Heaven Sent (Small Town Swains)

by Pamela Morsi

  Everything seemed to remind him of Hannah. He would sit at the table and imagine her sitting with him. Her serious talk interspersed with his teasing chatter. He would dress and remember it was this shirt that she'd mended. He ate his food straight from the can, when he bothered to eat at all. He tried sleeping in the bedroom, but the pillows had the scent of that thick, honey-colored hair and remembering it kept him awake all night.

  Sometimes, just for a moment, he would forget that she was gone. He'd seen a doe with her fawn taking a drink at the creek and he was rushing back to the house to have her come look, when he remembered she wasn't there anymore. He was walking through the cornfield nearest the house and decided that it would be the best place to put Hannah's garden next year. Then he remembered that there would be no garden, because Hannah wouldn't be there to tend it.

  He kept telling himself that it was really for the best. He was not much of a family type man. And he couldn't help but agree that a moonshiner might not be the best example for a child.

  They were both really better off. He had his freedom. He could continue in the whiskey business without worrying about getting someone else involved or about leaving a wife and child when he went to jail.

  The whiskey business was a good one, and he was the best in it. How could she expect him to give up a business that he'd built himself? Something he'd worked so hard to perfect.

  He saw himself as he had been back then. Just a dirty-faced boy. Hungry. He was so hungry that winter. Skut had been too drunk to do anything and too drunk to care. Drunks never get hungry, they just get thirsty. There was no food in the house and no money to get any. Henry Lee had eaten the fodder from the corn crib, and scavenged the forest for berries and nuts, robbing the stores of the squirrels and woodchucks, but it wasn't enough.

  An old Indian showed up to buy whiskey. There was none to sell. Skut had drunk up everything they had made and had wandered off to try to find more. The old man had brought carrots and potatoes to trade. Henry Lee's mouth had watered at the sight of them. He had begged the old man. He had dropped down on proud, young knees and begged for the food.

  "Please mister," he heard his high childish voice pleading. "I ain't et nothing but roast acorns for more than a week. I'd do anything, anything, for one of them taters."

  The Indian had eyed him somewhat disdainfully, but had generously given him one potato and one carrot.

  Even today thinking back, he could still taste the bitterness of his humiliation with that sweet, half-burnt, half-raw food that he had wolfed down. The food had done more than fill his belly and recover his strength, it had brought home to him that he was very much all alone in a rough world and that if he wanted to eat regular, he would have to depend upon himself.

  He was too small to hire out, if anyone would have had him anyway. And it was too late in the year to try to get a crop into the ground. He could have taken off to town and tried to flim-flam or outright steal, but he didn't have the nature for it. So he did the only other thing that he knew could make money, he made whiskey.

  He'd watched Skut and others before. While his father had drunk and talked with the Ozark moonshiners, Henry Lee had observed and listened. He carefully tried to recall all that was said. He experimented and learned to trust his own judgment.

  The whiskey he produced wasn't very good at first, but he was able to sell it and get enough to eat and money to buy more corn, to make more whiskey. As he continued to distill, he learned from his mistakes and once he had it down, once he could shake a jar of his own liquor and see that the proof was right by the size of the bubbles, he began not just to eat, but to make a living from whiskey.

  He'd done it on his own. No one ever helped him. He was a child alone, who taught himself to be a man. And no one, not Hannah or anyone else, would tell him that what he did was wrong. Alcohol was bad. He knew that. He'd had a drunken lout for a father and a mother that wasn't a lot better. But people chose to drink, he didn't force them. Even if he never made another batch of whiskey, there would still be fathers who drank up all the cash and left their sons to go hungry. They were guilty, but he was not.

  He would do what he had to do. What he wanted to do! He would sell whiskey whenever he could to whoever he could. And if the law didn't like it, let them try to catch him. And if Hannah didn't like it, well, she'd made her choice.

  He took another slug of corn liquor.

  That was another thing that didn't seem to work for him. All his life, he had been careful not to get too drunk. Now, he wanted to be so drunk he was senseless. To not be able to remember who he was or where he'd been. But as he gazed at the clear liquor in the glass, not his first of the evening by a long shot, he was cold sober.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The noonday sun beat down on the green alfalfa, shimmering in the heat, as the women in the wagon arrived at the hay meadow. Without a word to the other two, Myrtie scampered off to find Will for a private moment alone, leaving Hannah and Violet to set up a camp lunch for the hay haulers.

  The two struggled with tent poles, erecting a lean-to shade on the side of the wagon. "It's a good thing you're here, Hannah," Violet said. "With Myrtie's mind so full of Will Sample, I never would have been able to put this thing up by myself."

  "One of the men would have come to help," Hannah replied, making light of her stepmother's gratitude. "But that Myrtie, she really does have her head in the clouds these days."

  Violet laughed. "It's kind of silly to watch from the outside, but you know how it is. When you're in love, you just can't seem to help but make a fool of yourself."

  Hannah let that comment pass. The last thing she wanted to discuss was how foolish a woman in love could be.

  "What do you think about Myrtie and Will?" she asked Violet, diverting the subject.

  "Well, to tell the truth," Violet answered, "I suspected it all along, not that Will ever let on in any way. It's just that a man who's kind of shy and backward, why, he'll fall for a bubbly, little magpie like Myrtie every time."

  Her stepmother's perceptiveness surprised Hannah. She had become so accustomed to thinking of Violet as light-minded, it hadn't occurred to Hannah that she might have some very keen observations.

  When the two managed to get the poles firmly into the ground, about ten feet from the wagon, Hannah climbed into the wagon bed and brought out a tarp. They rolled it out on the ground and attempted to secure the other two corners on the tent poles. Neither woman was quite tall enough and after numerous failed attempts the two were laughing so hard the tears were coursing down Hannah's cheeks and Violet was doubled over gasping for breath. They finally managed with Hannah holding Violet up, so that she could get a good grasp on the tarp and secure it to the upright.

  “It worked!" Hannah exclaimed when the shaded area was finally constructed. "That was a good idea, me holding you up. I never would have thought of it."

  "I don't know why not?" Violet answered, still smiling. "You've been helping to hold me up through the whole first year of my marriage. Covering for me at every turn."

  Hannah felt genuinely embarrassed that her assistance had been so obvious.

  "I meant well, Violet. I know I seem to always have to have things done my way. I truly didn't mean to intrude on you like that."

  "Lord, Hannah! I'm grateful that you did. I don't know how I would have made it without you." She put her arm around her stepdaughter and hugged her closely. “I never had any idea of the things that were expected of a preacher's wife. When I married your father, I truly thought of nothing but making him happy." She smiled is if having chanced upon a precious memory. "If it hadn't been for you, I would have had this whole congregation up in arms."

  "The congregation loves you!" Hannah insisted.

  "Yes, I think they love me all right, now. They've begun to accept me as I am. But when I first married your father, you weren't the only one that had doubts about it."

  Hannah's mouth dropped open in surprise. How could Violet have sense
d her concern over her father's choice?

  "I always liked you," Hannah said. "I just couldn't understand what you and Papa could possibly have in common."

  Violet smiled knowingly. "Your father and I have a lot in common. We have our love of the church and our attraction to this prairie. But, Hannah, it's not always what you have in common that makes a good marriage. Like I said with Will and Myrtie, sometimes it's the things you don't have in common that are the most important."

  "You mean opposites attract?"

  "No, not really that." Violet pursed her lips as if trying to gather up the words. "It's more that when you marry you do become one flesh, like the Good Book says. And for that marriage to work, the one flesh needs to be a whole person. So each one brings part of that flesh to the whole."

  The idea made a furrow in Hannah's brow.

  "A marriage should represent all sides," Violet continued. "And it takes differences in people to do that. Your father and I, together, make one whole person."

  "And Myrtie and Will make one whole person," Hannah agreed. "Because he is shy and hardworking and she is so vivacious and carefree."

  "Yes," Violet said, "Will and Myrtie make one person. And of course, you and Henry Lee."

  Hannah stopped dead still and turned to look at her.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You and Henry Lee make one person, too," she said.

  Hannah quickly shook her head. "No, Violet, we really just don't suit at all."

  "You suit each other perfectly," the older woman insisted, waving away Hannah's hasty denial. "I've seen it! When you are together, it's plain as pancakes. You become more like him and he becomes more like you."

  "No, I just—"

  "Just think about it, Hannah," Violet interrupted her. "Don't dismiss the truth before you've even given it a look." Her stepmother's words were kindly, but serious. "Think about how you feel when you are with him. How he makes you laugh. He makes you think and say things that you would never have done on your own. And you do the same for him, whether you realize it or not."

  Hannah assured herself that her stepmother was seeing things that definitely were not there. But, rather than argue, with so much work to be done, Hannah pushed the disturbing thoughts into the background and began unloading the wagon.

  Planks set between two sawhorses became a table beneath the shade covering. As Violet covered it with a cloth Hannah began toting the food.

  Hay mowing was hot, hard work and a man could build up an appetite in a hurry. With that in mind, the table was laid with six frying chickens, perfectly golden brown, a huge kettle of butter beans, potatoes, sweet carrots and greens. A mound of cornbread sat at each plate and a whole crock of buttermilk was cooling in the shade.

  When Violet finally rang the dinner bell, the crew quickly hurried to the small oasis in the hot hay field. Water came first, each man serving himself a dipperful to drink out of the bucket, and a bit to scrub up with out of the washtub. Will and Myrtie were the last to arrive. Hannah watched in wonder as the storekeeper carefully explained to her younger sister how the market prices for commodities were calculated in Kansas City. Myrtie listened with the rapt attention she had formerly reserved only for gossip and gee-gaw peddlers.

  The crew, made up mostly of young men about Myrtie's age, were sons of the farmers in the congregation. They wolfed down the food as if they had never eaten before. Although hot and tired, even a moment's respite encouraged their youthfulness, and they began laughing and teasing each other. Will and Myrtie came in for a lot of ribbing, but they didn't seem to mind very much.

  The young men joked about how hot and tired they were. It was a rough job, a man's job, and they were proud to be doing it.

  A freckled-face youth, one of Dillary's brood, spoke up. "Can you imagine that Watson, doing his hay meadow by himself without asking a hand from nobody?"

  There was a sudden silence at the table, and then as the freckled-face remembered where he was, he blushed fiery red. To his credit he looked straight up at Hannah and murmured a sincere and stricken apology.

  Hannah gave him as genuine a smile as she could manage. "It is perfectly all right to mention my husband," she told him with more confidence than she actually felt. Her heart had stopped suddenly when his name had been mentioned, and then to catch up had begun beating like a tom-tom. Her stomach had developed a mass of fluttering wings, which seemed to twist in anguish and pain.

  "Mr. Watson and I both intend to live in this community for a good long time," she said bravely. "It's not possible that we would not see or hear about each other. Please don't distress yourself on my behalf."

  The boys went back to eating and joking, but it was an echo of the lighthearted mood that had prevailed earlier.

  Hannah began talking a blue streak to Will and Myrtie. She was determined that no one would think she was pining over her husband. In a desperate search for a subject to discuss, she found herself regaling them with an amusing story that Henry Lee had told her. She was trying to tell it as he had, with all his gestures and facial expressions. She was doing such a good job that she had captured the attention of fire whole table.

  "And then the old man said," Hannah mimicked a deep masculine voice, " That goat didn't die by itself!' "

  Hannah expected a giggle from Myrtie and maybe a chuckle from Will, but when the whole table erupted in gales of laughter, she jumped with surprise. She hadn't realized that they were all listening.

  "You sure tell a good story," one of the crew complimented.

  Will smiled almost in disbelief. "I never realized you were such a cut-up, Miss Hannah."

  Hannah glanced down at the end of the table to see her father studying her. He had known her all her life, and one thing she certainly was not, was a cut-up. His gaze was so searching, so full of concern that Hannah had to look away. Unfortunately, she turned her gaze to Violet, who was smiling with an "I told you so" expression.

  Hannah began clearing the table as the men dispersed to head back to their labors. She watched Myrtie and Will say their chaste good-bye, and her father planted a quick kiss on Violet's lips. She missed Henry Lee.

  Three days later, Farnam Bunch, all his hay in, saddled up his old roan mare and went off to make a few calls. Violet sent a ham to Emmitt Travis, whose wife was ailing and who had three young children to tend as well. When Farnam arrived, Mrs. Travis was up and around, insisting that she was perfectly fine, even with a flush still in her cheeks. They were grateful for the ham and Reverend Bunch only lingered long enough to insist that Emmitt send for him if they needed anything.

  He made his way to Tulley's place to see how they were recovering from their young son's funeral. They asked him to stay to dinner, but he insisted that he had to get on to other calls. He had a cold dinner packed in his saddlebags and he ate it as he made his way to the edge of the Territory.

  With no real plan of what he wanted to say or do, Reverend Bunch rode up to Henry Lee's place. The yard was clean and well kept as usual. Henry Lee had obviously been doing a bit of laundry. Several rough grey shirts hung on the clothesline, flapping in the slight breeze.

  Henry Lee came up from the direction of the creek. His expression was cautious.

  "Morning, Reverend."

  "Morning, Henry Lee."

  The two men stood facing each other. Each waiting for the other to speak first.

  Farnam wondered if any good could come of this meeting. Prying into his daughter's business was not the way a father ought to behave. But these two were more than his daughter and son-in-law, he was their pastor. If it had been any other young couple in his flock that was having marital trouble, he would have immediately gone to counsel them. His own needn't be any different, he assured himself. But he knew it wasn't true. He wanted happiness for his daughter and he couldn't remain impartial between them, but he was willing to try.

  Henry Lee wondered if the preacher had come to give him his comeuppance. He was certainly ready. Nothing anybody
could say to him now could make him feel any worse than he already did. He hadn't even the heart to make whiskey these days. He just worked in the fields as long and as hard as he could, then he came back to the house and spent the late afternoon and evening working on the church pews. They were his last contact with Hannah. They would be in that church for the rest of Hannah's life and every time she saw them or touched the wood, she would know that he had made them.

  As the minutes dragged on, Henry Lee couldn't wait any longer. He broke his tough waiting stance and asked the question he wanted to know.

  "How is Hannah?"

  The reverend heard the loving concern disguised in the casual curiosity of the young man's tone.

  "She's well."

  Henry Lee nodded. The silence dragged on for another few minutes. Surely, if the man had something to say, he would say it. When he didn't Henry Lee finally took over. A businessman never finds long periods of silence comfortable.

  "Looks like it might rain this evening," he commented. "Hope you've got your hay in."

  "Yep," the preacher replied. "Just got the last of it in yesterday." Henry Lee nodded his approval.

  The preacher gestured toward the washbench that was sitting in the shade of the big red oak. "You think I could have a seat there? I'm getting kind of old for these long standing-up conversations."

  Without any sign from Henry Lee, Reverend Bunch made his way to the bench and sat down. Henry Lee followed, but didn't sit. Leaning back against the tree with one knee raised and bracing himself with his foot behind him, Henry Lee stood with his arms crossed, solemnly waiting to hear what the preacher had to say.

  Farnam didn't much like having to look up to his son-in-law, but decided not to insist that he sit. He had things he wanted Henry Lee to hear and if he pushed too hard, it was certain that he wouldn't listen.