Deep in the Heart of Me (26 page)

We drive in silence. I have looked all around while in town, trying to figure where Miss Rivers lives. I know Joseph will know, and he can get Sobe a letter. I think of what I'll write. Not being able to speak with her will make me go mad. I know she spoke the truth at the station but how will she feel about me now?

Dad is silent, so I'm free to compose. 'Dear Sobe,' I'm trying not to think about what we might be doing right now if our plans had succeeded. I would be holding her, I know that. She would be mine. I know that.

The truck comes to an abrupt stop, and I am flung forward. I catch myself on the dashboard. We have just turned onto Clannan Lane, it appears. Dad is quickly out of the truck and coming around to my side. Did I say something? No. I haven't said a word.

He whips my door open and grabs me by the front of the jacket and pulls me out but I stay on my feet. He growls like a beast and turns me in a circle and I'm tripping along, but I don't fall. He slams me against the side of the truck, and now he's crying, and his forehead is against mine and his eyes are squeezed shut, and he's holding to the front of my jacket still, and he's breathing…very hard.

He makes that growl again, and I barely breathe.

"Where did you get the money?" he says in a strangled voice, eyes still squeezed shut.

I swallow. He pulls back his head and shakes me three times and slams me back and he's right in my face. "Where did you get it?"

I swallow. "I…I can't say, Dad."

He slaps me in the face, makes a sobbing sound and pulls me to him again, foreheads again, and his eyes are closed and the breathing. "Tell me every last shittin' bit of it or I swear to God above I'll finish you and bury you in the ditch and tell your mother you ran off."

We are there, and I'm breathing now too, in that loud way. He's got his forehead against me, and I don't know if my thoughts are bleeding into his brain, but his are bleeding into mine, and he really will kill me.

"I…," I try to push away, and he slams me back to the truck.

"Tell me!" he screams into my face.

"Otto! Otto Smith!" I yell back.

He lets go of me then and steps back. He's huffing.

My face is on fire. I touch my cheek.

"You been working for Otto? With Shaun?"

"No!" I yell again. "I went on my own." Well…with Shaun. As it ended up. And…Pat. I decide not to bring them into it. Especially Pat as he's still alive. I hope.

"How did you get that money? Boy?" His finger is in the air.

"I got it for finding his mule. I found his mule and returned it, and he gave me fifty dollars! I was looking for the colt, and I found the mule! I knew it was Otto's! I took it to him, and he paid me fifty dollars!"

"You've got to give it back!"

"No! It's what they took from Shaun! I took it for Shaun!" I may have said too much there. "I earned it!"

"We are beholding to no Smiths!" he says.

"They came on our land! They hurt Shaun!"

"He was a fool! He jeopardized our family!"

I can't believe he sees it that way. I can't believe it!

"You think that, and you've done nothing about it! Well, I'm not a coward!" I say.

He slaps me again.

"You are a fool. A bigger fool than Shaun even. You could go to jail for this."

"I didn't…."

"It's not over yet! If they want you to go to jail, you will go!" he says.

"But I'm…."

"It's not about that! It's about what they want! You stupid child!" he says. "And you tried to take a man's daughter. Do you know what I'd do if you tried to take my daughter?"

"Apparently nothing!" I say. I do.

He lunges for me then. But I don't take it. I try to get his hands off my neck. I hurt all over, and he's strong. He's so strong.

But he stops himself.

I realize he's not going to choke me. He just wants to pretend. So I quit struggling and let him at it.

"God above," he mutters, pushing me off so I land against the truck. "God above," he says again.

Then he gets in the truck.

"I'll walk," I say getting ready to slam the door.

"Get your ass in here," he says.

And I do.

He has his foot on the brake. "Where is the pistol?"

I take in a breath like I'm coming clean, which I am. Some. "I guess Jim's dad took it along in Sheriff's Ford when he took Pat to the hospital."

"Why would he do that?"

"He…he held it on me. He put me in the cell. I…I guess he took it along."

Dad wipes over his mouth, and his mouth is hanging open when he's done. "God above," he says again.

I keep my eye on him, and I try to think on my letter. I'll write it tonight and first thing after milking I'll get Joseph to take it.

First, Dad pulls the truck to the bunkhouse and has me shuck my duds, and he burns my clothes in the stove there, and I keep my shorts on and get in the tub, and cold water and Dad says he's sorry, but Maman can't see me with that blood and heating the water would take too long.

I'm thinking he's burning my getting married clothes, but he doesn't know it.

I keep my shorts on, and once I'm clean, I get out of the water, and he looks over every mark on me and rubs the dark bruises with linament.

"You were fighting a man," he says. A crazy man. But I don't add to it.

He gives me clothes we keep in the house there, not Shaun's, but clothes too worn to wear, too good to go in the rag bin.

I am so tired I can barely move, but I put my feet back in my boots, and Dad combs my hair with his comb, and my eyes are trying to close, and he rouses me and pulls me up by the arm, and we go to the house.

My maman and my granma have waited up, and here come each of the girls, well it is a knot of nightgowns and tears, and I am caught in its middle.

I put my arms around my mother and my grandmother and pat their backs. I don't know what is wrong with me that I do not feel sentiment. I am so sorry they are sorry and that I brought them to it, this worry. I never meant to do this. I thought I was about to make them happy. So happy.

But now I can't feel the soft in me. Maybe it's gone away. Now that I've been in the killing. And worry over Sobe fills me.

"I will be fine, Mom," I say. I say this to Granma and them all. I will be fine with Sobe and Pat there to see how it was. I will tell the judge, and it will be over.

But Maman has a million questions, and some I answer and some Dad answers. Then they are all sent to bed, and I tell Maman I'm so tired. I am soon upstairs and getting paper from Joseph. He and Ebbie are going to take over now and ply me with questions, but I tell them both I'll talk to them in the very near morning. I tell Joseph about the letter, and he must take it soon as milking is done, and get an answer, that's the thing. He knows where the new teacher lives so it's very hopeful I'll get some relief.

But before I can get to writing Joseph clings onto me like a pea vine and he takes to crying quiet, and his quiet cry is no light thing.

It gets to me now. I can feel myself crumbling down. I killed a man today. Well, we were nose to nose almost when that pistol fired. I killed Sheriff. And it hits me the way he did.

I push Joseph off. I fall on my bed.

"You all right?" he says sniffing and that.

I am not so all right. But I will be. Once they all let me be so, I can write.

Dear Sobe,

I got to go home, and Fat Ned said you were going to stay with Miss Pat Rivers. I don't know if that suits you. Ned says we can't see each other until we talk to the judge. I don't know how long that is, but if you need me, then my dad could speak to Ned and see about you coming here. Or I will come to you if you are afraid or upset.

Sobe, I keep thinking about it, and your face. I keep thinking about what you said happened, how he held the gun on you.

Sobe I didn't know how far he would go. I thought he would always take care of you. I don't know how he found out, do you? You didn't say so you probably don't. No one knew but Pat. He's who I told about it. He knew about us getting…you know.

If we had, then—got, you know—then I think what it might a been like when we got home. With him like that—Sobe, I didn't know. If I would have, well you didn't tell me.

I still know I love you very much. A lot in fact. There will be no other for me as I've already said. But I have to know, Sobe, I got to know if you still feel the same for me. I can get through anything if I know you still love me.

Do you? If you say you still love me, I will probably be the happiest I've been, all things aside that are troubling and terrible.

But if you don't you have to tell me. I may join the army or travel the country selling magazines, but I will have to go far away to work off my broken heart.

If that's possible.

For now, I know you need me to hold you. That's if you still love me. I know you need me to hold you because you will feel alone. You will remember the bad things you went through, and you'll feel so sad. I am holding you in my mind. If I could, I would hold you Sobe. I would tell you again that I'm yours if you'll have me. You won't ever be alone long as I'm alive.

(Unless you don't want me. Then I'll be doing the aforementioned.)

Your steadfast admirer always,

Tonio Clannan

Once I get it done, I think of driving straight to the home of Miss Pat Rivers so I can put it in Sobe's hands and make sure she is okay. But the folks are so upset, I have got to set a limit on myself. They have suffered enough, and I can't get locked up again.

It will be milking time in a couple of hours, and I will do that and send Joseph on his way, and she will know.

And I will know.

In the morning, we finish chores, and I prevail on Joseph to hitch a ride into town on the milk truck and deliver my letter.

I ask my dad if Sobe can come to us so we can help her bury her father and be her family. I will gladly go back to jail so she can be here.

"Maman and the girls are going to Sobe," Dad says. "You will stay put on this farm as you've been told to do. Do you hear me Tonio?"

"I can go to Uncle John's," I say warm to the notion I'd be on the neighboring farm. I could get to her, and they'd be none the wiser then. "And Sobe could come…."

"Sobe is being provided for by Miss Rivers. Elsie will stay with her. Maman will see to her. She will help Sobe."

"But…Sobe knows everyone here, she…."

He puts his hands on my arms. They feel like iron bands. "Tonio. Submit." He goes on to say more, and I do understand.

But Sobe has lost the only sad piece of a family she had left. Even if she wouldn't want her father back, she has to feel alone.

I can only thank God my letter is on its way.

I walk the line of our farm. It is flat here on this road and across the way, I can see into the sky. I have been miserable like I can't stand still. It's so bad I take to jumping and pacing and throwing sticks. I know I'm cold, and my legs hurt, my side, but it doesn't matter. Trucks pass me as they come back from the market, and I break a little more inside. We would be married. We would be happy, and this is the day we would have ridden the streetcar and gone to the zoo, perhaps, or eaten that meal in a fancy place.

Finally, Joseph comes and jumps off the back of someone's truck, and we wave, and I step by the milk stand and grab onto him. "Did she send something?"

His breath puffs white in front of his parted lips, and he nods. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a folded letter.

I want to make sure he didn't read it, but there's no time, and I'm grateful to him, I am. My eyes look at her writing and my heart pretty much fists up then goes like a rabbit.

Dear Tonio,

I am sorry to you, Tonio. I keep seeing it, the way you had to fight him. I keep seeing him wanting so badly to die, willing to hurt whoever got in his way.

I am waiting for him to come here and say, "Where is my daughter!"

We have been children in our hopes and dreams. I know that. But we are not children now. Not in anyone's eyes.

Sobe

I read it twice. I am vaguely aware of Joseph complaining over the cold, and I read it as I follow him only a few steps down the lane.

She is suffering. I must take off and see her. I must be with her. She'll be…she is in a bad, bad way. I knew it. I knew that.

"What did she seem like?" I say catching up to Joseph.

"Miss Rivers?"

"Sobe! Was she sad?"

"Oh," he says, patting all of his pockets before finding what he's looking for and getting it out and giving it to me, a photograph of Sobe standing before a curtain by a little table on which she leans her elbow and stacks her hands. She is not smiling but looking into the camera with a serious expression.

She is beautiful. "You had this all along!" I try to yell at my brother, but I can't really. It's some comfort to look at her image.

But it's not enough. And this letter is not enough—her words are not enough. They are too much!

And I don't know what I'm going to do about it. But then I don't have to.

I hear that motorbike before I look and it is Miss Pat Rivers riding it down our lane, a scarf blowing behind. But that funny little bullet on the side, that's what I'm looking at.

"Sobe," I say, and I run for them then.

Miss Rivers comes to a halt and snow is flurrying about, and Sobe's cheeks are red as they can be and she's fumbling to stand, and I get to her, and I have her out of that car, and I'm holding her then. "Sobe," I say in there, but I can't say too much cause I'm holding her to me and she cries then, I think we both do, but it doesn't matter.

"Oh my," Miss Pat Rivers says, but we don't look. We don't care to.

"You didn't say you loved me," I say into her thick hat for my face is pressed there.

She holds onto me so tightly.

Something settles in me then. I readjust and hold her more solidly.

"Will your father allow this?" Miss Rivers is saying. "I didn't ask the deputy. I just…I was worried about her."

I look at Miss Rivers then, but I do not slacken my hold on Sobe. "He will not object," I say, knowing he might and knowing I shall have my way. When Maman sees Sobe and feels how shattered she is inside, Maman will know we can't send her back.

I pick her up then, right up. She is little but heavier than you think, but I don't mind.

"You can't carry her all that way," Miss Rivers says. "Put her in the sidecar."

But I just keep walking. Miss Rivers doesn't know me.

Joseph runs past me, though. "Can I ride in it then Miss Rivers?" he says.

He gets his way, for in a few minutes they pass and he waves.

But I do not smile. I am holding Sobe, and she is limp against me. I feel she is broken, but I know we will gather the pieces, my family. And I will hold her like this until the glue is dry and she will be my Sobe still.