by Joe Henry
And even called Lime Creek in each of their tongues by the Shoshone and the Cheyenne and the Crow and the Sioux who at one time or another had also used that land long before the Whiteman. And with all the other creatures that of course had always been there even before them, but that needed no names. Neither for themselves nor for that harsh and beautiful place on the earth that was their home too. Lime Creek.
And so there just wasn’t enough time to grow things like tomatoes. And if you were ever tempted to try when the ground got warm and it stayed warm at night which was above freezing, blooming an almost childish optimism that maybe even persisted until the first frost which was sometimes as early as the middle of September with the leaves in the high country already beginning to change in secret pockets until you could almost see it in the very quality of the light thickening somehow as the age of the year slowly declined, then you’d no longer be able to convince yourself that perhaps this time you might succeed. And having known it right from the start. And so all the bounty of your careful ministrations just those early rock-hard green tomatoes the size and consistency of golfballs that only needed the warm and enough time, which they could never get. At least not in that country.
Both little boys reached together to close the faucet, and then used opposite ends of the same dishtowel to more or less dry their hands. The mountains of course had always been there, but that sudden new perspective with all those bright red tomatoes and all of a perfect size and shape staring them right in the face—and just beyond, of those gleaming white sheets that for the moment hung limp again like empty flat canvases almost begging to be used—transfixed both of them and at the same time moved their instincts down the same identical path.
Whitney puts his thumb on the biggest one just to see what it feels like, with Luke leaning over his shoulder. And then to their amazement Whitney’s thumbnail just disappears. They both look at each other with less than an instant of consternation that almost simultaneously bursts into peals of such rollicking laughter that they nearly fall off their stance. And then without another thought or even another word and imbued with that perfect knowledge of what must be done, Luke is standing down and Whitney is carefully piling each of the tomatoes in Luke’s arms which are cradled against his chest. Perhaps about a quarter-bushel of ripe tomatoes that reaches all the way up past his chin.
Then Whitney climbs down and gingerly takes half of his brother’s burden in his own arms and against his own chest and so against his own little heart too. And slowly and more carefully than anything they can ever remember doing, they shuffle through the kitchen and the pantry until the screen-door pushes open against Luke’s shoulder and they are once again outside. The ground falls away as they go around the back of the house, and with the kitchen window now high above them they suddenly stand before those great bright unsullied surfaces that call to them not so much with their emptiness as with all the wondrous possibilities for filling it.
They both crouch down resting on their knees and then leaning onto their elbows like supplicants until the tomatoes roll off them and onto the ground at last, where they form them into two even and equal rows. All summer long Lonny had been throwing a hardball at a wooden crate that had been nailed to the outside of the barn, and even though its sides were all splintered and shattered away, its outline was still fixed there for a target. And now Luke and Whitney had targets of their own. Big and snow-white and so inviting that even if they couldn’t throw as good as Lonny, they still couldn’t miss.
They alternated back and forth and from one to the other. Luke first, the shocking red blossom of his tomato exploding against the sheet dead-center, and a moment later Whitney’s right beside it. Understanding as they took aim that they must also take their time and concentrate on every pitch so as to fully take advantage of such a gifted opportunity. And so as the spectre of each imaginary batter flailed away unsuccessfully, rosy starlike murals began to emerge from their works-in-progress, crowning the meadow and celebrating the mountains and obviously birthing a virtuosity in both of them that hitherto hadn’t been foreseen. But that never was appreciated either.
They were up in the hayloft with the compass again when Spencer comes into the barn and says, You boys get on down here. Not loud but hard enough so they know it isn’t about supper. They climb down the ladder and when they turn at the bottom, Spencer’s standing in the door with those sheets that they’d already forgotten about hanging over his shoulder. He also has suspended from one hand that big galvanized tub that Elizabeth gives Lemon his bath in, and a loop of harness-rein still neatly coiled in the other as if he had just gotten it down from in the tackroom. His head keeps shaking slowly from side to side. Boys, he says again. Lonny isn’t with him. Get that sawhorse.
Which they do, one on either end. And which is how they position themselves too, draped over at the waist with their heads and arms hanging over one side and their legs over the other. A second sawhorse, with a bull’s skull attached to one end that Lonny practiced his roping on, stares at them with its great hollow eyesockets. Free of judgment of course, but still watching them as if to divine by the severity of the punishment the magnitude of their crime.
Each time the harness-strap falls, cracking like a whip beside their inside hips, they flinched up so bad that they nearly sprang off the hard two-by-four crossbar from which they hung like little soiled upside-down birds. But the strap always miraculously missed them, each sharp report detonating beside one little boy and then the other and then back and forth again. And then again. Until finally after the fourth go-round Spencer says, Alright. Get up. And at the same time hearing Elizabeth in his mind just as clear as if she were standing next to him saying, Well I don’t guess that poor sawhorse is gonna cause any more trouble. After that.
They slide backward until their feet touch down and then stand there watching at their sneakers as if fascinated by the tomato stains that have turned their shoes pink as well as by the constellations of little seeds that are stuck to all the laces. You boys carry this tub, Spencer says. They don’t ask where. And get that grain-bucket too. Give it here. He drops something hard in it, and while they carry the tub between them, Spencer holds the pail with the block of soap. And under his other arm, the old washboard that Elizabeth keeps behind the washing-machine. And with both of the soiled sheets still hanging over his shoulder.
By the time they get to the creek it’s dark on the ground through the trees. They have to keep stopping to rest the tub down as they go, and once or twice they try to drag it along the ground but that just makes it even harder because the bottom keeps catching in the dirt. Heavy, ain’t it? Spencer says. Maybe you boys shoulda thoughta that before making such a mess. And them tomaters, you can give your ma your Christmas money for them tomaters. Least if you’re rich enough, which I’m guessing you’re probably not. I just don’t know, he says shaking his head.
They try to drag the tub once again and then Whitney picks up his end and Luke his. It’s dark and fixing to cool off even colder because when the sun goes down the temperature falls nearly thirty degrees no matter what time of year it is. Finally they can hear the water on the other side of the trees. Spencer drops the sheets on the ground in a pile and then the bucket so the brick of soap bangs against its side. And then the washboard.
Now that soap doesn’t ever get near that water, he says, because no fish anywhere has to get sick too because of you boys. Understand? They both look up and whisper, Sir. And Spencer has to quickly turn his head to pretend to cough behind his hand so they can’t see his face, which has to smile when he looks at them whatever they’ve done. Like two little soldiers in short-sleeve jerseys with filthy faces and miniature jeans and crushed fruit all over their sneakers. As if that was that day’s image of love. Two little soldiers of love, one with black hair and the other sandy-colored and sticking up every which way like roostertails, with streaked faces and eyes afraid to look up at him as he coughs and turns away again to hide his open smile and al
so to get his voice back to where it still sounded the way it should.
Understand? he says again. You keep that soap away from that crick. Sir, they say again. You can take turns, he says, filling up this tub. No, you better go together because a bucket that’s filled up is heavy enough for two. You get this tub filled up and get them two godawful sheets as clean as you found them. You hear me? They look up from their shoes again, this time just nodding their heads. Now get, he says and turns away.
They place the soap on the jumbled mass of bedsheets and then take up the bucket with each of one of their little hands clasped together on the handle, bumping and clanking through the shore trees and down to where the bank juts out and forms a protected shoal where they’d always previously only gone to swim. There’s a huge cottonwood tree overhead, the biggest one that anyone around there had ever seen. It was actually two trunks that had grown together and become one, and there was a fire-circle of big stones at its base.
Lonny had once read them the story about the old couple long ago who, having been the only hospitable humans that the gods disguised as vagabonds had encountered when they came down to earth, were granted any wish that they desired. And without hesitation, they both replied that their only fear was that one of them would die and leave the other one alone. And so if the gods could arrange it, all they really wanted was to depart from this life together. Zeus and his sidekick Mercury bowed and went on their way. And behind them, where the old folks’ hut had stood, two great trees grew up as one with their trunks intertwined and their branches holding each other for all time. And to Luke and Whitney and probably to Lonny too, their cottonwood was that tree.
But just then Whitney and Luke aren’t thinking about stories or even about trees, and when Spencer hears them clashing the bucket again against the ground he’s already built up a little peak of orange and yellow flames to greet them. Half a bucket isn’t gonna be so heavy, he says. And we got all night now, don’t we boys?
They don’t look up as they lug the bucket with contorted grimaces on both of their faces. And with all four of their hands grasping the handle they almost walk over one another with each awkward step that also casts a tongue of glinting water up their legs. And so by the time they reach the tub the pail’s only about a third-full. And you tend this fire too, Spencer says, before it gets too dark and cold. Hear?
I’m gonna get me some supper. And boys, he says, raising his voice so they pause and turn with the uneven light playing on their faces and making menacing shapes of all the trees, don’t even think of bringing those sheets home until they look as clean as you found them. He watches their blank downturned expressions and then turns behind his hand again, releasing them to clatter back down to the water. Mind the fire now, he yells, and turns to go.
It takes them a long time to get the tub filled and to keep the fire going too. And while they’re still gathering brush and anything else that’ll burn, Lemon rushes up to them with little points of the pitiful flame reflected in his eyes and starts licking Whitney’s arm that must still have some of that cherry flavor from the pie adhered above his elbow. Whitney grunts and pushes Lemon away, and still wagging his tail like one of those piano metronomes Lemon runs over to Luke who’s on his hands and knees in search of whatever fuel he can find, and turns him too by licking the side of his face. Just as Spencer’s legs come up in the dark and then kneel down behind the rosy glow that’s nearly expired.
He must have brought something combustible with him because when both little boys look up again he’s built a pyramid of kindling and branches that when he blows on it makes the fire jump up brighter and more welcoming than anything they can ever remember. Or at least right then anyway. Lemon runs back and forth between them with the fire dancing in his eyes and his tail going a mile a minute, and then when Spencer pats at the ground beside him Lemon sits and kind of collapses in stages against Spencer’s leg.
Well that tub’s full enough I reckon, Spencer says, but I still don’t see anything getting washed in it. He’s sitting against the tree with his legs spread out before him while he undoes the top of a brown paper bag. Your ma says them boys need some supper so they can get their work done. And I say I don’t know as they deserve any supper. And she says to give’em this to keep their strength up. And to give’em their sweatshirts too.
Both boys come and sit in the dirt on either side of their father’s legs with their backs to the bright cheery flames as they pull over their heads the long-sleeve shirts that he hands them. Then they shyly accept the sandwiches that he offers, almost with a deference that’s clearly in obverse ratio to the ferocity with which they fall to eating. Bacon and lettuce, Spencer says. Your ma apologizes for the missing tomaters to make’em taste right. Which is lost on them anyway as they chew mightily to clear their full cheeks, like chipmunks that can’t hardly swallow fast enough. Spencer makes himself cough again so he can turn his head all the way around this time and silently laugh outright.
Because maybe it’s just them durn sneakers, he thinks. But no, when he can watch them again of course it’s their faces, with dirt and cherry and doglick and black and fair thatches of hair stuck up everywhere. And yet still contentedly just chewing away, having already forgotten apparently the actual reason that they’re there in the first place. Until Spencer’s voice says, with his face out of the firelight, When’re them bedsheets gonna get done, boys? Cause eventually I need to get me some sleep. You boys, he says again and shakes his head. I gotta full day’s haying in the morning and here I am having a picnic in the middle of the night with two actual outlaws. And he thinks, and with their wanted-posters on every laundry-room wall too.
And so finally there’s nothing else for them but their waiting penance. Soaking wet with the washboard leaned against the inside of the tub and that great unworkable mass of bedlinen that’s more like a dull mute creature sucking on their arms and flopping against their chests and slapping at their faces. Almost like that tarbaby Lonny had read to them about, and how it says Biff every time it catches one arm and then the other and one leg and then the other until Brer Rabbit says to Brer Fox, You can do anything you want except please please don’t throw me in that brierpatch. Which was really the one place Brer Rabbit could go so he could finally escape.
Because it seemed like that thing that they had fed and watered and so given life to was somehow gaining in strength at the same time that theirs was diminishing, for every time they tried to move it around and shove parts of it up against the ridges of the washboard that also hurt their hands, it grabbed at them and drew them closer and closer into the cold sudsy water where it lived. And while Lemon still circled excitedly from Whitney to Luke and then back again, and while the little fire began to die down once more, and while they wrestled with the thing as if locked in mortal combat on their knees and with their little bodies half-sunk over the side of the tub as if knowing full well that if they finally succumbed they might well be lost. And perhaps even swallowed whole. Like those flowers that closed around a fly and then just ate it.
When they stopped once to rest they could hear Spencer’s breathing, who hadn’t said anything for a long time like he was asleep. Then one of his boots kind of kicks out like it had suddenly come awake and he says, Boys, I ain’t as strong as you little boys anymore cause I need to get up to my bed. So if you boys’re staying, you tend that fire. Hear? His legs stand up so they can’t see past his knees for the dying of the firelight. But if you’re done, he says, and they watch up at him with a sudden and unanticipated hopefulness. Well, bring them cleaned sheets. You can come back for everything else in the morning. And turn that tub over. I don’t want no critter getting a bellyache of soapy water either.
They struggle to lift up the mass of bedlinen that by then weighs almost as much as they do themselves, but it just lies there on the bottom of the tub. Finally Spencer bends over and grabs up one of the sheets and then the other. Set that washboard down, he says. They just manage to get it out of the wa
ter before it falls from their wrinkled little hands that they can’t hardly feel anymore, clattering off the edge of the tub and coming to rest in the red clayey dirt at Spencer’s feet.
That’ll do, he says, with the big dripping wad in both hands that he lays down on the board so the sides of it flop over in the dirt too. Both little boys kneel behind the tub trying to push up under it until Spencer bends over again and lifts up so the sudsy water and then the block of soap cascade out and splash against the ground. Spencer lifts it all the way up on its edge with the little boys walking under it with their hands upraised as if they were pushing against it too, until it balances for an instant on its fulcrum and then topples over covering where the incongruity of the soap bubbles melt against the earth.
Spencer raises each of the sheets one at a time and then folds and turns them like a twist of rope with more of the water raining on the ground. Then he drapes one of them over Luke’s shoulders like a lady’s stole that hangs down either side of his little chest so his arms must rest against it. Whitney hangs back a step as if he were still contemplating the overturned tub, but comes back around when the filthy wet garment is draped over his shoulders too.
Now get on, Spencer says, and don’t wake up your ma. I’ll mind the fire. He kneels down with the tentative flame still aglow on his face and watches them as they stiffly move away. Lemon paces between them, darting ahead and trotting back and then running ahead of them once again, like the horses pulling against their reins in the direction of the barn no matter how far away it is. Or like those pilgrims, bowing toward their holyland when they prayed, which in most cases was somewhere on the other side of the world.