My Old True Love (24 page)

“I was but when Hackley got wind of it him and Larkin come and busted me out. I’m riding with Kirk now.”

See, that is what I mean about this funny man-fighting-at-a-war thing. It seems not so much to matter which side you tote a gun for, as long as killing somebody is your intent. I said as much to them three.

“It don’t matter no more, Amma,” Larkin said, and he sounded so tired it broke my heart. “We just want this war over.”

And I said
amen
to that and then Mary went to running back and forth setting the table and her cheeks was so flushed that she did not even look like the same girl as what had been setting at my table a little bit ago. I was not the only one watching her, neither. Larkin’s black eyes followed her every step she made.
Can it be that the rest of them will finally see what is right before them?,
I thought to myself. I sneaked a peek at Hackley and he was talking to Abigail without a care in this world and had no notion whatsoever of how Larkin was watching his wife. And Julie was watching Larkin. So once again it was left to me to watch everybody watching everybody else until my eyes felt like they was run out on stems.

They was one curious thing that happened that night. Julie was washing up the last of their dishes and Larkin moved to help her. Hackley and Mary had left for their house, and Andrew had hied it for his own bed. I was laying on the bed with Pearl and had been there long enough until they probably thought I was asleep.

“How are you, Julie girl?” Larkin said.

This was said with such a tenderness that it sounded as though he
was talking to a lover, so I eased my eyes open to little slits and peeped out at them. I know this was not right and though I am not proud of it, I could not help myself.

He was holding her hands and I watched as he run his hands up her arms to cup her elbows. Now I must ask you, does that not make you think they was things between them that neither had shared with me?

But this is what she said to him and her voice was low and hot as fire. “How can it be, Larkin, that you can look at me so sweet like, with your face as still as a deep hole of water? And then you turn them black eyes on my sister and it’s like the same deep hole but with a fast current running right below the surface.” When he did not answer her, she turned from him and went back to washing the dishes.

H
ACKLEY WAS STILL THERE
when his son was born two weeks later, on February fourteenth. The day was warm and clear and was the perfect false spring day bearing the promise of what was to come.

Larkin come for me early that morning. It was a quick birth and over in almost no time. Up that evening I went with Larkin to milk and leaned against the side of the stall while he done the work. I was in no hurry to get home and knew Abigail and Julie would see to things just fine. The dim light of the barn was a pleasing change to how close it had been in the cabin. I shut my eyes and breathed in deep, fetching in the familiar odors of fresh milk and sweet hay. I could not help it; I grinned great big as I was right proud of myself. I’d had myself a good day’s work and brought my first baby all by myself. Mary had offered herself right over and done everything I told her to do. And the baby had been fit and sound. And if the amount
of liquor consumed after a birth said they was a proud papa around, then Hackley was near to busting with his son. As me and Larkin left for the barn, Hackley, Mary, and Hack Jr. had all three been piled up sound asleep in the same bed. Now in the barn, I opened my eyes and as soon as I could see good, I went to studying Larkin. His shoulders and back was even broader, and big ropey muscles rolled around in his arms while he milked. His hair was longer and I liked it better that way. There was no doubt about it, my biggest boy had growed into a handsome man.

“You thinking to draw a picture of me?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Well, the way you’re studying me I figured you was aiming to draw yourself a picture.”

“No, you mister smart britches. I don’t aim to draw your picture. But you keep up that smart-mouthing your Amma, and I might just turn you across my lap and give you a good whupping like I used to have to do. I was just noticing how you’d filled out since you left. They must be feeding ye pretty good.”

“That’s the truth. Hack and Andrew both said that’s probably the main reason that the Union is winning the war.”

“Are they, Larkin?”

“That’s what Kirk says.” He went back to milking. “Now, there’s a strange feller.”

“That’s what you have said.”

The milk hissed as it hit the side of the bucket. “All us boys likes him. He’s got a way about him that you can’t help but like. But when he’s out raiding or we’re fighting, they’s a mean streak that shows itself.”

“That is nothing new as I have noticed that most men has got a mean streak in them.”

“You’ll get no argument from me about that. I’ve seen it. But they’s a difference in Kirk. Back in the fall we’s farther west of here over toward Waynesville. We’d raided a little, set fire to a barn or two, and we happened onto this feller out in the field. Looked like he aimed to plow, though I can’t see how he aimed to do any plowing. His coat sleeve was pinned up where he’d lost a arm. Kirk and a bunch of us rode up to him. Kirk drawed his gun and leveled it at this feller, and said, ‘Sir, you’re wearing the wrong color coat.’ That was all he said ’fore he shot him right between the eyes. Killed him right then and there.”

“Because of the color of his coat?”

“He’s wearing a ragtag Confederate coat more holey than it was righteous.”

“And nobody said nothing?”

Larkin shook his head. “That’s one of the things ye learn early on, Amma. You don’t say nary a word unless you’re asked to.”

“Sounds like the man ain’t got no soul. Or the one he’s got is black as pitch.”

Larkin rose from the stool, picking up the bucket as he straightened. “Well, I don’t reckon I’ve been called to preach, so I won’t concern myself with his soul. I just do what he tells me to do.” He gave a shrug and the corners of his mouth lifted in the saddest of little old smiles. “But, you know, I don’t reckon Kirk’s done no worse than what happened over the ridge in Shelton Laurel. Any way you cut this pie, it’s a rotten thing.”

“I have no love for neither side, Larkin, so you are preaching to the done saved.” Of a sudden the good feelings of a while ago fled from me, and I recalled how I had been like a worm in a hot skillet waiting for him to ask me about Fee, but he had never done it. I
knowed now was the time but I stayed propped against the door frame and he stood there with the full bucket in his hand. The wind picked up and set the empty limbs to rattling against the sides of the barn. Off in the distance, a dog went
bark bark bark
and then was quiet. My next words rode out on a big sigh. “For God’s sake, Larkin. Ask me about it for you have got to want to know.”

And he sighed right back and said, “I’ll get that bottle I got hid in the other stall that I been saving for when I felt like I could stand to hear it. Then I’ll ask about it.”

We settled down in the fine dirt of the barn and leaned back against the logs. He took the cork from the narrow neck of the bottle and passed it right over to me. I took a long and slow drink, and it set me on fire as it went down in my gullet. I shuddered and wiped my mouth with my coat sleeve before handing it back to him.

“Not near as smooth going down as Sol’s liquor,” I said to him, and it were the truth.

“Ain’t found none nowhere like Sol’s.” He offered me the bottle of amberish-colored liquor again. “Some of them boys from Tennessee give it to me. It surely ain’t white liquor. They called it sour mash. Once’t you get used to it, it ain’t too bad. Hackley loves it.”

“How’s Hack managing?” I took a smaller drink and could not help but shudder again.

Larkin’s shoulders hitched up and down in a so-so shrug. “You know Hack. Right off he found some fellers that played music. Laughs and cuts up a lot. Goes about singing purty much all the time. Ever-body really likes him.”

“How’s it for you, Amma?” he asked, and I knowed he was just stalling me for time, but I answered him anyways.

“It’s just as well that I ain’t never hungry, seeing as how they ain’t
nothing much to eat.” I wrapped my fingers around the bottle, taking note of how skinny they was. “The children is hungry all the time, though. I swear I believe we’d have starved if it hadn’t been for you and Zeke sending us money.” I knew right then that this liquor had a big kick to it and was already loosening up my jaw, so I got a big grip on it, as I did not want to worry him. “Most of the time I do just fine. Other times I miss Zeke, but sometimes I dread him coming back.” I could not believe I had said that but it were the truth if I’d ever told it. See, I was no longer scared of nothing and had got to be tough as an old pine knot. I did not know if my dear sweetheart would like this whet-leather version of Arty or not. I was not ready to talk to anybody about this so I reached for Larkin’s hand, and when I had it in mine I said, “Let me tell you about Fee.”

He took another long drink, set the bottle between his feet and then he said, “Tell me, then.”

My body sagged over against his and I closed my eyes like I was fixing to sing a love song. But this story would be far different than any song he’d ever learned. This one was hung with Fee’s broad countenance and big sloping shoulders and gentle hands. This all went flashing through my mind so clear that tears puddled in my eyes and run down my cheeks.

“Everybody just knew that Fee wouldn’t stay in the army and would prob’ly light out for home first chance he got. Well, we was all wrong, Larkin. Allen put him to tending horses down at the training camp at Warm Springs. I reckon you already knowed that, didn’t you?”

He squeezed my hand and said, “Just tell me, Amma.”

I squeezed back. “All right, honey.”

“He had been home for a spell but I’d only seen him once’t. He come by the house to see if I needed wood cut. He cut down a poplar
tree at the edge of the garden and split it up for me. Took him all day and I fed him dinner and supper. He said he had to be gitting back to Warm Springs and figured to head out the next morning. I offered to let him stay at the house with all of us, but he turned me down. Last I saw of him was when he give a sharp whistle and Old White come from behind the house and down the road they went. He must’ve changed his mind about going back the next day or he might’ve just been out in the woods. You know how he’d wander about in the woods of a full moon. It were just two or three nights shy of being full.

“Marian Franklin found him next day. He was coming up from the Seward Hole and Old White barred the path barking and just carrying on. Led him right to where whoever’d killed Fee had kicked some leaves and dirt over him. Jim Leake said he’d heard a commotion out in the road in front of the house that same night and, thinking somebody might be aiming to break in the store, he’d went out just in time to see some men in Union blue ride by. We figure they’s the ones what killed him. A bunch of us went down and buried him, Larkin. Lucindy said we ought to move him and bury him next to his mama, but Hoy McIntosh allowed as to how Fee would’ve wanted to be buried where he was. Said he always loved that part of the country so we just dug a grave and left him be. It is awful purty over there in the Gudger Tract. You can see the creek from where we buried him.”

“Was he shot up, Amma? You said in your letter that he suffered.”

I could have kicked myself right then and there, and my voice was sharp when I said, “I never should’ve wrote nothing more than that he’d been killed, Larkin. Some things is better left not said. They’s nothing none of us can do about it now, anyways.”

“Tell me,” was all he said, but it made me mad the same as if he’d made a big speech. I jerked my hand away from him. “Why?” I said. “Ain’t you seen enough of what men are doing to one another in this damn war to know? Do you need it lined out for you like a song?”

“That’s why I’m asking, Amma. What I’ve seen . . .” and his voice died off here. I knowed he was recalling things what was too awful for me to know and I did not want to leave him conjuring about this for another minute, so I took up his hand again and locked my palm with his.

“His knee-caps was blowed off. And somebody had cut off one of his ears as clean as a whistle. You know well as me he’d have fought them to the end. They was sixteen bullet holes in him that we could count.”

Neither one of us spoke for a long time. Larkin was still as the grave.

“Which ear?”

“What?” I said, though I could not believe he’d asked me that.

“Which ear was gone?”

“The left one.”

Larkin nodded and then said nothing more.

“Why’d you want to know that?”

“Because you just told me who done it, Amma.” He got up before I could say anything else and offered me his hand. “Let’s git on back to the house. They’ll maybe be awake by now and all.”

When I got up blood and that damn sour mash rushed up to my head, and I was swaying like a young tree in a great wind. I grabbed hold of his arm to steady myself. And then it come over me and I could not stop myself. My fingers was like claws digging into his arm. “How much longer will this last, Larkin?”

“What? The killing?”

“You said a while ago that the Union is winning. So I’m asking, how much longer will it go on?” I shook his arm like a dog worrying a bone. “The war?”

“Hackley says only God knows, and He ain’t telling.”

I give a mighty snort and almost laughed at how much I sounded like Granny. “Don’t you stand too close to him. He’s liable to get struck by lightning right in the top of the head.”

He laughed out loud and I knowed his thoughts had turned to her too. “Remember when we’s little and we’d get scared when it would come one of them big thunderstorms?”

“And Granny would take us out on the porch and tell us not to be afraid. That God was just loading his taters on his wagon and the racket was them hitting the wagon bed.” I busted out laughing, and things was of a sudden easy and light with us again. “I ain’t a bit afraid of storms. I love them. Makes me feel all wild inside.” My words was coming slow and slurry like, and I knowed I was pert near drunk. “Sort of like this sour mash has made me feel.” I poked Larkin with my elbow and handed the drained bottle back to him. “A thunderstorm in a bottle.”