Shy (30 page)

I could see by the startled look on Stanley’s face that maybe Joe’s statement wasn’t too far off the mark. Maybe Stanley really was going to see what a couple of lawyers could make of all this.

But all he said was “Don’t be silly.”

And Joe said, “Okay, then, I won’t.”

I turned to Frank. “Where’s the wheelchair?”

“Still in the attic, I think,” he said.

“Well, then—”

We pushed ourselves away from the table while Stanley sat and watched us like we were all a bunch of whack jobs recently set loose from the local nuthouse. He made no move to join us, or to lend a hand, or to impede our leaving. He just sat there. I wondered if he was going to rifle Joe’s bedroom while we were gone, searching for the will yet again.

At the squeak of chair legs on the kitchen linoleum, Pedro scrambled to his feet and gave himself a shake, causing the dining room table to rattle. By the time he was finished shaking, he was wide awake. He might not know where we were going, or what we intended to do when we got there, but it was obvious that he was more than ready to tag along for the ride. One destination to Pedro was pretty much the same as another. It was all about the journey for him. He didn’t give two poops and a pop for where he ended up. (Listen to that. Two poops and a pop. I’m even starting to
talk
like an Indiana farmer.)

Joe patted his lap and Pedro leaped into it.

“Packed and ready to go,” Joe said. “But first let me just do something in my bedroom. I’m sorry, boys, but I don’t think I can walk.”

So Frank and I dragged the dining room chair through the house with Joe and Pedro on it. It was the easiest way we could think of to get the job done. After Joe borrowed a pencil and paper from us, we left him by the window where the light was good and headed off to the attic to dig up Frank’s mother’s wheelchair.

I
F
J
OE
had weighed any more than the husk of the man he once was, it might have been a heck of a chore pushing that wheelchair around the farm. But as it was, he weighed about as much as a minute, so Frank and I, taking turns, managed the task fairly easily. We tried not to jar Joe’s guts out, and he did groan a couple of times as we bounced him through mudholes and over rocks and across petrified wheel ruts and around assorted bumps and dips and piles of livestock poop, but usually he did all his groaning in a pretty good-natured way. Pedro, on the other hand, decided to walk after we collided with a fence post on our first trip through the backyard gate, sending him flying and very nearly unseating Joe as well. We were a little more careful after that, but as far as Pedro was concerned, our being careful was a matter of too little and too late. He’d take his chances on his feet, thank you very much, and if Joe wanted to risk his life sitting in that deathtrap of a vehicle, that was up to Joe, but Pedro was having no part of it. His mama didn’t raise no fool. Chihuahua mamas rarely do.

Even I knew Joe was dying. And he was doing it before our very eyes. And I mean
soon
.
The man was doing all he could just to sit upright as we bumped and banged our way across the barn lot in that squeaky old wheelchair. He gripped the armrests like they were the only things holding him to the planet. His knuckles were white, the veins on the backs of his gristly hands bulging like tree roots. He was using every ounce of strength he still wielded just to hang on.

But still, even as sick as he was, Joe looked about with a fine pride lighting his eyes as we trundled him around the place. He had lived his whole adult life on this spread of farmland. He had married here, raised two boys here, buried a wife here, and pretty much hung on to this farm by the skin of his teeth through all the slim times and the droughts and the market crashes when a bushel of wheat might not bring you enough to buy the loaf of bread that was made from it.

Frank kept giving me worried glances as we went along. His father’s weakness was really scaring him now. Just since this morning, Joe seemed to have failed. When he coughed now, and that occurred more often than it ever had before, the cough was weak and barely audible. Joe kept the handkerchief to his mouth all the time. There was fear in his eyes but he tried not to let us see it.

As we moved along, Frank rested a hand on Joe’s shoulder and in a gentle voice, pointed out different things he and I had accomplished in the weeks we had been here. A new stretch of fencing along the south side of the pasture. A new door on the hayloft because the other one had just about fallen off. A new framework of poles for the string beans in the garden. Sheets of tin we nailed into place at the side of the corncrib to prevent any more grain from leaking out. A dozen things. Most minor, but some that had taken a considerable amount of work. And those we were proudest of.

Joe praised it all. Every job. Big and small.

While Frank and I wrestled the wheelchair around the farm, sweating and grunting and burning up in the heat, Joe’s skin felt cool to the touch. I wasn’t sure how to explain that medically, but I didn’t think it was good. Was his body shutting down? How could anyone
not
sweat in that heat and humidity?

“Joe, you feeling okay?” I asked.

He shrugged. “As good as a dying man
can
feel, I guess.”

Frank started to protest but Joe didn’t let him. He was tired of hearing people tell him he wasn’t dying. I think I would have been a little tired of it myself. “You boys have done everything I asked you to do, and more. You managed to do some things I’ve been putting off for years. That hayloft door for instance. Tell me, and be honest. Did Stanley help at all?”

Frank looked embarrassed. “Well, you know Stanley—”

“Yeah, I do,” Joe grinned. “That’s why I’m asking. I want you boys to know that I played a pretty mean prank on Stanley just now, but dammit, he needed to be brought down a peg or two. He’s just too all-fired cocky.”

Frank laughed. “What’d you do?”

Joe shook his head. I’m not sure if he meant to answer, or he
didn’t
mean to answer. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. A coughing spell took him first, and this one was the worst we had seen. In the midst of it, a gout of blood issued from Joe’s mouth and splattered down his shirtfront like magma overflowing the lip of a volcano. Joe’s eyes popped open wide at the sight of all that blood, and I think he thought that was it. The end had come. I know I did.

“Oh Lord,” Frank said, peeling off his T-shirt and using it to wipe the blood from Joe’s face. Frank’s hands were shaking. He looked at me with terrified eyes as he sopped up the mess. After that one spray of blood, the bleeding seemed to stop. Soon, Joe got his breath back. By this time, I had my shirt off too, and between the two of us, we got Joe pretty well cleaned up.

“Embarrassing,” Joe managed to say.

Frank knelt down beside the wheelchair and took Joe’s hands in his. “No, Pop. I’m just sorry you’re going through it. Feeling better now? Want to go back to the house?” Frank touched his father’s forehead. “You’re too cool, Pop. I don’t like it. It’s hotter than hell out here and you feel like a popsicle.”

“The pond,” Joe said. “I want to see the pond. And feel the wind on my face. There’s always a cool breeze down there. It’ll be nice in the shade of the trees. You boys can sit for a spell. Maybe paddle your feet in the water.”

Frank didn’t seem to think it was such a good idea, but he wasn’t about to argue. “Okay, Pop. If that’s what you want.”

We were still in the barn lot in sight of the house, so I took the chair handles and we set off for the pond, just like Joe wanted us to. I took it nice and slow so we wouldn’t jar Joe any more than we had to. Pedro pranced alongside the wheelchair, now and then looking up at me, then looking at Joe, and occasionally looking at Frank. I don’t think he knew what was going on, but he certainly knew something wasn’t right. He had been around me long enough to sense a disaster building a mile off.

We rounded the barn, and as if we didn’t have enough to worry about, we came face to face with Samson. He was inside his pen, rooting around in the mud by the carcass of that rusty old pickup truck. He looked up when he heard us coming.

He snorted like a locomotive, just like he usually did, and much to my surprise, Joe gathered up what little strength he had left and let out with a falsetto, “Soo, pig! Soo, pig!” And I’ll be damned if Samson didn’t come running like a mammoth cocker spaniel right up to the fence. The last time I saw Samson that close to the fence he was trying to plow his way through it so he could rip me and Frank to pieces. Now he just stuck his snout through the metal bars like Trigger saying howdy to his old pal Roy. Joe pulled an apple out of his trouser pocket, wiped a little blood from it on his pajama leg, and stuck his hand through the fence.

I figured that was the last we would see of Joe’s hand, and probably a goodly portion of his arm too, but Samson spread wide those nasty jaws of his with the six-inch tusks going off in every direction like spearpoints, and as daintily as the Queen of England plucking a crumpet from her breakfast plate, Samson snagged that apple out of Joe’s hand as slick as you please. A Vanderbilt couldn’t have done it with more delicacy.

“Soo, pig,” Joe said, softer this time, while Samson snorted and snuffled and chowed down on that apple like he hadn’t eaten in a week, which was bullshit. I had fed him that morning. And as usual, I had fed him, then took off running like a rabbit. It seemed like a prudent thing to do when dealing with a fourteen hundred-pound insane hog with tusks.

Joe had a smile on his face as we sat there watching Samson make applesauce. I think Frank and I were too stunned to smile. We just watched that damned hog like we had never seen him before in our lives.

Joe’s voice was hoarse, but still there was happiness in it. He had a pensive look on his face, like maybe he was being bombarded with a million memories at once. Not a bad thing for a dying man to experience, I suppose. “I had fun watching you boys grow up,” he said, still watching Samson chomp away at the apple. “I wish your mom could’ve been around longer. She would be pleased by how you both turned out so handsome and strong.”

Joe reached out from the wheelchair and took my hand with his one hand and Frank’s hand with his other. “She loved you boys so much. She was a fine woman, your mom.”

When I gathered enough courage to look in Frank’s direction, I saw exactly what I expected to see. Tears. Coursing down his cheeks.

Joe looked up at me and gave a little jump. “Good lord, Tom. I’m sorry. I was thinking you were someone else for a minute. Daydreaming, I guess.”

“It’s okay, sir. I don’t mind at all.”

He squeezed my hand, then released me. He held onto Frank’s while he said, “Let’s go on down to the pond now, if it ain’t too much trouble.”

“No trouble at all, Pop,” Frank said, his voice weak with emotion.

I nodded in agreement. “Just point the way.”

We rounded Samson’s pen and took off across the pasture through knee-high wildflowers and clover. Being only about nine inches tall, Pedro found the going a little rough, so he decided to ride the rest of the way in Joe’s lap. Joe seemed glad to have him on board.

“Frank,” Joe said. “I got a call from Jeff Moody’s dad. He’s interested in buying the farm when I’m gone.”

Frank glanced at me and I knew what he was thinking. Maybe that’s what was going on in the washhouse that day. Maybe Stanley was greasing the wheels of commerce, so to speak.

“I told him to talk to you, Frank. That means the word is out. I’m leaving the farm in your name. You’ll have trouble with Stanley when he finds out.”

Frank sighed. “I can handle Stanley.”

“Good. Try to do it without a lawyer. A lawyer will end up owning the farm before he’s done. Nobody pads a bill like a lawyer.”

Frank laughed, but Joe looked up at him with one eyebrow cocked, as if to say, “You think I’m kidding?”

Frank finally had to ask. “You told us in the kitchen that we were both in the will. So if I’m getting the farm, what is Stanley getting, Pop?”

“Money. Your mother left a $20,000 savings account for you boys. It was an inheritance from her father who died when you were just a baby. We held onto it all these years without getting into it, and that wasn’t easy, let me tell you. But we managed it somehow. I’m going to give Stanley that money, since he has no interest in the farm.”

“He won’t be satisfied with that,” Frank said. “He’s going to want half of everything.”

“He’ll get what he can get, and what he can get is the $20,000. He doesn’t deserve anything else. He’ll be satisfied. He doesn’t have a choice.”

I could see the cows off in the distance. They were escaping the heat of the day by lingering in the shade beneath the willows, occasionally dipping their noses into the pond for a cooling drink. Off to the right, I could hear nine hundred chickens bitching about something, probably me, but I chose to ignore them. As soon as we stepped into the shady patch under the trees and I felt the coolness of the air brush my face and dry the sweat on my back, I was in too much bliss to let myself be angered by a bunch of damned chickens. I’d argue with them later.

I found a nice level spot in the shade to park the wheelchair where Joe could look out over the pond and the pasture and the tree line that bordered his property off in the distance. The sun was yellow-white and as hot as fire in the afternoon sky, but under the trees, all that sizzling sunshine was little more than a memory. No wonder the cows spent their days down here. It was a lovely spot.

“You boys go sit by the water and relax,” Joe said. “I’d like to be alone for a few minutes.”

I was surprised when Frank took my hand and led me down to the water. Until that moment, we had rarely displayed our affection for each other in his father’s presence. The fact that Frank chose this particular moment to do so, and the easy way he went about it, made me love the man even more than I already did.

We sat on the pond bank with our backs to Joe, to give him his privacy, and we did as he suggested. We kicked off our shoes and socks and rolled up our pant legs to dangle our feet in the cold water. We felt no need to speak, Frank and I. We felt no need to demonstrate our love any more than we already had. Frank and I knew the love was there. Joe knew it too. Smiling, I lay back in the grass and closed my eyes. I wiggled my toes in the cool mud at the bottom of the pond and hoped there weren’t any snakes in the water.