“I’ve never heard about that!”
“It was the 1940’s, and Burl Ives traveled around singing. I guess the authorities didn’t like one of his songs - they thought it was bawdy, so they put him in jail.”
“What was the song?” I snickered.
“It was called Foggy, Foggy Dew. My grandpa sang it for me.”
“Let’s hear it!” I challenged.
“It’s far too lewd.” Samuel pulled his mouth into a serious frown, but his eyes twinkled sardonically. “All right you’ve convinced me,” he said without me begging at all, and we laughed together. He cleared his throat and began to sing, with a touch of an Irish lilt, about a bachelor living all alone whose only sin had been to try to protect a fair young maiden from the foggy, foggy dew.
One night she came to my bedside
When I was fast asleep.
She laid her head upon my bed
And she began to weep
She sighed, she cried, she damn near died
She said what shall I do?
So I hauled her into bed and covered up her head
Just to keep her from the foggy, foggy dew.
“Oh my!” I laughed, covering my mouth. “I don’t think I would have stuck Burl Ives in jail for that, but it is pretty funny,”
“Marine’s are the lewdest, crudest, foulest talking bunch you’ll ever find. I’ve heard much, much worse. I’ve sung much, much worse. I tried to remain chaste and virtuous, and I still have the nickname Preacher after all these years - but I have been somewhat corrupted.” He waggled his eyebrows at his ribaldry.
“I kind of liked that song…” I mused, half kidding. “Sing something else but without the Irish.”
“Without the Irish? That’s the best part.” Samuel smiled crookedly. “I had a member of my platoon whose mom was born and raised in Ireland. This guy could do an authentic Irish accent, and man, could he sing. When he sang
Danny Boy
everybody cried. All these tough, lethal Marines, bawling like babies. He sang this one song called ‘An Irish Lament’ that I loved so much I memorized it. In fact, when I saw you in the rain a couple weeks ago, it was the first thing that came to my mind.” The smile had gone out of Samuel’s expression, and his eyes narrowed on my face. His moods were so mercurial, I found myself challenged to keep pace with him. There was now intensity in his gaze where moments before he’d been singing a bawdy tune in a borrowed brogue.
I stared back, trying to wait him out. After a few moments I caved.
“You aren’t going to sing me
An Irish Lament,
are you?”
“It depends,” he countered.
“On what?”
“On whether you will play for me when I take you home tonight.”
It was my turn to become moody. I was not blind to my feelings for Samuel. Where this would all lead, and whether either of us could or wanted to go there was what had me digging in my emotional heels. I knew the incredible power of music and the mood it could set. Exhibit A - the kisses we had shared the night before after Debussy wove his spell. I didn’t trust myself with a large helping of Samuel sprinkled with symphonies. I didn’t know if my heart could take another love lost.
“I think the
Irish Lament
might scare you away.” The sun had lowered itself discreetly behind the western hills. Samuel’s voice was as smooth and quiet as the deepening shadows around us.
“Maybe so…” I avoided his gaze and reached for Nettie’s basket, needing sustenance to keep my wits with Samuel.
Nettie had packed thick turkey sandwiches on homemade bread and chocolate chip cookies (thankfully no lemon squares). She’d included a few peaches from her big tree, and Samuel had added a couple Diet Cokes and a bottle of water. We dug in without further discussion, except for an occasional moan from me.
“Everything okay?” Samuel smiled after a particularly gusty sigh.
“Food just tastes so much better when I didn’t prepare it.”
“You’re a great cook.”
“Yes I am,” I agreed without artifice, “but there’s something about having someone make you a sandwich. It just tastes better; I can’t describe it.”
“Being a Marine has given me a new appreciation for making my own dinner - chow hall isn’t so bad when it’s available, but boxed lunches, no thank you. At boot camp we used to call them ‘boxed nasties.’ I prefer to know what’s in my food, and the only way that happens is if I make it myself.”
“Have you become a control freak, Samuel?” I teased, biting into my peach.
“Hmmm. Yeah, I guess I have.” Samuel looked off across the inky water. “When you realize there’s so much you can’t control, you get pretty stingy with what you can.”
We finished off our meal in silence as the shadows grew and grew and eventually touched, crowding out the light, until all traces of the sun were banished, and the stars began to glimmer overhead.
“I can’t believe I’m here.” Samuel sighed, his arms crossed beneath his head, his long frame stretched out on the scratchy army blanket.
“Why?”
“A month ago I was in Iraq. Suited up day in and day out, camo, boots, flak jacket, glasses, helmet. And I never, ever, went anywhere without my weapon and plenty of ammo strapped on me. This feels surreal.” He paused for a few seconds. “Let’s go swimming.”
“What?” I laughed, and then choked as my laughter caused me to inhale some of the juice from the peach I had been enjoying.
“I want to swim. Look how the stars reflect on the water. It almost looks like we’re looking down into space.”
“You should see it from up in the tree,” I said without thinking, and wished suddenly I hadn’t suggested it.
“Really?” Samuel eyed the big tree speculatively. Instantly, he started shucking off his boots and undoing his pants.
“Samuel!” I felt heat flood me, and I wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment or a genuine curiosity about what I was about to see.
“I’m going to climb the tree and jump off into the water.”
I sighed. It must be a man thing. Why did every guy I knew feel compelled to climb that tree and jump?
“Come with me, Josie.” Samuel narrowed his eyes at me, holding his shirt in his hands. His chest was broad and well-defined, his shoulders and arms corded with muscle, his abs rippled down into his boxer shorts. I looked down at my hands as I spoke so I wouldn’t gawk.
“Uh-uh. The furthest I’ve ever gotten was a few branches up, just so I could see the effect of the stars reflecting on the water.”
“This morning you said you would follow me wherever I went.” His voice was cajoling and light. “Please?”
I was wearing a black tank, and I supposed my black panties combined with my tank top would be as modest as a swimsuit. I didn’t let myself think about it too long. I had always been too practical, too sensible, too boring for my own good. I was going swimming. I slid my skirt down my thighs, stepping out of it and my sandals. I reminded myself to breathe. I looked at Samuel and squared my shoulders as if I did this sort of thing every day.
“If I fall and kill myself you’re going to be very sad,” I said, trying to be brave.
As if sensing my discomfort, Samuel’s eyes didn’t linger on my scantily clad form. He turned and hoisted himself up into the tree like it was as simple as climbing a few stairs. I cringed, thinking about how in the world I was going to get up there and retain any dignity. He stood in the broad base, where the branches spread and lifted away from the trunk. He leaned down towards me, extending a long brown arm.
“Grab my arm at the elbow and I’ll pull you up.”
I did just as he asked, wrapping both of my hands just below his bicep. He leaned down, wrapped his left hand around my upper arm and, holding onto a thick tree-branch above him with his right arm, began pulling me easily up the tree. I marched my legs right up the trunk and was quickly standing balanced beside him, easy as you please. I felt like Shera, Queen of the Jungle, HeMan’s female counterpart. “Wow,” I breathed and then giggled like a little girl.
“There’s a little platform up there, see it?”
“Oh yes,” I groaned. “I know all about the platform. Please don’t make me jump from there.”
“Let me check it out.” Samuel was monkeying up the tree before I could protest.
“It seems pretty solid,” he called down several moments later. It was solid. It had been there for at least a few generations of dare devils. I sighed dejectedly. I was going to have to climb up there and jump with him. It was too late to back out now.
“Come on, I’ll guide you up.”
I knew I was going to fall out of the tree. Girls as athletically challenged as I was should never climb trees. At the very least, I was going to snag my underwear on a branch and be stuck wearing only a tank top high up in the tree. I shuddered in horror. I was NOT that kind of girl. I had a decent rear-end, but I don’t think anyone’s butt looks good climbing trees. At the very worst, I would impale myself on a sharp branch like a pig on a spit. Knowing me, both would happen, and I would soon be pantiless and impaled. I could just see the story in the local newspaper: “Local Woman Found Dead and Half Naked in Tree.”
I focused intently on placing my feet and hands where Samuel instructed and amazingly, I eventually climbed close enough for him to reach down and loop his arm around my waist. He pulled me up next to him on the narrow section of plywood that was wedged and nailed into the wide reinforcement of crisscrossing branches. The view below was truly breathtaking…and terrifying. The black bottom of the pond created an illusion of endless sky below us. The glassy surface reflected the brilliant stars in the firmament above, and it seemed as if we stood on the precipice of a miniature galaxy.
“Oh, dear God,” I whispered, panic flooding my heart with ice.
“It’s beautiful,” Samuel whispered too, only his voice was filled with awe.
I squeezed my eyes shut and clung to his arm, which he had kept braced around me.
“Are you ready? Here we go, on three…”
“No!” I yelped emphatically. “Not yet! I’m not ready!”
Samuel snickered softly, but I was too afraid to slap him.
My eyes were shut so tightly, I was giving myself a headache, my face scrunched up in denial of what I had gotten myself into.
I felt Samuel’s arm pull me against him, and then I felt his breath against my mouth. He smelled like peaches and pine, and I breathed in, relaxing my face, tipping my chin towards him as his mouth came down over mine. And I completely forgot to be afraid. Tipsily, I wound my arms around his brawny shoulder, winding my fingers up into the silky pelt of his closely cut hair. He pulled me in even more tightly, lifting my feet off of the platform, and then, with no warning, Samuel pushed off the platform with a powerful thrust, and we were air born. I was falling….and screaming, and falling. Just before we hit the surface, Samuel released me, untangling himself from my limbs as we shot through the black, star-filled water.
Instinct took over as I kicked my legs wildly and swam upwards, or what I thought was upward. I felt Samuel beside me, and he reached for my flailing hand and dragged me up with him, our heads breaking the surface together. I gasped, spitting pond out of my mouth and sweeping my streaming hair out of my face as my legs tread water furiously to keep me afloat.
“Don’t ever do that again!!”
“What? Kiss you, or kiss you while we’re jumping out of a tree?” Samuel practically drawled the words, they were so slow and mild. He wasn’t breathing hard at all; in fact, he’d laid his head back in the water and barely seemed to be working at keeping himself afloat.
“Ugh!” I huffed, completely disgusted. “I feel tricked! You didn’t want to kiss me! You just wanted to get me out of the tree!”
“Oh, I wanted to kiss you,” the drawl was even more pronounced. “I just killed two birds with one stone.” He lifted his head up off the water and grinned at me, his teeth flashing, and I was dazzled. So much so, that I stopped kicking and my head sunk beneath the water like a stone. I splashed wildly and popped up, spitting and swiping at my hair again.
“Lean back, Josie,” Samuel commanded, the words gentle and coaxing as he slid up beside me. “Kick your legs out in front of you and float on your back. Quit fighting. Floating’s easy.”
“Ha!” I grumped. “I knew how to swim when you were still wearing floaties in the high school pool!” I wasn’t done being mad at him.
“Very funny,” he chuckled warmly.
I did as he instructed, spreading my arms and legs wide like I was making a snow angel, my head back and my face peeking just above the surface. The stars twinkled down at me sweetly.
“There you go.” Samuel spread out beside me, his fingers brushing mine as we bobbed on the placid pond. My anger slipped away as I exhaled lightly, not wanting to upset my precarious relationship with the water.
“Do you see the Milky Way?” Samuel reached his arm up and pointed.
“Uh-huh.”
“My grandmother says the Milky Way is a pathway for the spirits leaving the earth and ascending into heaven. Navajo legend says the Milky Way was created when Coyote, the trickster, got impatient as First Woman was trying to arrange the constellations in the sky. First Woman made a constellation for almost every bird, every animal, and even every insect. She made a constellation for
Atsa’
the eagle, and
M’iitsoh
, the wolf. She created a lark,
Tsidiitltsoii
, so he could sing a song to the sun every morning. She even made
Dahsani
, the porcupine, who was in charge of growing all the trees on the mountains. First woman laid each star in a pattern out on a blanket before she had Fire Man carry them to the sky and touch them with his fire torch to make them shine. Coyote wanted to help, but First Woman told him he would only make trouble. Finally, there were just small chips and star dust remaining on the blanket. Coyote was impatient, and he grabbed the blanket and swung it up into the air, spreading the star dust into the sky creating the
Yikaisdahi
-the Milky Way.”
“Is there a Navajo name for all the constellations?” I stared up, trying to pick out the few I knew.
“Yes. My grandmother could tell you the story of every one of them, why First Woman placed them where she did, and how they were named. Grandma says the laws of our people are written in the stars. She says First Woman put them there because, unlike the sands that blow away or the waters that flow and shift, the sky is constant. That’s the great thing about the sky - it’s the same in the waters off of the coast of Australia as it is right here at Burraston’s pond. When I was stationed on the U.S.S. Peleliu the first couple years I was in the Marine Corp, I would often climb up to a little upper deck where I could see the sky, and I would name as many of the stars and constellations as I could. It made me feel like I was right there with my grandmother, sleeping under the stars, listening to the sheep.”