by Diane Munier
“You know you got to go through me.”
“Why?”
I clenched and unclenched my fists. I nearly shouted, ‘cause she’s mine,’ but that wouldn’t do.
“Respect,” I said.
We didn’t say anything for a while. I quit seeing the fields, or the machine yonder. I quit seeing anything but my own misery.
After a long time of such standing, after it was black outside lit by moon and stars, and my hands had loosened, and were at my side easy again, he said one more thing, “What Cap said ‘bout you and the missus…I ain’t never seen you run.”
It was a good thing he didn’t speak much. I didn’t like most of what he said. “While you two old ladies are gossiping about me, I’ll be having a high-old-time going west. Go on, learn your letters so you can fill out those reports for Jimmy. Someone’s cow crosses a line, you can write it all down colorful and read it come Sunday for Mose before dinner. As for me, I’ll be free.”
I didn’t know when he slipped away.
I went to the house. The family looked surprised as I kept to myself most nights. They were on the porch. I smelled the corn Allie loved to pop. Seth was playing his harp and they’d been singing.
Johnny ran to me. It made me feel something so strong I didn’t go to the porch, but to the fence-row that ran alongside the barn. I stood there looking up at the stars. So what if she taught him to read. He’d be with her, and I’d be gone. I couldn’t stay. He could. Who was free and who wasn’t?
“Hey Mr. Tom,” Johnny said, hopping to the lower rung beside me.
“Hey boy.”
“Wish I could fly,” he said. “You wish you could fly, Mr. Tom?”
His hands smelled of popped corn and butter.
I heard the baby cry softly from the porch behind us where Addie sat with the family.
“That stallion Sheriff Jimmy rides been known to fly a few times,” I said.
“You reckon he’d let me ride behind sometimes?”
Isn’t that what I’d just gotten William for? Riding behind Jimmy? Seems they were lining up. “Have to ask him,” I said.
I looked up. The stars were so big and bright. Seth started to sing and my pa joined in. Their voices were similar round the words.
“Granma says you sing best,” Johnny said. He called my ma Granma now.
Garret was the one could sing. No songs in me now. I was alone, and I wanted it so. No one to hold me, no tie so strong. Love was a fire burned out if you didn’t act on it. And I had no intent…none, but I saw her then, in my mind’s eye. She smelled so sweet. I felt her, behind me, the yard separating us. And a million miles. These thoughts came from nowhere, but it’s these I’d take with me. Another ghost. Love boiled down to the burn in the bottom of the pot. What was. What never was. On the trail, everyday I’d put distance, breathe new air, see the sun like it was some other sun, in some fresh sky.
I made it to bed with no trouble. It was easy if I kept my back to them and made my leave quiet, the way William would. I drank a little, but not like before. Ever since the boy saw me and a shame did come. So I’d fallen asleep, sitting across my cot, back to the wall. And I dreamed of her, her long hair blowing, saying my name, just that, oh balm of Gilead, her voice.
And then I was wakening, trying to understand. And there she was bent over me, her face small and white in the ribbons of dark hair.
She’d come in the dark, but I’d left a light, foolish in the barn, but I’d been careless. And I saw her now, and I wondered was this real?
When she touched me I gasped.
“It’s me,” she was saying.
“Addie,” I called.
She shushed me, speaking soothingly, but it did not calm me much as my confusion lifted.
“Don’t you know not to sneak on me that way? What if I’d hurt you?” I asked, having my hands on her now, having her pulled onto me. Since the war, it didn’t go well when folks snuck up on me.
“You wouldn’t hurt me, Tom. I’m not afraid of you.”
So close she was, and I felt her lightness, her sweetness, and I was angry still, but something more. “You compromise yourself,” I spoke harsh.
“Who would condemn me, Tom? Ma?”
“It wouldn’t look right they saw you here. Did someone see you?”
“The only one who might give me away is Janey. I hope she’ll stay asleep a while.”
“Why would you take such a chance?”
“I am at your mercy, sir,” she said, and her hands came to my face, holding me like that.
“I know it is your plan to leave us. Three short weeks, they say. But if you go…you take my heart.”
Her beautiful eyes were on me. I gulped like a boy at the schoolhouse, and I know she heard my mortification.
“Why do you say this to me? I can’t do anything for you.”
She was on my knee. I was trying not to think about what I was feeling, but my reaction grew. I had been in undertow before, once when we crossed the Ohio. It was no less troubling than this.
“Tom…if you go…I shall be greatly sorrowful. With you…I feel safe.”
“I appreciate all your kind words, Missus….”
“Addie,” she said, her in a gown, modest as the robe she wore over this was, still there was no hard corset, but things were soft under there, I could tell, though I tried to think of her husband lying bloody.
“Miss Addie, you need to sit aside,” I helped her readjust herself, and I put my pillow on my lap as she was planted beside me, with space between. I tried to take a much needed breath, but still my chest stayed tighter than a stretched hide.
“I have dreams,” she said, “and in them…the old soldier, Tom.”
“Yes’m. That will abate in time.” Years maybe, but I did not say this. I also could not recommend my personal cure--drinking oneself into a stupor until consciousness was lost. We each had to find our own remedies it seemed. “And dreams…they ain’t real,” I said. Then I cringed at how ridiculous that sounded. But true.
She laughed. This room never knew such a sound. “That’s so,” she said. “I would tell Johnny that. But can’t remember it myself.”
“See there.” I caught my hand from touching her leg. What in tarnal? I’d not been known to grab at women before now.
“But…I’m getting so…I’m afraid to sleep. And a terrible darkness comes on me sometimes. It’s as though hope leaves me. It’s a dark feeling, Tom. And when I think of you leaving…it comforts me to see you, Tom. I know I’ve no right to say this, to share this.” I can see the tears close.
“There Missus,” I say with caution. My hands, I hardly know what to do with them. I watch her for direction. But I am in sympathy. Strongly so.
“I’m so sorry, but I could bring this to not another living soul. I think you are the only one strong enough to hear it.” She uses the tie of her robe to dry her pretty eyes, but they will not dry so easy.
In the dark barn a songbird takes off singing. Folks don’t know how the birds sing at night less they live like me sometimes, out here with the animals. This barn gets to going some nights and it’s all I can do not to lose my composure. The missus talking, that got the birds reconnoitering. The horses will be next. They’ll hit their buckets looking for a midnight feast.
“I know what makes you melancholy Missus. Addie. Will you listen to me?”
She takes my hand in both of her small ones. Oh Lord, here goes. “I reckon there are at least three big things converging.”
“You’ve thought of this already?”
“No Ma’am. Just now it’s occurring.”
“Oh.”
“First off the shooting. Takes a while to get over such. When you go through something like that, it doesn’t just drop down right away and fit in. It kind of sits on the top and looks for a place. See?”
She nodded. “Makes sense.”
That fired me up a bit. “Second you are widowed now. You’re mourning.”
“Yes. Of c
ourse. You’re right.”
“Third. You lost lot of blood. You’re weak.”
“You’re right.”
“And maybe you’re scared.”
“I’ve never been very scared, Tom. Not like this. I have Johnny, and the baby now. There’s the farm.”
“But all those things are your blessings, Addie. You don’t need to be afraid of your blessings.”
But I was. I saw William’s face coming before me. I was afraid.
She lifted my hand and kissed it. I tried not to let my eyes pop. I tried to breathe regular, the way I’d learned to do when we sniped. We’d wait all day, all night, next day, lying in the brush, waiting for the prey, the gray, some just boys, me and William, me and Jimmy. It was deer hunting.
Her little lips on me, the way they curved, her teeth and tongue when she said her words. She’d been a teacher, William said. Oh she was ripe for some sodbuster to come through. They were hot on her trail, and it was only a matter of weeks before she’d give in and say “I do.” And it brought an ill humor to me, like nothing else. If I cared for her at all, and I’d already settled in my mind that I did, I could at least try to help her out, make sure she got one close to worthy of her and the children. Course no one could be, but I could try to help her get close. There was more to it than just keeping Jimmy away. I needed to help this poor woman find a decent man, if there was such a beast.
It upset me terrible to think like this. But love…true love was selfless. I heard that enough, and saw it in the way my pa was with Ma. I had this to go on. I needed to put my selfish pigheaded wanting aside, my jealousy and petty hatred of many things. Maybe that’s why God left me here when so many better men didn’t come home. For Addie and the children. I thought my work was done, but I could now see my mission. Then I could go west without the misery I felt now.
“Don’t worry none about the farm. I’ll make sure your crops get in.”
“Yes, your pa and the boys have told me such. Seth is going to stay on and help me over the winter.”
“He is?” How old was Seth? Nineteen?
“And Gaylin, he’s such a wonderful young man.”
“Our Gaylin?” I asked, just to make sure.
She laughed. “Of course your Gaylin. Who else? He goes out of his way to make me smile, I declare. And every day so many flowers.”
“What?” I said loudly, quickly doing my figures. Gaylin was nineteen. That made Seth eighteen. That’s how it was. Course they were thinking of girls. But Mrs. Varn was a little on the motherly side for such young bucks. But was there ever a more pretty lass? None I’d seen with these eyes, and I’d seen my share.
“Just let me know they ever get too bothersome,” I said, rattled.
“Oh no,” she laughed, joyful over the thought of those two it seemed, “they are both such a delight.”
Well I’d be darned. They were home spooning the missus with all the work we had to do? I’d be watching them with a whole new vigilance come morning.
“Missus, let me walk you back to the house,” I said. I was in my long johns and my pants. My feet were bare, and my suspenders hung at my sides, but we were past propriety it seemed.
“If I went in and got the baby, could I come back and sit with you Tom? I…I can’t sleep in there. I woke up, and I couldn’t breathe. I know it’s wrong. But…I don’t know what else there is.”
“What will we tell Ma and Pa?”
“The truth, I reckon. Do you think they’d send me home then, Tom?’
“It’s not that, but the threshers come early morning, Missus. We can’t have you sullied. Folks wouldn’t understand. Tell you what. I’ll come your way. Come on now, gather yourself.” I took my hand from her, and stood, helping her to stand. I could feel her stronger than just a few days before. She moved more surefooted. I put out my lamp, and led her out. The songbirds started up, and the horses banged in their stalls.
Slowly we made our way across the yard. We scared up a hen going broody by the porch stairs. She scuttled away squawking. I let Missus lead me into the house. Our house opened to a big room. The front of it was a small sitting room and then the big table and kitchen. Off this kitchen were the rooms for sleeping. Ma and Pa off one side, Missus off the other. The boys lived behind with an outside entrance. Allie was in the attic with Johnny. That’s where Garrett and I had slept as boys.
I followed the missus into her room. The babe was still sleeping in the cradle. Addie pushed the door to, and I knew it was wrong. If they found us, they wouldn’t understand. But she took my hand, and led me to the bed. “You can have it Tom. I’ll sit in the rocker. I don’t want to lie down. I’ll keep watch over you. I’ll wake you first sign of light.”
“I can’t take your bed,” I said. “I’ll stretch out on the floor.” There was a rug, not that I needed it. But after the field, there was tiredness in me.
So I stretched out on the floor, and she got on the bed, and she dropped the pillow on me, and I put it under my head, hoping I didn’t get it sweaty or foul. I laid on my back, my hands on my hard stomach. She was above me, on her side, her little face toward me. I knew she watched me. I couldn’t imagine how this looked to her, but she found comfort in me, she’d said that. I only glanced at her. That hip of hers, what a circle it made, swelling up out of the dip from her waist. What a fix.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Nine
Waking on Missus’ floor had me addled for a spell. I’d woken in so many places, the gray light of morning hanging with the smoke from many a campfire. The slow start to a day on the trail, the sound of hacking and coughing, tin cups and pots, horses neighing, leather creaking, fires stoked and fires stomped out. My soldier’s life.
I looked to her…this twister of a woman who slept so near, whose arm had fallen over the side of the bed, and the little hand hanging so limply, so seldom at peace, I knew. I reached for it, my own darker and twice again as big it seemed, so rough, but hers weren’t soft, just softer than my own, and innocent…but now she’d taken life…nothing so near to what I’d done…but she felt the stain weighing in her, you never forgot, especially her…pure and then bam.
Delicate. But iron. That’s how she came packaged. She would be fine. I’d see to it, and I didn’t have much time, and another man would know this hand in his hair, the way she’d stroked mine, another man would know her flesh, another would capture that light in her dark eyes, that trembling in her lips. Another man, another time. Not me.
So I pulled my hand back, and looked at hers, the bones I could crush, but they’d fight back, and maybe hold me in formation. Mayhap she was the one meant, but of course she was if I hadn’t been marked like Cain.
It all came on me then, in this room, on this floor. “Tom,” he’d said, always calling me to do the hard thing. Like Ma said. Like I was cut out for it. “We promised each other.”
“But I couldn’t. We’d fought that day, all that day with so much smoke couldn’t see what was coming. And they’d split our ranks, the rebs. That’s how we got separated, Garrett and me. And when he got hit, it came from the most desperate fighting. And I barely came out of it myself, but I killed, I killed, and he called to me, and I heard it through the cannon fire and the haze as the hornet’s nest of gray moved off down the line, as death moved and the beast’s tail we made wearing our blue, we lashed, we thrashed and looked to our dead who were not silent, but calling out for mothers and sweethearts and God.
And there he be, the beautiful hope of our family, the eldest son, so beloved, not just by us and our pride but by all who knew him in our county. But this day, he was just one more who took the fury and felt its crush, who bent and fell and screamed against what was claiming him.
The anguish seeing it, Garrett’s wound in his middle, gushing up, and I put my hand on it, felt its warmth and he screamed. “Do it,” he told me. “You promised.” And it was night, I’d been looking for him a longtime, and the rebs were finishing those in agony like him, and I dragged him for
a broken mile, sometimes throwing myself over him, my filthy hand over his mouth, trying to find that blue line while those rebs were close enough to kick at me once, just to make sure I was good as dead.
“Tom?” Addie said. Her voice so morning rich and kind.
I thought I was still asleep, but I guess I yelled cause I was faraway in Tennessee. I’d been in a dream-state I reckoned.
I looked at her then, my chest up and down, I swallowed but there was nothing but dry. And I couldn’t breathe. Like her. Like she said before.
So I sat up, and held it there, waiting for it to go back down. Like I told her. To fit in there so I could be.
She was seated on the side of her bed, her little feet dangling, barely making it to the floor. All that was missing was the wings, that was the truth. What a misfit I was to be sitting so close. She had no idea. I looked like the devil and felt like Cain. A man without a home. Did she think I didn’t want her and those children? I wasn’t blind. I knew it seemed we fit. It seemed that way.
“They’ll come soon,” she said, meaning the threshers. I nodded. I got to my feet, my bones cracking in that bad knee. I didn’t look directly at her. But I heard her whispered thanks.
When I went out, Pa was coming out across the way. He stood still. He was gut-punched, and I’d have it now.
I nodded good morning and went outside. I made it to the outhouse and turned the block of wood that would hold him out. I did my business and came out again, straight for the well and the wash bucket. I peeled off bare-chested and hauled me a bucket. I liked a good cold one over the head to get me going. So I did that now, and here he came, sterner than I’d seen before.
I was soaping and sloping, and I ignored him until I was presentable. Pushing back my hair, I went in the barn then. He followed me, grim.
I pulled my long johns up and snapped my suspenders in place. I was combing my hair this way and that to get the water out. Then I went for those clean socks Allie brought me other day. “Nothing happened, Pa. Nothing will happen. There’s things you can’t know about, and I’m glad you don’t. But that woman…it’s like she said, we got a tie her and me, and she ain’t sleeping. She gets scared.”