Sun-Struck Eagle: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

 

Night slips quietly over the homestead and its cool shroud grants welcomed relaxation to all things animate and inanimate. The crippled shack basks in the moonlight breeze, allowing itself  to creak and groan and rest its weary bones. Tired sighs of an old man steeped in the unforgiving Texas sun. It has earned its reprieve—as have its inhabitants. Inside, the three pull their lousy cots around the makeshift table in the center of the room and sit hunched over well worn bowls of mutton an potatoes. Father bows his head and his boys follow suit. The prayer is long and thoughtful, with thanks given to God for the meal, the work, and the home. It is a beautiful prayer, uttered with the sort reverence that most preachers can only hope to muster only once or twice in their careers, on special occasions like Christmas or the funeral of someone people think is important. When it is finished, Father and Barney raise their heads and begin to sup. Luke keeps his gaze on the greasy entrée and begins to pick away at a brown-grey piece of fat. 

 

“East field is almost finished,” Father says between bites. “Need it done before the end of the month if we’re to get the south field done in time too.” A few more chews to sever the sinew. “Think you can wrap that up Barney? Give me an’ Luke a little head start on the south field?”

 

“Yessir, sure thing.” He proudly perks up, wiping his mouth with a threadbare napkin. “We’re fixing to have quite the haul for the Throwdown, don’t you think Pa?” He nods.

 

“And, I almost got the tractor up and running again. Hopefully that gets the east field done even quicker—then you and Luke can use it too.”

 

Father smiles, there’s a warm light behind his tired eyes. He swallows and gives Barney a pat on the shoulder.

 

“Well shoot, Barn’, your brother and I certainly appreciate that. I never could figure that hunk of  metal myself. Anytime that thing gave me trouble I’d just go ask your—.” A pause. A twinge in the eyes. A flash of something behind the years of sun-caked callousness. Sadness. Gone in a flash. Luke raises his head to catch it. Barney shifts in his seat. Father coughs to clear  something in his throat and continues.

 

“It’ll be a big help having that ol’ thing up and running again, won’t it, Luke?” Luke’s temporary engagement fades and he goes back to examining his meal with his fork.

 

“I said won’t it, Luke?” Father’s eyes now shoot daggers at the dark-haired boy. “Thank your brother. He’s been busting his back overtime to get that tractor fixed for months now.”

 

A muffled grunt of thanks comes out from behind a mouthful of mutton.

 

“BOY.”

 

Father’s chair shoves back and his weathered hands perch on this knees in anticipation, ready to strike the insolent son. Luke snaps to attention. First at Father, then at Barney.

 

“Thank you, Barn’.”

 

The fair-haired boy smiles softly in reply.

 

The meal is finished in silence, and there is no story told tonight. Instead, they pull their cots fireside and lounge quietly in its glow. Father whittles haphazardly at a wooden shingle that has retired from its duties on the roof and fallen down—he crafts some unknown totem with his bone-hilt knife. Luke sits at the edge of his bed with an arm rested on his knee, propping up his  chin with the palm of his hand. His other knee bounces up and down with vigor. He stares through a slit in the wall, eyes fixed on the silhouette of the hills at the western edge of their property.

 

Barney sits comfortable with his back against the wall and strums lazily at his guitar—an ugly thing with a missing string and cracked neck, but the boy has taught himself well. He finds a good rhythm and soon the home is filled with a slow, sweet air. Each pick and strum is crisp and clear. The sound swirls up and around and twists itself into the hearth, where the flames dance to keep time with the tune. Father’s knife finds its groove and begins to take long, steady strokes along the wood. Curled chips fall from the blade and hit the floor where they pirouette and spin before finding rest on the rushes. Luke closes his eyes, his bouncing knee slows to match the song.

 

It is calm and it is peace. Its notes rise and fall and fill the homestead with a warmth altogether different than the fire before them. It requires no sheet music nor choir, no percussion nor brass. It will never fill a concert hall and it will never leave these walls. It is only five shabby strings in a brokedown home, but it is theirs. This is their home and this is their anthem. It is a  moment of beauty amongst the dust.

 

Slowly, the tune begins to fade. Each pluck further and further from the last, until it stops altogether. Luke opens his eyes. Barney is asleep—still clutching his guitar. All is silent once again save the crackle of the fire and the scraping of the knife. The brown-haired boy looks again to the hills in the distance and fills his heads with thoughts of oil and money and sleek,  fast cars. Father’s knock from earlier in the day has healed just enough that Luke finds the courage to open his mouth once again, but only a soft sigh escapes his lips. He looks at his  Father, still engrossed with his woodwork. He is old, yet he is strong. His body bears all the  hallmarks of a man far past his prime, and yet his movements show no lack of spirit. The scrapes and scars and scruff tell one story—but his actions tell another. He handles his knife and cuts through the near-petrified wood like warm butter. In the dimming glow of the fire, he looks to be the strongest man in the world.

 

Luke follows the slice of the blade in hypnotic fashion—following the curled discards down to the floor, where they have begun to pile upon each other in growing locks. A breeze sneaks its way through the slats of the homestead and the locks rock gently back and forth, like a woman  standing in the wind.

 

“Do you miss her?” Luke’s eyes widen as if surprised by his own question.

 

Father’s knife hits a snag. He pulls back and collects himself before diving right back into his work. His eyes never leave the blade.

 

“Of course I miss her.” The steel scrapes on.

 

“You never say a word about her.”

 

“And that means I don’t miss her?” Scrape, scrape, scrape.

 

“I don’t know what it means. I don’t know anything about her. We don’t know anything about  her.” Luke gestures to his sleeping brother.

 

“You know how he is. He’s got a different disposition than you. It’s hard on Barney.” Scrape, scrape, scrape.

 

“It’s hard on me too, dad.”

 

“Then you should understand. You should support him more. He loves you, you know. He loves this place.” Scrape, scrape, scrape.

 

“Did she love this place?”

 

The knife stops. Father brings his eyes level to Luke’s.

 

“Of course she did.”

 

“Did she love us?” 

 

“Of course she did, she was your mother.”

 

“Do you love us?”

 

“Don’t be stupid, boy. The hell kind of question is that?”

 

“This place ain’t right and you know it. Just look around, look at it. Look where we are. Ain’t nothing hardly grows. This shack ain’t fit for pigs let alone people. And we get a chance to do something about it and you won’t even hear the man out!”

 

“What would you have me do? Sell the place and move to some room in town? Get rid of the land and our fields and the inheritance I’m supposed to pass down to you boys?”

 

“There is no inheritance, pa.” Luke looks at the shingle in Father’s hand. “There’s barely a roof.”

 

“Just ‘cause there’s no car and not a lot of coin doesn’t mean there’s no inheritance Luke. You may look around and see a whole lot of nothing, but when I look around I see this place for what it is. It’s our home. You may not like it but that’s what it is.

 

I know every chip and scrape and impurity of this place. I remember when your uncle dinged his head on that beam over there. And I remember when your grandmother was hollering mad at my pa for having a few too many one night and caught him outside tackling cacti with his pals. And I remember growing up hearing the stories of the Indian raids all over this territory.

 

Sure, it’s too damn hot and the roof’s got some leaks and the land is hard, but it’s ours. And that means something to me. It meant something to the people who came before me.”

 

Father pauses and looks around before locking eyes with Luke once again.

 

“It’s not pretty but…it’s ours. You have to understand that. Our family fought like hell to have this little corner of the world carved out for us and it’ll take more than some swindler in a suit to convince me to give it up. There are things greater in life than just the things we hold in our hands. There’s no amount of wealth that can buy what the three of us have on this here homestead.”

 

“And what exactly do we have, pa? Because, from where I’m sitting, I see a whole lot of nothing.”

 

Father takes another long pause.

 

“Each other, Luke. We have each other.”

 

Tears swell in the brown-haired boy’s eyes and he shies his face away from his Father. He shoves himself up to his feet and hurries out of the rotting front door out into the night air. He wipes his eyes as they acclimate to the full-moon glow. The silhouette of the western ridge comes into view. Luke stares for a while into its oily mirage—a waking dream of endless possibility just over the hills. The cool breeze draws him into a trance, transfixed on the world beyond the horizon.

 

The sound of footsteps brings him back to reality. They are heavy and move steadily closer, until they comes to rest just beside. It is quiet for a long while. The two stand statuesque in the Texas twilight, their breaths rise and fall softly, both trying and failing to find the correct words for the moment. Father eventually breaks the silence.

 

“She did love you, you know.”

 

Luke shifts his feet in the dirt.

 

“She had a funny way of showing it sometimes, I’ll admit, but she really did love you two. Hell, I know I’m not great at showing it either sometimes. But I love you boys more than anything. That’s why I want you to have something when I’m gone. This ol’ place will at least get you by. It ain’t a lot but it will get you by. And that’s the best you can do sometimes.”

 

“But I don’t want to just get by. Don’t you get that?”

 

“I know Luke…I know. Your mother would say the same sort of things before she left us.”

 

The two stand silent for a little longer. Somewhere in the distance a coyote lets loose a few yips to test the night’s acoustics, then breaks into a full howl. 

 

“Where’d you bury her?”

 

The Father clears his throat and kicks a pebble at his feet. It clanks off the fencepost in front of them.

 

“You two were so young still. Newborns, really. I couldn’t leave you boys to fend for yourself to get her over to the church. So the day she left us I took her and buried her in the those hills to the west.”

 

The ridge looms larger than ever before them.

 

“That’s part of the reason I know that Mr. Rankler is blowing smoke about oil. I took you two baby boys on my own back and we buried your mother up there. Dug the hole myself and covered the grave with little white rocks and everything—that place was as dry as a bone.”

 

“Maybe you should’ve dug a little deeper.”

 

Silence. A sigh. A tear forms in the crow’s feet of Father’s eye. 

 

“Yeah, Luke. Maybe I should’ve.”

 

The old man produces the woodworked shingle from his pocket. It has been turned into a small, crude crucifix. He places it on the top of the fencepost and turns to go inside. The figurine shimmers in the pale moonlight.

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