The Hum and the Shiver

10

Deacon eased the tractor along the rows of knee-high corn. Dirt stirred by his passage sparkled in the morning sunlight.

He’d been up since before dawn, unable to really sleep. He’d heard the front door open, the creak of passage across the floor, and the distinctive squeak of Bronwyn’s bedroom door. He had a good idea who had come to visit, and why. At least this time it hadn’t been that damned Gitterman boy, but the knowledge did not help him relax.

He wiped his sweaty face with the back of his arm. The day was starting out muggy, so even though the temperature was pleasant he still dripped with perspiration. It wasn’t hard to farm in the valley, and this field was small but blessedly flat. All he had to do was keep the dirt turned, hum the right tune, and everything came up easy. They’d have enough corn for the family, and a little to sell besides.

Over the tractor’s rumble he heard a sharp whistle. He looked around, saw the source, and froze. He reached under the seat for the .22 revolver he kept handy to chase off rabbits and starlings and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans.

He left the tractor idling as he hopped down, feeling the impact in his knees and lower back. He strode across the field to the barbed wire fence, where Dwayne Gitterman stood leaning on a post. His truck was parked in the middle of the road behind him. He looked like he’d been up all night, with red eyes and a beer-stained shirt. Dwayne grinned and said, “Hey there, Mr. Hyatt. How’s the corn coming? Keeping the horseweed under control?”

“What do you want, Dwayne?”

Dwayne put one foot on the lowest strand of wire and lifted himself off the ground, using the pole for balance. “I was driving by, and when I saw you, I thought I might come by tonight and see Bronwyn.”

“Hm. When I saw you, I thought I might shoot you and bury you where nobody would find you.”

“Now that’s fucking harsh, Mr. Hyatt. I never did nothing bad to you or your daughter.”

“And you never done nothing good for anyone else in your life. Get outta here, Dwayne. If you come to the house, I won’t have to shoot you. Bronwyn’ll have your balls for paperweights before you get to the porch. And not a soul will miss you.”

“Well, I might still do it. I’m only a frog’s-hair less pure-blooded than you, you know, so I expect y’all to be civil.” He hopped down off the fence. “You might come outside sometime when I’m squirrel hunting and catch a stray bullet, you never know. Be a real tragedy. My conscience would never get over it.”

“I might mention you threatenin’ me to old Trooper Bob Pafford. He’s still got an eye out for you, and he’d love the chance to pull you over.”

“That asshole don’t scare me,” Dwayne said. “And he could never catch me.”

Deacon met Dwayne’s eyes. He was silent for a long moment, then said softly, “Do you want me to sing about you at the barn dance, Dwayne? Want me to come up with your dirge? Because if that’s what it takes to get Bronwyn shed of you, I’ll do it.”

Dwayne’s cocky grin slipped a little. “You be overreacting a little, Mr. Hyatt,” he drawled.

“No, you be taking up too much of my time. Go back to your hole and bother somebody else. You come anywhere around here again, it’ll be my trigger finger that slips before I can stop myself. And your dirge might get a thimbleful of tears out of the whole valley.”

Aunt Raby’s attic smelled like she did: a musty, abandoned accumulation of decades sticking around for reasons unknown even to her. The boxes stacked along the walls and at the eaves were unmarked, and bore the logos of defunct produce companies and other products that no longer existed. Don banged his head on the beam running down the center of the peaked roof and muttered, “Shit!”

“What was that?” Aunt Raby’s trembling voice called. She waited at the bottom of the rickety ladder, propped on her upstairs walker.

“Nothing, Aunt Raby.” He shone the flashlight around until he saw the box she’d mentioned, then crawled on his hands and knees to it. Dust puffed when he opened the flaps.

Inside the box were the contents of an old writing desk: innumerable pens, small white envelopes, and blank reply cards with faded images of birds and flowers. But beneath them, at the bottom of the box, he found the Swayback family Bible.

It was a large book, nearly two feet square and over six inches thick, with a heavy purple bookmark ribbon attached to the spine. The page edges were gilded, except near the top corner where it was worn away by decades of turning. He tucked the book under his arm and backed his way down the ladder.

When he’d brushed the dust from his jeans and washed his hands, he put the big book on Aunt Raby’s kitchen table and opened the cover. The first half-dozen pages were listings of family births, deaths, and marriages. It was somehow touching, he thought, that no consideration was given to possible divorce and remarriages. He scanned the listings, which began in 1803, until he found Forrest Swayback.

The date was June 11, 1912. On that long-ago day, Forrest Leon Swayback had been joined in holy matrimony with Bengenaria Oswald. Their three children, including Don’s own father, were listed under that. Don followed the line to the date of his own birth, in July of 1972.

Aunt Raby put one gnarled hand on his back. “Did you find what you’re looking for, honey?”

“I did, Aunt Raby. Did you ever know Grandma Benji?”

“I sure did. She was one of them Needsville Tufas, you know.”

“I know.”

“She could sing like the voice of heaven, that’s a pure fact. Only she wouldn’t sing a hymn to save her life. She’d sing country and western songs, even nigra songs, and of course those weird ol’ Tufa songs when she thought no one was listening. But she’d never praise the Lord, she sure wouldn’t.”

“Did you like her?”

“She was never nothing but kind to me. Sometimes it’s a shame to think about someone that sweet burning in hell, but the Bible says it true, and she never accepted the Lord Jesus Christ that I know of. She and Grandpa Forrest got married by a judge over in Mississippi, even, because she wouldn’t have a church wedding.”

Don nodded, copied down the dates of her birth, death, and marriage, then took the bag of garden tomatoes Aunt Raby insisted on giving him. As he drove home, he thought about the phrase weird ol’ Tufa songs. He’d never heard a song that was specifically Tufa; he wondered idly what they sang about that was so weird.

Brownyn stood propped on her crutches at the end of the hall. She stared through the living room into the dining area; it was really a single big room divided by the edge of the rug separating the hardwood kitchen floor from the couches, chairs, and TV. So she had an unobstructed view of the strangest thing she’d seen in a while.

Her wheelchair was on the table upside down, its big wheels removed and propped against the kitchen counter. Deacon’s toolbox sat open on a chair. But Deacon wasn’t the one working. Instead a dark-haired boy, tall and lanky and instantly familiar, adjusted the ball bearing mechanism as he hummed to himself.

Her heart began to pound, and another, more basic response swelled within her. Dwayne. Suddenly she could barely stand, and it had nothing to do with her injured leg. She fell against the wall and dropped one crutch, which clattered against the floor.

The boy, startled, dropped the wrench in his hand and spun around. They stared at each other, mouths open, words frozen in their throats.

Finally Bronwyn managed to speak. “Don’t just stand there looking like a damn carp, Terry-Joe, get my crutch before I bust my ass here.”

Terry-Joe Gitterman rushed over and scooped the crutch from the floor. He tried to push it under her arm, but that only caused her to stumble into him, and he caught her around the waist as she fell. He grunted at her weight, which made her scowl and say, “It ain’t all me, you know, it’s this damn office building on my leg.”

For a moment they stayed like that, gazes locked, each secretly ashamed of the way they enjoyed the other’s body pressed so close. Then Terry-Joe blushed and said, “Sorry.” He stepped away as she got her crutches in place.

As she steadied herself, she blushed as well, although for different reasons. Terry-Joe was Dwayne’s little brother, and he’d be sixteen or seventeen now. He looked distressingly like Dwayne from the back, but the family resemblance ended there. Dwayne’s face was always set in a smirk that said he knew exactly what you were thinking, especially if you were female. In Bronwyn’s case, it had been true damn near most of the time. His eyes had a twinkle that at first seemed to be mischief and laughter, but time revealed it to be the enjoyment of cruelty. He had matched her sexually, and in rambunctiousness, but ultimately his touch had disgusted her and his presence filled her with dread. She didn’t like who she was with him, and no matter how often she told him to go away, he kept coming back, like basement mold. He’d been one big reason she’d joined the army in the first place.

Now she laughed and said, “No, Terry-Joe, I’m sorry, I… you surprised me. I didn’t expect you to be here.”

“Bliss Overbay asked me to see if I could clean out the bearings on that chair so it’d move better.”

“Yeah. Well, look, don’t let me keep you from working, I’ll just hobble on out to the porch and soak up some sunlight.” She really didn’t want to go out, but if she stayed, she’d just make both of them nervous.

He rushed to push one of the chairs aside to make a clearer path for her. It caught on a rug crease and he fell over it. He jumped up so quickly, she burst out laughing, then choked it down when she saw the instant of hurt feelings on his face. He was so unlike Dwayne, who would’ve thrown the chair across the room in a rage for daring to make him look foolish.

“It’s okay, Terry-Joe, I can make it,” she said. He jumped to hold the screen door for her, but since it opened out, he had to stand with his back against the inner door, arm extended. She had to turn sideways as well, which meant they again pressed against each other as she passed. She sensed the heat of his body through her clothes, and the same distinctive tingle announced itself. She also thought she felt his erection through their jeans. Both looked anywhere but at the other.

Then she was outside, in the bright sunlight, looking down at the yard she’d grown up on. She dropped heavily into a rocking chair, and dragged another one over to support her leg. The pain of moving was still severe, but there was that added sensation, the itchy sense of the presence of strange metal things in her body. Did that mean she was, in fact, healing? Was Bliss’s timetable accurate?

“You’re looking perkier,” Deacon said as he came around the end of the house. He was dusty from the cornfield, and his shirt had big sweat rings soaked into it.

“Thanks,” she said. “I do feel better.”

“That’s not what I mean. Your high beams are on.”

She looked down at the front of her T-shirt, then blushed anew. “Dad,” she said, trying to sound scolding.

He tousled her hair. “Ah, your mom does the same thing whenever that Australian guy comes on the radio. Beats me how a foreign guy named Urban can claim to be a country singer, but hey, I don’t make the rules….” He went inside.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back into the sun. Well, the hell with it. It had been nice to feel like a live human being again, even if it was for an instant, even if it was due to a jailbait boy three years her junior. He was cute, and sweet, and apparently good with his hands, if he was working on her wheelchair. Why not get a little horny from that?

Then she recalled the handsome young minister and sighed with renewed shame. She never had much sense of propriety to begin with, but had she lost it all now?

“Hey, Dad!” she called. “Could you bring me a cup of coffee?”

“Get it yours— Oh,” he answered. “Yeah, right, forgot. Sure thing.”

A moment later the door opened, only instead of Deacon, Terry-Joe appeared holding a cup on a saucer with both hands. It still didn’t keep the two pieces of porcelain from clattering. “Uh… here,” he said as he extended the cup to her. “Finished your chair, too. Should roll a lot smoother now.”

She placed it on the small table beside her. “Thanks. You’ve changed a lot in the past two years, Terry-Joe.”

“You, too. You didn’t have an oil rig on your leg last time I saw you.”

She smiled. “That’s a fact. So shouldn’t you be in school?”

“I graduated in the spring. Doing odd jobs until the fall, when I go to college at UT.”

“And Dwayne?” She tried to make the question innocuous, but there was no hiding the catch in her breath when she said his name.

“He’s still around. Out on parole, not that he’s acting like that matters. Want me to tell him anything?”

“No,” she said quickly. She felt far too weak, in every sense, to deal with Dwayne Gitterman. “I’ll catch up with him one of these days.”

Terry-Joe put his hands in his jeans pockets and seemed about to say something. Finally Bronwyn prompted, “What is it?”

He leaned close. “Bliss also wants me to, ah… teach you.”

“Teach me?” she repeated, eyes wide.

“Mandolin,” he added quickly. “Help you relearn how to play. She said you were having trouble with that.”

“She did.”

He nodded.

“I didn’t know you played.”

He shrugged. “I don’t talk about it much.”

“I never saw you at the barn dance.”

“Back then I didn’t want to go because Dwayne was around.”

She nodded. “That makes sense. Well, mine’s under my bed. Go get her and let’s hear you.”

He retrieved Magda, sat on the porch steps, and spent a moment getting the feel of the instrument. Then, with no introduction or warning, he launched into a blistering instrumental version of “June Apple.” He stared into the middle distance, not watching his fingering. He played with the certainty of instinct married to skill, and Bronwyn’s mouth dropped open in response.

In the kitchen, Deacon heard the music and smiled. Chloe came in the back door, and he swept her into his arms and kissed her passionately.

She responded, her arms twining around his neck. When his hands began to roam knowingly, she quietly warned, “There’s kids just outside.”

“Then we best be quick and quiet,” he said as he nibbled her neck.

She giggled. “You’re never quiet.”

On the porch, Terry-Joe finished with a flourish and looked up to see Bronwyn’s reaction. She clapped, genuinely delighted. “Wow, Terry-Joe, you’ve been hiding that light under a bushel, all right.” Then she made a gesture, fingers curled in a specific way, she hoped he would recognize. But his expression didn’t change.

He stood, dusted off his pants, and extended Magda to her. “Want to try?”

She shook her head. “Not now.”

“Bliss wants me to—”

“And I will, Terry-Joe, just… not now.” She looked away. “I’m supposed to get this monster off my leg this weekend. Come by next Monday and I’ll seriously try, okay?”

He nodded. “Okay. ’Scuse me while I put this away.” He went back inside.

She watched robins dancing across the still-damp lawn as they sought worms. She’d known Terry-Joe wasn’t a full-blooded Tufa; he was close, but that difference could be crucial. Why would Bliss send someone like him to teach her? She was a First Daughter, after all. But Bliss would have her reasons, and most likely they would become clear later on. All she could do was wait, and endure, two things the Tufa mastered long ago.

Terry-Joe returned, followed by Chloe. “See you Monday, then,” he said as he went down the steps, awkwardly stumbling at the bottom. He rushed to his dirt bike propped under the tree and zipped off down the driveway.

Chloe shook her head. “That boy has a crush on you, you know.”

Bronwyn nodded, frowning at her mother. Chloe’s hair was disheveled, and her shirt was now on inside out. “He has since he was fourteen and caught me skinny-dipping with his brother.”

Chloe took several quick, deep breaths, as if calming down after some exertion. “Have you heard anything from Dwayne?”

“No, and I don’t want to. I’ve seen enough combat to do me for life.”

“Good,” Chloe said as she sat down on the steps. “That boy was bad news on toast. I wouldn’t have swerved to miss him if I’d seen him lying in the road.”

“He wasn’t that bad, Mom.”

She looked up at her daughter with the clear, steady eyes Bronwyn always feared. “He’s wired backwards, Bronwyn. He smiles when someone’s hurt.”

“Well, he won’t be around anymore.” Then she took a deep breath and added, “And some people worry the same about you.”

Chloe nodded. “I know. There’s been some signs. But there’s two things to remember: One, a sign can mean more than one thing, and sometimes we read them wrong. And two, nothing’s set in stone. The night wind don’t blow the same way twice.”

Bronwyn nodded at the charm hanging inert in the still morning air. “And better safe than sorry.”

Chloe smiled and undid the tie holding her black hair. “I’ve seen you and Kell graduate high school. I intend to see Aiden. Like to see grandkids before I’m done.”

Bronwyn wasn’t fooled by the optimism. “But you’ll teach me the song.”

She nodded. The passage of the family song from mother to eldest daughter was a major thing to the Tufa, and in this case, since both Chloe and Bronwyn were hereditary First Daughters, it was monumental. The loss of this song would devastate their community. “As soon as Terry-Joe has you able to play.”

“I’ll work real hard, Mom,” she said softly.