by Diane Munier
Tom Tanner
Chapter Twenty-Five
I never rode so hard as that morning Gaylin came and got me. He said that one word. “Pa.”
And I said one word in my mind to God and all the angels, “No.”
I’d pushed him too hard, I thought. Well, I had the lead all the way home, and my horse did dig some dirt time I galloped in the yard. They’d sent for the doc we had now, the one took over these parts for Tusaint.
Well, Pa was in their room abed, and Ma was tending him. It was his leg broke is what, but why did he fall? He said it was just too much sun and him not drinking enough water. He saw the spots then he went over the wagon. Tried to break his fall and hit the wheel. He knew it was broke.
“Well, you could of told me,” I said to Gaylin.
“I tried to tell you but you were on that horse before I could get it out,” he said.
“Well, they got to set this,” Ma said.
Pa was staring ahead, not talking. I saw his jaw working.
“You in pain, Pa?”
“Long as they don’t move it,” he said. “Them boys liked to killed me getting me in here.”
“Get him the whiskey out the cabinet,” she said to Gaylin.
“Whiskey in the cabinet,” I said. And after all they got on me.
So Gaylin brought in the bottle and Pa’s cup. Ma took it and poured off a finger, and Pa drank it, grimacing. “Another,” he said. And she did pour it out.
“I love you, Pa,” I said for there was no stopping me. “Bone is in the leg and that is a Godsend right there.”
He looked at me. “I know how you feel,” he said. “I ain’t finished.”
I nodded.
“Go on home. Can’t do nothing for me. Gaylin can do what needs done. We got all the help…never had so much.”
“I am right in the middle of it, Pa. I don’t want to put that above you, but they set these pipes wrong…,” I said.
“Get home. Less you’re the doc…and I reckon you nearly have been…but I’ll send for you I need you.”
“Ma?” I said. I needed her permission, too.
“You heard,” she said. I knew her worry. She got short like me.
I went in the kitchen and she came then and plowed into me. I held her and she cried on me. It was over quick as it came. She pulled away and wiped her spectacles on her apron. “I wet your shoulder,” she said brushing at the place. “Time was you wet mine,” she laughed.
“He’ll be fine, Ma. He is tough as wire.”
“He does too much. Won’t slow down.” I saw her worry then.
“I blame myself, I been….”
“Course you get to have all the blame,” she snapped at me. “I’m saying it’s his own fault. There’s no need for him to be in the field. I told him again and again. Time we stepped back and let Gaylin and Rosie….” She waved and left off.
“Where is Rosie?”
“She’s been digging potatoes all morning. She don’t even know about this.”
“Should Gaylin go for her?”
“She’ll be here to get dinner soon. That girl has been such a blessing to us.”
I nodded again.
“God sent us Debra and Jael in Rosie and Addie. Do you know it? I think you do.”
I smiled. I knew my Addie. And Rosie was good to our family. But Jael had driven a stake through a king’s temple, and I didn’t know which girl that would be.
“I ever tell you…you was born fighting?” she said looking me straight on. “Come out that way. A quick, violent birth. Liked to bled to death having you. Well, the others I could hold and rock. Not you. You was always moving and fighting. Pa…it’s why you’re tied to him like you are. It started right off. He said, “Lay him down, Mother. Let him be who he is.” So we laid you in your cradle and you battled it out. Seemed like you resented not being able to walk. Evenings I’d be wore out and he’d take you to the barn and build up the hay and put a blanket over and let you roll all over. He’d come in laughing after hours. Sometimes you’d fall asleep and he’d lay there with you until you woke.
“Many the time he took you on one of the horses. He tied you to him like a papoose and let you ride in the field with him. He built you a swing in the barn with box and rope and he’d sit there and push that swing for hours while he mended tack or whittled, you in that box barely still. He’d sing you all the songs. He knew you wanted to move. You had to move. But your mind was active too, as full of turmoil as your body.
“At nine months you took off running. You never stopped. Pa said, ‘He’s got too much life in him. He can’t hold it all.’ He said, ‘There’s no middle in him. He’s one thing to another.’
“Well…you got the lion’s share of his heart. You struggled just to be. I couldn’t look at you most your life…not straight on. You know why?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know a thing.
“I feared losing you. And I said…God, not him. His pa will not recover, I said, and then we’ll all go down.”
“You can’t look at me?”
“Not for long,” she said. “I watched you grow from the corner of my eye. I kept you close in here,” she pointed to her heart, “but on the outside I held you off. I had five. I had this farm. I pulled you in and held you inside.”
“Why? Was I so terrible?”
“Terrible? Looking straight at you for me…is like looking straight into the sun.”
“But Garrett…,” I said.
“Yes Garrett,” she said. “He lived in your sun like the rest of us.”
“No…it was him…,” I said.
“It was him brighter…long as he had you. You brought it out of him…out of us all.”
She looked at me and laughed, a little ashamed of telling me this mayhap, and it was a first for her. Just not for me. Iris said as much but I didn’t know.
“You wore me out, you alone, more than all the others. But I see you and I say to myself, that outstanding man…is my son.”
I stood there like a ninny. I could not believe what I was hearing.
“And you been waiting to hear it a long time. I’m not one to speak sentiment. But you should know. That’s what you feel from that man in there…your pa. He understands. Now get home,” she told me switching back to the Ma I knew and bustling to her stove. “Carrying on is what he’ll want. The work…always that.”
I nodded. “Well…thank you…Ma. I will check on him after supper.”
“We will send you word.” I was in the corner of her eye again. “You stay home and take care of your family.”
“I’ll see,” I said, and I went to her awkward and kissed her papery cheek. She patted my face and sighed.
I went in the bedroom. He was giving Gaylin the list, the one always in his mind. I interrupted that and told Pa good-bye. I got choked seeing him lying there looking small. “Pa, shouldn’t I stay ‘til the doc gets here and sets it?”
“No,” he said. “You can’t do for me. But mayhap you could, but they’ve sent for the doc now. Gaylin is going to make the splints.” Well, I went to him and he grabbed my hand in his. “Carry on,” he said.
“Yes sir,” I croaked.
Gaylin said he’d be right back. He walked out with me.
“I can run things here,” he said.
“Let me know you need anything,” I said. “I got all these men about right now. I can send help.”
“We got a good crew,” he said.
So we parted, and I went home much more slowly, my mind so deep in thought. I looked yonder over the crops growing, the Illinois wind that was always blowing. “God,” I said…. Then just that. My plea for Pa upon that rock of ages.
“I do not know myself,” I whispered. I needed to talk with Addie. I wished she could know what Ma had revealed. I wished she could say it back to me for I feared losing it before I could get her alone to tell it.
My Pa understood. I was the center of his eye. And the corner of Ma’s.
All these ye
ars…my pa held me. Her too…inside.
Outstanding, she said. Lion’s share. Too much life. Bright light.
I got flooded then. Could fill the sky with what I didn’t know about myself. About my pa. About my ma. About my family.
That night I asked Addie to walk out with me, and I held her against me and told it then. “What do you think?” I said.
“I think,” she said her hands on my face, “that outstanding is what you are.”
“I can’t ever live up to that,” I said.
“Oh Tom, my love…you do not see yourself clearly. You already have lived up to it,” she said.
Well, we walked some, and we got far enough from the house I put her on my back. She was such a little thing, I could carry her some. Had I not worked all-day I could carry her for hours. And her kissing my salty neck, and talking in my ear. Well we were laughing then.
“I’ll go back over,” I told her at the house. “For I sleep I want to check him.”
“Gaylin sent that word he’s doing fine. He’s resting.” She ran her hand through the hair always fell on my forehead. “Johnny….”
“My bed partner,” I said, “him and that pup,” and we laughed. “Just a few more weeks,” I said. “I ache for you darling girl, just so…you know.”
“The girls are going home week’s end. They have a wedding.”
I never heard such happy news. “We can be a man and his wife again,” I said like a giddy girl.
“We can be,” she said. “And those around here can fend for themselves.”
“That would be fine,” I said. “We have the Sabbath.”
“Yes we do. There is a preacher this Sunday and we will go to church and we can picnic after. Won’t that be fine?”
It was more than fine.
On the way to the barn I stopped and looked at the house, it standing in form, all the wood exposed. I was between all this height, the house, across the way and off-center from it, the barn.
“Outstanding,” I whispered.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Twenty-Six
I sounded about a hundred years old when I got in our bed. “Lord it feels good to lie here,” I said loud.
Johnny was laughing from his bed. I could not see him for once.
“Mine too,” he yelled.
“Mine’s better,” I yelled back. Well, these feathers were a marvel.
We were laughing and Addie told us to hush as she laid Jane in her bed. The cradle was out and had been for a while now. Janey was getting close to one year. She was standing and fixing to walk anytime. So she had a crib now that looked like a little jail-cell. That’s what I called it and Johnny did too, and Addie said that was terrible, and me and Johnny called Janey our little prisoner.
So Johnny started to imitate some of the sounds him and me were privy to every night in the barn. He whinnied. Then he called like Bossy liked to do around one in the morning seemed like. He said, “Oh my udder is ready to pop.” Then he did the rooster, “Wish Mr. Tom would open his eyes so I could dig out those eyeballs.”
He was so wound. He started to tell how Amuel put the rooster in most nights. And he was laughing so hard I got to laughing at his laugh. Course he went in to how I woke that morning with the rooster trying to spur me. Then he did succeed and we had chicken pie for supper. And I got to laughing so hard I was rolling on the tick.
“You two have turned into barn creatures,” Addie said as she moved around picking up this, sorting that.
“Okay that’s enough,” I said, but I had the urge to laugh and laugh for he could get me going like I was in short pants.
Well, I was pretty gleeful to think I’d have my arms around that woman of mine shortly if she could ever hold still and come to the bed. She could find more things needed doing at any moment. I planned to always have help for her since we could afford it, well she could, and I could not see the need for money to sit in the bank when it could bring relief. So we had already spoken to Lenora’s cousins and one was staying on this winter, and it would be grand for we got in the new house there was plenty of room.
She went to the screen door I did make soon as fair weather hit and did the latch. Not that we needed it, but it gave her some peace. The pup lay against it all night so he could be close as possible to Johnny.
She finally laid beside me and her sweetness puffed around me. “Hello darlin’ girl,” I said kissing her like Ma was looking on. I’d have to keep a rein on with Johnny’s big ears so close. But he’d be out soon.
She laid in the crook of my arm, her head on my chest. She sighed so contented. Well, me too. “Pa is having some fun making that bed,” I said. He was working on the bed now seeing he couldn’t do much else with that leg.
She patted my chest. I took her hand and kissed it. It felt rough from all the work. I kissed every finger. Cousin had her he wouldn’t allow such. But he wasn’t here and he didn’t know and he had ladies’ hands and I didn’t want to think on him now.
“Tom…something I think of…how is it you are so admiring of me…and Richard…well he just never…I thought I must be a great disappointment to him. But you…the littlest thing….”
Saints and glory I did not want to talk about Richard Varn. “I told you…he was daft.”
“Tom,” she chided. “Richard was a very intelligent man…once. He just didn’t…well from the beginning almost, he looked upon me like…you know how it is when someone hands you a big plate of food and you’re not that hungry? You maybe appreciate that it looks good, but you just don’t think you can eat all of it and you don’t want to waste so you’re in a quandary? Well, that’s how it was with him.”
Well, I didn’t know what to say here that was going to further my cause. He’d made the two children, so apparently he’d risen to the fray. Well, we’d talked this some before. Why was she back here?
“Mayhap he was one of those…didn’t cotton to womenfolk,” I said before I thought it out.
She lifted her head. “What?”
“Well, I don’t know. Something wasn’t right about him.”
She laid back down. “Why would he have married me? It didn’t make sense. Sometimes I ponder on it.”
Mayhap such a one as her was perfect. She’d been young and dazzled by him sounded like. I understood. She was not yet woman enough to know herself like she did when she came after me. And she did chase me down pretty much.
I laughed a little.
“What are you laughing at now?” she whispered.
“Thinking on how you chased after me.”
“What?” she said again.
“You know you did,” I said proud.
“I did not. Not at the end. I gave you up. I went to the pond one night and took a rock in my hand and said Lord I give him to you and I threw it in the water.”
“What?” I said.
“After that day…when you left.”
“I had to go. You made me go.”
“I didn’t make you go. You chose to go.”
“You told me there was no chance.”
“I told you I didn’t know for you were scaring me.”
“Oh,” I said pretty near exasperated, “you cannot talk to you about some things.”
She raised onto her elbow. “Pardon me? I am the one you cannot talk to? Do you remember how you were then?”
“I knew that day. I meant every word that I wanted you.”
“I couldn’t trust you.”
“Then what changed that day at the station?”
She looked at me. “You did. You told me…not to marry him. And…I knew it was real. And I knew I wanted you. I told you this.”
“So you would not have married him?”
“You knew I would not. You came to St. Louis knowing I was waiting.”
I grinned. “I pretty much did, didn’t I?”
She slapped me lightly on the shoulder and put her head back where it belonged. “It must be a heavy burden to be so all-knowing,” she said.
Well, I eased from her. “Don’t you go anywhere. I’ll be right back.” I went to check on Johnny. He was out, lying on his back, head turned to the side mouth wide open. His sketchbook was in one hand, that harp beneath it, a pencil held in the other. I took these treasures from him and laid them on the floor and fixed the sheet over him. I laughed just looking at him.
Then I went back to my girl, shedding my clothes side of the bed and slipping under the sheets. She pretended to be asleep, but she moved right to me and her hand found me quick and she kissed me while she stroked me the way a lover might and I breathed in to settle down, but I couldn’t stop kissing her. “Take off all of this,” I said my hand skimming her underclothes. I got very bossy in lovemaking, and other times she liked to say, but lovemaking for sure.
She kicked off her drawers and I helped her lift the chemise and though I wished for light bright as the sun, I could see her pretty good for the moon was full up and we had a wash of it in here. Well her breasts could stop me cold. They took the words from me and held me in a trance.
I wanted to look at her, and she lay still for me and I just ran my hand over, light at first making sure it wasn’t too rough. She was the most lovely creature God ever made. I said that to her. She laughed and I could tell she was shy of me, but not too much. “I like all this so much,” I whispered to her as I touched everywhere, even her little feet.
Then she ran her hand over me and I laid back so she could look her fill and touch her fill. I was not shy, not at all. I liked her favor and attention. I knew she appreciated me, my form, my strength. She liked my chest and would spend time just figuring over it, my arms, well they had size, my stomach solid, my manhood ready, my legs long and very strong.