by Diane Munier
I tried not to groan like a grandpa as I stood and the chaff fell from my various folds. I went to the table and wished I’d had my wash-up already cause truth be told I smelled like more than the field after the day I’d put in.
So I lowered my suspenders, and she looked away, then back again, then away, and I pulled my shirt off over my head, and chaff flew. I brushed the top of my long johns off a mite, and went to dig in my wooden chest for my stitching kit. I found a clean towel and tore a couple of strips, then I went to the table, keeping the small kit on my thigh cause I didn’t want her to feel the dread of seeing the needle.
I looked at her, locked eyes with her for a spell, and her eyes went to my throat, my chest, then to the side. I lifted the rag again, and looked close. I could see some glass shining in that cut. So I dug out the cloth with my needles. I took the biggest one, the dull end. I laid it on one of the strips of cloth and poured a little whiskey on it. I hoped the fact that the bottle had been faraway would lead her to believe I seldom used it. I don’t know why I cared at all what she thought, but I did. I picked up that needle and went to roll some glass away gently as I could, but one piece was deeper.
“Missus,” I said, “I’m going to give you some whiskey. I know you are not an imbiber, but this is for medicine sake. There’s a fellow, Lister, thinks germs cause gangrene and such, and after the war I believe him. You’re going to need stitches and I have no ether, so this is the blessing we’ve been given.”
“When I feed the baby….”
“The baby will be fine. I’ve heard of giving them spirits to put their cranky selves to sleep. This will pass through you to her, and it won’t be such a big amount.”
“All right. But you don’t think I can bear it without?”
“There’s no need to suffer,” I said. I handed her the bottle. “Two swallows. A breath. And two more. And I warn you, it will set your throat on fire, so go easy.”
She nodded, and what a peculiar sight it was to see her chug from my bottle.
She coughed. She flushed high red. Her eyes watered. She did it just like I said without complaint. When she was finished I took the bottle from her.
“You drank that as fine as any hardened soldier,” I said, and I had to laugh.
She looked shocked, then she laughed, too. Then she laughed again, too much, and I knew she felt it straight away.
So she gave me her hand and I continued to purify it. “Missus, this is going to sting like the biggest hornet God ever made. I’m going to pour some whiskey in here, and when I do, I want you to say, damn, damn, and holy damn.”
She giggled so heartily I could barely hold onto her hand.
“I shall not say such,” she said, still laughing.
“Yes you will. You’ll want to, I promise. Damn, damn and holy damn.”
She was giggling so, I poured fast so she wouldn’t see it coming. Soon as that whiskey hit her wound, she stiffened, and her eyes nearly bugged out, fixed on me like a double-barreled shotgun. “Damn you Tom Tanner. Damn you and double damn you!” she cried.
I was frozen there. She had damned me. I couldn’t believe it. It made me guffaw. I had not laughed so since before the war.
She pulled her hand from me and rounded that table, and I was helpless watching this. Her little soft form in that worn out dress was full of indignation. She had that bad hand cradled against her breast, but that good hand came around my neck. “I could choke the very life from you, you devil,” she shouted, but she was not mad, just full of whiskey and devilment it seemed. I thought, oh Lord what have I unleashed here?
She was laughing, and her hand slipped down to my chest, and she laid her forehead on mine, and she was breathing, and her wounded hand and her breasts were right there just slightly higher than my line of vision.
“Missus,” I said, a smile in my words I could not vanquish, “you have to sit, now so I can stitch you up.”
“You un-stitch me, Tom Tanner,” she said, so close I could count those freckles. “I can’t figure if you were fashioned by God or the devil himself you are so beautiful,” she said then, a kind of drunken wonder on her sweet face.
“Missus, you are feeling the effects, so quiet down and let me take care of this.” But her words….
“I want you to take care of something, Tom Tanner, I admit,” and she giggled raucously.
Holy Lord. I couldn’t let her degrade herself. She would never forgive me when she came to in the morning.
“Missus,” I said firmly, “I know the whiskey takes over, but you want to be careful to remember yourself. Just rest and let me sew this wound.”
I got up to lead her to her chair, and she went along giggling like a loon. I sat her then, and as I turned to leave, felt a slap on my rump.
I turned like I’d been shot. She had her good hand over her mouth and she was giggling with fever.
I felt a big smile break out, but I said, “Now Missus.”
I hurried to my side of the table and sat, trying to play the good doctor, but I was feeling that slap like I’d been branded. I had to try three times to get my shaking hands to thread the sharpest needle. She was laughing to beat the band. It made me laugh and shake all the more. I was so hard down below I could have used it for a spike.
When I got that needle ready I put out my hand and she laid hers upon it. “Look yonder,” I said, and she looked away. “See that union coat hanging on that peg?”
“Yes sir,” she said, a little giggle. I made the first stab then, but I was gentle as her skin was like butter.
She gasped.
“Well Jimmy came riding hard with the Springfield paper. We had war. Abe Lincoln was calling for the boys to save the union. But I didn’t want to go. Now Jimmy and Garrett, they thought it was our duty. I didn’t feel any kinship to the idea. William and me were going west. We were going to be cowboys at that time. That’s all we wanted to do. Drove the girls crazy cause we weren’t set to marry. We wanted to have our adventure first, and maybe instead of. But Jimmy wouldn’t let up, and the climate was war everywhere we went, and pretty soon we would be sons of disgrace if we didn’t sign up. So we did.”
I was making the last stitch then. Her eyes were tearing steady, but they had been on me the whole time. I liked her eyes on me. I had not told this story before, but with her…I wanted to.
I snipped the thread, and wrapped the cut in the clean strip. I sewed it closed, and sat back admiring my work, still holding her hand.
“You are always helping me,” she said. I kept looking at her, her hand in mine the strongest thing.
“Come here,” I said, and she stood, our hands staying joined as she rounded the table.
She stood beside me then. “Ever long, Tom, for a woman to rub your shoulders after a day in the field?” she said.
I swallowed that big feeling again. I had not longed for such before now.
“When I see you…when you walk in the house….”
“Missus,” I said, “the whiskey loosens the tongue. I must be a gentleman here and bid you care in giving words to….”
“Quiet, now Tom. Hasn’t your ma told you not to interrupt a lady?” She was so cute I could barely contain my delight. And I ached for her words. I wanted to hear everyone. I wanted to know what she would never say. And I didn’t want to know. Lord what would I do with it? I was evil, right now, I was reprobate through and through to compromise her this way.
“I feel so safe with you,” she said. “And I wanted to feel that with Richard. But I never did. It was always me out front. With his father Charles. He…couldn’t stand to him. I never told you, Tom. I was ashamed to say it, you being a hero in the war.”
“I’m no hero,” I scoffed.
“Listen to me. You are everything a hero is. But my husband…he didn’t answer the call. I did not know he was ever called. I reckoned he was too old. He was older than me. By fifteen years. Along I came and I was swooped up. He worked in the store, and I’d been a humble girl. I could sc
arce believe he took an interest in me, but I did work hard to get him to notice, oh my. I’d walk by there after school. It was my first time away from home. I was a teacher. I was so proud. And he was so fine, you know. But he couldn’t stand up to Charles. But I could. And I did. And Richard chose me. And we came here for a new start because his father disowned him. That was the price for marrying me. But he must have been in contact with his father because they conspired to keep him out of the war. That’s what that soldier said. That’s why he came for us that day. To settle.”
I knew this from Johnny. But she needed to tell it, it seemed. So I listened.
I don’t know when her hands, the good and the wounded ended on my shoulders, but when she sat on my lap it seemed right. I held her in my arms and she rested there, her head slowly coming to my shoulder. Her hands in her lap now as I had my arms around her, her small womanliness like glory to me, her hair like silk under my cheek, my rough beard catching on the strands, my rough hands catching on her dress. Chaff falling onto her from my hair, and me smelling like a barnyard animal. But she didn’t seem to care, she made me feel like a king.
Long minutes passed. “Tom…you’re beautiful, inside and out. I love your face…and that day I saw you washing at the well…I ain’t ever going to get that out of my mind.”
Oh glory I was going to burst. It was all I could do not to push her down on me. My arms tightened around her.
“Your chest, your arms, Tom…you’re the most beautiful man God ever did make. It’s not the devil. I was wrong. It’s God. It could only be God.”
“Hush, Addie,” I said, my voice shaky.
“I pine for you, Tom. I serve you at the table, and I nearly drop the mashed potatoes or the green beans. If I brush your sleeve, I burn. And the good book says if you burn it’s better you just….”
“Missus,” I said giving her a tiny shake. I was breathing irregular, and her little round rump was right on the source of my agitation. I was only a man, for pity’s sake. Not a hero. Not even good.
“Alright,” she said. “You can go on west and break my heart. But for the rest of my days I’ll see you at that well…for the rest of my days….”
I held her so tight. I exploded. My shame was beneath her. I was sweating and gulping. And when I could bring myself to, I looked at her sweet face. And she was asleep.
And I studied her then, this little ball of fire that untied all of my knots and tied them back again…in bows.
I held her as long as I could, and it was not long enough. My ma was the one to come and fetch me to my senses. “Tom,” she said, and it was rebuke.
“It was her hand,” I said. “I had to stitch it.”
Her eyes went to the whiskey, then back to me holding her that way. “Bring her to the house,” she said, and it hit me harder than Gaylin ever could.
And so I carried her into her room. My ma did not speak to me, and Allie barely looked at me, but hid a smile. I laid Missus on her bed. She muttered in her sleep. I turned away, for I was done looking. Allie was rocking the baby in the kitchen, and she gave me another one of those smiles.
“Tom,” Ma said before I could escape, “she smells of spirits.”
“Yes, Ma,” I said, my voice strong, “I stitched that hand.”
Ma studied me. I knew she wondered how far it went with me…the dark streak she had not imagined when I came home. But I was of her cloth, and so I looked back. I had never disrespected my ma, but I had broken her heart many a time. And now I was breaking Addie’s and that felt worse. I turned and went out.
In my room I gathered clean clothes and I headed to the pond. I needed baptizing after this day. Duty called me, I was not deaf, but it was something more. It was her.
Next day the gavel fell. They were bringing cousin Lavinia in. I did not have a grudge against that woman. I’d grown up knowing cousin Lavinia, and though she was always a little too prim for my liking, though she sometimes found me crude, and though she cried easy when I put that baby opossum in her bed, or hid her knitting so high in a tree Garrett had to risk life and limb to fetch it, I had nothing against such a one at all.
Her husband Lemuel had been killed in a small skirmish in Kentucky. She mourned him hard, Ma said. I knew she granted him sainthood now he was up there playing a harp as Ma had read me her letters, but I kept my opinion under my hat.
Lavinia was coming to winter over with us. That’s how Ma put it, but I knew what it was. She was being brought in to chaperone Addie and me, and I had barely two weeks before I left…though I was very torn.
Ma said they thought her a good companion for Missus. Did Ma and Pa think I had no understanding of their wiles? And what about what Addie thought she needed? Hellfire is all I could say about this.
But that was not the half of it. More was on the way.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Eleven: Church, Part One
Pa brought cousin Lavinia home on my last Monday morning before heading west. Sorrow had aged cousin Lavinia by robbing her countenance of shine. It was as if the light inside her flickered in the storm of life and went out. Her smile was feeble, her shoulders bowed in.
“Lavinia?” Ma said.
“Yes, Elizabeth,” she answered as I stepped forward to help her down from the wagon, “I am still in here.”
“Cousin,” said I.
Allie threw herself at Lavinia, nearly knocking her over. Gaylin caught them both and righted them. “Did you bring the ladies’ magazines,” Allie asked.
“I did,” Lavinia said, the first sign of life showing in her expression.
Ma introduced her to Addie, and Addie embraced Lavinia. What a fine hen party it was. I went to the barn along with the other menfolk. There was grain to flail and machinery to refine.
At dinner we gathered, the table full to bursting with folks and food. Addie worked hard, even with her gloved hand. Her face flushed red from the heat. I had seen her that way in the birthing. How close we had been. Were now, truth to tell. In lovemaking, she would flush that a way. Not that I was authority on the matter, but it would stand to reason.
Johnny had elbowed me. Seth had finished Grace, and Pa waited on me for an answer to a question I never heard.
“Sir?” I said.
“Seth is to be ordained this Sunday.”
“I know this,” I said, for it had been heavily discussed around here as Ma was making over Garrett’s nearly new suit for the occasion so Seth could wear such.
“We was wondering if that would be the day to get everybody in a game of that baseball we hear so much about,” Pa said.
Addie was near me now, serving me enough corn cakes to feed a train-car of hungry beggars.
“Reckon so,” I said, barely able to pull in my mind for her little hip had nudged my elbow and left it stinging.
“Do your elders allow such on the Sabbath?” Lavinia asked, not allowed to help serve on this, her first night here.
Hell if I knew. I looked to my food and cut into the corn cakes.
“We can surely ask,” Pa said. “Seems like just the thing to bring us back.”
“Did your church divide over the war?” Lavinia again.
“No,” Ma spoke this time. She was proud over their church remaining intact. But that was only because the rebs had been the minority and driven out shortly before the war started. They weren’t ridden out on the rails, but our congregation took a strong stand for the Union and if you didn’t agree, the door was broad. “Our church was the mainstay of this community all through the war. With the size of our losses, we have leaned heavily on the Lord and one another,” Ma said.
“It’s so everywhere, Elizabeth. There’s hardly a family has not been touched with grief,” Lavinia said dabbing at her mouth with her napkin.
“We lost so many at Chickamauga,” Ma said, too much pain, too bitter. We all grew quiet, eating and drinking to hide our shock that Ma would bring it up. She did not speak of it ever. But every son and daughter knew that battle well.<
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That Sunday I pulled the two-seater buggy out and made sure it was clean, that a hen had not roosted in the boot, or a mouse in the seat. Pa drove the four-seater. So we stood in our Sunday bests and waited for the womenfolk. Ma and Allie packed the boots of both carriages with food for the picnic lunch after service. Seth and Gaylin ran around accomplishing little but raising dust. Finally Johnny appeared, his ears seeming to hold up his hat it was so oversized. Ma had dug it from the chest. It had belonged to me, then Gaylin, then Seth. Now Johnny must have it as if it was a crown of glory. He carried Janey’s satchel which he gave to me to add to the booty.
As soon as Addie appeared I went to her. “You ride with me Missus,” I said. Well we got a few looks, from Ma for sure, from Gaylin. It made better sense for me to bring Allie and Lavinia and let Addie go where she could have a full seat with the children, but sense be damned I wanted her with me.
So we crowded in. I told Gaylin to stay out front enough we didn’t chew his dust. He and Seth rode the mares, and too many times I knew him, off in his head and pretty soon the rump of his horse was damn near in my lap.
“Sure enough, Grandma,” he said.
I climbed in then, Johnny nailed to my side which put Addie all the closer. I liked feeling them all close, I admit. That baby was going to be as pretty as her mama if a thing was possible. Today…Addie wore her black dress, fancy stitched, her waist so tiny I could span it with my hands and they would touch, not that I had. Her bosom and waist, a little doll she was. When she walked her skirts swayed in such a way…different than most…and her not aware of it…aware of herself really…how singular she was…how lovely.