Home Fires Burning

by Robert Inman

“You mean Lightnin’ Jim doesn’t sell to ladies?”

  “What do you know about Lightnin’ Jim?”

  “Enough,” she said, and shoved her glass over to him. He poured another splash. “I know he sells whiskey and he lives in what they call Haskell’s Quarter and he knows more about white people than they know about themselves.” She smiled. “Have you ever thought about getting him to write a column?”

  “Lightnin’ Jim has no truck with newspapers,” Jake said. “His place is piled high with magazines, but he has no truck with newspapers. He says they are triflin’ things. And do you know what?”

  “No, what?”

  “The sonofabitch has real estate in Buffalo, New York.”

  They let that hang there for a moment and drank a little more of the whiskey, and then Jake said, “What about tomorrow?”

  “What about it?”

  “Are you ready?”

  “What’s to be ready for?”

  “Henry.”

  She shrugged.

  Jake gazed into the depths of his glass, where the whiskey gave off swirls of light. “Are you up to it?”

  “I guess we’ll see, huh?”

  “He’s no bargain,” Jake said.

  She laughed. “I never had a bargain in my life.” Then she brushed back her hair with her right hand and she looked very, very young for a moment. You could see a girl there. Not a young woman. Not a tough little cookie. Then, as if she could tell what he was thinking, she said, “You want to know about me?”

  Now it was Jake’s turn to shrug. “I didn’t ask.”

  “Well, there’s not much. There’s eleven kids in my family. My old man was a timekeeper for the Cleveland Electric and Gas Company. Made sure everybody punched in and punched out, kept the time cards, made out the sheets for the payroll office. He wore a starched collar to work every day. He was very proud of that. A white-collar man. At Christmas, they gave him a bottle of whiskey and a big ham. None of the working stiffs got it, but he did because he was white-collar. He did okay. Kept his job when they were laying off people right and left. He used to say, ‘Yer best defense against the vagaries of this world is a good occ-yer-pation.’ “ She mimicked the hard twang.

  “Good man,” Jake said.

  “The trouble was, they kept having kids. We coulda done fine, except the place was run over with kids. They couldn’t ever own their own place, always rented. Never could get ahead.” She stopped, took a big drink of the whiskey, gasped for breath, and went on. “But you’re right, he was a good man. A big, jolly, red-faced man. God, he’d come in at night and he’d just go crazy hugging and kissing everybody. Mama always big in the belly, whining, and he’d just grab her up and say, ‘Now don’t you worry yer little head, darlin’, there’s always room for one more. Always room.’ “

  “Catholic?” Jake asked.

  “How’d you guess? Anyway, they’d go right on making babies. I was the fifth in line, and by the time the hand-me-downs got that far, they were in pretty bad shape. Never anything new, just hand-me-downs. The whole parish helped. I think they were in awe of us. All of ’em good Catholics, but they’d look at Mama and Papa and shake their heads and say, ‘Bless his Holiness, but eleven?’ “

  She stopped abruptly, emptied her glass, looked around the office as if trying to find something. She set her glass down and Jake poured two fingers. There was a flush of color in her cheeks. She sat there for a long moment before she went on. “So as soon as I could, I got out. I finished high school and then I got a job and went to night school and learned bookkeeping. And then I left.”

  “And that’s it?” Jake asked.

  “That’s just about it.” She nodded.

  “And what about your family?”

  “They’re still there. All of ’em. All still in Cleveland. I’m the only one that got out.”

  “What about Texas?”

  She took a small sip of her whiskey this time and watched him over the rim of her glass. “That’s where I met Henry.”

  “I know.”

  “And that’s just about it. I could tell you all about Henry and me, I guess, but that’s just between us. I’ll tell you this, he was very kind, very gentle. Like I said before. He’s a gentle man, your Henry. I knew him for a few weeks before he shipped out, but he was very gentle to me. I don’t know what the Army is sending home tomorrow, but I know what he was like in Texas.”

  It was strange, hearing her talk about Henry like this. He tried to imagine them there in Texas, in the heat, Henry being kind and gentle. But nothing came of it. It was impossible for him to think of Henry in just that way.

  “He made a helluva mess of himself before you knew him,” Jake said finally. He wondered how much Henry had told her — if he had told her about Hazel, about Lonnie, about all the lost jobs and drunken binges.

  “Yes,” she said. And there was just the tiniest note of accusation in her voice. Was it that, or was it the whiskey working on Jake’s imagination?

  She rose then and polished off the whiskey in her glass and set the glass down on his desk. “Eat your supper,” she said. “I’m going home before I get stink-faced.”

  Home. That’s what she had called it. Home. And then again, as if she were reading his mind, she said, “We’ll get a place of our own.”

  “You can stay as long as you like,” Jake said.

  “The sooner we get settled, the better. We’ll all have a lot of adjusting to do.”

  Jake nodded. “Everybody. Especially Lonnie.”

  “Yeah. This is all tough on him. I’ve asked him to try it with us, but I don’t know what he’s gonna do.”

  “He’ll do whatever he’s told to do.” Jake started to tell her about the blowup they had had this afternoon, but he kept his mouth shut.

  “Don’t force it,” she said. “He’ll work it out. We’ll all work it out. With a little luck.”

  “You’ll need it,” Jake said. “You’ll have your hands full. This ain’t Texas.”

  “I know,” she said softly, and he could tell that she was a little frightened. But then she stuck out her chin. “We’ll see, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jake sat there for a long time after she was gone, staring into the night outside his window, hearing an occasional car pass on the street and once, the drone of an airplane high overhead. He wondered for a moment if it was some lone, frightened Jap passing over on his way to exact atomic revenge on Washington, D.C. But then he thought, Of course not. The war’s over. What happened at Hiroshima, as Hilton Redlinger said, that’ll just about do ’er.

  He ate a little of the okra and field peas and sliced ham on the plate Francine had brought him, trying to soak up some of the whiskey puddled in his stomach, and he was just about to get up to go to the Linotype machine when the phone rang.

  “Hello, Jake.”

  “Rosh.”

  There was a moment’s pause and then Rosh said, “I know Henry’s coming in tomorrow, and I want the town to be represented officially. He’s a decorated war veteran and we ought to do something. What I’d like to do is … ah … present his Silver Star to him when he gets here. Maybe have a little ceremony. Something brief.”

  Jake wanted to cry. Maybe it was the whiskey and the sound of his oldest, dearest friend’s voice on the telephone, maybe the gesture itself and all that it meant among old, dear friends. “I’d be honored,” he said. His voice was strangled. “If it’s all right with Pastine.”

  “She said it’s up to you.”

  “Fine, fine.”

  “Good. I’ll be there.”

  “Rosh. Any word?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, maybe something soon. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Rosh hung up and Jake sat there with the receiver in his hand for a moment before he set it back in its cradle, thinking of Billy Benefield lost in the blackness of the Pacific and Henry, plucked from the blackness of death.

  It rang again a
lmost as soon as he had hung it up.

  It was Pastine. “Is Lonnie there with you?”

  “No. I haven’t seen him since early this afternoon.”

  “He hasn’t been home. It’s almost nine o’clock, Jake.”

  “We had a row,” he said. “He’s off someplace licking his wounds. He’ll be there before long.”

  “And what if he’s not?” she demanded.

  “Then let him sleep in the woods all night.”

  She hung up on him. Things are not getting any easier, he thought. By God, Henry better be straight as an arrow tomorrow. Or Jake Tibbetts would kick his butt all the way back to Germany.

  Four

  IT WAS AWESOMELY QUIET out in the field. Even the sound of his own breathing was lost in the great silence. It was as if the soft night had swallowed up every evidence of life and left only ghosts there in the pasture.

  There should be men here, a hundred good and lusty men on horseback, and a bantam-legged captain with a sumptuous black moustache and a great curving saber at his side, astride a powerful black horse.

  But in the dread silence they might as well be dead as living; as well imagined as real. There might be a hundred poised for battle, or ten thousand. They might be Spartans or Roman legions or warriors of some yet-to-be conflict. They might be great machines instead of flesh and blood — tanks, troop carriers, landing craft. At any moment a radio might crackle to life with static and voices from miles and centuries away. Instead of a stumpy cavalry captain, their ghost-leader might well be MacArthur standing on the command bridge of the Nashville watching waves of Higgins boats making streaks of silver through the dappled waters of Leyte Gulf. Or Patton, the mud ankle-deep on his mirror-polished cavalry boots, standing beside a battle-churned road inside the breached walls of the Reich, waving his tanks on toward Berlin.

  Or there might be nothing. Just the quiet, the dark, the boy.

  This time, the captain had not called. There had been no muffled sound of men and horses out in the yard under the big oak tree, no weary voice deep in the wing-backed chair next to the fireplace. The captain had his own war to fight, he said. He had not come for a long time, had not needed Young Scout. But now the boy needed him, needed desperately to ride with him to the secret places where only warriors could go, to where things were as simple as danger, courage, honor. Back there, there was only confusion and hurt, angry words, dread of the unknown. So he had set out in the night to find his captain.

  There was not much time left, now. Only a few hours until dawn, and an early morning fog was beginning to drift in over the open field, dimming the meager light of the half-moon. He strained his eyes to see. Nothing. Nothing to do now but wait and see if the captain would come.

  Just then a crow flew from the tree line across the far side of the pasture and headed straight for him, his raucous caws splitting the night, startling the boy. He stifled a cry as the crow circled overhead, cawing irreverently, then flew on, leaving his echo and a thrill of foreboding in the boy’s chest. It came to him again how near it was to the end, how little time was left. He sucked in air in a great gasp and tried to calm himself. What was about to happen? Would Captain Finley die in battle this night? No, of course not. He would finish the war and go home to his wife and son and begin a newspaper called the Free Press and leave the mark of his mind on yellowed pages of newsprint for a young boy to find. Captain Finley would survive. Then what was about to happen?

  “Is it me?” the boy asked softly into the night, and got no answer.

  The fog was thickening now and he was trapped there, waiting. Trapped, and unsure of who he was or where he came from. Young Scout? Lonnie Tibbets? If he couldn’t find Captain Finley this night, who had the answers? Tomorrow was something he couldn’t think about. The dread was palpable, something he could almost hold in his hand. He wanted to cry out now for Captain Finley, to plead for him in the dark and fog. But it was not something a man would do, no matter how young. So Young Scout waited silently, despairing, and at length he lowered his head against his breast and closed his eyes.

  He stayed that way for a long while, and then he realized that he was on the chestnut horse, felt its great bulk move ever so slightly between his legs, a shudder ripple down the sinews of its flanks. His breath caught. He could smell the horse. And others.

  He lifted his head. And the captain was there. Young Scout could see him plainly, sitting on the great black horse, the reins loose in his fingers, eyes hooded by the brim of the campaign hat. Silent. Watching him. Young Scout started to speak, and then he heard the commotion behind Captain Finley, back there lost in the fog somewhere — horses, many of them, at gallop, shaking the earth with their hoofbeats; the cries of men; a crackling burst of shots. Captain Finley jerked his head toward the noise, back to Young Scout. His face was grim, his mouth a tight line across the stump of his cigar. There were splatters of blood across the front of his tunic: bright red splotches, and older, rust-colored stains.

  Then Captain Finley suddenly stood in his stirrups, unsheathed the great saber with a clatter from its scabbard in a single rippling motion, waved it over his head. “Charge the skulking bastards!” he roared. “Take no prisoners!”

  “Captain Finley …” the boy cried.

  “Fight, or be damned!”

  And then …

  LONNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEE … … . HOOOOOO, LONNIE!

  Back across the pasture yonder, the high clear voice beckoning him …

  He rose in his own saddle, confused, caught between time and space. Time was running out. The light was coming fast. Beyond them, in the other direction, the Lighthorse Cavaliers were drawing away. Captain Finley wheeled the great black horse to go after them.

  “Captain Finley!” he called.

  LONNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEE … … . HOOOOOO, LONNIE!

  Captain Finley reined to a stop and the black horse reared on his hind legs, pawing the air, spun again to face Young Scout. There were just the two of them in the fog, perhaps twenty yards apart. Captain Finley raised his sword again.

  “I can’t!” the boy screamed.

  “I know,” Captain Finley answered. His face was suddenly gray and old. “Do your duty, boy. You hear me?”

  “No!”

  They trotted toward him, black horse and gray rider, and stopped a whisper away. Captain Finley pointed the gleaming curved blade of the saber toward him and the boy reached out and touched the very tip. There was blood there. There was just a moment, suspended magically above all others, when he touched the metal and knew it was real and marveled at its smooth power. The thunder of horses was gone and there was a great deathly silence there in the open field.

  “Do your duty,” Captain Finley said quietly.

  Lonnie drew in a deep breath. “Yes sir.”

  And then he wheeled and was gone, leaving the boy alone in the breaking day. There was only the feel of the sword tip tingling the ends of his fingers and the echo of the three words.

  DO YOUR DUTY.

  Five

  IT WAS THE FIRST automobile a Tibbetts had ever owned.

  Jake heard the honking out front at late morning and dismissed it at first. But when it persisted, he walked to the front office and looked out through the open doorway. “For God’s sake,” he said to himself.

  It was a gray 1937 Ford coupe, one headlight smashed, huge rust spots along the fenders front and rear, the whole business listing badly to port like a battered warship. Francine was behind the wheel, Lonnie beside her on the front seat holding the baby in his lap. He had a Band-Aid on his forehead. Pastine sat prim and dignified behind Lonnie in the back.

  Jake stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked the car over, front to back. He chewed on the stump of the cigar in his mouth, took it out, spat onto the sidewalk, put the cigar back.

  “Let me guess,” he said. “It fell out of its nest and you found it in the yard this morning.”

  Francine gave him a cool look. “Fog Martin got it for me.”


  “Well,” he said, “so much for that friendship.”

  “Fog says it may be two or three years before you’ll be able to buy a new car,” Francine said. “He found this one at a widow’s house out on Taylorsville Road. It’s been sitting up for a while, but Fog got it running again.”

  Jake gave the car another once-over. Cord showed through the cracked rubber of the tires. “First motorcar ever owned by a Tibbetts,” he said.

  “And high time,” Pastine said from the back seat.

  “Lonnie,” Jake said, “have you checked under the back seat? There may be some Confederate bullion hidden under there. Or maybe even the bones of a Reb general.”

  Lonnie gave him a curious look.

  “What did you do to your head?” Jake asked.

  “I reckon I ran into a limb.”

  “Where?”

  “Out in the woods, I reckon.”

  “That’s what you get for running around in the woods in the dead of night,” Pastine said. “Like a crazy person.”

  “Yes’ m.”

  Jake could tell a couple of things about Lonnie this morning: He wasn’t consumed with rage anymore; and there was a firm set to his jaw that hadn’t been there before — not yesterday’s mule-stubborn, defiant look, but something else, something altogether different. Jake wondered what the hell had gone on out there in the woods during the night. He had come home near midnight himself, exhausted, to find his bed and Lonnie’s empty. He had collapsed into a fatigued sleep, only to be wakened in the early morning hours by Pastine and Lonnie clomping up the stairs, Pastine’s voice lashing at the boy, rising and falling like a whip until the door to Lonnie’s room closed. Then she snapped on the light in their room and stood there in the doorway, hair askew, eyes flashing, dressed in nightgown and robe, while Jake turned over and squinted blearily at her. “Crazy,” was all she said. They had all been asleep when he slipped out of the house early in the morning and headed to Biscuit Brunson’s for breakfast and then to the paper to make the final preparations for his press run.

  “Well, are you all right?” Jake asked.