by Diane Munier
“Your Enfield. You didn’t have the guts. That’s what. You didn’t have the sass, and now you want to hate me for doing your dirty work.”
I flew across the short expanse and took him off his horse. We landed hard on the ground, him mostly on the bottom, but still it hurt like the devil’s pitchfork was poking me all over. This was no boys’ tussle like back at the church. I hoped to break his jaw or kill him.
He fought cause he knew how. But so did I. For every punch he got in, I got in two. He kicked me, I kicked him twice as hard. I was fighting blind, but he was too, and we stayed in close to each other and kept on going, and I bit him while he scratched down my neck until I let go so I could holler.
All I knew was at some point hands were on me and we were being ripped apart. My eyes were so swollen, I could scarce make anything out, and when I got red like that, I couldn’t think. Next I knew I was in the carriage, Seth driving, his mare tied on the back. I barely realized when we made it home. That rented buggy was there. Pa had already pulled in the barn and unhitched. I stumbled from the buggy and started to the well, “Tom,” Seth called, “it was the Lord’s Day first, but mine after.”
I tried to stare at him, but I could barely stay straight on my feet. I started to walk away again.
“Tom,” he said.
I stopped and looked back.
“It was my day.”
“Sorry,” I said, then I took off to dunk my head in the trough.
I didn’t stir from my bed of woe until sun up the next day. So it was I pulled on my pants and went to the well to renew myself. Well, I was sore and busted. Once I washed I went to my room to finish dressing. I already felt her gone, like the heart ripped out of this place and maybe out of me. If she was here she would have come to me last night trying to patch me up. But she did not come. I dreaded going in to the house, but today was the day when I would start to bring in her crops and a man had to eat. Yet I took a good drink of whiskey to fortify myself against them. Then I took another for what they would tell me about her. About Cousin.
They were quiet as I entered. Even Gaylin, not as bruised as me, but hurt still, even Seth bore marks. What a fine bunch. I went to table with my knuckles raw and shining before me like reminders of my sins.
We just ate. Allie looked at me, but then she looked away, and I went to put potatoes in my mouth, but my lips were on fire from the grease, though I said nothing but I did drop my fork with a full load and my shirt got splattered.
The family did not speak or care as they continued to labor over their food.
“Pa,” I said, ashamed at how garbled I sounded, “reckon Seth could help me in Missus’ fields today?”
“That be up to him,” Pa said, head down as he scooped his food.
Seth looked at me, his always kind face rather stern. “I will go for Missus,” he said. “Just for her though.”
I could feel my thin patience cracking.
“Lord have mercy I smell spirits at my table!” Ma said sniffing the air like this bird dog I had me once.
Pa looked ornery at me. “Tom…is that whiskey on your breath?”
Why in tarnal I had to hiccup so loudly at that moment I could not tell, but I said, “No Pa,” like he was addled to suggest such, “I had to treat my cuts.”
“Lies pour like melted butter,” Ma said. “My own child grown into a man I do not know.”
She was right. I didn’t want her to know me.
Then Allie, “Why’d you do it! Why do you have to ruin my life! He loves me and I love him. He only asked you cause you’re so horrible and violent. You aren’t my pa, and you have no call to try and kill someone for loving me! I hate you!”
No sooner was she done Gaylin started, “We sent off Garrett and we got back you. Ain’t fair and I ain’t even sure I believe there is a God anymore.”
Pa and Ma got after him good. Not for what he said about me, but because of what he said about God.
I stood then, yes I weaved a bit, and I said, “Seth, I’ll hitch up and we can get going then.”
“He’s come for her,” Gaylin said. “You’ll get yours now.”
Pa and Ma scolded him again, the way you’d fuss at a baby who threw his spoon on the floor. I took my licks from him, too, but this was the worst.
“Lavinia is with them,” Ma said. “Addie has gone home, Tom. Get out her crops and leave her be.”
I went on out then. But in my gut a sinkhole had opened and I felt every reason for living being swallowed.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Sixteen
Seth drove the loaded wagon to Addie’s farm. I swear he hit every dip and critter hole in the road seemed like.
“He’s a nice fella,” he said to me, meaning Cousin.
That was all he said then. And the longest three miles were finally over when he pulled in front of Addie’s house. I climbed down from the wagon. Johnny ran out of the house and plowed in to me. It was all I could do not to howl it hurt that bad.
“Mister Tom,” he said, his bib still tucked into his collar, and a smear of jam on his cheek.
Addie had called to him from the house. She was on the porch now and our eyes locked and her hand went to her mouth, then her other hand over it. But she dropped her hands quick and said, “Johnny get in to table and finish.”
“Don’t go,” Johnny said to me, still gripping my legs. He wiped his mouth and I think his nose on my pants, then looked sincerely back at me.
“Run along and listen to your ma,” I said in that funny way with my lips so swollen.
He ran back in then. She came to the stairs then toward me. Lavinia looked out the door, then Cousin, but my eyes were for Addie. She had her morning look, the softest beauty, though she was tired. I wondered where they’d all slept. Ma had helped her make fresh ticks so she would have those.
She was near me now, her little gasp. I forgot why she would gasp, but I was marked, yet that little sucking in her breath, I liked it, for all of her sounds were like music to me.
“Your beautiful face,” she said, her fingers touching lightly this egg that was on my forehead.
I flinched a little. She found me beautiful? I nearly laughed, but I was touched and all.
“You come on in and I’ll tend these cuts.”
“I’m alright,” I said, wanting nothing more than her attention. Her touch. I ached for it, truth be told. I felt tearful, but I knew they would never make a show, so I could stand there a little while. “What’s he here for?” I said, and she could hear the tone, though I’d tried to keep it out.
She pulled her hand back and looked warily at me. He had come out on the porch and spoke now to Seth about scythes and harvesting.
“Never gonna make it in them duds,” I said, butting in, and ignoring Addie for a minute. I expected him to help with the harvest case he had any doubts.
“Oh, I’ve brought others,” he said cheerfully. Though I was not his favorite, not by a long shot. He well remembered those two balls, and not the ones between my legs, though he well knew they were hanging fine, but the ones I’d pummeled him with in the game. He rubbed his ribs now where I knew he bruised. Well, I wasn’t proud. Or sorry.
Being family to Addie and the children didn’t mean he was good enough. No one was good enough for them. I had to test him, figure him out, and I already knew some things. He wasn’t given to temper, and he wanted to play fair. Not saying he wouldn’t cheat, but if he did, you wouldn’t know to look for it, he was that polite.
Cousin went in the house then, I presumed to change out his duds. I looked at Addie. “What’s he here for?”
“He…Richard’s father died two years back. His mother is ill. She…wants to see the children.”
I knew my face fell, but it was so mangled, I hoped she didn’t see it.
“He wants to take you away?” Cause that’s what I heard.
“Now, he…he’s a good man, Tom. There’s money, though Richard’s father left us nothing…it all went to Quin
ton. It was his thought…that if I was agreeable…we could go home and see…perhaps….”
“He wants to marry you?” It’s not that I hadn’t heard of such, folks married quick all the time. But who did he think he was not asking me first? “Did you tell him about me?” I asked. “I wasn’t shy about my attentions yesterday. Remember that home run? Is he blind as well as foolish? Did you tell him I delivered Janey? Tell him that!”
“Tom,” she pulled me further along the front of the house, and I went with heavy steps, but I went.
What could I offer that would compare? I was going to lose her. Mayhap I already did.
“You left with him without even saying good-bye to me,” I said.
“You were hurt. I had no opportunity to get to the barn. Do you think I wanted to come here not knowing how you were? But what can I do, Tom? You’re going west. You’ll be on your journey quicker than I’ll be on mine! You have no conscience about leaving us, so why should I answer to you now! Do you think I’m some delicate girl straight out of boarding school! I have children to think of. He’s offered security. He can offer Johnny a path and a home run doesn’t compare!”
I was stuck now. She had found me out to be a fool. I was mad…angry…ready to rip into somebody’s gizzard. I stared at her. I was small in her eyes and she didn’t know the half. I couldn’t blame her. Much as I wanted to shake her…or beg her…I couldn’t blame her at all.
“If he wants to be generous and do right by you all, there needs to be no strings,” I said with heat. “If he’s got strings, he’s serving himself at your expense. He’s taking advantage.”
She shook her head and licked her lips. “If I go home and…we marry, interest in the store and other holdings will go to Johnny. He…feels it was wrong for Charles to cut the children out of his will. Johnny particularly being the grandson.”
“Guess Janey don’t need to eat,” I said crabby.
“Janey would have a good life, and be able to make a fine match. That’s the way of it, Tom. Whether you agree or not I have to….”
I took her the rest of the way around the house and pushed her against it. I leaned on her then, I never felt such a thing as this fear…not since Garrett. I was just breathing, looking at her, into her soul I knew, and I was so undeserving. I hadn’t told her like I planned to. But who knew this fella was round the bend.
“Tom?” she said, but she was breathing close. God almighty. Her breasts up against me at last, her round womanly form. I could kill Cousin. God almighty I was afraid to take my hands off the wall. I felt like if I did, I’d be a crazed man, touching what could never be mine.
“This is how it is with us,” I said softly to her, cause she was bringing it out. “I’m not a good man. There’s something wrong with me, inside. I got nothing but my two hands and a little money for signing for a second go in the war. I was going to use that to stake my trip, and buy some machinery for Pa.”
“What,” she swallowed, “what are you saying?”
“I can’t give what he can, I know. I take myself away because I got to. Folks are getting hurt. I see it. I don’t long for going west no more. I don’t long for anything…since the war. It’s like…something in me…you were the first thing…and the children. But I got to let you go, I’ve known it from the first. I just…couldn’t. I wanted to…just for a bit….”
She pushed me back and I stepped away. I could see Seth and Cousin headed for the barn. Johnny was running after.
She was mad. She started out low and talking quick, “I have children, Tom. Richard’s mother is dying and she wants to see them. I don’t have to know what to do now. I have to see to this farm and I’m going to have to take the children to her or I won’t be able to live with myself. She’s lost her husband and her son, and she wants this one thing, and Richard left me penniless, and…I have to figure things out and sometimes I just don’t know everything,” she started to cry. Then she got louder, “I have thrown myself at you Tom Tanner and you have not given me one splinter of hope, not one, no matter how I degraded myself, and until this moment I have had to pull in my heart and try to hold it together while you insist on taking yourself into the sunset and as faraway from me as you can get.” She was really crying now, mad as a rooster cause there was this great shaking going on in the core of her. I could feel it shaking me, “And I’m supposed to what…what am I supposed to do with you looking at me, with that pitiful face? Am I supposed to turn away from the one who has had the courage to be forthright and honest and…it is not this attack of indecision that I should be repentant about, it is the fact that…the fact that you have come to confuse and confound me once again from what is so obviously beneficial and right!”
They all came from the barn now, for she had been yelling her diatribe for all the world, and I expected Pa and Ma next for surely they heard this from three miles away.
“Adeline, are you alright?” Cousin called walking carefully our way. Seth was further back, holding Johnny.
“Yes,” she yelled over her shoulder. That made me feel a little better, cause he needed to stay back. Then to me, “I am going to see Richard’s mother and do what best serves my family. And for all your cruelty to Quinton, and don’t you deny you think him weak, he is man enough to be blunt.”
I felt the tempest, and I held myself in place. “You want blunt? I have known nothing but hard work and heat and sweat and duty. I have lived under the shadow of others and have lifted them on my back all my life. I went to a war I did not want and I lost the hero…and everybody knows this and hates me all the more for it. I could not save him, not even when I dragged a sawbones in at gunpoint to stitch him up, there was no saving him, and so…I…and so I…and we had said…we said….we did say…we…we….”
“Tom!” she hurried to me, gasping and looking at me, and I didn’t know where I was going, just this terrible regret, so much regret, for I loved him, loved him with all my heart. He was the sun, the glory of our family, my brother, my blood, my skin and bones, Garrett…Garrett.
I was on my knees, her with me, her arms around me, and I didn’t know how I got there. I mourned him in the war, but I couldn’t feel, and I thought that a blessing, I just killed and killed and killed, and that’s how I put it to rest, put him to rest, me and Jimmy, William, at night we’d go out, at night, at night.
I looked beyond and they were all there now, staring, even Lavinia and Johnny, though Cousin sent them into the house. He wanted to keep them safe.
I was a monster. But worse, I scared Addie, and my hands on her small arms, they were too tight. I removed them quick and tried to stand, and then I did, and I wanted to help her, but she scrambled to stand, and I looked at Cousin, and he was holding that corn knife like he thought of using it, and if they wouldn’t have to see it, I wished he would use it, like that old one did on her husband, and I understood it, Johnny said he did not fight. I understood.
I had worried Seth as well. I did not know how I lost such control. I did not show myself that way. I had known I am unfit for good company. I came home knowing that was my fate. That’s why I went to Springfield to save my money and buy a rig. I was looking for a solitary life. Or not life…the edge of the earth to fall off. But once again I did what was asked. I came here when I knew. I knew.
I looked at Addie then, her so pale and worried. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m…sorry.”
“Tom,” she said, but no one could help me.
“I shouldn’t have done you…that way.” I walked away from her then, away from them all. I would get her crops in, do this last thing. Then I would be on my way.
I was raised to believe hard work cured all ailments. And so we worked harvest. At noon, Addie sent dinner by Johnny’s hand. We ate in silence.
Seth and Cousin traded off cutting and standing the sheaves. Johnny learned to make a sheaf, and it kept him too occupied to talk.
But Seth and Cousin liked to talk, and that was fine. I learned a lot by being quiet. Cousin knew
the good book, not like Seth, but more than me, enough they could talk about it. When Cousin tried to draw me in a time or two, I took no notice. My body moved from practice. I felt better now from the good hard work. We covered half that field of corn. Tomorrow, weather good, we’d finish.
We bedded in the barn, Seth and me. In the morning we’d finish harvest. Then I’d be riding out. I’d set my face west. I tried not to think about her across the yard in the house, lying on a tick, him being close. Him wanting her. I tried not to think of his hands, never done a day’s work, blistered today, despite his gloves. He hadn’t complained, but it wouldn’t of done him any good. I tried not to hear her words over and over…he was blunt. All I had was that damn home run. And the way I’d pressed myself against her…God forgive me.
“Tom,” Seth said. We were lying in the hay, ten or so hands apart.
I did not encourage what he would say. I was spent and empty now.
“I know you ain’t been happy since you come home.”
I listened.
“But…I don’t want you to go. I have to pray everyday to be joyful that your calling is yonder. Tom?”
I still did not answer.
“You’re my brother. I loved Garrett. Love him still. But you’re the one I wanted to be.”
I shifted a little, rolled onto my back. I should have bedded outside so I could see the stars.
“Don’t be like me,” I said, hoping that didn’t get him talking more.
“It’s like the war took you both,” he says, and I can hear the choking in his voice.
He was right. But I couldn’t let him know it and carry all that sorrow. “I ain’t dead,” I said.
“But,” and he was sniffing like Johnny would, “you’ll be gone. Ma says you won’t come home again. She cries all the time, Tom.”
I breathed heavy. Lord I wished I’d bedded outside.
“Do you love us?” he wanted to know.
I guess I hadn’t told them. Now I felt a choking in my throat. I saw how slow Pa moved, how it pained him to go at sun-up, how he asked the same question three times.
