Tammy out of Time Read online

  Pete nodded. “It’s too big—too big to paint or to keep up the way it should be kept. I don’t know what I’m going to do, Tammy. Not even after all this time. I just keep on going from day to day.”

  “You mustn’t lose heart about the farming, Pete, when you ain’t more than just started on it.”

  “The truth is, it seems to lack purpose, somehow, as well as money. I can’t figure out what would be the best crops to raise, if I do go in for it. Meanwhile I’m just putting the other fields in cover crops, trying to improve the soil. You see, it’s all so different from the way I thought it would be.”

  “How’d you think it would be?”

  “Like it was when I was a boy on vacations here with Aunt Renie, when she had a man managing the place and lots of tenants and an air of plenty. I didn’t realize then how she had to scrimp along. That was the life I was looking forward to—riding out early to see how the crops were growing, living independent of however the world went.” He bowed his head and ran his long fingers through his hair. “But with only two men left on the place, and one of them old Prater——” He fell silent.

  “Pete?” Tammy said after a little.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t you reckon you better change your notion to fit...however things are...now?”

  “You mean, give up this idea, go in town on a job—like Barbara has been saying? And a lot of what she says makes sense, I’m telling you. Or do like my father says and go back for another degree, or——”

  “No, no, Pete.” Tammy gave Nan a slap to send her out of the way. She stood and came quickly to him, the pail in her hand. “You’ve got everything here, Pete. You’re rich. What do you have to be afeard of? And why do you have to do what other people say? Why do you have to listen to them?”

  “God, I’ve been listening to other people all my life. Every one of them saying something different.” Pete stared before him, his eyes dark and resentful.

  “But Pete—hell’s bells, didn’t you ever in your life decide anything for yourself?”

  Pete was silent as if searching his life. “Of course. In the war. If I’d stopped to wait for orders in some of those tight spots I wouldn’t be here now.”

  Tammy, studying him, remembered something he had said aboard the Ellen B. “You had peace in the middle of the war. That was what you said.”

  “It seemed simpler there, somehow.”

  Tammy laughed. “I ain’t been here but overnight, Pete, but already I see how unsimple people are. You just got to pay them no mind.”

  “If I could just be sure——”

  “Were you sure of things in the middle of the war?”

  “Sure? I wasn’t even sure of being alive the next minute. I didn’t expect to be sure when I went into it.”

  “Then, lookahere, Pete. You’re expecting too much of peace and just ordinary living. There ain’t any way you can make it foolproof sure. You can’t stave off trouble or dying, even if you are in the middle of peace.”

  Pete stood. “Tammy, you do say the damnedest surprising things sometimes. How do you do it?”

  Tammy laughed. “Grandpa’s got a sermon about all that—I been hearing it all my life. And how he ends it up is by saying you can’t expect to manage everything yourself. You’ve got to leave something to the Lord.”

  “I envy those that can do it,” Pete said. “Do you?”

  “Mostly, I do, Pete, but it ain’t always easy. Grandpa says mankind’s took over too much lately. Says folks used to leave the Last Day and the end of the world in the Lord’s hands, but now they’ve took it over themselves, with the atom bomb. That’s how-come everyone’s so uneasy. They don’t trust each other like they used to trust the Lord.”

  Pete laughed, and yet he was serious too. He gave her hair a tweak. “I’m glad you’re around, Tammy. Everything looks better when you’re here. I’ve been needing you.”

  Tammy’s eyes fell. Warmth and happiness spread through her. She loved this moment here with Pete, the smell of the barn lot in her nose and warm sun shining down on her head. There was a line in the Bible that said, My heart awakened...my bowels yearned for him. That was how she felt. But Pete? She looked up at him and saw that he was still considering his problems. So she put her mind to work, searching out his concern. “Where did all the tenants go?” she asked, stepping back from him.

  “To town to work in the factory, or down the road to the new milk-canning place.”

  “Do they can milk into cans there, Pete?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you better just raise cows. They’ll be needing milk to can for sure, they’re bound to.”

  Pete laughed. “That’s what the county agent’s been telling me. Only I don’t know enough about it. I’d have to go to Ag College and study cattle raising. Here I’ve been all over the place consulting experts, Tammy, and you toss me the same advice right off the bat.”

  “It’s just common sense, Pete.”

  “The trouble is—” he looked down at the ground, kicking at a lump of dirt with the toe of his shoe—“Barbara’s got some funny notion about it, thinks she’d lose caste or something, living on a dairy farm—a small one, like this would be. I guess she can’t see herself milking when the hands don’t show up.”

  “Cows are easier to milk than goats, Pete. I bet I could milk a sight of cows.”

  “I’ll bet you could.” At a sound from the barn he looked around quickly and called, “Who’s that? Hey, you Roots, come on around here. What you doing?”

  The little brown boy who had dodged around the corner of the shed when he saw them, came back now, hurriedly wiping his nose on a ragged shirt sleeve. “Ain’t doin nothin, suh.”

  “Where’s your pappy this morning?”

  “He home.”

  Pete turned to Tammy. “I was just going down to his house to see why he isn’t out working this morning. Want to come? Roots can take the milk up to the house.”

  Tammy held out the pail and Roots took it from her, his eyes on the ground. “What-for you been crying, Roots?” she asked softly.

  He caught his breath in a little gulp. “Pappy say I got to tell Miss Renie. Tell her I can’t have no more drawing lessons.”

  Pete had turned away, but he looked back now. “What’s that? No more lessons? Why not?”

  The boy bent his head. “Don’t know, suh.”

  Pete looked down at him scowling. “Well, you get on up to the house with that milk and I’ll see your pa. Come on, Tammy.”

  Tammy caught up with him, taking a skip to keep even with his long strides. “He knows something, but he’s afraid to tell, Pete.”

  “Yes, and I’m afraid to find it out. His father is my only real worker. If he is going to quit me or anything——”

  They crossed the lot to the rail gate on the far side, Nan following close at their heels. Tammy shooed her back when Pete unfastened the chain that held the gate shut. But he said, “Oh, let her come.”

  In single file they went along the fence line at the edge of the field. Rows of young oats, tender and sparse as yet, stretched away to a wall of woods. From the woods a line of trees, like a green arm curved through the hollow of the pasture ahead. Tammy followed it with her eyes, thinking there would be running water there. That would be good for cattle raising.

  At the corner of the field where blackberry bushes dropped their pure-white petals, they passed through a zigzag gate, too small for cattle and just the size for Nan to wriggle through. Then a hard beaten path led across an open, sunny space toward a little gray cabin that held two chinaberry trees, like green umbrellas, before its face. The chimney at this end was stoutly built of stick and mud. Blue wood smoke rose straight and tall in the still air, like Jacob’s ladder set on the earth and the top of it reaching to heaven. Tammy stood motionless, seeing it. “Must be this is the gate to heaven,” she said, as Jacob had.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It is a beautiful house, the color of rain. There
must be all of three rooms, and the tin roof’s sound above it. There could be geraniums at the windows and curtains hung, fresh and clean. It is such a house as I have dreamed of, set well on solid ground.”

  Pete stood looking at her, saying no word.

  “The front room for living and cooking, one to sleep in and one to put the children in. Ground for a garden and space for chickens. Who could want more than that?”

  “Food, shelter, love, companionship, children, chickens and maybe a goat or two. Is all the world crazy, or are you, Tammy—and me, listening to you, almost believing?” Then he laughed and said, “Come, let’s see if we can convince Steve that this is the summum bonum.”

  “What’s a summum bonum?”

  “The highest good. Latin.” He rapped on the floor of the cluttered porch and called, “Halloo!”

  A slim dark young woman with a baby in her arms stood in the open door. “Mornin’, Mr. Pete,” she said, unsmiling. Her dark eyes flicked uneasily toward the sacks of clothes, the kitchen pots and pans strung on a rope and lying in a heap at the end of the porch.

  “Looks as if you were about to clear out, Lena,” Pete said.

  The woman joggled the baby in her arms, not answering, letting its cry cover her silence.

  “What’s it all about?”

  Lena came out on the porch. She spoke in a whisper. “It’s Steve, suh. Been on another jag. Now he’s got the notion of moving to town.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Round tother side the house. He’da had us gone fore now only his ma been over here since day, argyfying with him.”

  “Osia’s got sense. You can’t go anywhere with that sick baby.” He went slowly around the corner of the house.

  “Hey, you Steve,” Lena called above the baby’s rising wail. Then as Tammy moved nearer and stopped at the foot of the steps, Nan at her heels, she said, “I heard you talking about this-here house. Did you mean that, what you said?”

  “1 sure did. You’re lucky, having such a house.”

  Lena joggled the baby to silence. “It suits me. I wisht Steve could’a heerd how you talked about it.”

  Tammy mounted the steps and looked down into the baby’s wrinkled dark face. “What’s his name?”

  “I name him Karo, account of he was so sweet. That was before I got a rising and my milk give out. He ain’t been sweet lately.”

  “Karo. That’s pretty. What do you feed him?”

  “Miss Renie been giving me cow’s milk.”

  “Let me hold him.” The feel of him in her arms as she rocked him to quiet with the motion of her body carried her back to long ago when other shanty boats were beside them, people and babies. It carried her back beyond that into time before she remembered, and it took her forward into all time to come. “He’s too light,” she said after a while, “he doesn’t weigh anything.”

  “Yassum, it’s cause he don’t get no use of his food. No more’n get it down than he throws it up.”

  “I wonder if goat’s milk would suit him better. Grandma saved a baby’s life once with goat’s milk. Want to try? I didn’t strip Nan anywhere dry.”

  “I’m that worried I’d try anything.”

  “Got a bottle and a nipple?”

  When Lena was gone into the house, Tammy heard Pete talking back of the house somewhere. Another voice answered him: “It looks like I got the going-away blues, Mr. Pete. Restless. Feel like I got to go.”

  Tammy’s dark brows drew together. That voice—or did all Negroes talk alike? Lena came back with the bottle and Tammy sat down on the step, calling Nan to her, pushing her around. The two little children came out now and watched with wide solemn eyes as the stream of warm milk went into the bottle. Tammy studied them with quick glances in the midst of her milking. They were the color of the river in high-water time, a pleasing color—if one did not look for it to be white. She smiled at them, feeling relaxed and easy. Lena and the children rested her. They were not cluttered round with...with notions the way the others were, up at Pete’s house.

  Pete’s voice came to her again. She held it in her ears and treasured it. He spoke to this man with understanding, saying, “That’s the way I’ve been feeling myself, Steve, ever since I got out of the service. Had to go way out West before I could get it out of my system. But of course I didn’t have a wife and children to think about.”

  Tammy held up the bottle, measuring the milk with her eye. “That’s enough for him the first time. Give it to him quick whilst it’s warm.”

  They bent over the baby, watching. He pushed aside the nipple once or twice with his pink tongue, then he began to draw on it. He made little smacking sounds. As the milk went down in the bottle his eyelids drooped and when it was almost gone, he slept. Lena let out a long sigh. “He ain’t never took it so well, Must be the Lord sont you for sure, ma’am.”

  “If you’d be good to her, I’d lend you Nan. Then you could milk him some milk whenever he’s hungry. But now you’d better lay him on his stomach on the bed for a while.” She turned to the two children. “You can pat her now if you like. Her name is Nan. Will you be good to her?” They nodded, speechless.

  Pete came around the corner of the house, followed by a lean Negro in khaki clothes the color of his skin. He looked around quickly as Nan moved away from the children along the porch, her little hoofs clicking sharply on the boards of the floor. His eyes widened, showing a circle of white around the dark centers. His face took on a grayish tinge, as his glance shot across to Tammy. His feet shuffled quickly as if they would carry him away, yet he did not move, some strange paralysis holding him rigid. Beads of sweat came on his forehead.

  Tammy knew him now, for sure. Pete was across the yard, examining the well. Lena was in the house with the baby. “Never mind,” Tammy said.

  Then Lena came out. “Steve, the baby done drank the goat’s milk good, and she say she’ll loan us the goat to feed him.”

  “L-loan...her goat...to feed my baby?” Steve’s voice was hoarse. His eyes kept coming back to Tammy.

  “Sure I will,” Tammy said. “Just treat her nice. I’ll come down to see her some time, so she won’t pine for me.”

  Steve, after a quick glance at Pete, wiped his forehead with trembling fingers and turned away from them. “Reckon I’s kind of drunk last night when I...got so sot on going. Reckon I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “Okay, Steve,” Pete said. “You can get on down to the lower forty now and finish that piece of fencing. Prater’s got things started but he’s needing some help. I see your well’s holding out all right.”

  Steve started to speak and gave it up. Then he set out across the yard in a long loping stride. Tammy looked at Pete to see if he had noticed anything. She didn’t think he had, but it was hard to tell about Pete.

  “Well, thank the Lord, Mr. Pete.” They all turned as a tall dark woman came round the corner of the house. “I heerd what he say and you done work a miracle for sure.”

  “Morning, Osia,” Pete said. “Steve’s all right. Just restless, as he says. You coming up to the house?”

  “Yassuh, I been trying to get there, but Steve—I been here since day argyfying with him. Four boys I got, and two girls and three dead and Steve the only one ever give me trouble. He sure make up for all the rest.”

  “He’s a good worker. He’ll be all right. Come on, Tammy, let’s go.”

  “When he work,” Osia muttered. Then she added, “Tell Miss Renie I’ll be up there in a minute.”

  Pete looked back as Nan jumped down from the porch to follow, and Lena caught her. “You better take that rope you have your pots tied with and fasten her up for a while.”

  Tammy walked on, not wanting to see Nan trying to follow. Pete overtook her at the zigzag gate and even before he spoke she knew he had not missed anything that passed between her and Steve.

  “Where had you seen Steve, Tammy?” His tone was quiet, yet there was something disturbing in it.

  Tammy stood by
the gate, feeling the warm ground under her bare feet, steadying herself on the solid ground. “I saw him when I was coming, on the big road.” She went on through the gate and along the path beside the hedgerow.

  “There was more to it than that.”

  The words hung in the air like a question. “Nothing that mattered, Pete,” Tammy said, not looking around.

  His hands fastened on her shoulders, stopping her, turning her to face him. “Tammy, you don’t understand these things.” His voice was sharp and strange in her ears. “Tell me just what happened. I must know.”

  “I will tell you. He spoke to me, I spoke to him, and he went on.” She studied Pete, wondering what had come over him. It was something from outside himself; it was the same thing she had sensed in that couple in the car, an urgency and a fear.

  “There’s more to it than that.” Pete looked away across the field in the direction Steve had gone “I’ll get it out of him.”

  “No.” The word seemed to startle him. It came out crisp like Grandma’s speech, and it stopped Pete short. “What has come over you, Pete?”

  Pete drew a long breath. “You’ve lived on the river all your life, Tammy. You don’t know—it isn’t what one Negro does or says. It’s what another one might do.”

  “Do you punish one man for what another might do?”

  Pete turned away with impatience, then his face grew troubled “That wouldn’t be right, of course. Only——”

  “Why are you so afeard, Pete?”

  Pete studied her a long moment. She could see him coming back to himself from being someone else. “Is it fear?” He ran his fingers through his hair, shaking his head. “I don’t know. It’s more complex than that. It’s partly my desire to protect you—from this or any harm.”

  “You can’t let yourself be like that, Pete. It was because I was not afeard last night that I could stand up to Steve and tell him to get on about his business.”

  “What was it he wanted of you?” Pete was still worried but the other strange quality was gone from his voice.

  “He asked for money. He was a little drunk. I told him to go work for his own money, what I had was mine.”