by Diane Munier
“He raised that sword…and struck my husband…,” she was all but screaming, and the baby set a howl which had Ma moving and shushing.
“Missus,” I said like a cooing pigeon. Well she had to get it out, and after she did, I would beat Jimmy other side of the barn for raking this up.
So on she went…, “…he…my boy…my Johnny standing there…he raised that old thing, that weapon of death…at my boy…and….”
I was over her, my arms around her somehow. I was patting her hair as she cried on my shoulder. I was patting her back, her small narrow back so tender, not meant to know such burdens.
She pulled back to speak to me, and her voice was iron, “I knew I should fire, but he shamed me like he always did, not trusting my judgment when I knew this was different…that old soldier was different from the others, and I had aim…and yet Richard made me lower that gun…and if I had not I would have been quicker and I could have saved him. Why did I listen? I knew.”
More tears, and I patted her. Then I went to the basket and tore through, finding a small patch she could wipe her face with. I handed it to her, but I did not expect her to grab my hand, yet she did. Slowly I sat, looking at the far wall and not at Jimmy as I was too stuck to react without a great sense of myself. For she chose me, before them all.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Six
“I got reports to write, you know,” Jimmy was saying by way of defending himself for having disturbed the missus at the crowing hour.
“Then best get back to town and write them,” I snapped. I’d been mad at him for three years. And ever since he took this lawman’s job I’d been getting madder.
“You got your cap set on that woman,” Jimmy said all smiles.
“I got no cap, first off,” I said, and I heard William snicker. He rarely made a noise except to spit, so I looked at him sharp. Turning back to Jimmy I said, “Second off I’m going west. My plans haven’t changed.”
“A mite tender footed about this topic. But good to know you won’t be filling Miss Addie’s dance card. I might want to scribble my name on one of those lines. When the time is proper, of course.”
Now William took to coughing.
I leaned toward Jimmy. “I’ll make sure before I go she understands whose name to keep off that card.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He shoved his hat on his head.
“Best get those reports written. Need to practice your handwriting so the missus can be sure and cross your name off her list.” Now I shoved my hat on my head.
“One of these days…I’ve had about enough of your holier-than-thou attitude,” he said mounting his stallion.
“Just let me know,” I said, “that day comes.”
William nodded, and I gave him the same dull look I had given to Jimmy. It lightened my heart to see them both go their ways.
Several days passed, and it was Ma’s inclination that the missus should recover at our farm. Ma couldn’t be away this long with the threshers to cook for, and she believed the change would do the missus good.
I had been back and forth afield, helping with the threshing. I did not get to be around the missus, but I took it as a good thing as I was too attached as is. I waited for it to dissipate, but it seemed to hang on like a spring cold, so I tried to busy myself around her farm, but mostly I sent Seth there, or even Gaylin to tend things.
But at home I had Johnny. I don’t know what I did to earn such loyalty, but he followed me as if he were my armor bearer, so I put up with his chattering, and I gave him plenty to do. I knew from having Seth and Gaylin afoot growing up that hard work was what a boy needed to make him feel all was right with his world. I enjoyed showing him things like my pa done me, and I wondered why his own father had not explained the simple things like how to use a hammer without blackening your finger, or how to tighten a harness so it’d do its task without raising a welt on the livestock. I did not know, but felt the curiosity to ferret these answers.
But as I feared might happen, one night as I sat on my bed drinking my desultory mood away, I saw that young one peeking at me from the doorway of my room in the barn.
“Hey there,” I said, knowing my voice betrayed my state.
He came in a step then. “What’s that?” he said pointing to the bottle I corked.
I cleared my throat. Lord a mercy. “Medicine,” I said.
“My pa took medicine in the barn, too. He said not to tell my ma.”
“Best not tell her then,” I said knowing I was going to Hades.
“I never told. I won’t tell on you either, Mr. Tanner.”
“Makes me no difference. No shame in medicine,” I slurred.
“Yes sir,” he said.
“Go on in the house now. It’s late. Allie know you’re about?”
“Yes sir. She’s popping corn. She sent me out to see if you want some.”
“Well now,” I said, hoping to speak more clearly as I shoved the bottle under my bed, “I think I’ll turn in.”
“Yes sir. Mr. Tanner? When you were in the war…did you shoot anybody?”
He’d asked me this a dozen times and every time I’d maneuvered my way through. I answered without ever answering. “Why you so bent on asking me this?” I said, and yet it’s the very question I would have asked myself.
He toed around on the floor. “My pa didn’t go to war.” He had his mother’s eyes. They looked into mine with a look so purely hurt.
“Not everyone did, Son.”
“But…that man said my pa…should a gone.”
“What man? That crazy soldier?”
“Yes sir. He said my pa didn’t go to war and he went instead. He was mad. My pa…he got called up and he didn’t go.”
I scooted forward and put my elbows on my knees. The missus hadn’t told it this way. Maybe such a young one misunderstood. “Going to war don’t get you into heaven, Johnny.”
“No Sir. But…ain’t you a coward if you don’t go? That’s what they said at school. Boys fought about it. Some said you had to sign up to be a man of mettle. They said if you were called up, you were just a coward. But my pa…he didn’t go. His daddy got that old man to go for him. That’s why he was so mad. If you saw his face…he was so mad at my daddy.”
If Johnny was older, I might have offered him a drink at this point. He looked that done in.
“Come here,” I said, and he took careful steps forward, within an arm’s length of me.
I took hold of his arms and looked him good in the eye. “Wasn’t he a good pa to you?”
“Yes sir.”
“Then you leave off judging him until you’re older and can understand. That old soldier told it the way he saw it, but that don’t make it so. Your pa had his reasons. And he didn’t deserve to die that way, without a chance to fight.”
“But he didn’t fight. He didn’t even try. He just stood there. He didn’t even try.” Johnny threw himself on me then, and my hands moved slow to comfort him.
I just let him cry it out. It had been a long time coming for him. I patted him and let him go on. His small body was heaving with sorrow. I wished my pa would show up and take him off me, for I was the worst at comforting. But it was no hard thing to let him wet my shirt. I knew this kind of sorrow myself but I deserved what I got where this one was just an innocent child.
“Your pa didn’t see it coming, Johnny. He was a man of peace. Sometimes it’s hard to know what another is planning. That old soldier got twisted inside. Your pa didn’t see it coming.”
“But Ma did,” Johnny said.
“See there? Your ma is one strong woman. Oooh-ee your pa would be so proud of her.”
“She blew that cussed man’s head off.” Johnny pulled back then, and spoke in my face, spit flying and all, “His hat went flying and this little trail of red…it was blood…it was like a tail following that hat. Just following it across the sky.”
I nodded. “I’m glad your ma stopped that man from doing more harm. Bu
t I’m sad for that man. It’s never a happy day when folks get killed. Not good ones or bad ones. It’s never a happy day. But sometimes you got to do the hardest thing to protect the innocent.”
“My ma would have been a great soldier,” Johnny said.
“She is a soldier, Johnny. And if you’re going to help her now you have to be a good boy.”
“You think my pa is looking at me? Can he see everything I do?”
I looked at him for a minute. “Yes, I think he is watching. He’s saying…I’m in heaven now Johnny, and I want you to get here one day, too. So you got to be really good to your ma and your little sister.”
Johnny nodded. “I will.”
“Your pa might be gone…but you can still make him proud.”
Johnny nodded. He left for the popcorn then and I stared after. I thought I said some pretty worthy things to him and I had no idea where they came from. “Shit,” I whispered. I was sweating like I’d hoed a field of corn in the July sun. If that’s what being a pa was about, then you could have that calling. Might as well have asked me where babies come from while he was at it. “Shit,” I whispered again.
So it was Miss Addie was to come to us, and I trusted no other with the transport but myself and old Bess. I rode over Sabbath morning, only too glad to have a noble reason for missing the service. I did not care for this particular preacher as he danced like the devil while he screamed like a lunatic. If it was the stage he wanted I heard tell they had such shows in New York City. I wished he’d go there and leave us alone, and till he moved on or up, or maybe down, I had no pull to subject myself.
But I cleaned myself at the well, and put on my one clean shirt, and knocked all the crud off my boots, and shaved my whiskers, and combed my hair, though it was long enough to be pretty wild with the slightest breeze.
Truth be told, as I stared over Bess’s rump and moved along the pockmarked road, I felt a measure of anticipation at the notion of seeing Miss Addie and bringing her to our home. Well a good part of me was against it, but the better man in me said hoo-rah.
Not that it mattered so much as I would leave this place in six short weeks. All was in ready. And that made me feel a measure of safety as I thought of her daily nearness and how it could blind a man like me, one so pathetic and lonely.
I found myself remembering that one time, me pretty drunk, but sober enough I could know in myself that plunge into that dove was pure pleasure.
That’s all I knew. I shook off the memory of Missus’ white breast. What a no good dog-licker I was to think of it. But still, to have the liberty to touch such a thing….
It’s not like I couldn’t find breasts a-plenty to rub on. That’s why I held myself behind such a tight fence. Womenfolk found me comely. I didn’t say this with conceit. But when I passed the saloons in the war, or when I entered one, the women came to me like I was Mr. Money-pockets. And I did not look anything beyond a poor soldier.
And growing up, they favored Garrett if they were truly good, but the ones who were not so truly good, they let me know about it. Some of them were now married proper and filling the pews at church, husbands and children in tow, and I blushed to think how they’d tried to chase me down. I wasn’t having it. The more they chased the more I ran. I don’t know why but I figured nothing could come of it, and Ma would have killed me if I made a child before I took the vows. So it was raw fear of that woman that kept me on the narrow before the war.
After…it was a dead heart. I’d nothing to give another, and I knew it well. I could want, but I couldn’t fill their needs. It wouldn’t be just to do that to somebody, condemn them to a life with the likes of me. And I couldn’t settle. I knew it pained Ma that I kept one foot on the wheel. And the drinking wasn’t the example my pa would have for Seth and Gaylin. I had no right to tarnish his household. I was a man now. Best left to my own. But more than all of it was what I’d done in the war. It’s that which filled my worst dreams and took my hope.
I couldn’t be like my older brother Garrett had been, all saintly and lily-white. But I couldn’t be Jimmy, poking anything that would open. William was my closest pard, the most like me. He was so shy in himself he couldn’t even talk to a girl. And they said he was a handsome cuss. I couldn’t see it, he was just William, but the girls always said he was dandy, and it made him die with shame to be singled out for anything more than knowing how to trail. Best I’d seen is all.
That’s why Jimmy took him in our company. That and I wouldn’t have it another way. Those days I wouldn’t go to town without him much less war. If folks looked hard on a man of his brand being among us they were soon quieted by his steadiness in the field of battle, his ability to track, his quiet uncomplaining nature, and a certain something you could never quite trust enough to turn your back on. Less you were me or Jimmy.
Jimmy was the stray of our county, belonging to everyone it seemed. Same with the women. He had two or three on the string at the same time. I knew how he done it, he was so in love with himself he didn’t need anybody else, and the girls took it as him being tough to corral. They seemed to like that kind of a struggle. He made them cry, but they couldn’t tell their Pa’s lest they admit their shame cause he always got under their petticoats eventually.
He’d dodged a bullet his whole life. Down the road he’d go, on to the next one. I kept thinking surely this time he’d get the buckshot, but he never did. He swore I was their great disappointment, then he’d swoop in and make it up to them. I didn’t believe a word of it, but sometimes his pluck made me mad.
Deep in my thoughts I covered those three miles in no time. I pulled up to the porch and hopped to the ground. Ma opened the door. She came out like a general, handed me the swaddled baby then went back in.
“Ma,” I said, “how can I load up if I have to hold a baby?”
I followed her in, cause the sweet baby was grunting like she didn’t approve. I nearly collided with the missus, standing there, her pale face so pretty, her bonnet on hiding all that pretty hair. She only came to my shoulder. I never seen eyes like hers, it embarrassed me to look into them, but I couldn’t look away neither. These feelings weren’t going away. And now she was coming with me. And…I wanted her to. I felt protective of her.
She was holding onto a chair with both her little hands. She’d lost a lot of blood, and it took a time to get it back. Ma was going outside carrying a couple of bundles.
“Missus if you’ll sit I’ll hand you the baby…”
“Jane,” she said in that voice I liked so much. “We…I named her Jane.”
I looked at the baby’s face. “She looks like a Janey,” I said, and I knew I was smiling cause my face hadn’t been fashioned that way in a long time.
So the missus sat, like she was sore down there, and I pictured little Janey coming out, and all the stretching I’d witnessed, and I squeezed the halves of my ass as I bent over and gave her the baby. “Stay put now,” I said, as if she would get up and follow the likes of me anyway.
We brushed against each other as we passed the mite, and I got some heat along my arms.
I backed away from her then, and hurried out. “Ma,” I said to right myself, “what goes?”
She was in the bed, and I hadn’t been there to help her I’d been too busy mooning round the missus. She was making a pallet for the missus I guessed. “She needs to lie. If she keeps her head up with all the jostling she’ll pass right out,” Ma said.
I hated that she was so weak.
“Go in and get her things,” Ma instructed, and I did.
She was nursing the baby when I went back in, and she wasn’t shy about it like some, like most as I’d never seen it done so open. She smiled at me, even though her breast was out. I guess she felt we were familiar, but Lord, I was no husband, and not familiar at all. So I nearly walked into a cupboard, but I righted myself silently, and picked up the stack of her things from the bed, and kept my eyes formation straight as I went back out to the wagon.
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��Now go in and get her,” Ma said. “First bring me the baby.” She was grunting, climbing on the seat. And once again I did not make it in time to assist her.
“Ma,” I grumbled, “what will I tell Pa if I let you fall,” I complained helping tuck her skirt along her shoes.
She breathed out, like she did so often when speaking with me as if I was the most exasperating son a woman could have. “Bring me little Jane,” she said.
So in I went, and the missus pulled the side of her blouse over her breast and handed me Jane. I stayed well away from that breast as I took the baby, and carried her to my ma. Once Jane was delivered, I went in for Missus. She was buttoning herself. I stood there like a bit of a fool, which is to say, a whole fool, and waited till she was modest, then offered her my assistance from that chair to the porch. Once there I said, “Now Missus, I’m about to sweep you off your feet.” And so I carefully lifted her in my arms. She didn’t weigh a thing, not much different than lifting a young colt soon after its mother birthed it, not so much different for heft.
So I carried her to the tail of the wagon and sat her on the gate. Then I climbed in beside her and squatted once more, lifting her easy and taking her beside the pallet Ma had made, I gently lowered her down. First she sat, then I held her hands while she laid. I messed a bit with the pillow under her head. Then I put a cover over her because there would be dust.
Then I looked at her as she was looking at me, and Ma finally said, “Tom,” snapping me to attention,
I said, “I know, Ma, I’m just trying to figure if this is the best way.”
“Drive easy and she’ll be fine,” Ma said.
So I gave the missus one of my smiles that worked my face all strange, then I backed out of the bed and lit on the ground. As I rounded the side of the wagon I looked at her, and she was watching me like I had potatoes growing out of my ears, she was that interested.
On the seat I got Bess going, and I turned us round so easy, and we started the most careful journey home, so careful you’d think I was delivering nitro instead of a speck of a woman and her child.