Stories: All-New Tales

“Tom brought us some goods now and then, fish he caught, vegetables from his place. A squirrel or two. We raised a hog and smoked the meat, had our own garden.”

“How are Tom’s parents?”

“His father drank himself to death and his mother just up and died.”

Deel nodded. “She was always sickly, and her husband was a lot older than her…I’m older than you. But not by that much. He was what? Fifteen years? I’m…Well, let me see. I’m ten.”

She didn’t respond. He had hoped for some kind of confirmation that his ten-year gap was nothing, that it was okay. But she said nothing.

“I’m glad Tom was around,” Deel said.

“He was a help,” she said.

After a while, Deel said, “Things are gonna change. You ain’t got to take no one’s charity no more. Tomorrow, I’m gonna go into town, see I can buy some seed, and find a mule. I got some muster-out pay. It ain’t much, but it’s enough to get us started. Winston here goes in with me, we might see we can get him some candy of some sort.”

“I like peppermint,” the boy said.

“There you go,” Deel said.

“You ought not do that so soon back,” Mary Lou said. “There’s still time before the fall plantin’. You should hunt like you used to, or fish for a few days…You could take Winston here with you. You deserve time off.”

“Guess another couple of days ain’t gonna hurt nothin’. We could all use some time gettin’ reacquainted.”

NEXT AFTERNOON WHEN DEEL came back from the creek with Winston, they had a couple of fish on a wet cord, and Winston carried them slung over his back so that they dangled down like ornaments and made his shirt damp. They were small but good perch and the boy had caught them, and in the process, shown the first real excitement Deel had seen from him. The sunlight played over their scales as they bounced against Winston’s back. Deel, walking slightly behind Winston, watched the fish carefully. He watched them slowly dying, out of the water, gasping for air. He couldn’t help but want to take them back to the creek and let them go. He had seen injured men gasp like that, on the field, in the trenches. They had seemed like fish that only needed to be put in water.

As they neared the house, Deel saw a rider coming their way, and he saw Mary Lou walking out from the house to meet him.

Mary Lou went up to the man and the man leaned out of the saddle, and they spoke, and then Mary Lou took hold of the saddle with one hand and walked with the horse toward the house. When she saw Deel and Winston coming, she let go of the saddle and walked beside the horse. The man on the horse was tall and lean with black hair that hung down to his shoulders. It was like a waterfall of ink tumbling out from under his slouched, gray hat.

As they came closer together, the man on the horse raised his hand in greeting. At that moment the boy yelled out, “Tom!” and darted across the field toward the horse, the fish flapping.

THEY SAT AT THE kitchen table. Deel and Mary Lou and Winston and Tom Smites. Tom’s mother had been half Chickasaw, and he seemed to have gathered up all her coloring, along with his Swedish father’s great height and broad build. He looked like some kind of forest god. His hair hung over the sides of his face, and his skin was walnut colored and smooth and he had balanced features and big hands and feet. He had his hat on his knee.

The boy sat very close to Tom. Mary Lou sat at the table, her hands out in front of her, resting on the planks. She had her head turned toward Tom.

Deel said, “I got to thank you for helpin’ my family out.”

“Ain’t nothin’ to thank. You used to take me huntin’ and fishin’ all the time. My daddy didn’t do that sort of thing. He was a farmer and a hog raiser and a drunk. You done good by me.”

“Thanks again for helpin’.”

“I wanted to help out. Didn’t have no trouble doin’ it.”

“You got a family of your own now, I reckon.”

“Not yet. I break horses and run me a few cows and hogs and chickens, grow me a pretty good-size garden, but I ain’t growin’ a family. Not yet. I hear from Mary Lou you need a plow mule and some seed.”

Deel looked at her. She had told him all that in the short time she had walked beside his horse. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He wasn’t sure he wanted anyone to know what he needed or didn’t need.

“Yeah. I want to buy a mule and some seed.”

“Well, now. I got a horse that’s broke to plow. He ain’t as good as a mule, but I could let him go cheap, real cheap. And I got more seed than I know what to do with. It would save you a trip into town.”

“I sort of thought I might like to go to town,” Deel said.

“Yeah, well, sure. But I can get those things for you.”

“I wanted to take Winston here to the store and get him some candy.”

Tom grinned. “Now, that is a good idea, but so happens, I was in town this mornin’, and—”

Tom produced a brown paper from his shirt pocket and laid it out on the table and carefully pulled the paper loose, revealing two short pieces of peppermint.

Winston looked at Tom. “Is that for me?”

“It is.”