Deep in the Heart of Me (11 page)

And still, we milk. Birth or death, war or tornado, if there's a cow with a full udder we're on our knees trying to grab its teats.

Even Shaun. His head is stitched and bandaged, and he works at the stanchion behind me.

The sheriff came out last night and went over the tenant house with Dad. What little wares Shaun had were ransacked and some things were taken, things of no value but sentiment since his wife was gone.

"God hates me," Shaun said this morning after Dad said Grace over breakfast. Then nothing else.

I hope he doesn't talk religion with Sobe. The two are in need of a miracle.

Last night, Sobe did not ride along with her father. She stayed with the neighbor, the widow Olmstead. She is not known for kindness, that widow, but Sobe is allowed to sit in her parlor when Sheriff gets called away. I know because I asked the sheriff. "Where is Sobe?" I said boldly for the events loosened me.

He eyed me. Like he was considering me or something.

"Why do you ask?" he said.

"Just wondering…she…she might not like being alone."

"So I should bring her along when I'm called out?"

Well, I didn't know. I was just asking.

"You pretty good with that shotgun?" he said.

I'm a country boy. We're all good with our shotguns.

"Yes, Sir."

He nodded and started to pass me by, but he stopped and said, "She stays with the widow next door. I don't bring her around trouble, and she knows not to ask until it's over."

"Oh," I said.

I pictured her in her nightclothes, sleepy-eyed in the widow's parlor. And all because Shaun got clocked and robbed.

Whoever it was, the bandit is long gone, probably hitched a ride on the train by now, maybe crossed the river. He did if he's smart.

So this morning at breakfast Dad said we will go to church like always. It's me who asked and everyone stared like Satan himself was in my skin. I said, "Are we going to church?" Just like that. And they paused down to the littlest.

"Well, what?" I said.

And Dad said we were going. "And you're welcomed too, Shaun."

And Shaun said, "God hates me."

And Maman clicked her tongue, but she did not argue.

First thing I see when Dad drives the truck into the lot beside the church is Sobe standing with a group of men, one being the sheriff. She sees me right off sitting along the bench in the back of the truck, Joseph and Ebbie beside me, and the do-re-mi-and-what-have-youse facing us on the bench on the other side. They have been singing the whole long way.

Pee-Wee is in the cab with the big people, but he's been poking his face between Mom and Granma's nests of hair and knocking on the window, flattening his hands like deadly spiders that are trying to get me. It's his favorite game.

But now my heart is thudding at the very sight of Sobe in a white dress and a red rose pinned on her shoulder and the tails of a blue shawl draped over each arm, and she plays with the fringe, and she talks to others, but her eyes are on me.

So I wait for the others to get out and by that time even Granma is out of the cab. I jump from the truck and pick Pee-Wee up with one arm, and he holds to my hand with both of his spiders and straddles my back like a monkey, and we walk over to Sobe and her father.

Three of my cousins talk to Sheriff about the robbery and all at once. Sheriff had talked to our neighbors last night and so it went farm to farm and where it didn't go it is going now—trouble at the Clannan's.

And Sobe goes up on her toes. She's peeking at Pee-Wee, and he's playing along because he grows up with all the girls and he knows how to keep their attention.

She is lovely, but there are blue shadows under her eyes. It makes me swallow when I mean to say, 'Hello Sobe.'

"He's so cute," Sobe says about Pee-Wee.

He grips my shoulders and laughs against my back. He knows she's a pretty girl, and he's goofy from it.

She reaches and takes Pee-Wee's hand. "You're a handsome fellow," she says to him, but she looks at me and maybe she means it for both of us.

"It's so terrible what happened to that young man. How is your family?" she says.

I look around me. They are everywhere, my family. "Fine," I say like what does she think?

Sheriff is done talking about the robbery for a minute and he looks at me and says, "Young man."

He does not shake my hand this morning, and it is fine by me.

"Can you sit with us?" Sobe says. "Elsie is going to."

Well, I am not part of the gaggle. And her father studies me like he does, but he does not echo the invitation, not that I need it. Well, it would help. Not that I need that either. I just don't want to be like Elsie in her mind. But my cousins are eying me because she knows me and maybe they see she dotes on me, she does. She hasn't asked them to sit with her. At least, I haven't heard of it.

"I…," I say.

"It's all right," she says. "Of course, you sit with your family."

"How is the widow? Olmstead?" I ask her cause Sheriff is shaking someone else's hand, and so we can speak without his gawking.

"Did he tell you about that?" she says looking briefly at her dad.

"You didn't come with him…last night."

"Did you want me to Tonio?"

I look around. The others might have heard that. Patrick and Michael are looking at me. "Well, I…," I did want her to come along last night. I was looking for her, sure.

"Dad didn't tell me what it was about. I would have come, Tonio."

"You shouldn't come around trouble. He's the sheriff, not you."

"But you looked for me?" she says with a giggle.

I look again. Yes, they are listening. "Yes," I say. Then, "You don't like to be alone."

That makes the smile melt off her face.

"What?" I say.

"Are you making fun of me?"

"You like to be alone? What?"

Pee-Wee slaps on my cheeks, and I grab his hands. "Sobe…."

Her father is speaking to my cousin Bill and some of those boyos have plenty of questions but I ignore them, I want to know about her. She's getting plenty attention from those older ones you won't find at school. But I'm the best among them. She doesn't realize.

"I'll sit with you," I say.

"You don't have to," she says, and I still can't imagine what I've done to get this treatment. It was going so well….

"I am," I say, and Pee-Wee pulls his hand from mine, and he hits my nose, and it's still sore, and I have to bite my lip, but I grab his hands harder this time.

I hear Bill saying, "It's that CCC camp, that's what I think."

"Ah hard to say," Sheriff answers.

I've never favored Bill or the big potato in his head where a brain should be. Matter of fact, I don't like any of them using the robbery to get close to Sobe. That's all it is, posing with their boots shined and their jackets held back to show their bony figures. My lot are a mix of limeys, krauts, and frogs. What saves my line is Maman. I've always known it. She brings something to the micks and mutts that make my father's family. But we live around his litter, and I don't think I'm better.

I know I am.

I step in front of Bill, well put my shoulder there, in front of his, but with Pee-Wee on my back, there's only so much I can do. "Sheriff, mind if I sit with you and Sobe?"

Sheriff is speaking when I interrupt. I didn't mean to, but the urgency got on me to take Sobe's arm and settle it once and for all. I don't have her arm. Not yet. But I plan to in about ten seconds.

"Elsie," I call as she passes. "Take this." I mean Pee-Wee. A man can't court with a brother on his back.

I lower him to the ground, and Elsie takes his hand. He's not happy, but he's easy to lead.

I feel the eyes of my cousins on me, but I keep looking at the Sheriff.

"That's up to Sobe," Sheriff says.

Well they are all watching, and she's mad about something, but she's looking at me. She turns and I get beside her, and she crooks her arm so I can take it. I lick my lips, but I'm prouder than anything.

"You don't want that mick," my cousin Pat calls out and the others laugh, but I don't spare them a look.

Sobe and her father take Neibour's pew. They will be thrown but the Sheriff doesn't know, and that's where he led us so he gets in first, then Sobe, then me. So Neibours come down, and I know Abelard wants that aisle seat cause it's his once he lets the family in ahead, but I stand to let him pass, I'm not moving. These old ones need to do something new for once. So his youngest Abel looks at me, and I motion with my head he should move on by, and he does squeeze past us, and then Anna and Abbie and Fredrich and Simon and Odelia and finally Mrs. Neibour and the baby and the glaring and bearded Abelard that don't pay fair for a day of labor in his fields, always a nickel short that skinny fisted. So I glare right back, and he climbs over me, stomping my foot, and I hold in my curse cause he's my elder and we're in church but I'm keeping record on some of these even though Maman says we shouldn't.

Abelard sits beside Sheriff, and they look to be cozy friends, and I hide my smile so there.

Sobe looks at me, still that stern thing like I let her down but not stern as it was, more like she has questions, well I do too not that I'd know what to ask exactly.

"What?" I say again. But just about then Maman and Granma pass and she looks at me, my mother and it is another stern face like I've abandoned the family. Well, I may need to be fifteen before I sit with the unmarried men, but she never said I couldn't sit with a girl and her lawman father.

So she turns away and in they all go, my gawking family, sausage in a gut case, threading tight in the pew, but not so tight for there is no me.

And no Elsie. She appears this oldest sister, standing there like I should let her get by. What does she think that I'll let her sit between Sobe and me?

"What?" I say to Elsie.

"Move over," she hisses like I'm embarrassing her.

I turn to Sobe to ask her to move, but she already is. And just like I thought she means to put Elsie between us.

So I move up next to her, to Sobe, and we're crowded in now, and I feel my sister squeeze in, but I pay her little mind for I'm so close to Sobe I'm partly in heaven, and we haven't even started to sing.

And about that. The singing. For a while, we give it a go, and we all like that and even those who barely speak a word sing like they earn heaven by it. We raise that roof and then my sisters get up, and they have no shyness to do this. They get up like it's a calling because that is what Granma says and she is a good woman and if she says it, well we pretty much know God signed the line.

Elsie gets up and joins them up front, and there they stand. A couple of them favor me folks say, but I don't see it. I fold my arms, and Sobe nudges me like I'm related to the famous Clannan Girls or something. Believe me, it's not that way.

They mostly keep their eyes on Maman and Granma. But Elsie keeps looking at me as they sing, their five little mouths opening wide. I always think, they get older they will never live this down, but folks around here are proud. And maybe I am too, just a drop.

Sobe nudges me and smiles, and they are all looking at me now, at us. And why are they doing it when they're supposed to be singing to the Lord. I do not smile.

When it's over, they squeeze back into the pew, Elsie with us again, while folks praise Jesus. Maybe they are glad it's over.

Then a long prayer that includes thanksgiving that no one was killed in the robbery on Clannan's farm. Then it begins the preaching. Since thirty-three, it always gets to drinking. Always. From there it goes to lust. It usually finishes with working hard and not swearing or gambling. My Dad calls it running all the bases. "We ran the bases today," he always says when we get home.

But now I keep stealing looks at Sobe. Not in an obvious way. I do it mostly by shifting a little and lifting my shoulder to my ear like I've got an itch, then I look very quickly. I happen to catch Corrine behind us, staring at me looking ready to cry.

She surely is not mad at me too. Well, I don't care if she is.

I look back to the front and wonder if Sobe is raising her fist about now. You wouldn't know to look at her--that such a pure beauty could be so mad.

When it's over, Elsie leans forward and starts right in. "Can you come over and spend the day and eat dinner?" she says to Sobe like I'm a pile of coats in her way.

I can't believe it. Before I can even ask Sobe myself, my own sister beats me to it. My own…. Now Sobe will think she is Elsie's guest and not mine.

Sobe ignores me and says to Elsie, "Well, I would like that."

"You should come," I say. Then I think that's not quite it. I should say more. "I can talk to your dad."

"He's right here, Tonio. I've been talking to him all of my life," Sobe says like I wouldn't know that.

"I mean…."

"What is it son?" her father says.

I am just opening my mouth when I hear, "Can Sobe come to our house today? She can eat with us, and we'll have so much fun," my sister says.

She's beating my time worse than Pat and Michael, worse than Bill ever could.

"I want to," Sobe tells her dad. Then she looks at me like I said she couldn't come or something.

"I want you to," I say, then I feel like a fool cause her dad…they're all listening, even Abelard is bent forward listening, and his wife, and the little baby face.

Finally, finally, Sobe gives me a tiny smile. But Elsie gets a much bigger one.

"Ride home with us," Elsie says to Sobe. "Can she ride home with us?" Elsie says to Sheriff.

"You should ride home with us," I say as if Elsie hasn't spoken.

Sobe laughs now. "I think I'll ride home with you." To her dad, "That okay with you?"

Sheriff shrugs and Elsie squeals, and it seems to be settled.