What Frees the Heart

by Karen A. Wyle

  Finch stared at him for what felt like half of forever. Tom was about to go looking for something that needed doing when Finch said, still in his growl, “Guess you’ve got more gumption’n I would have, at your age.”

  Now it was Tom’s turn to stare. Which he did until Finch lumbered off toward his work table. But as he went, Tom thought he heard him mutter, “More’n I would’ve then. Maybe more than I’ve had since.”

  Finch didn’t have much else to say to Tom that day. But about an hour before quitting time, Finch came up to him holding a deal of leather, finer’n what they used for saddles. “So you’re going to make fancy boots, along with fancy saddles? You’d be wasting a chance, then, if you weren’t wearing some. Advertise your services, like, everywhere you walk in ‘em.” He pointed to the stool where he had customers sit for fittings. “Sit down and stick your — your legs out, and I’ll take your measure. Reckon I can give you a pair of boots afore you go, like a wedding present. Then you can mark ‘em up however you like.”

  Tom wondered if he’d fallen asleep and was dreaming all this. But his stump pained him like usual this time of day. “Thankee, Mr. Finch,” he stammered. “That’s a real fine idea, and I surely appreciate it.”

  Tom could feel the first cooling of autumn coming, and see a leaf here and there just starting to turn, as he left Finch’s that evening. He’d hardly had time to figure out which of the thoughts whirling around in his head to catch hold of when he saw the blacksmith standing in front of the forge and stretching. Seeing O’Connor started up a whole new thought, or more like a new sprout on an old one. Tools. He changed course and met O’Connor, tipping his hat. “Not a bad evening, specially after a day of hot work like you do.”

  O’Connor grinned. “You got that right! The air’s most as good as a dip in a nice cool lake. And how’s life treating you since I saw you last? Got any more silver as needs melting?”

  Word hadn’t got around that fast, then. And as interested as the blacksmith had been in Tom’s work up to now, he’d enjoy hearing it. “I’m leaving town! Going to go from place to place doing my saddle work. And the same on boots.” No need to get into ladies’ shoes, which Tom didn’t altogether believe yet. And as for his other big news, that was likely to take them off on a detour longer’n Tom felt like taking.

  O’Connor stuck out his big hard hand to shake Tom’s. “Best of luck to you! It’s an adventure you’ll be having and no mistake.”

  Whether that prickly feeling running all through his body was excitement or fear or both, it made Tom feel wider awake than any sunrise. “That it will. And I’ll be happy to get started on it. But I’ve a while to wait yet, and there’s something I hope you can help me with in the meantime.”

  The blacksmith disappeared into the forge and came back out dragging the bench he kept there for customers who felt like waiting for their job. “Let’s have a seat out here while you tell me about it. Unless you’ve got a whole mess of silver to melt ahead of need, I’m guessing this is about which tools you’ll be needing.”

  Tom brought the picture of that Mexican saddle to mind. “I don’t rightly know which ones, but I’ll need something to make little shapes, pressed into the leather. And another kind of in between that and a knife, to make little curved lines. And one that pushes the leather down in a close-set pattern that makes it look darker, so the rest stands out more.”

  O’Connor pushed out his lower lip, big as the rest of him. “Well, now. I’ve never made the like, nor seen any such up close. But I have a catalog that might have pictures.”

  Back inside he trudged, and came out with a catalog from the Stanley Rule and Level Company. That didn’t sound too promising, but as O’Connor started leafing through it, Tom could see all manner of tools pictured. O’Connor stopped at a spread with the swivel knife Tom already had and a few tools he didn’t. O’Connor ran his finger from one to the next, saying — to himself, seemed like — “I could do that. . . . And that one, I could come up with something of the sort . . . That’d take some making. But it’d be a nice change from horseshoes and handrails, sure enough!”

  Tom felt like his pockets was getting emptier with every picture. He stood up. “Which ones would take the least of your time, and use the least of your stock?”

  O’Connor stood up as well. It took Tom a moment to figure out that the low rumble was a chuckle. “Counting your pennies, are you, with all you’ve got to spend them on? Well, never you mind that. I’d be pleased to give you a wee bit of help getting started.”

  Tom caught his breath. Could he accept? Well, he’d better, now that he had Jenny’s welfare in his keeping, and tools like these’d help him provide for her. And it’d comfort his pride some if he explained as much, not to mention that he owed it to the blacksmith to let him in on the news ahead of other folk. “That’s right kind of you, Mr. O’Connor. And I know my intended would want to thank you too.”

  O’Connor’s head reared back like someone’d punched him. “Your what, now?”

  Tom let himself grin. “I’m getting married before I leave town. To the prettiest little red-headed gal you’d ever hope to see.”

  The blacksmith beamed at him and shook his hand again. “Red-headed, you say! I’m highly partial to red hair, myself.” He paused and stroked the dark stubble on his chin. “I’ve heard tell you had a sweetheart in a place most fellows don’t find one. Would that be the lady you’re wedding?” He didn’t act like he was shocked nor pretending to be, and he didn’t wear the kind of leer Tom was all too sick of seeing.

  “It would. Her name’s Jenny.” He found himself wanting to sit back and tell O’Connor all about her. But he’d best not linger to do it. “I’ll come by again soon, and tell you more, if you’d like to hear.”

  The blacksmith clapped him on the shoulder, which made him stagger even though he’d seen it coming in time to brace himself. “Indeed I would, lad! And you can watch me working on your tools, if you’ve a mind. There might come a time you’ll need to tell some blacksmith how they’re made, somewhere out west or down south.”

  Tom doubted he could take in enough information to give any such instruction, but he’d enjoy watching the work, notwithstanding. “Until then. And thank you again for what you’re doing for us.”

  The blacksmith smiled even bigger. “It does the heart good to hear a young man say ‘us’ about his lady. I’ll go and study those tools some more, get to figuring what I’ll need to do.”

  Tom headed toward home, knowing Ma would’ve been watching for him. But his steps slowed as he looked across the square at Madam Mamie’s place. He had someone else watching for him, now — someone with a claim on him. And he’d had an idea come to him that needed checking on.

  Mamie saw him come in and came over as quick as usual. “You’ll be wanting Jenny, I expect. She’s in the kitchen, helping get supper ready. But you can wait in the smaller lounge.”

  “I’d appreciate that, ma’am. But I also come to ask you about something. I’m going to be working on a saddle, as fancy a one as I can make, to show folks what I have to offer. And some boots. I was wondering if I could bring ‘em here to work on some evenings and on Sunday afternoons, so Jenny could see.”

  “And so you can see her, no doubt.” She smiled her knowing smile at Tom’s embarrassed nod. “Let me see. There’s a table out back you could use when it’s not raining. And you’d both be out of the way there. Or for better light in the evenings, you could work in the kitchen once supper is over and cleaned up.”

  He could just picture Jenny sitting by his side or looking over his shoulder, her hair falling down and glowing in the lamplight. “That’d be most kind of you, ma’am.”

  She laughed a little. “It is, in fact. The small lounge is off that way. There’s books there, if you’re a reader. Or you can just dream about Jenny until she’s done with her work.”

  Tom found the lounge, and a good-sized armchair that proved downright comfortable. Sitting back, he set himself to pl
anning out what to put on the saddle and what on the boots. But he didn’t get that much planning done, what with thinking on the picture Mamie’d painted for him. It almost startled him when Jenny actually showed up, like she’d somehow come up out of his daydreams. But there she was, every bit as pretty as he’d been picturing her. And once he stood up to greet her, a whole lot more warm and real, and even more welcoming.

  As she pressed against him, he realized there was one thing they hadn’t talked about. And darned if he knew what she might expect. When she let go of him, he cleared his throat and said, “When I visit you here . . . “

  He could tell from Jenny’s look that she’d been thinking on the same subject. “You’ll probably think it’s silly of me. After how we met and all. But with us soon to be wed, and our wanting — my wanting to make a new start . . . I’d rather, rather not . . . .”

  He leaned over and kissed her, real gentle. “We see eye to eye on it. I won’t ask anything of you I wouldn’t expect from any other girl before we got married.” He chuckled. “Not that every farm girl you’d meet would be all that particular, truth to tell.”

  She stiffened up a little. “But whatever they’d do, you don’t, you won’t . . . .”

  He kissed her again. “No, I don’t, and I won’t. We’ll have something to wait on and look forward to.”

  For all that, once he started coming there to work on the saddle, it was a powerful strain walking through those doors and seeing all those girls in their low-cut dresses and their face paint and their scent poured on, and then sitting close to Jenny, trying to pay attention to what he carved on leather. And Mamie seemed to guess it. Catching his eye one day as he was heading out, she beckoned him aside and said quiet, “If it would ease your — mind, we’ve got an extra bedroom upstairs. You could go there and be private, when you’ve the need.”

  Tom’s face went hot. “That’s thoughtful of you, ma’am. But I’d just as soon not.” He could control himself. And if he turned out to need easing, as she put it, he’d rather not have a houseful of giggling ladies guessing as much on the other side of the door.

  Mr. Jed and Mrs. Freida had left town for a while, but they were sticking pretty close to Cowbird Creek so’s they could get back quick when Mrs. Clara’s time came. When he finally figured he’d done enough to the saddle that anything more’d spoil it, he found out when the travelers were next expected and brought the saddle to Doc’s place that evening.

  Mrs. Freida ran her fingers over every bit of the design. “So clever, so fine, I never saw the like, did you, Jedidiah? Even that Mexican saddle you showed me wasn’t better, you’d think Tom had been doing this since the cradle.”

  Mr. Jed chucked his wife under the chin, which took some reaching, and nodded his big gold head. “This will do the trick, right enough.”

  Mrs. Clara hadn’t come to stand over the table like the others, being inclined to stay off her feet. Tom carried it over and laid it on what was left of her lap. She studied it like she was memorizing it, or was a teacher come to tell him whether he’d flunked saddle making. Then she gave him one of her smiles that brightened up her face so. “It’s truly fine work, Tom. You should be proud.”

  He was, except when he got to doubting things in the middle of the night. He carried the saddle home, along with all the encouraging words, and let them run through his head until they carried him off to sleep.

  Next was rubbing the oil in. Jenny volunteered for that job. “Of course, if you think I’d spoil it, I’ll leave it alone. But I’d like to know I done something.”

  He told her that’d be fine. After all, rubbing oil on a saddle was almost the first thing he’d done at Finch’s, when he knew just about nothing. As he sat there watching Jenny pour oil on a cloth and rub it in careful circles, seeing the design come sharp and clear, he thought back to that day, and his chest swelled up fit to bust.

  After the saddle, he got started on the boots. He couldn’t say they fit his feet all that well, but he could maybe ask some other cordwainer along the way to make them more comfortable. And the boot on the wooden leg just had to look good. He sat with the saddle for a good three hours, picking what designs the boots should share and how to change them to suit.

  He could almost have worked on them at Finch’s, the way things had changed — which confused him plenty. The way Finch had handled the news of Tom leaving, and then given him the boots, didn’t much fit with the boss Tom thought he knew. He didn’t know whether to apologize for thinking so ill of the man — and wouldn’t that be a tricky thing to manage — or to hold a new grudge against him for acting so surly before, when he knew how to act different.

  He talked to Jenny about it, one of the times she sat watching him work, but she didn’t have much to offer aside from sympathizing. “After all, Tom, I hardly know him except through what you tell me.” He thought that was all she had to say, but a minute later she added, kind of nervous, “If he’d’ve been easier to get along with the whole time, do you think you’d ever have wanted to leave town, and your folks and all?”

  He put aside his tools to lay a hand over hers. “Finch still would have had me mainly scraping hides and other such chores. Once I learned what I could do as — as used more of me, I’d never’ve been content working for him. And what matters more, I’d have figured out sooner or later — you’d have taught me — that the way to be with you was to move on out of here. And I’d have wanted to be with you, any way I could.”

  She grabbed his hand and kissed it before she let it go so he could get back to working.

  Thinking over the months of dealing with Finch, what most stuck in Tom’s craw was that crack about going to Mamie’s when he hadn’t. Not to mention calling Jenny a wag-tail, which maybe Tom had no right to resent but did anyhow. He chewed on it for a couple of days, knowing it’d be easier to leave it lie, but one day just before quitting time, he found he was just too sick of holding it in.

  “Mr. Finch, sir, I was hoping you could explain something to me, something from quite a while back.”

  Finch turned around from where he’d been closing the shutters and grunted, “Don’t know as I’ll remember whatever it is. But go ahead and ask.” He turned right back toward the window, like he might not be hankering to look Tom in the eye.

  Why had he thought it was worth starting this? He didn’t have much choice now but to plow forward. “You said you’d been to Mamie’s when you hadn’t. At least, J — the girls there say you haven’t been since you was a married man.”

  Finch turned around, slow, and his face had gone kinda red. “I guess I do owe you an answer at that.” He seemed to stick right there, until Tom wondered whether he’d had some sort of sudden spell and might need Doc to come. But he finally said, “You’re a young man. There’s things you don’t rightly understand yet.”

  Tom could hardly argue with that, but it didn’t explain much. His face must’ve spoke clear enough for him, because Finch went on. “When you get older, and see your life stretching out behind you more than before you, it don’t always sit right. You can get to envying them as are just finding out what’s fine in life, and have plenty more to come. And when that happens, you sometimes take it out on the ones who have all that.”

  Tom couldn’t help gaping. Finch, with two good legs and his own shop — and a pretty wife, if not so pretty and smart and all kinds of special as Jenny — had been envying Tom? At a time when Tom had been envying pretty much every man he saw? It fair made his head spin.

  Finch cleared his throat, along with the subject. “How are those boots coming along?”

  Come to think of it, those boots might have been meant as a sort of apology, and not so out of the blue as it seemed. “Not that I’m the best judge, maybe, but I think they’re coming along fine. I can bring ‘em tomorrow, if you’d care to see.”

  Finch gave a short nod and then opened the door for them both to leave.

  When he finally finished the boots, all they had to wait for was th
e wagon and the wedding.

  Chapter 26

  Pa and the others had been working on the wagon at Stewart’s place when the urgent tasks of the season allowed. He knew that at least some, including Pa, were going short on rest, and wished he could do something about it. But this time of waiting and in-between had to end before he went plumb crazy.

  If it was hard on him, it had to be even harder on Jenny, living at Mamie’s where everything reminded her of the life she was trying to get away from. Though that was only part of it, from something she’d let drop the last time he went to visit. “The girls look at me different now. Like I think I’m above ‘em, or don’t want to be their friend no more.”

  He’d put his arms around her and comforted her as best he could. When he left, she acted like he’d made her feel better. But as he left the room, he heard her say real quiet, like she hadn’t meant him to hear, “At least before, I wasn’t lonely.”

  He had to marry her and get her away before she could change her mind.

  Finally, on a Saturday night, as Tom dragged in from Finch’s, Pa told him the wagon was ready, saying in that way that wasn’t far from an order, “You can come to church tomorrow and give thanks, and then we’ll show you what you’re giving thanks for.”

  “I’ll want Jenny to see it with me.” He needed her to know this was really happening, and to be able to picture just how they would ride away.

  Doc Gibbs decided to join them. “I’ll fetch Jenny after church and bring her along in the buggy. I wish Clara could be there as well, but she’s sticking close to home.” He looked more fretful than Tom could recollect seeing him. He thought for just a minute about how he’d feel when Jenny came to be expecting and was so near childbed, and then shoved the thought away. He had enough to keep his mind spinning, right here and now.