“Do you know if she had any sort of will or anything?” Dr. Sanderson queried.
“I’m—I don’t know. If she does it’ll be in her mahogany box,” I answered. “Do you want me to get it?”
“Might not hurt to take a look,” he nodded.
Ma had always told me if something happened to her, I should take the key and open that box.
I went back into her room, to her bureau, and opened the bottom drawer, looking over toward her body uneasily. It was eerie to see her, someone that had been full of life and mobility mere hours before, lying stiffly on the bed.
I lifted the box out of the drawer, walked over to the bed, and gently tugged on Ma’s necklace until the clasp was visible. She always carried the key to her box around her neck, so I slipped the key off and dropped the golden chain onto the bureau. I looked at her a minute, hoping she would move, hoping Dr. Sanderson had made a premature pronouncement of death. But she didn’t move. She just lay there, smelling like the sweet fragrance of milk and faintly of hay and livestock.
I made my way back to the kitchen and sat down. Taking the key, I fiddled it into the hole and jiggled it a little until I felt the lock yield. I opened the box and looked inside. There was some jewelry I’d never seen her wear, some old letters, and mostly just things of sentimental value, a few old photographs and the like. There was also a stack of cash, which I put to the side. I pulled out a piece of folded, yellowed paper, and opened it up.
“The last will and testament of Eliza Anne Mattox,” I read aloud. “I hereby leave all my personal possessions, including the deed to my home and farm, and all the implements pertaining to it, to my son, Robert Samuel Mattox, this day, August 17th, 1929. Signed, Eliza Anne Mattox.” I stared at the paper, nonplussed. A simple, handwritten will, bequeathing the entire property to me.
“But is it hers to give away?” I questioned uncertainly, still not able to take my eyes off the paper in my hand. I looked up at Dr. Sanderson, then Preacher Moore, then back. Dr. Sanderson spoke first.
“Well, son, this place was your grandpa Browning’s. I suppose he may have passed it down to your ma, and she may have thought it would be best, uh, most secure for you, if she alone held the title.” I nodded understandingly. I had often been scared Moses would sell the farm for his next drink, but now I realized he hadn’t been able to do it if he’d wanted.
“Let’s see if the deed is in there, just to be sure,” Preacher Moore suggested.
I rifled through the remaining contents and found an official-looking piece of paper, which I pulled out and flattened on the table. It was the deed. And it was in Ma’s name only. I couldn’t help wondering what Moses would think. He’d be fit to be tied. I started to get scared, but at that moment, I decided not to care what he thought. No more being fearful now. I was a man, more of a man than he, and I was taking care of grown man business.
“Well, son, you best be seeing the lawyer tomorrow to get things set straight,” Preacher Moore advised. “He’ll be able to tell you what you need to do.”
Nodding in assent, I reached for the stack of bills and began counting them. They were all small, so Ma must have just put a few aside here and there as she could, either for the lean times, or maybe for such a time as this.
“Two hundred and thirteen dollars,” I announced as I finished counting the last of it. That was a lot of money in those days. I still don’t know how she collected, or was able to hang on to, all that money during the Depression.
“Well, that should cover most everything you’ll be needing, lawyer’s fees and such,” Preacher Moore commented. “I can pick you up tomorrow around nine o’clock or so if you want to go into town and take care of that and whatever else needs doing.”
“Thank you sir, but I think I should manage just fine,” I answered, trying not to sound rude.
He looked at me quizzically for a moment, but then nodded as if he understood that I didn’t want to be unnecessarily relying on others.
“Say Doc, how much do I owe you?” I asked, holding the stack of bills in my hands.
“Oh, uh, well, I haven’t really performed much of a service here, son,” he said, a little awkwardly.
“Well, I do appreciate it,” I said sincerely. He nodded.
“Maybe I’ll grab a few eggs on the way out,” he replied, as though compromising.
We all resumed staring into our cups of coffee.
“I’d best be getting along,” Dr. Sanderson said, after a pregnant pause.
“Mind if I pray with you?” Preacher Moore asked as he stood, wanting to make sure his duty as shepherd was fulfilled.
“No, sir, I’d appreciate it,” I said. I needed whatever strength I could get.
He rested his hand on my shoulder and prayed, “Dear Lord, the death of your saints is precious in your sight. Thank you for this sister and her legacy of devotion and love for you. Now dear Jesus, be with Robert, and strengthen him for the path ahead. Undergird and uphold him, and surround him with your love, and your peace, I pray. Amen.”
“Amen,” I echoed, my voice husky. The men moved off into the bedroom and I followed.
“Can we take the blanket with?” Dr. Sanderson looked to me for approval. I nodded, and they rolled Ma carefully up in the quilt she was lying in. They gingerly picked her up. Her body was already stiffening, but the doctor still had to support her head. They navigated their way through the kitchen, and I got the doors for them. Her body brushed me as I flattened against the wall in the entrance to let them by. It sent a chill through me. I followed them outside and opened the door to Dr. Sanderson’s car, and they laid her in the back seat.
“Good night,” Dr. Sanderson said, and he settled into his car and slowly drove off. The preacher lingered a little.
“Don’t hesitate to call on me if you need anything,” he said. I couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but he spoke tenderly, and his voice had sorrowful undertones.
“I will, sir,” I lied. He turned and put his hand on the door handle of his car.
“Sir?” I said.
“Yes?”
“Thanks.” He cleared his throat, but he couldn’t trust his voice. I faintly saw the round top of his hat nod against the moonlight.
My eyes followed the little procession down the lane and I watched until the taillights disappeared into blackness. I stood there, purposeless, not quite sure which way to walk.
The light in the barn caught my eye, and I drifted that way to retrieve the lantern. I swung the door open and walked over to Ethel’s stall. She looked over at me, as if demanding an apology for my outburst at her earlier, and I stroked her side and said some kind words to her. I was standing on the spot where Ma had been lying, and as I looked around, the scene played and replayed in my mind.
“Oh, Ma,” I said quietly, as I reached over to pick up the upended milk pail. “What am I going to do without you?” I walked toward the door and set down the lantern to retrieve a few eggs from the hens’ nests and placed them in the pail. Then it came to me that the doctor hadn’t taken any eggs like he said he would.
“Sly fox,” I said to myself, thankful for the benevolence of small-town folks. I secured the barn door and went back to the house and sat in Ma’s rocking chair by the stove, where I sat and thought for hours and hours, trying to get my mind caught up to my reality. I fingered the holes in the crocheted chair cover, trying in vain to rock the lump in my throat free. Finally, I fell asleep.
~~~
The goose bumps woke me the next morning. The stove was cold, and the sun had already risen. I got up, put my coat on, and went outside to milk and do chores.
After the chores were done and I’d separated the cream, I was pretty much famished, and made a little breakfast of salt pork and grits. It was terrible.
I combed my hair back and freshened up a little, saddled up Shake, and we trotted off to town. Bouncing up and down on Shake’s broad back sure made me wish we had a saddle horse.
My first task wa
s to find Moses. I tied Shake to a hitching post in front of Al’s Barbershop, which was about halfway in between the places I wanted to visit. My boots clomped on the wooden sidewalk as I strode toward the saloon. At one time the old shake-clad building had had two shingles, one that said “Dead Man” and the other that said “Saloon,” but the Dead Man part fell off and had never been picked up, never mind put back up, and since it was the only watering hole in town, it really didn’t matter much what it was named. It was old, and it was a dive.
“Sorry ’bout your ma,” Gus Picket, the town blacksmith, offered.
“Thank you,” I returned over my shoulder as we passed, a little surprised to hear that from a man I hardly knew. News doesn’t take long to make the rounds in a small town. Other people I met just nodded grimly, as if soberly acknowledging my loss.
Moses’ car was parked outside the saloon. I felt a little anxious as I approached the saloon door. I wasn’t sure how Moses would respond, or exactly how drunk he’d be.
The place wasn’t exactly hopping that early in the day. “Teetotaler Tommy” Horton was lasciviously caressing a bottle of wine off in a corner by himself. His mind was permanently pickled, and he sat and muttered stories and told jokes to himself, which made him giggle and cough. Even up to a few years before he’d give me chills when I’d meet him in town, but now he was just a weak old man to me. Aside from him there were a few boys I didn’t recognize playing billiards. I assumed they must have come from the backwoods somewhere for a few days out on the town. They didn’t look like the type of fellows that would be in for revival meetings, anyway.
Garth, the saloon owner, was wiping glasses with his apron. He turned to me, looking over spectacles whose arms were ensnared by a grizzled bramble brush of muttonchops.
“Have you seen Moses around?” I asked shortly.
“He’s upstairs,” Garth nodded toward the stairs leading to the rooms above the saloon.
As I turned to head up the stairs, Garth said, “I wouldn’t be botherin’ him.”
I didn’t break stride. “I gotta talk to him,” I replied. The edge in my voice betrayed my brewing anger.
“Bobby!” Garth half yelled. I stopped in front of the steps, turned around, and fired a look over to him that said, “What? This had better be good.” I was ready to vent my frustration on him.
“He knows,” Garth said, modulating his tone.
“Huh?” I said.
“He knows,” he repeated, and I understood what he meant. Moses knew Ma had died. Everyone knew by now. Then why the hell is he still here? I stood at the mouth of the stairwell and my mind felt like it had been soused in a vat of vitriol. I had the almost uncontrollable urge to befriend the nearest barstool, go upstairs, and tag team Moses with it. I must have stood there for a minute, wrestling my emotions down. The wrath that intoxicated me seemed to dissipate a little with each deep breath I took. There was no sense in making a scene, or doing something that could get me locked up when Ma’s funeral was tomorrow. I still had lots to plan. Maybe he was just sobering up and would come back home when he was ready. I noticed my fists were balled up by my sides, so I relaxed them and unclenched my jaw.
The boys from out of town were gawking at me, and sheepishly looked away as I mowed them down with a look I hoped to be disdainful. Teetotaler Tommy obliviously continued telling himself a story from his childhood, laughing to himself and patiently listening for the story to end so he could one-up himself. Garth rested against the counter, rag in hand, as I walked back outside.
My next stop was Schlepsky and Smith Law Office. Mr. Schlepsky examined the will and said it was valid. He then began the process of placing the farm in my name. I didn’t really follow what he was doing, and just signed whatever papers he shoved across the desk.
Then I stopped by Jacob Stokes’ funeral parlor, which was located inside of his home. I paid him out of the roll of bills I had. He said Preacher Moore had said he’d take care of getting the coffin made, so that was one less thing to worry about. He took me into the back so I could see Ma. He’d cleaned her up nicely.
“I’m thinking tomorrow at two o’clock for the funeral,” I told him.
“OK, that should work,” old Jacob rasped. “You holdin’ it at Tobacco Road Baptist?”
“Yes, sir,” I confirmed. “And we’ll bury her in the cemetery there, too.”
I studied Ma’s body, her thin eyelids, like those of a baby bird, the hands clasped together in front of her, still exuding strength.
“Did the coroner figure out what killed her?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he nodded, “he said a brain aneurysm, but the concussion didn’t help things, either.” I nodded in silence.
“She looks mighty fine, handsome woman,” said Jacob, his hands in his pockets, his slight frame bowed over the body with his pointy little beard stabbing at his chest.
“She was so young,” was all I could manage, and I turned and moved toward the door as I felt a tidal wave of emotion ripple through me. I had to leave before I let it ravage the shaky house that was my outward stoicism.
I untied Shake and pointed him toward home. We stopped in at the Moores to pick up Shiver. The preacher was at the church, but Joseph showed me where Shiver was tied, and I thanked him for taking care of him.
“Pa said he pounded in stakes to mark the—the . . .” he stumbled, not sure how to tell me.
“The grave?” I helped him. He nodded, a little relieved.
“He also said I should give you a hand with the digging,” he added. I paused and watched a lone cardinal dot the empty sky as I thought.
“No, I should be fine, Joseph. Thanks for the offer, though,” I said, giving him a little shove on the shoulder like he was the kid brother I’d never had. He just nodded and returned to the house. I wasn’t sure how much help a skinny kid like him would be, but mostly, I wasn’t sure how I would handle digging my ma’s grave. I wanted to be alone for that.
Shiver in tow, I rode home. I located a spade that seemed to have some measure of sharpness, and rummaged through our dilapidated shed until I found a pick ax. It was rusty, and tangled in a nest of baler wire, but it still looked solid. Then I rode off to dig my ma’s grave.
The graveyard looked stark and bare like an empty room. The sun shone brightly, too brightly, as though it lacked proper reverence for this most somber day. I edged the sod around the stakes and string the preacher had placed to mark the grave, removing them once the outline was etched.
So that’s what I did on that pleasant fall day, shoveling, and picking, and scooping, and sweating. I thought about what I should be doing on a day like that. Until then, the thought of Ma calling me for supper after an ordinary day of plowing or cutting wood or mending fences hadn’t seemed like such a grand way to pass the time. But now and then I’d think about it, and how I’d never get another day like that again, and my insides would mash one another, and I’d assault the ground with my pick and shovel as though the earth itself were responsible for the ocean of sorrow I so aimlessly bobbed in.
The sun was dull when I finally finished. I threw my implements over the edge of the hole and hoisted myself out. I was no stranger to hard work, but my back ached, my legs were stiff, and my arms felt like their joints were fused at the elbow, like a wooden puppet’s. The rough pick handle had worn a few of my calluses off, and there were several tender areas on my hands where blisters had popped, leaving raw, dirt-crusted wounds. The two pieces of buttered bread I’d brought for lunch had been depleted of any nutritional value, and my stomach’s growl began to sound more like a threatening snarl.
Shake had spent the afternoon alternately grazing and lazing beneath a nearby tree, and was a little sluggish getting going, but we eventually found our way home.
After the animals were cared for, I came in and washed my hands, gingerly dabbing at the periphery of my open sores. I sat at the table, feeling quite woebegone, eating supper—cold ham and one of the last pieces of dry bread in the breadbox.
And I waited for Moses to come home.
Moses didn’t come home that night. I spent the evening stewing over the future, and brewing a cauldron of rage in my mind. After working myself into lather, I came to the conclusion that I had to be a man about it. There was no place now for fear or immaturity. It was a time to put away childish things, to be calculating, and not allow emotion to commandeer my actions.
I couldn’t possibly sleep, so I sat once again in Ma’s rocking chair, and I picked away at Moses’ banjo that he hadn’t touched in years. It usually came alive beneath my fingertips, but tonight was not a night for frivolous jingles. I played songs without names, notes that rambled uncertainly one after another, and random chord progressions which I could probably never duplicate. It began to rain, and it was almost as though the shriek and wail of the wind’s crescendo played in concert with the maundering melody from the banjo’s strings. And my heart sang the sad, sad lyrics.
~~~
Dawn didn’t break, it skulked. The murky light percolated slowly through sullen gray clouds until the whole landscape wasn’t so much light as not dark. I had finally corralled my scattered thoughts long enough to catch a few hours of restless sleep. Moses still hadn’t come home, and I really didn’t care if he never did. It was Saturday, and I kept my body occupied with tasks in the barn and house in the hopes my mind would get involved, but my thoughts remained fixed on Ma and the dread I had of burying her.
Shortly after noon, Mr. Howard Derby, who looked after the cemetery and church grounds, pulled up and asked if I wanted a ride. I’d planned on riding in on horseback, but he was willing to wait for me to get dressed, so I put on my thin black suit and rumpled white shirt, and slicked down my hair. The ride to the church was quiet. I was thankful for that.
The service wasn’t too long, but I’ll be darned if I remember a word the preacher said. I looked around a few times to see if Moses had slipped in unannounced, but was disappointed, though not in the sense that I wanted him to be there. He not being there gave me reason to heighten the resentment toward him that I was feeding off of.
Love is a Wounded Soldier Page 4