Deep in the Heart of Me (23 page)

Joseph has been hanging close and staring at me every chance he gets. He reads things, but he doesn't know what he's seeing. He gets a feeling on me sometimes, like he smells trouble.

So Friday night I have to tell him something. I don't want the folks to worry when I don't show come Saturday morning. So I tell him not to allow it. I have a note wrapped in another paper so he doesn't get in trouble for holding it. In that note, I say I shall return on Sunday with a big, wonderful surprise.

"Don't read it ahead," I say.

Then I dig in my pocket and take out some of my stash, and I get two dollars and hand him that and shove the rest back in my pocket.

His eyes are big, his brows high up, so high in that curly hair he's got, I can't even see them. He hoes a half acre in town in the hot sun most of the summer for some old lady for twenty-five cents. So that's how it is.

"What's this for?" he says like he's holding communion.

I shrug. It's not out of my fifty. It's my life savings, which goes barely up and way down most of the time cause Dad thinks if I get cash money I should buy a cow or a pig or a colt, so I usually do that, but I'm giving Joseph my entire life savings before I got the fifty off of Otto. Two dollars.

"Thanks," he says like I'm Santa Claus. "But…you rob a bank or something?"

He watches as I add my pack to the cart with the two full cans. "Don't you worry about it," I say.

"You running away?" he says meaning my stuff.

"No. It's none of your business, that's all," I answer.

"Like what happened at Otto's game?"

He wants to stop me in my tracks that about does it.

"What you know about that?" I say.

"It goes round like you know all about it," he says putting that money in the pocket of his britches.

"They say that at school?"

"Tillo says it. He says it was you blew up Otto's outhouse, and Belly says he's coming for you."

It's important I don't show fear. Well, I am only briefly afraid. I have the pistol. I need to keep it near apparently.

I look around to make sure Dad is nowhere around. "First off Tillo Smith is an ass-sniffin' liar and second, he tried to kill me," I say.

"Tillo?" he asks with excitement.

"Belly," I say without patience.

"He's a full grown man! They say he's killed many. He used to be part of Beak Nose Benny's nefarious Kentucky gang," my brother says big words, big eyes. "You better tell Dad. I'll bet he's the one killed Shaun. I'll bet he's got a rifle trained on you soon as you step out of this barn!"

I blow through my lips. I've no desire to hear more of this. I'm the one talking here. "Quiet down."

I have not been able to brag a whit about besting Belly. Well, losing Shaun cooled me. But it rises in me, the desire to crow some. "I took his gun. I held it on him, and he showed so much fear I thought he'd piss himself."

I was glad I had not pissed myself. Maybe I did have mettle.

"You held a gun on Belly?"

"His own gun," I say.

Should I tell the rest? Well, some it for sure. So I do tell a little about being in Otto's car.

"He took off in that automobile, and I stood in the road, and he came my way I shot out the front window, and he went past, and I shot out the back."

Joseph stares at me. I do not smile or anything. It's like I'm telling this to myself as well. I have not given it a minute's deliberation. I might be amazing or just dumb lucky. I can't tell.

"Holy smokes," he finally says. "You lyin'?"

I laugh a little. "I am not."

"Well, he will kill you for sure." Some of his admiration seems to be worry. Is he hearing me?

I got Belly's gun! I shot out Otto's windows, and I haven't even told him the part about Jack Bastard the most glorious mule that ever lived. I haven't told him how I took that mule for a good long ride, and I got shot at to-boot.

"That Belly don't worry me," I say. Then I spit.

I can hear him breathing. And this barn is not quiet.

"Did he shoot Shaun?" he says.

Well, it's more than likely. Hard to say, though. "Not intentional. Well, I don't know. I mean it was intentional, but not…Shaun might have…."

"Deserved it?" he finishes.

"No!" I say. But…yes. That's exactly what can happen to a man when he trespasses, blows up property and steals livestock. No one cries for you but your mama and the home folks and your sweetheart maybe. If you've got one.

But Peg…she's in the land of no more tears so Shaun didn't even have that.

"You better tell Dad," he says again.

"I won't ever tell Dad," I say with so much feeling he gulps. "And you won't either boyo."

He shakes his head. I hope it's not too much for him to keep ahold of.

"What you up to tonight? You going back there to take revenge?" he says.

Who does he think I am? Clyde Barrow?

"No," I say. "Get it out of your mind."

He stays put, and I feel how much he wants it to be different.

He'll understand someday. That business aside, what I'm doing with Sobe will bring us all happiness, the most we've known since Shaun and Peg came.

"Well, I'm getting my rifle and keeping it close. That why you didn't go to school all week?" he says. He's smarter than anyone I know. Always could figure things out especially when it came to me. Frankly I've been jealous of him now and then. But now he just seems like a little kid, and he always means me well. He's better than me, that's for sure, well he's kinder for a fact.

"What you gonna do, shoot off your big toe? There's nothing to fear I tell you. He comes for me he'll get his own pistol up his nose," I say. I don't think he's coming. Tillo is so full of shit it comes out his mouth, that's all.

But he probably is coming. It's possible is what I mean.

Later on, I try to eat dinner, but my stomach is flipping around. It's dark outside, and it's nearly time for Pat to be waiting end of Clannan Lane. I'm thinking of that, but I look around the table at them, the gaggle chattering about the timeline they are memorizing, Ebbie stuffing himself while he listens to Elsie carry on, Joseph watching me like I'm about to get raptured.

Granma sips her soup and tucks Pee-Wee's bib more tightly around his neck. Dad tells Ebbie to slow down.

I am looking at each, and they are changing before my eyes.

I love them. I didn't know before. I wondered that I couldn't feel it sometimes, just this frustration at the noise they bring, but I want it now. Want them.

They're my family. Dad tells me it’s valuable and I know, I do. But times like this, I really do.

I don't know why I hold myself from them but if I don't they take over. It seems…they take over.

I work for them. They have each other for what's soft. But they have me too.

"You're not eating, Tonio," Maman says.

Granma watches me. She says to Maman that I am handsome. She's speaking Italian, but she says it enough I know.

Mom smiles at me like I had something to do with it.

"I…am," I say. I don't mean handsome I mean 'hungry,' like, 'I'm pretending to be hungry.' I'm answering Maman. We do not say we aren't hungry. She goes for the castor oil then, and she feels your forehead and looks you over like you're Pee-Wee.

I take a bite of my potatoes.

Then I take another. I eat everything. I wipe my mouth, and I stand.

They are all looking at me like I'm about to sing.

"I be excused?" I say.

Dad looks at Maman then he says to me, "Go on."

"I'm…I'll be back for milking," I say to Dad. I do not say which milking.

"Out all night?" Dad says, and they wait.

"With Pat," I say. I keep looking.

"No drinking," he says.

He's never said that before. He's never had to. Does he still trust me?

"No, Sir," I say.

He thinks it's dogs. We'll run Pat's dogs. He thinks it might be good for me. After Shaun, the house. I hold his gaze, I do not blink.

"Go on," he says again.

I do not look at Maman, but Joseph, I don't know why I wish I could tell him all of it of a sudden. Well, I'm marrying Sobe.

"Haircuts tomorrow," Maman says. But she's looking at me. "You be careful."

I nearly smile. Then I round the table and go to Maman, and she lifts her cheek to me, and I kiss her there. I feel a stab of something so I turn to my Granma and kiss her, and she pats my cheek, and I say, "Goodnight Nonna."

Joseph is holding his fork, but he's looking at me, and I nod at him. See I don't hardly do that anymore so it might sound small, the nodding, but it's me seeing him for once.

I go out then.

I walk our lane in the dark, and I look back a couple of times. I am so choked and what I'm doing is in no way against them. We shall be home by Sunday and then they will see my plan was nothing but good for us. And I will have Sobe, and it will be forever.

I feel myself grow another foot as I walk, and I'm already tall. I lift my cap and smooth back my hair and pull that cap on low.

She is waiting for me.

He is sheriffing tonight, and she has said she has been staying home and not going to the widows. She will spread her books on the table and set the lamp there, and he will kiss her the way I did Maman and all the while her bundle will wait under the stairs and she will be tapping her foot and thinking of me.

Pat is not there, and I'm too antsy to wait. I grab my pack from under the stand and put the strap over my shoulder, and I start to walk toward town. Surely he'll figure it out since that's where I'm going.

I don't want to be seen, but automobiles along the road don't come so often. But it is Friday night though it's hardly got going.

I will not fear Belly. Pat said it would get out like everything does around here. Well, you can't blow something up and not have it get around. There were plenty there went running when Shaun set off that stick.

I've kept my mouth shut about how Shaun got shot. I've kept the sheriff from poking around Otto's game. That's what that money was, and I kept my end.

I touch my pocket to make sure the money is still there.

I won that gun fair too. He stuck it on me it was up for grabbing.

But Dad says you never know how someone will look at a thing. They might not see it like you do.

Shaun dying, that made it go quiet.

I want to leave it for a while. All of it. I want to leave it behind and cross the river, with Sobe.

Finally, I hear that truck, and I stand side of the road, and I wait.

"Thought you were going to be at the lane," Pat says while I get in.

"Thought you'd be on time," I say.

"Seven o'clock," he says.

"Run by the schoolhouse," I say. I'm not going to argue with him.

"What for?"

"Something I got to pick up there."

"Boyo look at you," he smirks.

Well, look at me if you must.

We get to Sobe's house
,
and I can see the lamp is on.

"Hurry up," Pat says to me. He's already made it clear he wants to get us to the river so he can get back to town and meet his friends.

I am staring at the house, waiting for the door to fly open and her to run eagerly to the truck…to me.

But nothing happens.

"I'll be back," I say wrenching the door.

I don't like it. Why can't she be waiting? I go up the walk and knock, and she doesn't answer. I push the door. "Sobe?"

There on the floor, a glove. Sobe's glove. I pick that up.

"Sobe?" I call a little more loudly.

I don't feel it here…life. Her.

"Sobe?" Louder still.

I quickly go through all the rooms, and there's nothing I haven't seen before, and there's nothing to show me they're still here.

I run upstairs. I don't call anymore. I go to her room, and the wardrobe hangs open and something black half in the wardrobe, half on the floor. I take this in my hand. The black dress, the witch's costume.

I throw it down and tear from the room. The one where Sheriff sleeps, also stark and stripped.

I run downstairs, out the front door, across the lot, ignore Pat's call, go to the widow's, bang on the door.

She opens it, white and papery as an onion. "You," she says like I'm the devil. I don't know I'm breathing so hard until I have to speak, "Do you know where Sobe is Ma'am?"

She stares at me, bright blue eyes and drawn tight lips. "She's gone with him, I suppose."

"You think, or you know?"

She draws in that chin, and it ripples.

"Please."

"She got in his car…looked like a trip. They were in a terrible hurry. Didn't even say good-bye and I been a good neighbor."

I tear away with her calling something after, but I don't hear.

I'm in the truck. "Go to the station. Sobe is gone."

"Boyo…maybe it's best," Pat says.

I want to punch him for that.

"Drive," I yell while I hold it back. She couldn't have gone. She couldn't…she wouldn't betray me.