by Diane Munier
So I hit. He hit and the crowd grew and his shirt came off and he was dark through, and my shirt came off and I was pale through. And he hit, and I hit, and he hit, and I hit. And I looked around, and Addie bit hard on her knuckles. They did not cheer so much now as we did not pause so much between but he took a stand one side of the seat, I took a stand on the other. And I hit and as soon as it rang he let it drop and sent it back up and so we did that for several rounds, and I paused again and Jimmy brought us the dipper and he was looking at me and me at him, just staring at him. And once William drank he took that same dipper and I drank and there was a murmur. And so I hit. And William hit. And I hit off and it did not ring.
And William hit and it rang. Then I stood back and William hit. And William hit. And William hit. And William hit. And William hit. And William hit.
And I saw it then, the workers from the stables, the Negroes you only saw all-day if you thought to look, them standing off watching as William hit and hit and rang that bell again and again until he couldn’t stand upright without staggering, and still he brought it down, until he was off and it did not ring but it damn near did, and he stopped and he was leaning on that hammer, and he pushed that handle over and let it hit the ground, and he pushed through that crowd then and went all the way to that knot of freedmen there under that tree, and one of them gave him a cup of water and he did drink it, and another gave him a bucket of water and he did throw it over his head, and Johnny ran over with his shirt and he thanked Johnny and put it on, and walked off then, those freedmen walking with him patting him on the back, but he did not stop, not for anyone.
Well, we broke up then, and folks started to go one way and another, some low muttering, but not anything you could catch. Some patted my shoulder as I tucked my shirt and I nodded, but I did not take my eyes from him as he walked toward town. “William,” I whispered. And I smiled. William.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Thirty-Three
Fair Time: Part Three
Four heats, the best of four to run late afternoon. Well, time was close and when I went to the stables to see that black, there was Jimmy with that boy he’d whipped.
“You know this horse?” he said. “You don’t know this horse.” He ran the curry brush over that smooth glossy coat and Black stood for it proud and ready. You could see it in that one always. Balanced. Graceful. Black looked at me, but not too long. Not the horse, the man or the rider paid me much mind.
That boy mumbled, “Sir…Sir I know him.”
“You’re gonna show these round here a boy knows horseflesh and they will see what you’re made of today,” Jimmy said to this boy.
“Yes sir,” the boy said three times quick.
“Yes sir, yes sir, that’s you yawning in my face, that’s what that is,” Jimmy said. “You think you winning today is gonna change something for you? Not with them. No time. But a free man shows who he is once in a while. One thing, mayhap one time. Duty calls he answers cause he’s free. You got that?
“You don’t got that or nothing. Fact is they won’t let it settle in…no way. But it’s for you. For yourself you have to do it. Respect. They will take what you give and think it cost you nothing cause you gave it easy, see?
“Yes sir, yes sir, go on with it. These round here, they’re not gonna clap for you. They’re gonna clap cause you might win them a purse. You hear me boy?”
“Yes sir,” he said.
“Yes sir,” Jimmy mocked again. “Might as well yawn at me. Go on with you.” He handed that one his brush, then he came to me.
“Rousing speech,” I said.
He laughed some, but there was no smile in it. “William resigned,” he said. “Told me this morning.”
“So that’s what that was? What’s he gonna do?”
“He is going with Mose first off to see. Him and Lenora are going to work with those children at one of them schools sounds like.”
“Where?”
“He talks of Richmond, St. Louie, New Orleans. Hell if I know,” Jimmy said.
I looked to the low ceiling of this horse barn. Well I was gonna leave him once…I was through he went lawman after Jimmy. But truth…William. He was his own man. Always was. He didn’t ask permission. I never did.
“When?” I said.
“He’ll finish the month and he’s gone,” Jimmy said.
“Well he said he wasn’t going on with you. Your political ambition,” I said.
“Yes. Don’t mean I didn’t plan to take him with me. Damn him for coming up with his own ideas,” Jimmy said and we laughed a bit. But not too much. Not yet.
“I will see you at the race then,” I said. And he gripped my hand and we shook. I wanted to say a thing…but I let it go. That what happened at the striker. It was between us.
“My black will take those others,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“And this boy here…well they won’t like it…but I am shoving it down ‘em…or up ‘em.”
“I can see. What is the backlash?”
“They’ll make money from this and fight anyone questions it. They’ll be forced to protect the one they was willing to kill over that biscuit. You see it? This is for William.”
I nodded. “Let’s hope it’s by a mile.”
“No less,” Jimmy said.
I met Addie after that and we took a stand with the children. There were more folks and them all ages in one spot for this event than all the others put together. Since the war, folks loved a good contest of horseflesh.
The four winners were prancing some and folks yelled their huzzah for each they were so pretty and fine reminding me of the four horses in Revelation for color and duty.
Bang-tail from Persimmon Grove, so we could see he was set aside and bred to run, or so they claimed but Persimmon Grove raised liars like we raised wheat. This beast had a strange look of him mayhap had something to do with him being fast, mayhap he was just strange, his hocks so straight, a brown horse ran to yellow almost. It was a fast beast as its win did prove, but it had too much spirit for its rider to hold so that one was rough on it to save his face, and that did not inspire the love it took to get the full out run.
Harley’s dun horse, as reliable as a mule, though it was bred from good stock, but you could not bet money on this old Bess for only Harley could get him to move notion took him not to, and this rider he had picked for lightness mayhap had not seen this horse turn I’d wager.
A fine flaring red colored horse, a roan horse but that red face pretty, the kind of looks got a man loving horseflesh, but this horse was too young to have the pluck of the black. Well, no horse did. This horse was speed and little grace. Almost enough, but missing enough by a mile.
Only one majestic. One royal. The boy trotted Black to the line. Rider sat him easy, in the saddle like a fiddle bow pulling slow and clear over the strings. And the black did not fight him, but he shook his head and felt him, that’s what, and they were speaking to each other through hands and that bit and the black found no offense so that was out of the way.
Well, they took them back behind the line and it grew still, so still a baby crying sounded like an anthem for glory. And Jimmy and Bimer stood there, and Bimer fired and they were off. I had money on Black. I held Janey, setting her in my arms so she could see those colors thunder past and it startled her and the sharp air filled with dust and we turned as they went round.
Four passes they would make and Bimer stood on the line with that flag and we waited.
Well, that black started in the pack and he would. He was running them. He was with them, not a stand out just another shade looked like, seemed like, but he’d heard Jimmy’s speech too, and that scar on his flank was the thing some might say marred him, but no it was the thing taught him how precious it all was, it’s what we knew in those woods, him and me, that day we come upon each other.
Out of that wound come the knowing.
About the time they turned the corner on round three, Bla
ck pulled out then, just enough to make the others strain to make them feel where they were strong in muscle and short in knowing. For they did not have his wounds…they did not know his struggles, and what they taught him, and when he let it come together and when he healed…well then no one could touch him. He was whole.
And this black now, this black he did not stop, but he was showing himself once again, nothing held back, it’s what he had, it’s who he was, and he was not fighting his rider, he was not fighting the race, he was not fighting himself…he gave it all for it was there to give.
He won. He won no matter what the race. He won.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Thirty-Four
We were sitting by a tree watching for the deer we’d trailed through this copse, seen here another time during harvest and I did say to Johnny, come Thanksgiving you and me will hunt right in those scrubs, right there and we’ll bring down a buck.
Now we were there, and I was talking to him about the rifle, the Enfield.
“I know,” he said, “tight in the hollow,” meaning the hollow of his shoulder. “I do not crook my head too much less’n I have to shoot distance, or pull on the trigger less’n I ruin my aim,” he said.
Well, I was satisfied. We sat for a time and more time and it’s this taught patience more than anything a boy could do. It made us from the country the best shots, the best soldiers. I think it fed Johnny’s pencil for he did not wiggle or whine.
And we were rewarded in time. It came into the field from yonder treeline, nervous but too eager to graze for the corn we spilled.
He bent his fine racked head to nibble and Johnny looked at me, but I did not look at him directly for I would not move my head, but I gave him the sign, and he did just as I told him. The shot rang and the buck ran a few feet and dropped to his knees, his side, and we come on him in time to see the light leave his fixed eye.
“In the heart,” I said, and I could not say a higher praise. I was proud to burst.
Johnny dropped to his knees beside, staring hard at that animal’s head. He held the rifle butt down, gripping it like a flagpole now, and him looking grim.
Well, I saw the tears and he rubbed his cold red fingers over his cheek.
“I did not make my first big kill ‘til I was twelve,” I said.
He sniffed. “What about Gaylin?”
“Eight,” I said. “But we boys pushed him to it. We’ll have ham from this. Grampa’s favorite. And Ma and Gaylin will be so proud,” I said.
“Are you proud?” he asked.
I nodded. I was always proud of him. Even when I shouldn’t be. Always proud.
He sniffed again but I knew those tears would dry. “Get the horse,” I said.
As we walked home with that deer on the sled slicking over the frozen ground, I said, “I ever tell you how I come on that rifle?”
“No Pa,” he said.
“I did not start the war with that weapon. I had me an Enfield but it was a musket loader, well they all was then. That one you carry was used again’ me. I have the scar on my leg where a reb shot a cartridge through my britches and skimmed me so close above the knee. Well…I shot that reb and he fell. I could see he had some rank and that rifle I took it back behind the line with me. I took a good look and saw it had been converted to breech-loader. They were not even gonna be sold until after the war. So this was some prize and I had lived to claim it.”
I did not tell him that twice I put it up in a card game, disgusted I could not find cartridges for it, and too much whiskey in my decision, and twice I won it back but I’d nearly shit myself until I did.
“Dang,” Johnny said. I knew that was as close to swearing as he could get, and I did not rebuke it for he was truly awed about such as that rifle.
And then the questions started about that man, that captain.
“We were doing our duty,” I said. “He nearly got me but I got him. That’s how it is in war, Johnny. I ain’t proud and I ain’t ashamed. I am telling you how it was.”
“Did he die right off? Was he dead when you took his Enfield?” he asked me. I did not think Addie would appreciate this. He had his first kill and it had upset him, and now I was talking about a man and mayhap raking things.
“He died right off. It was a shot took him quick.”
“Where….”
“I don’t want to say about that.” He was not food for the table, he was a man. “When you are older…or I am…mayhap it will spill out of me then the way it does with old ones, but you and me have this Enfield between us. I have taken fine care of it, and when we get home and get this deer hung and gutted I will let you clean this weapon for that is the way.”
He said nothing, but I could feel it turning over in his mind. How many times he had asked me about all this and now I had lifted the curtain and given him a look, and I did not know if he was ready…or if I was.
Well, we did not speak the rest of the way, but he did look at me many times, and he had that eye and I knew he would draw me on paper for his eyes closed in sleep this night. That is how he would figure it…the questions.
That night I held her. She was atop me. Often we slept like this, she did, on me and me holding her. I would stroke her long hair, and she loved my hands, all the time saying such. Well I had told her so many times what she meant to me. And she was a very loving woman. Nearly every night we loved each other…in flesh. Still I held off planting my seed. But every once in a while she would ask me to stay in until I reached my blissful end, then she would pull back again next time.
I let her lead. I saw the ones with a baby every year. I knew how womenfolk died birthing children. Saw the men and children left behind, him looking for a wife and smelling desperate. Like Jimmy had it.
I’d seen the other too. Her alone and set adrift. Like my Addie that space of time…and me holding back. If I wanted to torture myself I would remember her sometimes, this look she had at me…this hope in someone like me.
So she held the reins and I took the bit and I followed her hand both steady and shaky. I followed her.
I was eager. And in no way did she leave me wanting. Janey was pure joy. She was the sweetest baby girl a man and wife could hope for. Joyful and tender. I remembered things about Allie, but I admit I’d been so full of myself I barely paid her mind. But this Janey…well I had no guard against her. Addie told me, you have to tell her no sometimes, Tom. It’s our job to teach her to honor us.
“She honors me fine,” I would say, “just her breathing,” but I was helpless and I didn’t know how to say such. I wouldn’t. I would figure it out and she would keep getting older and then I’d use reason. There was nothing such a mite could do that bothered me. That was the thing about it.
So I held the mama now, and the others were asleep, and if they weren’t, it was Johnny, sneaking that drawing until wee hours, tired for milking and school. He would not show no how. He only hoped I wouldn’t. He roomed other side of the house while he waited for his room upstairs and come summer when Amuel could plaster again, Johnny would have his lair and another step from us, and I didn’t like it too far.
Well it was dark outside with a moon glowing, and our curtains parted to let that in. I liked to see her, even while she slept. My contentment with her did not ebb. It grew. She was my glory.
And I thought of how we’d have the family here for Thanksgiving. I thought of Pa, how the leg had not healed strong, not straight and he used that cane all the time and did not move like before. And Gaylin and Rosie taking all the care. And Allie and Jimmy in Springfield, and Jimmy losing his bid to replace Bimer and so mad he wouldn’t sheriff but had taken a job with the railroad. And William and Lenora and children in St. Louis at the struggling school there, and Lavinia’s help to place Josiah in good care…and Cousin…just himself, a blessing, a burr. Seth coming home first time in over a year. And Ma…her egg bread bested…her stepping over to us Thanksgiving…her joy in Rosie.
Addie stirred on me as I thought, she
whimpered in her sleep and I did rub her back, and she moved as if catching herself falling, and I stroked up and down her soft skin. I liked to run my fingers over her ear, her cheek, her neck and shoulder.
And she roused a bit, and lie awake, and my hands kept moving slow, and in time she whispered, “Tom? I dreamed…I dreamed we were at the train…and I ran behind and I couldn’t…it was too fast…and I almost reached you but I couldn’t…and I fell and I knew I’d lost you…and I was crushed with…sorrow…but then…you jumped off…and you ran to me…and…,” she was crying now.
And I kept patting her back, patting her easy until she was still again, almost asleep.
“Am I too much?” she said after a while. “Should I move off?”
And I held her to me, tight as I dared. “Don’t move,” I whispered. “Don’t ever move.”
Tom Tanner
Chapter Thirty-Five
Thanksgiving Day was bright and clear and the ground crunched under my boots as I went about chores. Not only inside, but around the house you could smell the many scents of Addie’s good cooking. Well, the meat I had smoked, for we had us a smokehouse now, nothing to brag about, but I was bragging for it was built solid and I used apple, cherry and hickory and smoked Johnny’s deer and the two turkeys I’d brought down with my bow and by damn it was tasty.
So there was that smell of goodness, and the pie she baked, the breads, the yellow corn dishes, the golden browns and reds. And her butter, colored like Ma done with the carrots, and all I could think about was how that house was a garden of sensual delights, her included, her the most mouthwatering everything.
I was lifting the shutters all around so we could see the surrounding fields as we feasted at table and every time I lifted one she smiled at me and I grinned at her and once I licked my lips and she laughed and threw a rag at me, or at the window, and I looked her up and down another time, and her mouth dropped open but she liked it.