Deep in the Heart of Me (17 page)

"Come here first," I say. It's all I can think of. All I think of. Words are just getting us in more and more trouble.

She looks at me. Swallows. "Why?"

"Come here." I stand and wait.

She ducks her head a little, but she steps toward me.

I reach for her and pull her the rest of the way behind the truck. The bed is not as tall as us, but the cab blocks their view for a minute.

"Sobe," I say, and I put my fingers under her chin and lift a little. "I don't want to be your dear friend."

"Tonio…."

"I want…," I bend to kiss her. I feel the earth lift and slam me back down. But I hold my lips to hers. Even if Jesus comes, even then I shall not be the first to break this.

They are calling her, they are looking for her.

"She's with Tonio," I hear and it is the pastor's wife.

I lift then, in spite of my resolve. Her eyes are still closed.

"Go on now," I say.

Her eyes open and I shall never forget this, the look she has there.

"Go on," I say softly.

Neither of us move.

"Tonio," she whispers.

I kiss her once more, and it's just as powerful. When I lift, this time, she is looking at me. "Go on now."

She takes two steps away.

I turn and get in the truck. I start the engine, and I'm backing away from her, and she has stopped, and she's watching me.

I hit the brakes and the engine rattles and pings. She is looking at me, back dropped by all the people working to make her party nice.

She lifts her hand and waves. Then her hand moves to her mouth, and she throws me a kiss.

I haven't thought about it, but my hand is on my cheek like some stupid girl.

I have to grin. And she grins back.

Then she runs off, and I shift the gears and back out. The limit for speed is twenty, and we're lucky if this truck gets fifteen, but right now it couldn't go fast enough to suit me.

I want to get back to her.

We come from the south of Otto's property. It's been a million jokes in the cab, and they pass a bottle. I've been riding in back with the colt, and I knock on the window when I think we're in a good place. Pat pulls near some trees, and he turns off the engine. I need to know exactly where he's at. Shaun gets out, and he's laughing as I pass him. "Get your ass on that ass boyo."

If Otto has the beast in the upper paddock, then I'll be coming close to the house and the poker game. There's the main road close-by but Pat can hardly wait there, so we've come along behind the place where the creek runs and the bottom road there. It looks haunted at night cause it's the place that always floods and the water runs so high over the road you can barely pick your way through on horseback, and it's easy to get off the road, and the current is so strong you can get swept out so quickly. It's an eerie place with gnarled trees and debris piled in front of the ones who have stood sentinel for so many years, refusing to budge and sticks and leaves and animal bones have gathered before them like armor.

It's not flooded now. It's bare and silent except for the breeze. The water runs under the bridge and along the banks of the creek like it should, waiting for its chance to swell and break free once more, but not tonight, no.

I wonder how Sobe's party is going. It's already nine. Soon my dad will gather up my family, and they will be back at the farm tired and full of sugar and cider and memories of the best time. When did I choose against them? When did I go my own way? Well just now, I think. Just tonight.

"You won't see my costume," Sobe said to me. And I pressed my lips to hers and the preacher and Fat Ned, well I don't think they saw, and if they did, then they did. There is not a drop of sorry in me. Sorry for what? I love her.

I love Sobe. You wonder how you will know and then it happens, and you know.

I'm running through the bottom land, and it's a thready sky and a hoot-hoot from an owl and deeper I go the more I know I'm in love now.

That damn mule is so near the house it makes me groan and laugh all in one. I'm standing in the trees looking at this nice homey scene. Otto's cabin out here away from the fort-like house the family lives in. He's got him a bony wife and Otto and Utz who are the tail-end of a string of older ones, most never done too much but have other strings of towheaded Smiths and what have you's.

But Otto runs his game here, and most locals know it. What he does with the money is anyone's guess. Couldn't tell it by looking around here. So I am watching, and someone comes out to piss in the yard and goes back inside.

I don't know if this mule is broke to saddle or rider for that matter because he shows this thing at the fair. But he likes to parade it, he loves that.

So it looks quiet enough, and here I go then, running half bent over, I don't know why, well I'm sneaking. And I get in the paddock, and there are a couple of others so I walk slow then, and I go for that mule. And he don't know me, don't like it, and an apple from my pocket, and he knows that and goes to take it and takes my finger too and damn it to hell anyway.

I remind myself again they came on our land, and that's why I'm here on his, on Otto Smith's. So I wrap my finger in my kerchief, and that mule runs a little, and I have another treat, and I get that and hold it forth but no dangling finger this time, and that beast takes it in his big teeth, and I jump on his back then, and he takes two steps and quick as lightening kicks his hinders to the sky, and I pitch forward naturally, my face planted behind its ears but by sheer determination I hang on.

He runs that fence and the others have plenty to say. A dog picks it up and comes running, and the beast kicks again, and hee-haws and I'm using my legs to get it to move, but it is too busy fighting me, and I readjust my ass over its spine to put it on balance, and it still don't want me, and the door of that cabin comes open, and a square of light and I am low over that donkey's neck and voices, and the door shuts then opens, real quick, and I think, "ut-oh."

I stay low, and that dog is carrying on and about that time several are out now, and it's a damn full moon and, "Someone is out there," a man says. And then the whole world blows up…or the outhouse at least and this beast I am on rears up, and I am hanging onto its neck for dear life, then it leaps over the fence and takes off like engine number nine, and we are flying toward the house, and a shot flies overhead as we tear off in the wrong damn direction.

This mule is running for the trees, and I give up any hope of telling it what to do. I adjust myself because its spine has a tendency to fit right up the crack of my ass and I tighten my hold and Lord God I have never been closer to death and so alive at once.

I don't remember much after that explosion, but this mule did hop over the roof to the outhouse laying there in the yard where it left the four walls like a giant fist came up out of that shit filled hole and punched it off like a hat.

We get on the main road and from behind me I hear the engines starting. Holy God and all the saints. This beast has run clean off from the bottoms. I will soon have all of Dewberry on my tail. I take off my belt and loop it under the neck of this beast, and I dig in my heels and tell it to move its ass, which is funny but not so much right now for a fact.

I take that same belt and whack its ass, and it does take off then. I run it off the road along Otto's fence. Come on now, come on. I see the end of the fence and tear off across the field. We are gunning for the trees.

The trucks I heard from back at the shack are hitting the road now, and I hear voices, but I am prevailing on this beast to make time. We are cutting for the trees but from those very ones a shot comes right for us and I lean low and using my belt around its neck I point that beast to a far right. They must be on horseback too, and this is a fine mule. No wonder Otto is proud. Now I could give him up and get home best way I could, make for Pat if he's still waiting, and if he's not I shall happily go to jail and swing for the pleasure of killing him.

I head west. And soon, not soon enough, but soon I am going through the woods, and making time, hitting wide open field and running hard, and this beast just stops. I fly over its shoulder, and I roll and get up saying through my teeth, "Son of a bitch. Son of a jack-bitch."

It takes a step away from me then, and I still have one end of my belt in my hand, and I want to beat the living shit from it.

"Come on now," I say so kindly. "Come on now you jack-bastard. That's right," I say as I approach.

It is huffing and making its sound like a horse but not, like a donkey but not quite and I am breathing hard.

I get close, and it's twitchy but it stays put and allows me to touch its withers, and I hop on its back. I don't use the belt at all I nudge this beast with my knees, and it takes off, and I think something gets settled between us. At least for another five minutes.

I finally reach the bottoms, and it won't be long before they figure it out and come round in those trucks.

I get to the road newly graded by the CCC, and I can see I'm half a mile down, and I get to it then, come on mule. He trots and shakes me to kingdom come and I get him to gallop some, more like a lope that jars my teeth. I know I reopened that knee that was nearly healed from my fight with Tillo. But I don't have time to worry about it or my finger.

Come on Pat, be there, I think as we round the bend, but he's not there, and I hear a truck coming, and this mule puts on the brakes, and I hop off this time, and I put my belt around his neck, and I can't get him to budge. I pretty well drag him a few feet, and he's half in the trees and half out, and this is where I might be done. There's no way we won't be spotted.

That truck gets close, and I can just see, and it's Shaun I'm looking at, Shaun standing in back with that colt and looking in the brush alongside the road. "There he is," they say.

"Yeah, here I am," I say. But I won't talk much. There's no time.

Pat is out and opens the back of the horsebox, and pulls down the ramp Uncle John made and I coax Jack Bastard up that ramp, and they steer clear because he'd kick them to kingdom come if they got behind him.

Shaun ties him to the front of the box, and that mule don't like it, and Pat closes up the box, and it kicks then, it's hooves bucking against the gate.

"Oh shit," Pat says.

Shaun is laughing. "He's a devil ain't he?"

I am over the side and trying to calm that critter down. The colt is carrying on because it don't want to ride next to the devil any more than I do.

"Try riding him in the dark with gunshots flying. Or better yet an outhouse blowing to kingdom come!" I say.

Pat is laughing and singing as he gets in the cab. That mule is leaning but there is not another truck around here with a bed made long enough for a mule to stand in and we can thank Uncle John for those modifications but even still transport is hard on animals, and kicking back like that isn't good for their back or legs. And I don't know why but I kind of like this son of a bitch, this mule, better than the human company I find myself in.

I am glaring at Shaun over the animal's back.

"You did splendid, Boyo,
fook
if you
dint
," he laughs. The Irish comes with the drinking. It always does. In Dad too. In all of them.

Pat is heading out, and he gets to Neibour's and Pat hops out of the bed and moves the gate and back in and we drive through.

Crossing Neibour's farm will take them to Miller's Road and they will take that until it runs into the main road. With this added load they won't get to Springfield until that sale is started.

"Whose idea was the dynamite?" I ask Shaun.

He grins at me.

"You could have told me," I say.

"Boyo," he laughs. He hiccups and grins and repeats that a few times.

"They're looking," I say.

"Nah. They went ten different ways. No one wants to get caught in that game. Not with the old ladies waiting at home for the money," he says.

"Someone shot at me."

"Me too," he says, and he laughs, then, "Boyo, come on."

"Was that Dad's dynamite?" I ask.

He laughs. "Uncle John's. He doesn't ask as many questions that's for sure."

And so Pat takes it slow, and so we ride like thieves in the night. Like, bootleggers.

I keep the mule quiet, but I'm fresh out of apples. Pat thought to bring a bag of feed, and I let Shaun learn the hard way that the mule can bite.

"The thing bit me," Shaun says.

I keep my lip buttoned.

It's an eternity before we get to the main road. I'm as tired as I can be. Before they let me out, Shaun wants me to tip the bottle with them, and I wonder if it would help me wake up. So I take a swallow. Then another. And I like the warm feeling enough as they leave me there in the dark after telling me again what a man I've become.