The Arms of a Better Man

by Indiana Wake

  “He’s in the sitting room, Katie, go right on in,” Mary said when Katie appeared at the kitchen door.

  Mary was mixing something in a bowl, which smelled sweet, and Katie nursed a secret hope that she was going to make the little cakes that she had made one Sunday after church.

  They were delicious, and Katie had helped herself to more than one.

  “Thank you, Mary,” Katie said, peering into the bowl on her way past.

  When she wandered into the sitting room, it was to see Arlen laying squarely in the middle of the rug on his back, staring up at the ceiling. She stopped in the doorway for a moment, wondering if she really ought to proceed. After all, he wasn’t exactly ready to receive visitors in the ordinary way.

  “Katie?” he said, tipping his head back to look up at her.

  “What are you doing?” she said, crossing the room and leaning over to peer into his face.

  “I’m doing my exercises,” he said flatly.

  “No, you’re not. You’re not doing anything. You’re just lying there,” Katie said, and he laughed.

  “I reckon I’m just tired of doing them is all,” he said and sighed.

  Katie knelt at his side on the rug to make conversation a little easier and studied him for a moment. There was an air about him today, as if he’d slid back just a little and she could sense that he was feeling dejected.

  “But they are helping,” she said quietly. “Aren’t they?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, you’re walking is different. Better.”

  “I don’t know, I don’t think I’m seeing a change.” He turned his head and looked at her fully.

  His bright blue eyes looked sad, a little defeated, and Katie hadn’t seen him look so downcast for a long time. The truth was, she thought he’d turned a corner some way back, and she was surprised to see him look so sullen.

  “But do you think so?” he asked and raised his eyebrows and smiled, although she was certain that he was only doing so for her benefit.

  “You don’t have to smile to make me smile,” Katie said and shifted a little awkwardly on the rug. “If you’re feeling bad, if you’re kind of down, you can just say it. I’m not going to run away, am I?”

  “Really?” He grinned.

  “Of course not, I’ve heard worse from you,” she said, trampling over the tender moment unintentionally, as she often did.

  “All right, I give in,” he said and laughed. “I feel better already.”

  “What are you laughing at?” she said and squinted at him.

  “Never mind,” he said and sat up.

  “Are your exercises giving you pain today?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Then why aren’t you doing them?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m bored? I know it’s only an hour, but it seems to stretch ahead of me for about a mile, you know?”

  “Well, maybe you need something else to take your mind off it,” she said and got to her feet and wandered around the room for a minute.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “A book.”

  “What book?”

  “Any book? At least one that you would like.”

  “My books are all in my room,” he said and began to get to his feet. “Why? Do you want me to go and get you one?”

  “No, stay where you are. I’ll go, if you like. Or I’ll ask Mary to.” She stood there in the middle of the room wondering if she had overstepped the mark.

  “Through the kitchen and at the very end of the hall, Katie.” He shrugged. “Help yourself.”

  As Katie walked back to the kitchen, she hurriedly explained to Mary where she was going, almost asking for her permission. But Mary just smiled and nodded, and so Katie went on her way, wandering down the hall until she reached the door at the end.

  She opened it slowly, peering in as if Arlen himself might be there. She knew he wasn’t, of course, but she had the sudden sense of stepping into his private world.

  His room was neat and orderly, the bed made, and all in all very different from what she had been expecting.

  But then he’d been a soldier, hadn’t he? Looking out for himself and doing for himself had very likely become part and parcel of his everyday life.

  There was a small bookcase in the room, just three shelves high but full to capacity with books. And on the top were pamphlets and publications, the Liberator included. But she was looking for something a little more easy-going, light-hearted even.

  When she finally spotted the Count of Monte Cristo, a battered and clearly well-read little volume, she snatched it up with a smile. Who didn’t like the Count of Monte Cristo? It was a wonderful story full of excitement, just the thing to keep him entertained while he worked through his exercises. And it was a long book too, it would probably last them a good while if he let her read it to him.

  With the book tucked under her arm, Katie turned to leave. But before she took a step, she turned back and looked at the bed, neatly made with a dark patchwork quilt laid squarely over the top.

  That was where he laid his head every night, the place he closed his eyes and finally went to sleep. By instinct, Katie took a step towards it and reached out, laying her hand on the pillow. She let her hand stay there for a moment or two, as if she could feel him there, or leave her mark somehow to let him know that she cared.

  But when she heard the familiar sounds of Mary working away in the kitchen, Katie sharply withdrew her hand and hurried out of his room, closing the door behind her.

  “You’re going to what?” Arlen said, still sitting up in the middle of the rug and staring at her.

  “Read to you,” Katie said and held out the book in front of her, almost brandishing it. “The Count of Monte Cristo, to be precise.”

  “Oh, I like that,” he said, losing the thread of the conversation for a moment. “But why? I know how to read to myself.” He was still confused.

  “Yes, but not while you’re doing your exercises,” Katie said and looked at him with that little flash of exasperation that almost always made him laugh.

  Katie seem to be at her most exasperated when he didn’t respond to something that she had only vaguely explained. And now was no different.

  “I see,” he said, in the tone of a man who clearly did not see at all.

  “All right,” Katie said with a sigh and sat down on one of the dark covered armchairs. “You are bored doing your exercises, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, I will keep you entertained while you’re doing them.”

  “By reading to me,” he said, the penny finally dropping.

  “By reading to you.” Katie repeated and slowly shook her head from side to side. “I’m sure I made it obvious.”

  “Only obvious to you, Katie,” he said and chuckled.

  In the weeks since Katie had been coming to see him, and he had been visiting her at the lumberyard or in her ma’s kitchen, the two of them really had developed something of a bond. While Katie had a different sort of sense of humor from his brother David, she still had a sense of humor, and there was a strange kind of camaraderie between them, the kind that didn’t always exist between men and women.

  He knew it was a special thing, something to be grateful for. After all, her unusual way of looking at the world at times had been one of the things which had lifted his spirits more than anything. He ought to have known that very first day, when she had come to him outside the diner with such a frank apology, that she was not an everyday kind of girl. She was different, clearly different. But she was unapologetically herself, and Arlen couldn’t help but admire that, especially in one who was so young and seemingly without much experience in the world.

  But ever since his conversation with his brother, Arlen had silently admitted to himself that he really did secretly want something a little stronger between them. But he wondered if the closeness they had developed would somehow keep them apart; perhaps they were now too familiar with one ano
ther for a romance to develop.

  Still, those were the thoughts he had on his good days. On every other day, he realized that their closeness was neither here nor there, he wasn’t about to let her know how he felt. He wasn’t going to put her in that position.

  And more than anything, he didn’t want to lose her. For a man like him, one so broken, to approach a girl like her would surely frighten her witless, make her run faster than anything else could have done.

  If he wanted to keep her in his world, Arlen knew that he would have to bury those burgeoning feelings of longing deeper and deeper the more they grew.

  “On the twenty-fourth of February, 1810, the lookout at Notre-Dame de la Garde signaled the three-master, the……” She began to read loudly.

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” he said and laid down on the rug again. “I haven’t started yet.”

  “Just do it in your own time, Arlen. It’s not like I’m going to get to the end of this book in an hour, is it?”

  “No, I suppose not,” Arlen said and chuckled. “All right, carry on.”

  “On the twenty-fourth of February, 1810, the lookout at Notre-Dame de la Garde signaled the three-master, the……”

  “Wait a minute, you’ve already done that bit,” he said, feeling light-hearted again and thinking that he probably would get through his torturous exercises with ease now.

  “I know, but I hadn’t got to the end of the sentence. I can’t just begin in the middle of a sentence, it feels wrong,” she said and shook her head, her eyes narrowed in an almost schoolmistress fashion.

  “All right, have it your own way,” he said.

  He looked down at himself; his leg, clad in heavy cotton trousers, looked as it had always done as it lay there. It looked straight and just the same as its neighbor, as if it ought to work properly. For a moment, he imagined a day when he really could be up on horseback again.

  It took him by surprise, and he closed his eyes to picture him himself out there on the ranch, sitting astride a horse. But it wasn’t as if he was watching himself, but more like he really was sitting on a horse. He could see his thighs and knees, the saddle, the reins in his hands, the back of the horse’s long neck and proud head. He could feel the cool morning air on his skin and stared out across the plains at the rising sun in the distance. He wasn’t just imagining that moment, he was in it.

  “On the twenty-fourth of February, 1810, the lookout at…… Oh, Arlen? Are you all right?” She broke off.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You’re not worrying about, well, doing exercises with me here, are you?” she said shyly, and he finally opened his eyes.

  “No, it wasn’t that at all.”

  “Are you sure? Because sometimes I don’t always know if what I’m doing is right. My sister, Janet, says sometimes I should wait before just going ahead, you see, and I reckon I’ve been thinking about that lately. Maybe I don’t do that. Wait, I mean,” she said, and her pretty cheeks were bright pink.

  “Katie, just be you,” he said and smiled at her. “Don’t worry about if you’re doing or saying something in a different way, at odds with how somebody else might do it; just be you.”

  “Oh, well.” She looked down for a moment. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He grinned at her. “Am I going to get this story or not?”

  “In a minute,” she said and looked up at him again.

  “Oh Lordy, have you thought of something else?” he said, teasing her, trying to make her laugh.

  “No, I just wondered what the matter was. What were you doing?”

  “I was just remembering what it was like to be up on a horse. It was strange really, I reckon, because I kind of felt like I was. With my eyes closed, you know, I thought I was outside and it was early morning, sunny and bright, a little bit cold. Anyway, I was just riding my horse the same as I’d always done, like nothing had ever happened.”

  “I think you have to just keep believing that you will do again one day.”

  “As simple as that?”

  “No, not as simple as that. But if you try it, it might just keep you doing the exercises.”

  “That and your reading, of course.”

  “If I ever get past the first sentence, yes.”

  “I know I’m teasing you, Katie, but I’m real appreciative. You know, reading to me and all. Knowing you, you’ve probably already read that book a hundred times and know it word by word.”

  “I don’t mind, I like this book.”

  “And you’re right, you do need to believe in something,” he said and took a deep breath before raising his right leg as straight as he could from the floor. “I reckon I used to do something along those lines when I was out there, in battle, you know.” He lowered his leg again and rested it for a moment before lifting it again.

  After all his debilitating embarrassment and pride, now he was ready for Katie to see him struggling, if she cared to look. He was ready to be honest, to stop hiding.

  “You did?” she said, setting the book down on her lap and looking at him with interest.

  “I did.” he said and lowered his leg again. “When things were at their worst, when we were really in the thick of it, I used to sometimes imagine myself back here. Just sitting in that chair where you are now, but like I was really sitting in it. Not looking at myself, but actually being there.”

  “Well, if it got you home, I reckon it might get you up on horseback.”

  “You’re always so sure, aren’t you?”

  “No, not always,” she said, and her expression was suddenly unreadable.

  “Well, am I going to get to hear about the Count or not?”

  “On the twenty-fourth of February, 1810,” she began again, and Arlen continued his exercises in earnest.

  Chapter 16

  “Here you go, honey,” Grace said as she bustled out of the kitchen and into the garden carrying a tall glass of peach tea. “You’ve been out here for so long and it’s so hot.” She went on in the motherly tone that always made Katie feel small and protected.

  “Thank you, Mama,” she said and looked up with a smile as she reached out for the glass.

  “Don’t be out here all day, will you? It’s just too hot,” Grace said again, hands on hips this time.

  “I won’t, I promise.”

  “Well, I’ll be watching you from the kitchen window, you just think about that!” Grace nodded and wandered off leaving Katie laughing, thinking her ma had just managed to make her care sound like a threat.

  It was true, Katie had already been out in the garden for more than an hour, realizing just how many weeds needed pulling up. She hadn’t been in the garden as much lately, spending such a lot of her time with Arlen these days.

  But the summer had had its fair share of rain and not only were the plants thriving, the weeds were too.

  Katie had started down the side of the house first, freeing her precious sunflowers from the choking effects of the weeds that were growing up around their ankles. The sunflowers were taller than her, the biggest ones she’d ever grown, and she looked up at them, smiling into their big yellow faces.

  And as she’d moved on into the front part of the garden, Katie had realized just how much time she would need to spend out there to get things straight again. She had neglected her little garden in favor of a new friend, although she didn’t regret knowing Arlen at all.

  Far from it, even as she pulled up weeds, she thought about him.

  She had been going over there to the Bryant ranch almost every day, finishing work a little early so that she might ride over there and continue reading The Count of Monte Cristo while Arlen, fresh from his work on the ranch, worked through his exercises.

  As she read, she occasionally watched him out of the corner of her eye and had seen, day by day, how his range of movement had improved.

  Surely, that could only be on account of his muscle strengthening, of the exercises working. Only Katie didn’t like to say it, i
n case Arlen couldn’t yet perceive the improvement himself. She didn’t want to get him thinking in a way that would have him dejected once more.

  And she would have given anything to see him up on a horse, not because she thought that was what he ought to do, but because she knew it would make him happy. When he told her how he’d imagined that very thing, it had almost brought her to tears. She’d had to concentrate really hard on reading the book to keep her emotion at bay.

  The way they got along now, she could hardly believe he was the same man she had chastised so fervently at the gate when she had marched angrily away from the Bryant ranch so many weeks before. He’d changed so much, he’d worked so hard to overcome the bitterness that must surely come to any man in the same circumstances.

  But when she thought that, just ten months before, he had been far away and uninjured, she realized just how far he’d come. She felt emotional again and shook her head, turning her attention back to the weeding once again.

  Katie knew that she was falling for him, that she’d come to think of him as more than a friend. But she also knew how different she was, and how unlikely it was that Arlen would ever think of her romantically. She would have to be satisfied with his friendship, she was sure of it.

  But that didn’t stop imagining him asleep in his room at night, laying his head down on the pillow she had touched.

  When Katie moved along the garden to the next strong growth of weeds, she stared wide-eyed in amazement at the rhododendrons. She had neglected them for weeks, not checking to see how burying the copper tacks had changed them. But they were thriving, at least twice the size they had been and, unbelievably, full of beautiful deep waxy green leaves.

  There were no flowers, no buds, but she knew she couldn’t expect that so early on. But that didn’t matter, not a bit. They had finally come good, and that was the whole point.

  And suddenly, it seemed such a significant thing. She’d likened Arlen’s leg to her rhododendrons once, much to his amusement, and it was suddenly so important for her to tell him all about it.

  She hurriedly drank down her ma’s peach tea, hiccupping as she ran back towards the house to tell her mother she was going out.