by Diane Munier
Well, Jimmy had a million questions about what happened in Springfield. I told him they had more questions than St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, but I got through it. The money would come in a month, I said.
William was at the jail, so he came out cause I was apparent from the window. I told him to send Michael off to himself until he was fit. I also told him there was a chance we’d be followed and to be on the watch for strangers from Springfield. If they came he should be on it, and send me word. I told him Michael had debt and they were serious, had attacked me and Gaylin.
I described Buster, but he had others did his work, so wasn’t sure who would show. My mind on it was that Buster should petition for what was owed and go back to Springfield. The boys that brought our money could take them theirs. Jimmy said mayhap. He would think on it.
I also said I wasn’t sure about the woman with Gaylin, who, by the by, was his wife now, I said. She had her a boss, Tulley, wasn’t sure what that was. “Guess Mose ain’t killed you yet?” I said to William.
He just grinned.
“You marry her?”
“Last Sunday,” he said.
“He give you grief?”
He looked away, then back, “He cried…broke down…holding his shotgun…he was fixing to kill me…then…,” he shrugged.
“He’ll come around once that baby comes,” I said.
“It looks Indian, I don’t know. I fear he holds it again’ me.”
“Oh, he’ll give over. It’ll be part hers, too. He’ll see the Indian a whole new way in the child. It’s you he can’t take in.” We laughed some at that. I didn’t say, but Lenora had taken him in alright. Never figured he had the guts. Tagging her under Mose’s nose had been a bold move, but I’d seen it in him other places, that’s for sure.
That was all I could do for now. I knew such disappointment that Addie was not yet home, my heart hurt for a bit as I continued to push. I thought the Lord had worked some patience in me, but Lord I had been patient enough.
At home I gave report on Gaylin and Michael, very sponged, not mentioning things like Michael’s gambling debts or Gaylin’s wife. Well, Ma said with my expedient return they had not had time to get Johnny in school. He had flat out refused to go, and they were working on dragging him there, but had yet to do so. Lord, God, they’d had a week, but they’d done so much to carry us I could not complain.
I went to the barn for Johnny. He was hanging over one of the stalls, his butt sticking out like a ‘come and get me,’ and for a second there, I had the notion to paddle him good. “Best get on,” I said instead, still in the saddle.
“Tom!” he yelled, startling the stock. He scrambled on behind me. He kept his arms around my middle, and his head rested against me. There was such eagerness in his embrace, I patted his arm for a spell. Such as we were, we were family now.
That home place looked forlorn with no one about. Well, I took stock. I don’t care what Addie said, this was poor potatoes. And they came from plenty. To have degraded to this was pure heartache. Seth had done a good job hauling sheaves and flailing grain. I owed him some and he’d get his reward.
That day passed quick, and on the next, I made a conflicted decision to give Johnny one more day off from school. But come tomorrow, he was going if I had to sit there all-day and hold him on the bench.
Today I wanted to get a good notion about this house. I wanted to see what kind of bones it had beneath its dressing. Well, Pa reckoned it was built forty years ago. Said the fella had been a carpenter and knew things. I crawled beneath and took my pick. The wood was sound still, the beams still solid, not hollowed out and placed close enough the floor did not sag. Johnny was right there with me. Sometimes he was close enough we was sharing breath. He got in the way a few times. He was more interested in the coon skeleton he found, holding it so close to my face I could of licked it.
“Get that out of here,” I said, then I had to laugh. Then it was the nest of rotten eggs some chicken had laid, one long ago in the soup pot no doubt. I told him not to touch, but he did and got some on him, then lit out of there yelling and I followed out laughing. Served him right.
Seemed the foundation could take it if I raised the roof. But I also wanted to enlarge what would be the first floor. I wanted it similar to Pa and Ma’s house, a big central room for kitchen and eating. But I had me an idea kept gnawing about a kitchen with lots of windows, almost like a porch, and these could be raised in summer with screens on all, and let all the air in so it would be close to a summer kitchen and regular kitchen in one.
Well, why the hell not! We could do what we wanted, and in winter, I could get the windows to fit so tight, then some could be covered over with wooden shutters could be raised in the summer. Then off of that a nice big porch where I could sit with Addie in the evenings watching our children pick out the stars and me kissing her every time they weren’t looking, or even if they were.
So I thought on that kitchen, and I walked it off in the yard. I had Johnny help hold the string I was using to measure. If I added that on the back and then put a new story over that would give me space for four good bedrooms up top. I’d keep all the doors facing the stairs so the heat would rise, and I’d keep all the ceilings low enough they’d stay warm up there…those other children we would surely have a sweet time making.
Now what would that be like? And here a lot of open shelves on the wall that was actually the back of the house now. And a cupboard too, on the bottom, and this covered over so she could do her fixing there, roll her dough. But before the windows a table top too so she could knead her bread and look out. And flour and meal bins.
Then in the middle a big table with benches and chairs. And the stove on one wall. She could have a fireplace if she wanted, Ma did, but a new cookstove for sure. Next to it a box filled from outside. I could do that easy. Johnny could keep that little wood box filled, and she’d always have kindling. Had to keep him from chopping off his fingers though.
I was telling Johnny all this, about the kitchen, and he got to ya-hooing and jumping around. Well, he was so excited he got me even more excited. And I’d dig us a cellar. I’d dig it by hand in the evenings. We could store so much food down there. All the root crops for sure.
We were whooping it up, and I said we were going to strip off at the well and get a good washing. He smelled from those eggs, and it was chilly as it could be as we stripped off.
“And I’m in a mind to build something I saw in Tennessee called a laundry and bath house. I’m thinking I could build it out back, wash inside all year round. I’m getting one of those modern tubs that got the agitator, and one of those rinsing tubs with the wringer. Then baths in there too cause it will have its own stove for heating the water.”
“Yipee,” he said, still in his drawers.
He was naked now, and about ready to pee himself he was so full of questions. “Stand still,” I said, standing there barefooted and in my drawers. I dumped a cold bucket over him and he yelled and jumped. “Soap up,” I told him, doing the same.
“We got to get the house ready for her homecoming,” I said. “You can help me after school tomorrow.”
That took the shine right out of him. But before he could start he was asking me about some of the scars I had one place or another. I could fill his head with adventures, but of course I did not, riled as he was already. I didn’t know how to keep him calm. Just plain talk got him going.
I told him about some, one from a knife, one from flying out of a train.
That led to a million questions. Reckoned he hoped I’d forget about school altogether. By the time we were clean, I was tired. We went in the house and settled into the bed. I let him sleep with me, and I knew I should have said no. We needed a new habit right off, but he was so happy to snuggle in…I couldn’t do it just yet.
But I was soon sorry. Johnny was a flopper. Back and forth. “What is all this moving?” I said finally. “You can’t lay still there’s your own bed yonder.”
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br /> “I don’t wanna go to school. Ma teaches me. You’re just trying to get rid of me.”
Well, he didn’t seem to know the difference between me and him. He talked to me like I was Gaylin or something. “I said you’re going. Put a period on it. You do know what that is?”
“My Ma was a teacher. I don’t need to go to that chicken house to learn how to spell and do sums.” His voice was so loud, rivaled that trumpet call we were all dreading.
“Mayhap there’s more to it. A boy your size needs to learn how to show respect and get along with others.” Flashes of memories hit me then, of what us boys could be up to during our lunch time at the schoolhouse. How we’d go for a smoke, or have us a fight, or bully someone weaker. Then there’s that one time we beat up the teacher, him younger than I was now. It closed the schoolhouse for a while, and that fellow went home to Chicago. And our folks took our sides, like we’d been put upon. Lord I got to thinking about other things we boys did in the woods. How I’d stand against a tree and William would practice his knife throwing near my head. Then he’d have to give me a go and I’d throw at him, only I wasn’t as good as him. There were times he’d be nursing a wound Ma knew nothing about, like that one on his ear, still had the scar, him wearing his hat everywhere for a week or two, Ma scolding him. And what we did with our rifles…we were not above taking a shot at one another…all in play, of course.
I had to clear my throat and flop onto my back. I was getting wider awake by the second. This was Addie’s call, too. Mostly I reckoned. I didn’t have a right to be telling Johnny things without her, but she’d said in St. Louis he needed to go to school.
“Look…we all got to do things in this life we don’t want to. Your Ma has kept you close long as she could. It’s time now…you getting ready to be a man someday, it’s time you branched out. You can’t go west…you’re only a boy…but you can have an adventure and go to school. Now, subject closed.”
“We’ll see,” he whispered, and I could scarce believe my ears.
I was up on my elbow. He looked at me, just a thread of fear for a second before he caught it and glared hard as he could. I knew my hair was long and wild, but I had shaved the whiskers, but still I could look unhinged. So I tried not to let him see my feelings.
“You will not say one more word, understand?”
“Yes,” he whispered again turning his face.
“Yes what?”
“Yes…sir.” Face still turned
“Good.” I flopped back down a little justified he’d given me the sir, but I knew in his mind it was something else.
Pretty soon after that, I was staring at the ceiling thinking a thousand things. Johnny had a leg on me, then his hand in my face. He talked a bunch, when he wasn’t snoring, and farting, too. I needed Addie. I needed her in everyway a man could need his woman. I was nothing without her. She would know what to do about everything. Mayhap it was that no man alive really led his house. They were all just pretending. Mayhap it was the woman all along. If I thought about it, Pa made no decision Ma didn’t bless. But behind their bedroom door, a place I’d never gone in my mind or wanted to, but behind it, talk went on. I suspected she ruled from there and by the time they made it to the kitchen, it looked like he was ruling. I pretty much suspected that’s how it went. Well, Lord, God, I’ll bet I was right. And if I was, I was both disappointed and strangely…relieved.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Five
I was chasing him. Said he couldn’t go to school cause he had but the one pair of clothes and they were stinking from the eggs.
I said, “Where be your other pair?” But soon as I asked I knew they were at Ma’s. So, I said, “We go over there, you’re wearing one of my big shirts and your drawers and the rabbits and chipmunks don’t care no how. So get that shirt on and eat them oats, and we are going to pick up your clothes and get your butt to school.”
That’s when he took off, and I mean he lit out, and I put that pan of oats down on the table, then knew it would burn into the wood, so I picked it back up, burned my damn thumb, sat it on the hearth and took off after him in my barefeet.
I saw the tail of him go round the barn and I dug in after. When I got him, Lord…. And caught him quick I did cause he got hung up on the fence. So I had him under my arm and him kicking and screaming and us headed back to the house, when that carriage came into the yard. Her driving.
I could scarce believe it. She pulled up, and jumped down, grabbed Janey from the basket and came for me. There was I, in my pants, suspenders hanging, chest bare with those new marks, Johnny now gone still under my arm as he looked yonder over his shoulder and saw her, too.
“What in tarnal?”
I just dropped him, but he was quick enough to get his hands out and catch himself.
“Ma!” he cried like she was the saving army.
Well, she marched up to me, me stuttering something like, “Baby girl!”
But she shoved Janey at me and I took her, and she grabbed Johnny, and bent down in the dirt in her pretty dress, pulling him across her knee and with her arm raising high she brought her hand down like the righteous gavel of God himself, and her little hat was bobbing around on her piled hair.
Johnny was howling and she must of smacked his backside six or seven times, then just when he quit fighting against her and went limp, she snapped him up and crushed him to her and called out, “What in the name of heaven is the matter with you?” She was crying while she said it, but she held him away then, hands on her shoulders, looking into his face. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know, Ma,” he cried, then he flung himself against her and they cried together like that for a minute.
I remembered Janey and got so glad to see her, see them both, I took to rocking that little one then, and telling her hello and covering her baby face with kisses, but I did not really take my eyes from Addie, my beauty kneeling in the dust wiping tears from Johnny’s red face.
My darling was home.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Six
“We were just going to school,” I said, in place of Lord, God, praise Jesus and the saints, girl you are home!
She looked at me, eyes so pretty and round. “Is that what this was?”
She was eying my chest, too. She saw it all, and I hoped she still liked it like before, but right now…something in that brow up so high…it did not inspire hope.
She took Johnny’s hand and marched him the rest of the way to the house and I followed her, a little taken she didn’t fuss over me some. I mean…here I was. Her husband, thank you much, home from war and gamblers…and I did not look at Rosie’s nipples on purpose, I would not.
But that skirt was twitching. I followed it, carrying Janey. I followed it gladly.
So I was blowing on Janey’s fat neck and her laughing when Addie stopped in the doorway and did a gasp. Well, here’s what it was…and I never noticed before…not like I noticed now with her back so straight, and Johnny in his drawers looking from her to me like I was gonna get it now and he feared for me.
The smoke was pouring from the burning oats. Well, damn I could explain that. And the bed was a mess, but Johnny tore off the sheets while he slept, so they were heaped, and that quilt was on the floor, and we’d tracked some dirt, I could see that now, but I hadn’t been here long myself, and the dishes, we were gonna do those today…or I was. I did say we had to get it all ready.
“Excuse me,” I said, handing Janey off to Addie, and making my way around her. Lord, just being that close, and me not kissed yet. So I grabbed the rag and the pan with the oats, and they were burning like the fires of hell. They got out of my way as I hurried outside and set that pan in the yard about where her former husband fell, not that I’d been planning it that way.
Our breakfast was black in that pot but I couldn’t dally. She was charging here and there. Yes there were some clothes scattered and my gear dropped in that heap.
She just stopped then, turn
ing one way and another. Johnny had taken a stand by me, the helpless with the more helpless seemed like, us a reluctant shirtless tribe.
“I…,” she said looking at me, looking at him, then she burst out laughing. And she just kept laughing, and I went and took Janey, letting my hands touch Addie as I did it cause I ached to touch her. And I stood there grinning holding the baby, worried that she laughed a little too much. She was crying now, tears rolling, but still the laughing sounds and a little stagger, but she put her hand on the table and righted herself, and not the laughing sounds now, but tears and sobbing sounds.
“Darling girl?” I said, shaky myself. Had the sight of this house made her go mad?
Here stood her loving husband and son. Did one thing not undo the other?
She looked at me, and started to blub through her tears again, kind of a laugh, but kind of not, and it was all very confounding. I reached my free arm then. I pulled her in and it was relief, even though Janey fussed to be pressed between us, and Johnny hung on my arm and patted her back. “It’ll be fine, Mama,” he said soothing, like with the calves and piglets.
“It’ll be okay, Sweetheart,” I said, taking his lead for it appeared to be working.
“Oh, I know,” she said against me, “I just…I missed you both so much and…I love you both so much…I just…don’t pay me no mind…I’m just worn out…I…I just love you both so much…and it’s been so long…I…it was so long on the train…I….”
“Shhhh,” I said patting high while Johnny patted low, and Janey tried to stretch her sweet limbs.
What a fine knot of perplexing human misery and happiness we were.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Seven
She wore her chemise on top, a work skirt she called it below, and the apron over, leaving her bare smooth arms, slender arms so creamy white. And I thought, Lord, when you made Eve…what in tarnal? Did you not see it was not the apple we ever fell for or wanted to fall for, it was her all along…her and only. Her.