by Donis Casey
Chapter Thirteen
“The whole nation must be a team, in which each man shall play the part for which he is best fitted.”
—President Woodrow Wilson
Shaw Tucker led a newly broken mule into the barn. Breaking mules to the saddle was hot, tiring work, and he wasn’t as young as he used to be. Rob Gunn was in the corral with a yearling. Once Rob had gotten his legs under him again, he had turned out to be a competent hand and a willing, cheerful helper. Rob may have been something of a gadfly, but Shaw had always admired anyone who had the courage to go his own way.
As soon as he entered the barn, he heard Charlie’s voice coming from the corner stall. He was talking to the white-maned roan. Judging by the bumps and thumps and the tone of the boy’s voice, Shaw decided that Charlie was pleading with the horse to hold still and let himself be saddled.
Shaw didn’t interfere. He stabled the mule and wiped it down, listening with a mixture of exasperation and amusement as Charlie tried to wrangle the beast into a saddle. The horse was spoiled, that’s what Shaw thought. He had too high an opinion of himself. His original owner, the late Jubal Beldon, may have been a poor excuse for a human being, but he treated that horse like a king, keeping him brushed and polished and trimmed smooth as satin. Shaw was of the opinion that it wasn’t good for an animal or a child to think he could get away with doing whatever took his fancy. The animal had to know who was boss, or he’d have nothing but trouble all his life long. Charlie loved him. The boy had always wanted a gorgeous piece of horseflesh, but he had hoped to own one who minded him.
Unfortunately, the white-maned roan had his own ideas.
Shaw was heading out the door when Charlie climbed over the stall gate, sweating but undefeated. He jumped down when he saw his father and strode over to him, ablaze with purpose. “Daddy, I hear that they’re putting on an extra shift at the brick plant.”
Shaw shot him a mild glance over his shoulder before he turned around. “I heard that too. Mr. Ober is upping production because of the war.”
“They’re doing the same at the Boynton Pool, too. The Army needs all the oil it can get.”
Shaw crossed his arms, resigned. He could see where this was going. “So I hear.”
A moment of silence while Charlie took a breath. “I figured I’d get me one of them war jobs.”
He half expected Shaw to laugh and dismiss the idea out of hand. But he didn’t. “You have a job, son. The Army needs mules as much as it needs oil and bricks, and I need you working for me here.”
Charlie almost said, “But you don’t pay me.” He caught himself in time. It wouldn’t help his case to give his father a pert response. “I got it all figured out, Daddy. The shift boss, Mr. Cooper, says that I can work a half shift, in the morning from six until noon. One day a week I could work a full shift. Then after work I’d be free to do my chores at home like I do now.”
Shaw was listening intently. “You’ve already talked to Mr. Cooper about this?”
“Yessir. I seen him at the mercantile a few days ago. That’s when he mentioned he’s looking for hands.”
“Have you fit any time to eat or sleep into this ambitious schedule?” Shaw sounded amused, which worried Charlie.
“I could do it, Daddy.” He was anxious to put his case. “I want to do everything I can. Besides, it’s just temporary. Now that America is in it, the war will be over by Christmas.”
Shaw picked up a curry comb off the tool table and began to clean horse hair out of the grooming brush. “All right, if you think you can manage, go ahead on.”
Charlie blinked, hardly daring to believe his ears. “Really?”
“As long as you can keep up with your chores. If the quality of your work around the here suffers, that’ll be the end of your clock-punching days. And I’ll be the judge of that. When school starts, we’ll revisit the situation. Do you agree to my terms?”
“I do! And just you wait and see, Daddy, I’ll work twice as hard and get twice as much done.”
Chapter Fourteen
“I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier
I brought him up to be my pride and joy”
—Anti-war song lyric by Alfred Bryan, 1915
Shaw walked outside to cool off in the slight breeze. He stuffed his gauntlets into his back pocket and wiped his sweat-streaked face with his bandanna. He stretched until his back cracked. He had half a mind to walk up to the house and see if there was any pie left over from yesterday. He could see that Blanche was working in Alafair’s truck garden, and he smiled. For a child as work-brittle as Blanche had always been, it pleased him to see how much she loved to garden. And Alafair’s garden was a huge affair that took up most of a quarter acre at the back corner of the house. Blanche was squatting down among the rows of cornstalks, digging mulch into the soil at the base of the little mounds. The corn was finally putting on ears, though they were still green so late in the season. The pole beans growing up the stalks were bearing well, and the beans and pumpkins were vining out nicely.
Shaw stood and watched Blanche work, until he heard the rattle of the buggy coming up the drive. Alafair was finally back from town.
He started walking toward her, still thinking of pie, as she pulled up in front of the house and dismounted. Shaw’s gait slowed. She would normally drive straight to the barn to unhitch the horse from the buggy. Something was on her mind.
And even if she hadn’t varied from her usual practice, he could tell something was wrong, from her stance, from her expression, from the air around her. He was as sensitive to his wife’s emotional weather as he was to Mother Nature’s.
Alafair lifted Grace out of the seat and started for the house before she noticed Shaw coming up from the garden.
Grace clamored for her father to pick her up and he hoisted her to his hip. “What’s going on?”
“I invited all the girls and their fellows to come out to dinner today. They all said they’d be pleased, but for Mary and Kurt, since they were here last night. Grace, get down, now. Run on up to the house and change out of your good dress.”
As soon as the child was out of earshot, Alafair answered Shaw’s question. “This war business is all anybody can talk about in town. It’s fretting me something awful. While I was at Khouri’s Market, Emmanuel Clover came in and told Mr. Khouri that since he’s foreign-born, he’d better be careful not to be seen doing anything that could be called unpatriotic. I couldn’t help but get scared for Kurt and Mary, Shaw. And poor Mr. Khouri, who was born in Chicago, by the way, which last I heard was part of the United States of America. Why, I always liked Emmanuel Clover. How could he talk like that about his own neighbors? If even nice people can turn nasty like that, what about knuckleheads like Win Avey? Somebody around here is going to end up dead if this war doesn’t end soon.”
Her tale concerned Shaw, too, but he wasn’t about to let Alafair know it. “I’m sure folks will calm down directly, sugar. It’s always the way that when something big happens, everybody gets all exercised about it, and then the first heat of the moment fades and things get back to normal. Remember what happened when the Spanish sank the Maine?”
“That was a mighty big flap,” she admitted.
“A big flap that didn’t last long,” he reminded her. “Less than a year.”
Alafair shook her head. “Still, I wouldn’t have wanted to be Spanish in that year.”
He put an arm around her shoulder. “And nobody cares about Cuba anymore.”
Alafair slipped her arm around his waist. “You remember the story my daddy told us about what his dad did when the War Between the States started? My grandfather told his sons that this fight was none of theirs, and he sent them back up in the Ozark hills to hide from recruiters and conscriptors of either side. He told them not come down until it was over. And they didn’t.” She could tell by his expression that he understood wh
y she was telling him this story.
“You know I won’t do that, darlin’.” Shaw was firm, but gentle. “Gee Dub’s a grown man and will make his own decision. There’s nowhere to hide around here, anyway.”
“Maybe the war will be over before he’s twenty-one.”
“Well, I hope so. I’m guessing there will be more lotteries, until they think they have a big enough Army. But even if he don’t get called…you know Gee, sugar. Unless the war ends before he gets a chance, I expect he’ll volunteer.” Even as he said it, his head was shaking a denial. He seized her arm. “But let’s don’t borrow trouble, honey. Even if he goes into the Army, that don’t mean he’ll have to go overseas.”
Alafair was grateful to him for trying to throw her a lifeline of hope, but she wasn’t that naive. “He’s a big, healthy, young fellow with no wife, and he can shoot the eyebrows off a gnat, Shaw. He’s not as fired up as Charlie, or at least he don’t show it, but you’re right about him. If his friends and kinfolks have to go, he won’t stand by.”
“No, he’ll do his duty.”
His comment pricked her, and she shook his hand off, suddenly angry. “All you men keep saying that. ‘He’ll do his duty.’ Well, as far as I’m concerned, his duty is not to go haring off and get himself killed. And I’m right worried about Charlie, too. He’s like to go off half-cocked and run away to join up.”
Shaw put a hand on her shoulder. “He’s far too young to get called or to enlist, either. He can try but they won’t take him.”
She scoffed at his naiveté. “He’s tall for his age and the Army is desperate for soldiers. He’s like to get away with it if nobody looks too close.”
“Alafair, young men are rash. No use to wish otherwise. Best just to try and stand back and let them grow out of it.” An image of Charlie in an Army uniform popped into Shaw’s mind, and he shook his head to dislodge it. “And hope they don’t kill themselves or somebody else before they do,” he added.
The fire went out of her suddenly, and she sagged. “Oh, Shaw, it’s just hard. From the first time they opened their eyes, I’ve spent every minute of the kids’ lives trying to keep them safe. When the war started it seemed too far away to do us any harm, but just lately, I’ve known that something bad is going to happen. There’s a troubled spirit around here that wasn’t around before. A fear, a horrible fear. I feel it.”
She untied her bonnet and took it off. She was staring at it when she began to speak again. “I remember that when the kids were little, I thought that if I could just keep them from killing themselves until they were big enough to take care of themselves, then I wouldn’t be worrying about them so much.” She looked at him sidelong. “Turns out I had it backwards. When they were little, I had more charge over what happened to them. But now they’re all about their own affairs, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Shaw felt much the same way, but there was no use to wish things were different than they were. So he said, “That was the point, wasn’t it, to get them where they could take care of themselves? That’s the way of it. Pretty soon they’ll be taking care of us.”
“Yes, I expect. I never figured it’d be this hard to let them go, though. Especially these boys. Up to now, we’ve given four girls over to a partner, so they can look out for each other.”
“That’ll happen with the boys, too.”
“I hope so. But they’re boys, and they’ll do what all boys do before they become men. They’ll put themselves in harm’s way, and you and me both know there’s no guarantee they’ll come away unscathed. Or come away at all.”
Shaw nodded. She was right that boys had to go through their rite of passage. That was the natural way of things. He was too kind to say it to her, but he was proud that his boys didn’t want to shirk their responsibility. This was a man’s office, to stand between his loved ones and danger.
“Honey, nobody is guaranteed to live even through today. Every minute of life is in God’s hands, so there’s no use to fret over it.”
She smiled. “You’re a better Christian than me, Shaw. I gave life to four boys, and God took two of them from me. I begrudge him another one. I’d fight God or the devil for them, if I had to.”
Maybe she was joking, but if Alafair and the devil went head to head for her sons, Shaw wouldn’t have laid odds against her. Still, there was nothing more to say on the subject. “I have to go back to work, darlin’. I’ll unhitch Missy for you.”
She nodded. “You want some pie before you go?”
Shaw smiled. She always could read his mind. “Yes, I do. Oh, and by the way, I told Charlie that he could take a part-time job at the brick plant until school starts. Mr. Cooper told him he could work the six a.m. shift.”
She had started for the house with her package of meat beneath her arm, but she stopped in her tracks and turned to face him. “You told him he could do what? Why, he’ll have to get himself on the road before dawn to get into town by six. And what about dinner? When’s he going to eat?”
Alafair’s reaction made Shaw laugh. “If he don’t think he has enough time to eat breakfast at five with everybody else then he can eat leftover cornbread and buttermilk from the night before. Don’t worry, honey. It’ll be good for him. If he thinks he works hard now, he’ll change his opinion right fast once he takes on a job at the plant on top of everything. Besides, it’ll give him an opportunity to work off some of the ardent zeal he’s developed lately. At worst he’ll learn himself a lesson.”
“I declare, that boy will give me gray hair before my time.”
“He’s sixteen, Alafair, and full of beans. He’ll get over it soon enough.”
“I don’t remember Gee Dub being such an imp when he was sixteen.”
“Gee Dub was born old. Besides, he’s had an impish day or two, if you remember.”
“Well I just hope that if the war is still going in September, Charlie doesn’t decide to quit school.”
“I don’t think he will, since Gee Dub not only graduated from high school but went on to A&M. Since he was little, Charlie’s wanted to do whatever Gee does.”
That was a true fact, and made Alafair feel a little better. Still… “He is old enough to quit school if he wants to, though.”
Shaw gave her arm a comforting squeeze. “I don’t intend to let him know that is an option, darlin’.”
Chapter Fifteen
“[Indians] are not citizens. They have fewer privileges than have foreigners. They are wards of the United States of America without their consent or the chance of protest on their part.”
—Dr. Carlos Montezuma, 1917
Rob was amazed at how quickly he was able to fall right back into the pattern of farm life. The work felt good to him, a natural thing, in his bones. He and Charlie spent the morning heaving bales of hay out of the soddie-turned-hay-store and into the back of a wagon, hauling the load to the stock in the fields, unloading, spreading, and driving back for another load. Shaw’s two long-legged, raw-boned hunting hounds, Buttercup and Crook, and the exuberant young mutt Bacon, followed the wagon back and forth, trotting afield and thoroughly sniffing every dusty, gritty, fragrant bale as it was broken open.
At noon, when Alafair called them in for dinner, Rob was ravenous. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been so hungry, or so exhausted, or his hands so blistered from the wooden handles of hay hooks and the rub of leather reins.
Three more of Rob’s nieces came in for dinner, the last of Alafair’s mighty brood left to reacquaint himself with. As soon as he walked in the door, the women descended on him like a flock of doves. Of all of Alafair’s considerable tribe, Rob had known and enjoyed these grown women best when they were children. It made him sad to realize that if they hadn’t had a distinctly Tucker look about them, he probably wouldn’t have recognized any of them.
He remembered that Phoebe had always been overshadowed by h
er gregarious twin, Alice, but none of Alafair’s children were quite so sweet-natured as little Phoebe. And it seemed that she had found a husband who was cut from the same cloth as she. John Lee Day was a small, dark-eyed man with an easygoing manner. Rob knew about the tornado that had blown through last summer and destroyed the Days’ house and barn and nearly killed John Lee. Alafair had told him that John Lee was doing well, even though he still had a gimpy leg and a bad eye that teared constantly. Robin noted that Alafair and Shaw treated John Lee no differently than any of their other children.
Their turquoise-eyed boy Tuck was as loud and boisterous as his sister Zeltha was quiet and dreamy, and both children were doted on shamelessly. Not for the first time since he had come to his sister’s farm, Rob was struck with a peculiar longing for the warmth of a family. He shook himself. This kind of thinking was dangerous.
Martha McCoy, the eldest of the many siblings, hugged him as affectionately as if it had been ten days since she had seen him, instead of ten years. She looked so much like a young Alafair that Robin was overcome by a brief, startled feeling that time had become disjoined, and he had been transported back to his own youth.
A tall, attractive blond had draped herself across an armchair and was struggling to contain a rambunctious dark-eyed girl who was desperate to slide off her lap.
“Howdy, Alice,” Robin greeted. “My, aren’t you a picture? And this must be Linda striving to join the fun.”
Tucker daughter number three, Alice Kelley, gave an ironic laugh. “She loves her cousins. I’m sorry Walter isn’t here, but he has a standing engagement on Saturday afternoon.”
