up as much as he could, in the hope Burgess would get winded and shut up.

  Burgess did go to puffing, but he still kept talking. “You ain’t thinking like that, now, are you, boy?”

  Tom stopped and whirled around to face the miller. “You can just stop calling me boy, mister. And I could go elsewhere and do worse for a sweetheart. Not that I see as how you’re such an expert.” Everyone knew the miller had never married, that he’d kept company with a couple of girls who’d found someone they liked better.

  The miller clenched his f
ists and stuck out his chin, then relaxed. “I might call those fighting words, but you ain’t exactly fit for fighting, now are you? Which you might keep in mind, if you was thinking of sparking a shake like her. It’d be bad enough if you was whole, and ended up spending all your time fighting folks to defend her reputation. Way things are, you’d just have to take it.” He shook his big square head. “I wouldn’t hanker for a life like that, not one bit.”

  Tom wanted to punch the miller’s head, or find something to say that’d catch him flatfooted and make him take back everything he’d said. But Tom’d be no good in a fight, just as Burgess said. The miller could just kick Tom’s wooden leg out from under him and send him sprawling. And whatever the clever thing to say might be, Tom hadn’t the first notion of it.

  He looked down the road, pretended the miller was nothing but a carved cigar store Indian, and headed home, doing his level best to ignore the miller’s call behind him. “You try out some of the others, see what you’ve been missin’!”

  What he thought on, as the miller’s voice finally faded behind him, was that he might be better off forgetting about women altogether. Jenny, who seemed to like him notwithstanding him being a cripple, would be all the trouble the miller prophesied, and what other girl would take him, even if he could get Jenny out of his head enough to look at one?

  When Tom got home, having walked off most of his mad, Pa had a message for him. “There’s a cowboy came by wants saddle work.” Pa’s face was a picture as he added, “With women on it. All the way around, head to foot, fancy as you can make ‘em. Said he’ll be back in the morning to see if you can do it.”

  If that didn’t beat all! If he said yes, he’d be seeing women in his head every spare minute for days. And thinking of Jenny with every line he carved.

  * * * * *

  The small lounge where some of the girls gathered on slow nights had its own stove, but Mamie wouldn’t pay for burning coal unless it was customers using the room instead. Still summer as it was, they didn’t miss it, and sometimes, like tonight, one of the girls would put a bunch of flowers on the stove to brighten things up. Tonight it was coneflowers, red ones like Jenny hadn’t hardly seen.