Hard Bark

I felt baptized.  The sun had not risen yet on these hills of Georgia, but I felt warmth inside myself as I lay next to my sleeping wife, Abigail on our little bed.  A stiff breeze passed through the open window nearby and ruffled the faded flower-print curtains.  I felt the briskness of the air against my big toe and breathed in deeply through my nose.  The hole in the blanket had left me exposed.  I found even the sharpness of the cold was welcome to me.  It made me feel good, hell it just made me feel free.  “You’ll break your back out there today to prove your worth, Hap Condrick” I thought to myself.  I had spent years away in an unwanted place and my senses had dulled.  But the simple joys of life could no longer escape me, not when I was home in my own bed.  I closed my eyes tight as I sat up and tried to yawn.  The cool air of the morning charged down my lungs and I couldn’t help barking out a short cough.  Without thinking my head darted to the direction of my sleeping wife.  Thankfully the only startle Abi showed was rolling from her side onto her belly and letting go with a particularly loud snore.  Late as I had come in, the last thing I wanted to do was wake her up this early.  Abi had really tried to make me feel welcomed back to our home last night.

I shifted my body to the side of the bed and the mattress sagged and creaked underneath my weight.  We had never had a great deal of money to afford the finest things, but I made sure to build us a bed worthy of my satisfaction.  It didn’t matter to my wife or me that I’d built it with one leg shorter than the others; Abi agreed that putting an unwanted book underneath it for steadiness fixed the problem nicely.  From my sitting position I peered down under the bed, partly to admire my handiwork and partly to give my back a stretch.  I frowned.  There in the back corner on my side of the bed stood the short leg, but instead of the ragged copy of “Common Sense” someone had parted with years ago, the leg was held up by a slat of wood.  It had been stained to match the leg.  The more I looked at it though, the less it concerned me, and the more I thought that it really blended nicely.  Though I couldn’t quite remember making the repair before I’d gone off, I couldn’t help but assume that I’d just done it one afternoon when I’d been bored.  Perhaps I’d been in the company of a drink.  I chuckled softly and thought that it wasn’t common practice for a drink to hinder the upkeep of my property.   Often I found that one helped lend to another.

I gave the rest of the room a quick once-over before I rose to my feet.  Its familiarity gave me comfort; I’d liked that things stayed as I remembered them.  Besides the mirror near the door, the walls of our bedroom had but two other things hung on them.  The first was the only photograph of my departed younger brother Tommy wearing a Marine uniform.  I had draped his war medals from Belleau Wood across the glass.  On my wife’s side of the bed hung the picture of our wedding day taken back in 1919.  She’s standing by my side in a simple white cotton dress.  Our son Lil’ Tom, only an infant at the time, is swaddled in linen and asleep in her arms.  Seeing that picture again made me wonder what my son was dreaming of at this very moment.  In that photo we were just kids and hadn’t had the money to spend on a big ceremony or expensive clothes.  But I remember I’d paid plenty for the photographer to come from the big city nearby.  And I’d paid even more for his wife to wrap up Lil’ Tom and put yellow flowers in Abi’s hair.  

I noticed the glass had cracked in the corner of the wedding picture’s frame.  I stood up a bit too quickly for my age and my joints all cried out in unison.  The floorboards betrayed my footsteps with their groans as I crept closer to the picture.  Abi stirred again.  I thanked the lord that I could return my focus to photo.  Without thinking about the sharp edges, I ran my finger along the crack.  I had felt nothing unusual as I traced the tiny break but as I drew my finger away I saw a smear of blood.  A thin, crimson ribbon was breached along my finger’s dirty skin.  I thrust the finger into my mouth and ran my tongue along the cut.  I tasted the warm copper of my blood.  I looked back to the photograph, while my tongue did its best to nurse my split finger.  Why had the picture called to me so deeply just moments ago?  The thought was lost now though.  Whatever it had been had not felt warm.  No, it carried an unpleasant, frosty feeling that I was hasty to forget.

I turned my back on the wedding photograph and moved toward the simple dresser that sat just underneath Tommy’s picture.  I opened a drawer quietly and felt a greeting of familiarity.  Everything was just as I had left it years ago, even down to my old Army uniform which was folded and tucked away next to my brother’s Marine Corps dress uniform.  His body had never been recovered overseas.  Did the government really believe that sending us his dress blues would serve in his place?  Honestly I kept it because I thought it just looked proper next to the murky green of my standard-issued AFS uniform.  Tommy still felt close to me this way.

I pulled my canvas overalls and socks out from the lower drawers.  I stood there for a moment and studied myself in the little mirror.  The stillness of the bedroom was changing from the sounds of life that crossed in from the window.  My farm was waking up.  And for the first time in ages I was here to tend to it.  My body had changed while I was away though: My arms hung limply at my sides, lacking their old firmness; my chest had narrowed like a bird’s; and my legs poked from inside my long-johns like spindly sapling branches.  I had developed overtime a considerable paunch and a grey, wiry scruff underneath my jawline.  My timid hairline had retreated to the safety found beyond my brow.  Most often a man’s appearance is built on what he has done for himself, but other times it is what the world has done to him.  To be honest, I thought of myself part of the latter congregate.  I slid on my worn-out socks while still standing but I struggled to keep my balance.

The dustiness of my clothes smelled just right to me as I crossed the bedroom toward the door.  I wouldn’t have paused if I hadn’t seen the new crack running down from the frame of the door.  I wouldn’t have noticed the plain gold ring hanging from the hook at the bottom of the mirror’s unpolished frame if I hadn’t seen the crack.  Under our humble means I couldn’t even hazard a guess at how long it would take Abigail and me together to save for some gold.  Not when there had been nights we hadn’t eaten on account of our lack of funds.  My first thought was to wake her immediately and ask her where she got the ring.  Maybe I would demand the reason why she’d stolen it.  By God, hadn’t she thought of what would happen if she was caught?  Luckily I came to my senses quickly enough to prevent that exchange from ever happening.  I realized that it just wasn’t part of the things I was made to learn while I was away.  A place like that has its own rules and it had tried to change me.  And I had changed there, hadn’t I?

I decided to wait until Abi awoke before I’d approach talk of the ring.  Hadn’t she put out a nice welcome for me all by herself?  And it felt like over a decade since I’d drank with her the way I had last night.  I owed her a full morning of sleep just for letting me lay in her arms.  Maybe I didn’t deserve her loving touch but I badly had wanted to find something recognizable.  Her body had waned with age just as mine had, but I truly couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt such wistful comfort.  The thought of the ring still prodded me.  I opened the door as slow as I could, but just like the floorboards it chose to yelp out with a wooden whine.  

“ThatyouHald--?” Abi muttered softly into her pillow before she unconsciously changed position and drifted back to sleep.  It was nice to hear her call my name as I left to go out, but I couldn’t help thinking “Hap” had sounded a heck of a lot like “Harold”.  I rightly don’t think she’d called me Harold since we’d said “I do.”

I stepped into the main room of the house.  It was the area where Abi cooked all our meals and also the spot where Lil’ Tom slept each night.  Decades ago when my father built this house he had said this room was where he was meant to raise his sons.  I looked to the spot over by the wood-burning stove where Lil’ Tom usually lay his head, but the tangle of furs was empty save for a few hardbound books.  I felt a little relieved that the boy would not lay eyes on me again through his morning grog.  I smiled thinking that Lil’ Tom must be up and out early catching bullfrogs just like I had done as a boy.  I’d told him that in the twilight before sunrise the little critters are plenty slow from staying up and eating bugs all night.  It felt nice to think back on the handful of times I’d gone out with him in the wee hours to snatch up giant bullfrogs and later use them as fishing bait.  Now I’ll admit that there were probably more times that I’d been in the good company of a bottle and couldn’t manage out of bed to go with him.  But I swear I’d always given him sound hunting advice on his way out the door.

I spotted some apples on the kitchen table and I grabbed three that I thought looked the plumpest.  I held onto one with my teeth and the other two went right into my pockets.  They’d serve well as sweet treats for my horses Cartridge and Clover.  I dearly loved them and besides my son, they were my source of all my pride.  I felt I’d given those horses the best I had in me.  I so looked forward to seeing Cartridge and Clover again that I had completely forgotten to put on my boots on my way out the front door.

I threw open the door to the dewy chill of the morning and drank in deeply my surroundings.  Last night I’d arrived in the dead of night and couldn’t appreciate the overwhelming feelings of both pride and homecoming granted by looking upon my lowly little property.  Even in the small amount of morning visibility I could still make out the landmarks of the Condrick family farm.  Each of which added to its character.  Around the limits of the farmhouse property ran the fence my father had taught me to build as a boy.  “Build your fences horse-high, pig-tight, and bull-strong!” he’d recite with a practiced patience.  Out in the far corner of the land, just inside the fence line, I could see the outline of the old barn my father had hand-built himself.  The farm had been done almost entirely under his own efforts.   How it was standing after all this time was a thought that slightly mystified me; the damn thing was built only a few years shy of my own birth.   The apple tree my father had built his whole home around remained.  I raised my own apple for another bite and felt a wave rush over me.  I was reminded of how badly I wanted to see my horses.

My steps felt weightless as I trod toward the old barn.  I marched through the haze of pre-dawn and with my every footfall the barn’s features grew clearer.  The outline looked about the same but the roof no longer sagged like it once had.  On the barn’s front door hung an iron horseshoe with its prongs facing to the ground.  It was a sign I’d always believed brought on bad luck.  I came closer to the door and turned the horseshoe back up toward the heavens.  I thought that Lil’ Tom must have hung the iron on the door but had forgotten about superstition.  I wondered if my son were sitting in that barn at that very moment.  I halted.  Before this moment I had not thought too much about what I would say to Lil’ Tom. Frankly, the question confounded me.  I hadn’t wanted to go off when I did, and now I’d have to tell him the whole truth.  It was the second time that morning I had found myself in a doorway trying so hard to shove back the bad thoughts.

Before I was afforded a clear view inside the old barn I was rewarded with the faithful old smells.  It was just the right mixture of dry timber, fresh hay, and horse odor.  It with a force unlike anything else I’d experienced today.  As my eyes tried to adjust to the darkness of the barn I imagined back to the day I’d bought Clover for Lil’ Tom.  It was just after my father had died.  Dad lived with us for a little over three years after I came home from France back in 1918.  He slept in our only bedroom and my newly formed little family all slept out in the main room.  On his deathbed my dad told me how little money we had.  He begged me to take the greatest share of the funds to buy Lil’ Tom a young filly.  The thick air in the barn gave me a perfect view, remembering the joy on my son’s face the first time I’d led his horse in here to greet him.  At the time I had tried not to reveal my panic, even though I worried how my father had expected me to feed both horses.   The look on Lil’ Tom’s face could not be replaced though.  I later suspected that Dad’s request was not just meant to reward the boy, but also to challenge me.

I drifted back to the present from my pleasant daydream and could now see in the low light of my surroundings.  The barn was empty except for me and as quiet as a tomb.  My palms had grown sweaty as I realized both horses were missing.  Tom hadn’t gone out to catch frogs after all.  No, I thought, he’d decided to take Clover out for a ride instead.  I suspected Tom knew Cartridge got antsy when he was left alone for too long, so he had brought my horse along with his.  I wiped the moisture from my hands onto the seat of my overalls and kicked some hay off my socks.  The inside of my mouth had grown pretty dry so I took another bite from my apple.  I chewed it slow and I turned to leave with a thought to myself that the apples in my pockets would just have to wait until my son returned with Cartridge and Clover.

I opened the door to leave, satisfied with the idea that Lil’ Tom would soon return.  I saw that the sun was climbing above the horizon, casting a pale light over the farm.  I found it refreshing.  It wouldn’t be long now before the big disc would be commanding the day’s events; I’d probably want to retreat indoors then.  My gaze fell from the horizon and onto the branches of the knotty, old apple tree.  In the wan light I could see the ripening fruit, the last ones still hanging tough in the coming cold.  The day before I’d gone off I remember Abi had rewarded my hard work with a fresh-baked apple pie.  I had spent the entire morning and afternoon underneath that tree chopping firewood.  I remember I hadn’t wanted her and Lil’ Tom to shiver through the cold nights.  Thinking of the feelings again brought me peace, and seeing the old chopping block again gave me a pretty firm idea in my head.  

I marched back through the damp grass aware now that I was in my stocking-feet.  I reached my front porch and stepped gingerly on the warped second step.  Splinters in the soles of our feet had always been the step’s unwanted surprise for my family.  I snatched up my old leather boots by their heels with one hand, and saw how the mud from last night had clumped on them.  I decided to leave it there as I slipped a foot into each boot without tying the laces.  I crossed the porch in two long strides and grabbed the door handle.  The front door jammed as I tried to open it, so I threw my shoulder into it with a grunt.  It opened and I reached inside above the door frame without looking and laid my grip upon the wooden handle of my old ax.  I lifted the familiar weight of the tool and brought it through the doorway toward me.  I looked at it and thought to myself that surely I had been the last one to swing it.  Rust and dust were the new owners of the ax; the years of aging had been unkind to its condition.  But the weight of it was still the same as I recalled and I exhaled in relief at that small comfort.  Hefting it in my hands it forced me to remember the day I’d rode off with old “Daisy” Posey.  I closed the front door and stepped off the porch in one great stretch, but then I paused mid-stride.  It was the first time I’d thought about Posey since I’d come home, yet in the past I’d wasted so many ugly thoughts on the man.  Thankfully my anger and frustration had dulled over the years and I was glad that I could no longer muster any hatred towards him.  The stormy memory of Posey was just the first test for the change in myself I’d hoped to create.  My reward would be to reclaim the sense of quiet bliss I’d felt before the unpleasantness with Sheriff Harold Posey. 

I sat down hard on the chopping block and picked up the whetstone that lay against it.  I laid the long handle of the ax across my lap and began sharpening the blade.  I hummed a tune that Abigail had used as a lullaby for Lil’ Tom, and the piercing sound of the stone-on-metal strokes kept the beat for me.  My thoughts wandered again.  It must have been too hard for Lil’ Tom to hoist himself up onto a chair and grab down my ax every time his mother wanted firewood.  At last I could see the darkness of the iron through all the tan rust.  I closed my eyes and blew across the blade.  The smell of the iron filings flooded my nose so deeply that I could taste it.  I dropped the whetstone and ax near the chopping block and grabbed some cordwood off the pile nearby.  I groaned a little under their weight, surprised again at how weak I’d become.  “Not only will you break your back today, Hap Condrick, but you’ll also split your palms open too” I thought to myself as I dumped the logs near the block.  I looked at my hands and saw they’d lost their callous from years spent absent from hard labor.  There was no turning back now.  With a deep hawk I spat into my hands and grabbed up the timeworn ax.  I raised it above my head and plunged it into the top of the first log, but it barely cut in.  I breathed a low grumble as I tugged the ax free.  This time I drew the ax up even higher above my head and brought down onto the wood with all the earthly force I had in me.  I planted the blade deep into the log but it clung tightly when I tried to retrieve it.  I placed the log with buried ax-head onto the grass.  I put my boot on top of it and gripped onto the handle of the ax tight.  I strained the hardest I had in years attempting to free that ax, but I couldn’t get the damned thing to budge.  I poured all my frustration and disappointment into a loud curse at the sunrise itself.

 “You sure that rusty old ax is the right tool for the job?”  An unseen young man’s voice asked with calm indifference.  

Admittedly, the question had startled me from my thoughts, but what startled me more was what I saw when I turned around.  Standing there next to Cartridge was my son, Lil’ Tom.  But he had grown up like a weed and his face now wore the scruff of a man.  His features had changed little underneath all the new hair; it still held the same old boyish features.  I found myself stumbling to find words as I studied the boy I hadn’t laid eyes upon for so very long.

Finally I settled on a forced chuckle and replied “Yea I guess this blade’s grown about as dull and weak as I have.”

He frowned at that and his eyes flicked to meet mine.  He looked at me in disbelief for a long while before he spoke, “Now why you gotta go and say something like that?  Mama always told me you’d done well as a student.  She used to say that when you weren’t drinking she thought you were brighter than most.”  I felt stifled because his voice held both determination and annoyance.

I wasn’t ready for our first exchange to be so frank and direct this early in the day.   I did my best to curb it though, “Yea I suppose I did alright in school.  But say, I only see Cartridge there with you.  Where did you let Clover idle off?”

Lil’ Tom’s face grew puzzled and he tugged lightly on the horse’s lead, “Cartridge?  Huh?  You mean Grampa here?”  He slowly turned his back to me as he lead the old smoke-colored horse down to the barn.  “Cartridge, huh?” He repeated.  “I suppose with you being gone so long, I’d just rightly forgotten his name and given him a new one.”  The years of sadness piled behind his voice.

I followed closely behind him calmly replied “Of course his name is Cartridge.  He’s the same horse that my father gave to me when I was about your age.”

Thomas must not have heard me because he only muttered “Come on, Grampa” as he brought the horse closer to the old barn.  

I was surprised when he got to the front door of the barn and tipped the hanging horseshoe back down toward the ground.  It rocked steadily back and forth on the nail as I reached for the door he’d closed behind him.  It distracted me from my first point and I said to him, “Why’d you decide to hang the horseshoe upside down like that, Son?  Hadn’t I always told you that I heard it’s bad luck?”

He puffed out some air and looked at me with slim eyes.  He laughed at me, short and dry.  I had tried to be kind with my question, but he had wounded me with his glare.  

In a more forceful tone I said “It’s nothing I’d laugh at, Son.  I can’t think of many things that can turn your life the wrong way quite like bad luck can.”

He let out another harsh laugh and grabbed a handful of hay for Cartridge.  “Do you know what I called this barn after they took you away?” he asked.  “I called it the ‘Bad Luck Barn’.  I didn’t have a single good memory of it.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, not after I had just felt so transported by the joyful memory of Lil’ Tom and his horse.  “What about the day I brought Clover home for you?  I’d have thought that’d be one of your happiest memories.  It happened right here in this barn.”  My words came with a softness I had not long practiced.

“Who do you think that horseshoe belonged to?  Those past memories always get drowned out by the sadness of having to sell her” he replied.

I felt like I had been struck hard in the chest, and I couldn’t hide the hurt in my words.  “Is that where you were earlier this morning?  Selling the horse I bought for you?”

He shook his head fast and the curly hair he’d inherited from me flopped wildly from side to side.  He bared his teeth and shouted “I was just a little kid when I had to sell her!  You left us with no money!”  He panted hard and continued again before I could say anything “Mom and I were just lucky to have someone like Harold Posey help right after that!  I’m glad I at least had one strong man in my life to show me what’s right and decent!”

My mind twisted and desperately tried to wrap itself around what Lil’ Tom’s had said.  In her letters to me Abigail had never once mentioned that the family was so desperately poor that they had to sell my son’s horse.  She certainly had never made a single mention of Harold Posey!  I felt like I was spinning in place, so I held my head with both hands and tried to regain my center.  “Your mother never told me ‘Daisy’ started coming around here, considering he’d been the one to see me off.  It all doesn’t sit well with me, Son,” I confessed.

“If you really must know, I was just over at Sheriff Posey’s house telling him about the state in which you’d come home last night.  And as far as Mama’s letters are concerned, it was me who told her that you had no right to know what Sheriff Posey was doing for our family.  Does that not sit well with you either, Hap?” he spat at me in a wise tone.

I don’t know whether it was the bitter news or the blunt edge he’d used in his voice, but he had cooked me pretty hot.  I yelled, “I don’t like hearing that the man who arrested me has been raising my son while I’ve been rotting in a jail cell for the last twelve years, Lil’ Tom!”

We both stood silent in the thick, muggy air of the barn after that.  I realized it was the first time I’d spoken about my incarceration, let alone to one of my kin.  In a small way I felt relieved to finally get it out, but mostly I was filled with regret.

“Thomas” he said quietly.  “I go by Thomas now.”  

There was a long pause before I responded to him.  “Do you know why I named you Thomas Condrick?” I asked just as quiet as he spoke to me.

“I was named after Uncle Tommy, right?”

“My brother Tommy was the finest man I’ve ever known.  He was killed in—“

“The Battle of Belleau Wood: June 6th, 1918.  He was in the 3rd Battalion 5th Marines under Benjamin S. Perry.  Perry himself took a bullet to the forearm that day, right?”

“That’s right, and that battle is why the Germans started calling our Marines—“
    “Teuful Hunden.  ‘Devil Dogs’” he interrupted again.

“Exactly, so even though it’ll take me some getting used to, you go ahead and call yourself ‘Tom’, ‘Tommy’, ‘Thomas’ or whatever you like, so long as it continues my brother’s name.  I think it honors his memory better than any of the medals I hung on his old photograph.”

I read his face and could tell he was thinking over what I’d said. He paced slowly paced back and forth across the straw-covered floor of the barn.  He finally settled near Cartridge and combed the horse’s mane with his fingers.  “You were in the Army around the same time Uncle Tommy was in the Marine Corps, weren’t you?”

I was proud to answer him right away.  “I was a Driver in the AFS, Thomas.  And unlike like those rich-boys who used fancy automobiles to pull our injured boys off the front lines, I drove a team of horses.  When one of those supply cars took a bullet to the engine or popped a flat, my wagon got called in.  I’d either deliver supplies to the frontline or pull wounded men back from it.  Tommy may have been the one to volunteer for service and I may have been the one to get drafted, but I know I would’ve had my share of medals just like him if I hadn’t been--”

“Dishonorably discharged” Thomas said flatly.  His words lay lifeless on the floor.

“I was mourning my brother, Thomas, and the Army couldn’t understand that.  After he was killed they wouldn’t listen to why I drinking to forget him.  I guess they thought that I was just trying to drown myself and was a poor excuse for a soldier so they shipped me back home to Georgia” I told him.  “I returned to the same small county I’d always lived in and found your mother pregnant.  I felt I had to do the right thing so I married her.”

“And that’s why I’m the way I am today” Thomas said with emotion brimming in his voice.  “I don’t chase girls because you got Mama pregnant before the two of you were married.   And I never enlisted in the Corps because you were locked up!”

“And I’m sure it was hard on you” I told him.

“It’s hard for me to accept that my father married my mother only after I was born!  At least Sheriff Posey embraced our family from the start!  He saw how much I loved the military and bought me all those history books!  You had to be drafted into service, and just because you didn’t want to fight does not mean that you passed that all on to me!”  He hollered and threw down the bunch of straw in his hand.  It startled Cartridge who gave a snort of disapproval.  

I felt like I’d been backed into a corner.  I didn’t like the way my son was yelling at me, but I knew that he had every right to do so.  My time in jail may have left Thomas and Abigail to fend for themselves, but they had taken help from “Daisy” Posey and that still didn’t sit right with me.  I’d never cared for the man, and my whole family had always known it.  Maybe that was why it had especially harmed my pride.  He hadn’t just been the man who had arrested me and taken me from my family, he had also been the man with whom I’d always felt at odds.  

Though I wanted desperately to mend the ties with my son, a thought poked at me from the dark regions of my mind.  “In time I’ll learn to feel grateful for what “Daisy” did for this family while I was away.  Lord knows that time was the only thing that allowed me to stop hating him.  But you’ve got to understand that I never wanted to be pulled from you and your mama.  I never would’ve left you had it not been for Sheriff “Daisy” Posey, so that’s why I want you to answer me truthfully when I ask you if the gold ring in my bedroom a gift from him?  Did he make your mother do something for him in return?”

I’d never seen a look of such disgust cross my son’s face.  He looked as if he’d bitten into a wormy apple and wanted badly to spit it out.  “I just can’t believe it!  How dare you insult Sheriff Posey’s honor?  How dare you question the virtue of my mother?  He gave that ring to Mama on the same day I had to sell Clover.  He told her that if we ever needed money again she should sell it.  But you are just a small man capable only of small thoughts.”

With that he stormed towards me, his fists balled tightly at his sides.  I clenched my jaw expecting him to throw a punch, but instead he muttered “Get out of the way, Old Man -- need the maul.” under his breath. He reached for something above me and pulled whatever it was off the wall and threw open the barn door as I stood by and stared.  I couldn’t quite make out exactly what it was before he closed the barn door behind him, but it had given off a glint in the light.

I stood alone once again.  Though I tried to center my thoughts on Thomas, they couldn’t help but drift back to Sheriff “Daisy” Posey.  He had done so much good for my family and for my farm, yet still I felt resentment toward him.  He was the youngest man to be made sheriff in the history of the county, and had always been so damned beloved in the community.  It dawned on me why the wedding picture on Abi’s side of the room had called to me with such an unhappy and ghostly force.  The crack had happened on the only night I’d ever let my rage boil over onto her.  We’d been arguing over money and she’d jabbed me with news that “Daisy” Posey had just been promoted.  At the time I couldn’t believe her indignant nature and in a snap reaction had hurled a whiskey bottle at her.  It had shattered on the wall near the frame, and one of the shards of glass hit the frame and knocked it to the ground.  Abi had told me that night that she would leave me and take Thomas with her if I ever tried anything like that again.  Now, I felt such a loathing of my prior actions that I had get back outdoors just for the fresh air.

When I went outside I heard yelling and the chopping of wood, and saw Thomas under the apple tree with his shirt off.  His muscles bulged, and he called out with every stroke he laid down.  In his hands faithfully sat a brand new splitting maul and my rusty old ax lay off to his side.  I shook my head, at last understanding what Thomas had meant earlier.  I hadn’t just been using an old tool, my ax had honestly had just been the wrong tool for the job.  I knew I couldn’t hide the real cause of my anger from him any longer.  I approached him with caution.

“You know it wasn’t just the arrest that made me hate ‘Daisy’ like I once did.  He and I have known each other for nearly our entire lives, and our mutual dislike goes back quite a ways.  People always loved his sorry ass a hell of a lot more than they ever loved me.  Most times I just felt like I couldn’t compete with him.”

Thomas gave no sign that he heard what I was saying, but I knew my words had made it to his ears.

“You know what name ‘Hap’ is short for, Thomas?  It’s short for Harold.  As in Harold Condrick, ‘The Second Harold’, like they tried to call me back when we were kids.  I wasn’t gonna take that name, so I took to calling myself Hap and calling him ‘Daisy’.”

Again Thomas displayed no sign that he was listening.  But that didn’t stop me from talking.

“So you can imagine that if your brother ever betrayed you, it would sting even more when the man to arrest you later on was also the man who’d stolen your name as a child.”

At that point Thomas stopped his chopping and folded his hands across the ax handle he leaned upon.  “You’re saying Uncle Tommy was the reason you got caught for robbing that man?”  Disbelief bled from his every word.

“No, not Tommy, but your Uncle Kelly who I’m sure “Daisy” never told you about” I replied coolly.  “You’ll never read about Kelly Condrick in any of your history books, but he was a skilled highwayman, and he had no trouble pulling the wool over your dim old dad’s eyes.  Growing up he’d always been trouble for your uncle Tommy and me, but at least he’d had the decency to run off from home for most of his early adult years.  I got back from France and he must have heard about how our dad had just passed away.  He came around looking for his share of the inheritance and found none.  When I told him what we’d done with the money he took one look around the farm and remarked that I was in dire straits.  He could see the trouble we’d had with the crops and he promised me I could do just one robbery with him and all my money troubles would wash away.  He had me convinced that I’d have enough money to hold our family throughout the rest of the season.”

Thomas reached over and grabbed a log to place on the chopping block, but his ear stayed turned towards me.

“I reluctantly agreed to go along on his plan, and before I knew it I found myself on the side of the road pretending my horse had gone lame.  Kelly had chosen a major byway and his argument was that if we waited until the afternoon some farmer would happen along on his way home from town.  Kelly assured me the man would have so much cash in his wallet from selling his crops in town that there would be more than enough money for us both to split!”

Thomas finally bit, “And that man must have finally come along upon you two.”

I gritted my teeth and said “Well yes, but he didn’t have near as much money as my brother had promised.  Kelly got so mad he hit him over the back of the head with the handle of his revolver and then split with the money while I checked out the man he’d harmed.  Two days later Sheriff ‘Daisy’ came by our place saying that the victim had identified my face.  Kelly was on the lam and I had nothing to offer as to his whereabouts so in court the judge sentenced me with a hefty penalty.  If I’d been alongside Kelly in the courtroom I may have only gotten five years, but as the sole criminal I was handed twelve with no chance for parole.  For the first few years I was in prison I hated Harold Posey more than any other man on this earth, even more than Kelly.”

Thomas digested my words and replied “A bad-seed uncle I’ve never heard about, huh?  Well, even so you can’t ever put the blame on yourself can you?  You still chose to steal from a honest, hardworking man and you chose to make Harold Posey your enemy.  He told me as kids you were the only person in town to call him ‘Daisy’ until he cried.  He also told me that after you got back from the war he couldn’t help but admire your family’s sacrifice.  He said he’d brought you a copy of the one book that had always inspired him.  He wasn’t afraid to tell me how much you’d hurt him by using that book to level out a short leg on your bed.  He fixed the leg and gave the book to me.”

Thomas had spoken only the truth.  As a child I had gone out of my way to be cruel to Posey, and as a young man I’d misused the copy of “Common Sense” from his personal library.  For the first time today I felt awful about the man I’d been in the past and wanted to explain myself to Thomas.  That was not the way I wanted him to remember me, and it was not the kind of man I was anymore.

“Do you know what the others called me in jail, Thomas?  They called me ‘Flowers’ on account of how I avoided manual labor to work the laundry crew.  They liked to tell me I deserved the job because I could make their clothes smell just like flowers.  I can say I know how I made Harold Posey feel as a child, because that was how I’d felt as a man.  I became a different man when I got that nickname, and I couldn’t hate Posey any longer.”

“But still you call him ‘Daisy’ even today!” Thomas replied.  “You tell me you’ve changed and I do want to see a change in you!  There’s something I’d like to offer you and I want you to be truthful.  Years ago Sheriff Posey took me to the home of the man you harmed.  I sat down with this man and asked him what he truly thought of you.  I told him I asked because I couldn’t stand to think of you sometimes.  Firstly, he never made any mention of a second robber so I kindly doubt there ever was an “Uncle Kelly”, but honestly even that doubt doesn’t matter to me.  What matters to me is that the man you hurt told me that he’d long ago forgiven you and that I should do the same.  Dad, I want you to know I’d forgive you if you went with me to see him and--”

Just at that moment Abigail stuck her head out the front door and yelled to us that breakfast was ready.  She saw our expressions and asked with concern if anything was the matter.  I told her “no, that everything was fine”, but still she remained with an almost frightened look on her face.  It wasn’t until Thomas assured her that “nothing was the matter and that he would be indoors soon” that she was comfortable enough to go back inside.

“Well I guess we both deserve a good break don’t we?” I asked Thomas.

He nodded slowly in somber understanding and returned to his chopping.  “You go on inside, Hap, I’ll finish what needs to be done” he said flatly.

I raised my open hand up and turned my back to him.  The indoors would be more comfortable for me and I knew that Thomas could handle the work just as he had for all these years.  He went on with it and though I never actually looked back, I couldn’t have been more certain that he split that final log with a single, echoing chop.