“Pa owns to the bend in the river,” I said, pointing.
“And how far down does he own?” Tom said.
“His property goes down to the mouth of Schoolhouse Branch,” I said. I could see his interest, how his thinking was going. But it didn’t matter to me. Maybe it should have, but I didn’t care. Tom didn’t have any land of his own and it was natural he would be attracted to this fine bottomland. It made sense that he would fall in love with the land as much as with me.
“We own from the river all the way to the top of the ridge yonder,” I said, and pointed to the summit where Pa put his peach and apple orchard.
“The ridge is the right place for peaches,” Tom said, “to keep them from budding too early and getting killed.”
“The line runs all the way to the church,” I said. “Pa give the land for the church.”
I leaned closer to him. “Pa is going to give me the house and the big flat bottom,” I said.
Tom didn’t say a thing, but I could feel him thinking. It excited me because he was excited. And because I understood him. I had never felt before that I understood a man that well. I was afraid of him a little, but I knowed what he was thinking. When I was around other boys I felt how big my hands and feet was, and how tall I was. And how I read too much. But when I was with Tom I felt attractive. I couldn’t have explained it.
“I come out here to look up the valley and feel close to God,” I said. Tom did not answer. “Sometimes I just repeat Bible verses in my mind. This is a good place to think and pray. After Mama died I used to come here and set for hours.”
“What was that?” Tom said, and turned toward the north. I looked but didn’t see anything but the stars coming out over Olivet Ridge. It was on the way to getting dark.
“We’ll step on a snake going back,” I said.
“Not if we go slow,” Tom said. “Give them time to get away.”
“Snakes are blind this time of year,” I said.
“They ain’t,” Tom said.
“That’s what I’ve heard. Snakes crawl blind in Dog Days.”
“I seen a pilot the other day, and it could see well as ever.”
“Then why do people say it?”
“Cause they like to scare theirselves, I reckon.”
Just then I saw something in the north. It was like a spike drove in the sky. Sparks shot from the point. There was another, like a nail on fire an instant. And another, and another.
“Meteors,” I said. “This is August, when meteor showers come.”
This line of fire streaked in the north and cut across the sky. It was coming right at us. The light got bigger, and then melted into sparks. There was a puff of sound.
I tried to think of something I had read about meteors. What famous thing had been foretold by a shooting star? I leaned against Tom and shivered. It was dark now in the west. The only light was from the stars, and the katydids got louder than ever.
“What makes them shoot so fast?” Tom said.
“They’re pieces of rock from way out in space,” I said. “They burn up when they hit the air.” I went on, remembering what I had read about meteors in The American Magazine.
“How could air make rocks burn up?” Tom said.
“Cause they are moving so fast.”
“I don’t believe it,” Tom said. But from the way he said it I could tell he must be grinning.
“It’s true,” I said, and laughed.
Just then a bigger flare shot out of the northwest and stretched all the way over Pinnacle Mountain and Chimney Top and disappeared in the south without ever burning out.
“What if one was to hit you?” Tom said. In the dark he was talking more than I had ever heard him. That was the first time I saw he liked to talk in the dark. And I remembered that before Mama died, when I was a girl, I used to hear her and Pa talk in bed way in the night. I had forgot about it till that moment.
“People have been hit,” I said. “Rocks have fell out of the sky through people’s houses. A woman was ironing in Cincinnati and got hit on the head by a rock that come through the roof.”
“Was she killed?”
“No, I think she was bruised.” But I couldn’t quite remember, except about the meteorite coming through the top of the house.
A point of fire appeared in the sky almost straight above us. It just glowed there like a coal giving off sparks, as if somebody had hung a lantern that kept getting brighter.
“It’s coming toward us,” I said.
The point got bigger and brighter, like somebody was blowing on it. I couldn’t tell how far away it was. Sometimes it looked just overhead. The light swelled and flared. I gripped Tom’s arm and wondered if we should run. But which way could we run?
“It’s coming,” I said. But Tom didn’t answer; he looked up as if he was watching a bird flying.
I turned my head away, and then looked up again. The light was bigger and whiter. It was whitehot. As far as I could tell it was aimed straight at us. “What are we going to do?” I said, and grabbed Tom’s arm even harder. I had read that if a meteor was big enough it would destroy the world. It would be like a bullet hitting a peach. A hole would be punched in the earth and all the water and fire would pour out.
When I looked up again it appeared the ball of fire was just a few hundred feet above us. It had swelled till it was the size of a washtub and bright as the sun when it comes up. “Here it comes!” I said. “Lord help us. Is this the Rapture?”
But just then the ball of fire busted into a thousand pieces. It was bigger than the fireworks you see on the Fourth, a million times bigger. Sparks and pieces of fire went streaming and showering every which way. Rags of fire shot across the sky, falling on all sides. It’s going to catch the woods on fire, I thought. I reckon my mouth was open with awe and surprise.
The tatters of flame falling on every side of us went dark, either quenched or falling beyond the mountains. That was when I saw the meteor was further away than it appeared.
“Whew!” I said, and breathed. I must not have took a breath for a minute. The pasture and woods looked darker than ever. I couldn’t even see Tom, but felt his calmness in the cool air. It was like a smell that I couldn’t describe. It wasn’t just the soap he had washed up with after working all day, and it wasn’t just the smell of his fresh ironed shirt which had got a little sweaty on the walk over from the Lewis place. He wasn’t at all startled or flustered.
“Wasn’t you scared?” I said.
At that instant a big light shot out of the north, bigger than the meteor we had just seen. It come low over the Olivet mountains throwing sparks like little shooting stars. It was skidding to the west. At first it was red, and then yellow and white. It was streaming and fizzing off light. My first thought was it was going to set the trees on fire it was so low.
“Where’s it going?” I hollered. “It’s the end of the world. It must be Jesus coming.” But Tom just looked at the streak like it was a June bug playing in front of us. The fire got bigger and bigger. It appeared to be going to land in the pines, or in the river.
“It’s the end of time,” I said.
But the rags of fire disappeared over the trees and the night was dark again. I was blinded and couldn’t see a thing for a few seconds. Then the stars come winking back. And I heard crickets in the grass and katydids on the hill. Tom set there without saying anything, and I now could hear the waterfall over at the Johnson Mill. Nothing had noticed the sky exploding except me. Tom was listening to the night sounds as usual. I hugged him close and put his arm around me. That’s when I fell in love for sure. After that I just couldn’t help myself.
Now people say women always fall in love with danger, that if they’re not scared by a man they can’t really love him. I know there’s some truth to that. They say women like a man that will order them around and take charge of everything. And even a man that will threaten them. I’ve heard a woman brag that her husband said he would kill her if she tried to le
ave him, and that thrilled her because it showed how deep he loved her.
But I guess I was born different. What made me fall in love with Tom was to see how calm he was when the sky exploded and fell down in flames. He didn’t have anything to say about it. He watched like it happened every night. Maybe I was so nervous and confused in my mind his calm felt mysterious and dangerous. I know you can say a thing any which way to make it sound like it makes sense. But all I know is how I felt. He didn’t threaten me at all far as I could see, except it appeared he could see through me. He saw how I did things in spells of feeling, and that I was scared in ways I didn’t hardly understand.
“I thought we was finished,” I said. “I thought it was the end of time, and Jesus had come for sure.”
“Nothing is the end of time,” he said.
“It says in the Bible time will come to a stop at the Rapture,” I said.
“That’s what some people say,” he said.
“You don’t believe what you read in the Bible?” I said. I didn’t know that Tom could just barely read. He hadn’t gone to school but a few months in the hard times after the war.
“I don’t believe everything people say about the Bible.”
“But you believe in the Bible?” I said. “You believe in the signs and wonders?”
“I don’t believe everybody’s opinion about the Bible.”
I should have been worried right there, but I wasn’t. I was falling in love, and in love you see things the way you want to.
“Do you reckon it is a sign?” I said.
“What is?”
“The meteor. What do you reckon it foretells?”
“Don’t know,” he said. “A sign of what?”
I put my head against his. His hair smelled of sweat in the hot sun, and some kind of rose oil. “A sign for us?” I said.
“Could be,” he said.
And that was our engagement. Those two words was his proposal. That was when we agreed to stay together. And to me it was as romantic as if he had got down on his knees and took off his hat and recited lines of poetry.
I could feel the heat of the sun on his neck and face. Tom had the kind of skin that was always a little flushed. It made him look more alive than others. He worked in the sun and was always a little sunburned where his hat didn’t protect him. He felt warm as a stove. It was like his face give off a kind of light.
“We better go back,” I said. “I bet Pa has made a pot of fresh coffee. We can have coffee and biscuits and molasses.”
Tom got off the rock and lifted me down. The air was chilly now and I shivered. Everything was wet with dew.
“What if there’s a copperhead?” I said. As we started back on the trail it felt like there was copperheads in front of us.
“I’ll walk in front,” Tom said.
“So you can rile a snake and then it will bite me,” I said. It was an old joke.
“I’ve got on heavier shoes,” Tom said.
I wanted to hurry, but the thought of snakes made me go slow. I was pushed ahead and held back at the same time. But Tom walked real slow, listening before he took a step. Pilots don’t make a sound, except when they crawl. Crickets stopped when we got close, then started up again behind us. I held Tom’s arm, and it was like he was working and searching. Walking without stepping on a snake was a job and he was going to do it well. Everything for him was work. To me everything he did was wonderful.
“What is that?” Tom said, and stopped.
There was a rustling in the grass. I held my breath and listened. It sounded like a mouse running. But all was dark, and I couldn’t see Tom in front of me. “What is it?” I said.
“No!” Tom said, and jumped back, kicking in the dark. He stomped the grass, and I heard something flopping around.
“What is it?” I said.
He stomped on the ground like he was trying to put out a fire. “Stay back,” he said.
“What is it?”
He kicked at something again. “I can’t see,” he said.
Then he started on down the trail and I followed him. It seemed he was limping a little, but I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t hold his arm anymore, but stayed a foot or two behind him. He seemed to drag his foot in the grass.
There was a light on in the house, and Pa had left the door open so a streak of lamplight fell across the porch. Tom climbed up the steps and stood in the light. “Get me a stick,” he said.
There was a pile of stovewood on the porch and I brought him a piece. He slammed the wood down hard on the porch near his foot. I strained my eyes in the dim light and saw a snake there, a little snake. The tail was twitching.
Pa come to the door and asked what was it.
“Bring a light,” Tom said.
“Where did the snake come from?” I said.
Pa returned with the lamp and held it down close to Tom’s leg. I bent over to see better. There was a little copperhead laying there with its back broke. “Did it bite you?” I said.
It was the strangest thing you ever saw. The snake fangs had gone into the leather of Tom’s shoe and I guess they had got stuck. Then when he jumped back and started kicking and stomping, the head had got tangled in his laces. I reckon he had half killed the snake by stomping on it. And then he dragged it all the way to the house because he couldn’t see what had happened.
He held the snake down with the piece of wood and untangled and untied the laces. Where the snake’s fangs had gone into the leather it was all wet with venom. It looked like somebody had poured syrup on the shoe. Of course there was dew on the shoe also, and pieces of grass and clover blossoms.
When the snake was loose from the strings Tom mashed its head with the stick of wood.
“I never saw such a little pilot,” I said.
“It’s a young snake,” Tom said.
“Young snakes are just as poison as big ones,” Pa said.
There was two tears in the leather where the fangs had gone in. “I wouldn’t touch that place,” I said.
“It won’t hurt unless you have a cut in your skin,” Tom said.
“Come on in,” Pa said. “I just made a fresh pot of coffee.”
The light hurt my eyes when we went inside. I blinked like I was waking up. The smell of fresh coffee filled the house. Pa always did know how to make the best coffee. I think he learned during the Confederate War when coffee was so scarce you had to make every bean count. There is nothing like the smell of coffee. It fills the air and suggests richness and confidence, earth and harvests. It makes you feel like taking hold of things.
“I never seen nothing like that,” Pa said, looking at Tom’s shoe. “You got lucky.”
“I was,” Tom said.
Joe had long gone back to his own house across the hill. While Pa commenced to tell about the rattlesnake he saw as a boy that laid in wait for people on a high bank and could jump across the road, I started to make biscuits to go with the coffee. I already had the dough made up, and I just rolled it out, cut the biscuits, and baked them. I had made the dough because I thought Tom was coming. Or I had hoped he was coming.
The men kept talking, or rather Pa kept talking and Tom did the listening. I saw right off they could get along.
“It was common during the war,” Pa said, “for boys to wake in the morning with snakes laying on their blankets. They crawled there for warmth I reckon. A snake ain’t got no heat of its own. Gets chilled it can’t hardly move. A cold snake is sleepy and won’t bite you. You could pick up a cold snake and lay it on your cheek and it wouldn’t bite you.”
“A snake gets too hot it dies,” Tom said.
“I reckon a hot snake bleeds to death inside,” Pa said. “A snake gets too hot its veins melt. I seen one trapped in a sand pit by the river one time and it died by dinnertime from the hot sun. I reckon it just baked inside.”
“Have some biscuits,” I said. I put the plate of hot biscuits on the table, and brought plates and knives and a jar of sorghum. I poured a cup of c
offee for each of us and brought a pat of butter from the back porch. I used my fanciest painted dish which usually leaned on the top shelf.
“That’s a pretty dish,” Tom said.
“Locke sent me that from the Philippines,” I said.
I set down and we drunk the rich coffee and eat hot biscuits. Biscuits are good in the morning, but even better late at night. We passed the butter back and forth, and the jar of molasses.
“Hard to make it come out even,” Tom said, after he had eat three or four biscuits.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“To make the butter and molasses and biscuits come out even,” he said. “So you don’t end up with some left on your plate.”
“Then you just have to keep eating,” Pa said. We all laughed. We was feeling merry like people do when they have good food and fellowship. You start to get a little drunk I guess when you have rich coffee and sweet biscuits.
“Can’t stop until the biscuits are all gone,” I said.
“These molasses was cooked too long,” Tom said.
“How do you know?” I said. I quit laughing and looked at Pa.
“Cause I make molasses for the Lewises,” Tom said. “These molasses is good, but a little bit thick.”
“Pa makes good molasses,” I said.
“No, Tom is right,” Pa said. “I did overcook these a little bit. The cows got out, remember, and I had to round them up. When I got back the batch had cooked too long.”
“Better overcooked than undercooked,” Tom said.
CHAPTER FIVE
Sometimes when I was young I could almost taste the future. At times the sense of tomorrow delighted me so I could barely think of the present. Every instant was a threshold to the next, and every place I stood was the beginning of a new long journey.
It was a mood I had often, this thrilling sense of time arriving and arriving in an endless flood of blessing. I was wealthy in time. The next minute and the next hour, the next day and the next year, was shining with promise.
My sense of the future was more like New Year’s than any other holiday. Christmas was thrilling with its carols and candles, brilliant wrappings, cakes and cookies, oranges and spirit of giving, its mystery of birth and lighted trees, and hush at midnight. But it was after the holiday was over, after the tree was down and the mistletoe and turkey’s paw throwed out, the gifts put away and wrappings folded to be used next year, and the last of the cakes and hard candies eat, that the best pleasure come. It was the return to the ordinary, to everyday life on New Year’s Day, that moved me most. With the decorations put away and the trimmings, there was such openness in the house. There was a spirituality in the absence and emptiness. The morning of New Year’s Day the light was different.
The Truest Pleasure Page 5