by Diane Munier
“You and Gaylin are all grown up, old as me and the boys when we went to war. You’ll be there for the folks, marry some pretty girls, have lots of babies.”
He sniffed and laughed a little. “Maybe Gaylin. No girl wants the preacher. Not if she’s in her right mind,” he laughed a little more, but I heard the heaviness in his pretending.
“Well, just don’t get to be one of those stern fellows, just likes the sound of their own cracklin’. You won’t do that.”
He laughed some more. “I don’t plan to.”
“Well, you’ll do alright. Girls always like the Tanner men. I don’t know why. But they do.” I felt those old kind of tears getting loose in me.
“I thought you and Missus….”
“Don’t talk about that,” I said.
He was quiet then, but I could feel he was hurt.
“You were such a little bugger when I lit out. But I always thought you might be the best of us,” I said. “Don’t surprise me you got the call.”
“Really? I never knew you gave me a thought.”
“Course I did. I remember the night Ma had you. Gaylin stood at the bedroom door, wearing a dress and crying his eyes out.”
We both laughed at that.
“Ain’t much different now,” I said, and he laughed with some glee this time.
“You boys are alright. Me and Garrett…even Jimmy, we’re proud of you all.”
“What…happened with you and Jimmy. I remember you and him….”
“He was always more Garrett’s pard than mine. We got on alright, but him and Garrett were like me and William.”
“Tom? What happened that night…when Garrett died? If you leave, I’ll never have a real chance to know.”
“Me and Jimmy done told the family the day of the funeral,” I said. The day we buried that empty casket in that grave my pa dug.
“Can you tell me anything else? Like…you said he died quick…and you were with him.”
I swallowed, Lord I was thirsty, that deep thirst that met the blackness with its own kind of howl. “Why keep going over it? Let the dead bury the dead. Don’t the book say that?”
“Yeah. But…I wonder if you didn’t tell us a story just for Ma. I worry about it.”
“Why do you worry? Knowing a few more this and that’s won’t bring him back. He died for his country and he died a hero. That’s all any of us need to remember.”
“Tom?”
“I am purely tired.”
“One more thing…you never did say…do you love us?”
It all came at me again, riding like the Cavalry, the dust rising, the hooves thundering. All this feeling, and it scared me it was so big. “Yes,” I said, barely able to breathe.
It was the best I could do.
Sometime in the night, my eyes snapped open. Someone was creeping. It wasn’t Seth. His snores attested he hadn’t moved. I figured it was Johnny. He’d kicked up a fuss when his ma said he couldn’t sleep with Seth and I in the hay. I’d had to be stern with him, and I hated that, but I figured they didn’t trust the likes of me, after my actions in the yard that morning.
She stood over me like an angel, her white gown billowing in the breeze that graced this old barn. I got up silent, wearing my socks and just my britches. I hadn’t slept deep, and just the sight of her was more powerful than the whole pot of coffee for waking me.
I followed her, her form visible in the moonlit yard. She moved quiet but quick, leading me behind the house to the tall grass that swayed in the wind. We went yonder, almost to the tree line, and she turned and undid the buttons at her throat.
“Addie,” I said.
“I will be with you this one time, Tom. We will comfort ourselves. I am no virginal girl, and I am not married yet. I would lie with you this one time, know you just this once, and I’ll remember it then for the rest of my life.”
“Addie, you can’t….”
“Shh,” she said, lifting the gown the length of her delicate legs. She gathered it in her small hands, until it raised over her shapely thighs. And her womanly hips and her small waist. Over her torso and her soft, round breasts.
It was over her head and she spread her gown on the grass. She stood before me then, her beauty taking the breath from me. I had never seen anything close, nor understood it existed. She was lovely.
Yes, I had seen many a card passed in the war, I had seen female form, but not nearly such a miracle as this woman’s delicate beauty all at once, the way she was fashioned, round and small and new milk colored and rosy, and hair soft and dark hiding her woman’s place, even those tiny feet, her hands, her shoulders, her breasts, Lord God. Then she turned slowly, and as she stood with her backside to me, another work of art, and she reached and undid her long braid, and she shook out her hair, and it came to her waist in dark waves. And she turned again, and showed me herself, and my eyes had not known such a respite from all of my sorrows, my eyes alone were worshipping.
I took a step toward her, but she motioned to my britches, and I was out of them quick. Then I stood as brave as she had, and I turned slow, but I had no braid, so I scratched my neck, and I turned round.
“You’re beautiful,” she said, and I was anything but, but her, oh my, oh my.
I went to her. “My Addie,” said I as I slipped my arms around her and brought all of her flesh against mine. Oh my God, I groaned like a lonely bull in the field. She was soft and warm, and feeling her fresh and secret places against me, I put my hand on her backside, and I tried not to push too hard, but glory I nearly shot the cannon right then.
I picked her up and laid her down on her spread gown, and I went beside her, nothing hurting me now, just her beauty, just this skin that I let myself put my mouth on, starting with her shoulder, kissing, but tasting, if a thing was permissible, and I dragged my open mouth along her, I licked her, and I tasted her, all along, over her breasts which made me blind with desire, and comforted me like I heard the Lord could do. Turns out, with the light of the moon on us like magic she gave me whatever I wanted, she did not hold anything from me, and I kissed her and told her things I did not know I had words for. I spoke soft to her, and felt like all of life was in my hands, like she gave that to me, only me and no other, no matter what.
“Join yourself to me,” she whispered then, her face so beautiful, eyes so deep and dark, and I wanted to meld with her, for there was nothing like this, nothing. “I love you,” I said. “I love you, glorious girl, I love you.” And I gave her everything I had, everything I am.
And I wept then. I wept. And she wrapped herself around me. And I let it stampede through me, through us, while we held on, while I stayed in. I wept.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Seventeen
I marveled at our joining. That was my first thought as I held her. I was still now, the weeping had left me, and I was so quiet inside I barely understood who I was. Or maybe I could see it now for the first time. It was like my body was filled and emptied in one go. Like the right things had come in so the wrong things had to leave because a body can only hold so much before it explodes.
It had not been easy trying to be some kind of a regular man. From the first I’d seen Addie that day of peril and loss when I’d picked her up from her porch, I had been coming alive. I don’t know how many times I had not just relived the moment Janey came from Addie’s body into my hands, but I could feel the small wet life against my fingers. I knew then I had been given a gift that countered other things these same hands had done.
Or maybe it was when I stood in the field with my memories and heard a young boy calling my name. Maybe it was then. Or maybe it was when I first saw her that day at church with her husband, her belly hidden beneath that shawl. Johnny looking at me as he passed for I stood in the back where I could get out quick if the need arose, but Johnny knew then we’d been men of war, soldiers, and like the other boys in that room, he revered us for it in the purest way.
I did not know the time of it. I just
knew I loved them. I felt love. It wasn’t all pink skies and rainbows yet. The darkness ringed the happy truth. But Addie was in my arms, and I knew I had to rouse her, for she was so still I knew she slept.
She thought I was beautiful, inside and out she’d said that night in my room. And today, with the marks on me, she still thought it. But that Quinton had been blunt, she said. Why wouldn’t he be? Here he was, trying to step into his cousin’s life, guilty for the way things were.
Seemed to me that Charles Varn cut out the children to punish Addie. She had stood to him. She had always felt out front. And the murders proved it. She was fire and she’d married milk.
I had wanted a man of worth for her. This one had his strong points. And were she not mine, in some ways he might do. But she was mine.
She said she would have me one time to remember for the rest of her life.
I would not let her go now. This joining sealed the union for me. I would write my pard in St. Joe’s. He’d go on without me.
A voice in my head said, are you sure fool? This was your last chance.
So my mind went round and round until she awoke, maybe cause my thoughts grew so loud. She lifted her head and smiled at me.
“You best go,” I said, reluctantly.
“I enlisted Lavinia in this plan, you know.”
“Cousin Lavinia? How….”
“She is a woman, Tom. She didn’t approve, by the way, but how else could I slip out the window if someone wouldn’t watch Janey? And Quinton is a snorer. So it’s easy to know if he’s asleep. And I made it clear…I did not seek her permission.”
Addie was a soldier. Johnny knew. I knew there was much good I could bring to her life…if I was good…if I could walk this straight and narrow way. But she was something on her own, and I found it confounding and unpredictable.
She reached and kissed me. My lips were sore from the fighting and the loving, but I didn’t mind at all. She had pretty well kissed everything, and it was on the way to healing.
“Addie,” I said, trying not to ogle as she got on her knees and I rolled aside so she could get her worked over gown, “I know you feel you have to go…but I’m not wanting you to.”
“Now Tom,” she said, shaking out her gown and pulling it over her head. It left me addled to see such a beautiful display. “I didn’t come out here to trick you into marrying me.”
I had stood, and stepped into my britches. She was not shy in watching me do so. “Are you saying you won’t marry me?”
She had been looking for my socks, but she stopped now, like she’d heard a stick snap. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
“If you’ll have me. I see no other way for us.”
Her hands went to her hips. “That is what I feared, that we would join like this and you would get sentimental. Don’t you know you will regret it? I’m going to do for you what you did for me the night you got me drunk on that whiskey….”
“I meant to dull your pain is all. You make it sound….”
She came to me then, “Shhh.” She gently touched my lips. “Loving like this is the most powerful thing. You’re drunk with it, is all I meant. This is no time to speak of marriage.”
She was so lovely and sassy at the same time, infuriating and everything I could have wanted and more. “What better time, after you’ve left with him and fallen prey to his….”
She was trying to quiet me again.
“What if we made a child just now?”
“I would love that child,” she said.
My hands were on her again, but after this morning, I was trying to be careful, but she spoke fighting words so easy. “Do you think I’m gonna stand by…I love you. I want you and Janey and Johnny and any more that come. You’re mine. You’re all mine.”
She pulled away. “You are making this so hard, Tom. Now stop it. I never had an intention of using our lovemaking to tie you to me.”
“Why won’t you listen?” I said. “Don’t you tell me that wasn’t love. When we joined, it was my heart and it was yours.”
“Love is not our difficulty.”
“Then what in tarnal is?”
She looked thoughtful, “You have not declared marriage before. You have shown love…but not dedication. I already had a marriage with a man filled with regret. When he came here with me he always looked back, stuck in the past. We could not go back for his father had disowned him. And I was not enough. So I lived in that. I will not know that again, Tom. You are drunk on our lovemaking and you are saying the things required. I knew you would, though I hoped you wouldn’t. I cannot accept your declaration. Your plans are laid. I cannot keep you from your adventure and bear the result. I will not.”
“You know I haven’t been free in my mind. I’ve shared that with you this day. That’s what held me back, not loving something more than you, woman. Say you’ll marry me.”
“I won’t, Tom. Richard’s mother was broken hearted when we went away, and now that I’m a mother…I can see how it must have been for her. Charles Varn was a cold tyrant. She was weak…like her son. She hasn’t seen these children…and I can’t deny her that. I am not the young girl I was when I judged her so harshly. I would be a better person now, Tom. I need to shut the coffin lid on my past, don’t you see?”
“I’m writing my pard in St. Joe’s soon I get home. I’m not leaving.”
“Your family will be so happy. I know you are looking for peace. I felt your deep sorrow tonight, as if it was in my own heart. That’s how close I felt.”
“Then marry me!” I all but yelled it.
She shook her head. I could scarce believe it.
“Addie I swear…are you going to marry him?”
“I don’t know.”
“You would?”
“I don’t know.”
“How could you? Then you whored yourself to me!” I yelled.
She pulled a big breath. “You’re not listening to me, Tom.”
“I heard every bit of your bullshit, woman.”
“Well better to have the memory of your fire than live looking for warmth among your cold ash. Don’t you stay here for me, Tom. Don’t you dare.”
“What does that mean? Why else would I stay?”
She had her eyes closed and was shaking her head.
I was done with her foolish knowing, her strange talking that made no sense. She was breaking me into pieces. She was the devil right now.
“Well you know this,” I said, close to her face, talking through my teeth, “that twopenny hypocrite don’t have the sand to find his own woman but comes to buy you cause that’s what his kind do. That’s what your husband did too, buy folks, sell folks, use folks. I guess you’re first in line cause that’s all you know. But don’t you think I am that kind of man who makes a promise and don’t deliver. You don’t know me girl, you don’t know me. I put a bullet in my own brother. From a promise. That’s what you have never understood.”
Her dark eyes were open and on me now.
“That’s right,” I said sounding more like a fool than any fool I knew. “That’s right…,” I said again cause I was out of words.
“You are a wounded soldier, Tom,” she whispered.
I had no wound so deep as her rejection.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Eighteen
First off I started walking. The birds were calling, singing, deer in the field, mother and fawn and if I had my gun I’d a shot them both.
I told her. I said it. Put words to every evil in me, seemed like.
We were through, her and me. She chose him.
“I put a bullet in him,” I repeated. I put a bullet in him. Lord, did I really say that? I didn’t think it through, the doing or the saying. I got mad…and I said it. “I put a bullet in him,” I said again. I put a bullet in him. God Almighty. I picked up a rock in the road and hefted it. I sent it soaring. God Almighty that woman….
I had to get a hold. Let’s see…I hadn’t written my pard in St. Joe yet, so th
at door was still wide. I’d go there as planned, that’s what. I’d shake the dust of this place. He and Seth could get in her corn, for what did it matter now, her back east and married to him. It was his then. It was all his…Johnny and Janey, and my seed in her making another at this moment with the sun just coming up. He was taking everything from me. All that was mine. And was never mine.
I found a stick this time and sent it spinning.
She took me down the glory road and stuck a knife in my gizzard, that’s what. She dug out my confession, that’s what it was the whole time, using herself to get at me. But why? Why do it if she didn’t love me. Then blaming me like I wasn’t on my knees. Was she the devil?
Well, I told her who I was. She would have plenty to think about, that’s if she ever gave me another thought. But I would not be getting that corn in…his corn. I was done.
I was done, damn it to Hades. There weren’t enough sticks or rocks in this county to throw. I was done.
I walked those three miles in no time. I went to the barn and looked around for what I’d take. I had put what really mattered in a small pile. I hadn’t come with much, and I would leave the same. I put the leather pouch on the table. That would be for Johnny.
So he came running then, stopping at my doorway only long enough to catch his wind and barrel across to where I stood. He plowed into me like always, and I bent over him and caught him round the shoulders.
“Don’t go Mr. Tom,” he sobbed into my legs. “Don’t leave us.”
I knelt down and took his small shoulders in my hands. “We knew this day was coming.”
He was wiping his nose on the sleeve of his shirt, but the tears kept coming. “Ma says you’re going, and I got to be a good boy, but I said hellfire no I ain’t going back there, I ain’t leaving. I want to go with you, Tom. I don’t want to see that old lady. If we go, you’re going to take off west, and I want to go with you, Mr. Tom. I’ll be real good and I don’t eat much. I’m a real hard worker. You seen me in the field.” He grabbed me around the neck then, and hung on tight.
