The Truest Pleasure (6 page)

“Was that The W-w-wilderness or the Seven Days?” Joe said.

Tom did not answer. I could not tell if he didn't know what brigade his pappy had served in, or if he just didn't want to talk about it. His face turned slightly redder. I figured the thing to do was get him off the porch, for I wanted to be alone with him and talk to him myself.

And besides, I wanted to touch him. He was the first man I ever felt that way about. It was something about the way he was made. He was so strong and compact. I saw he was made more like a pony than a horse, not tall but powerful and calm in his strength if he didn't have to talk and explain anything. He wanted to work and do. I could see it was a pain for him to talk to strangers, and tell about hisself. He was comfortable with his strong hands and broad shoulders. I felt if I could touch him I would feel calm too, and things might work out in the future. He had got his suit mended. I reckon it was the only suit he had.

“Let's walk out to the Sunset Rock,” I said. The sun had gone down but there was a glow in the west, over Chimney Top and the ridge at the head of the river.

“You-all stay away from twisters, Ginny,” Pa said.

“We'll just stay away,” I said, and laughed.

It was one of those evenings in late summer when you can feel fall in the breeze. The air thrills, like when you touch silver in a drawer. The grass and weeds get cold and damp soon as the sun goes down, and you smell the corn leaves ready to be pulled as fodder and cured. There is the smell of old weeds with dust and dew on them. Even while there is a glow in the west a star comes out like a bright face watching you.

“What is the Sunset Rock?” Tom said. We walked out the road behind the log barn.

“It's a place on the west side of the pasture hill, where I used to watch the sun go down when I was a girl.” I didn't tell him I still went out there sometimes after milking, to see the full spread of the western sky when it was gold and red.

“Who named it Sunset Rock?” he said.

“I named it when we was kids,” I said.

Crickets in the weeds sounded like little silver notes. When we walked by they stopped, but soon as we got past they went on singing. The katydids was starting to make a racket in the trees on the hill and there was a jarfly off in the oaks by the river.

I made as though I slipped on the wet grass and took Tom's arm. He put his hand on mine. A shiver went through me. He gripped my hand and waist. Tom had confidence in hisself, in anything to do with his body. I don't think I had ever touched such certainty. He was at home with hisself in a way I had never seen, at least once he got away from Pa and Joe. He wasn't all anxious and worried like I was, and he wasn't trying to think of something witty or wise to say like Pa was. Maybe he thought he wasn't able to be witty and wise and didn't even try.

The trail around the hill come out of pines to this big rock. Though the air was cool the rock was still warm from the day's sun. We climbed up and set like it was a warm hearthstone. Flies had gathered there to the heat and they buzzed around us.

“How much land do you own?” Tom said, looking up the river valley.

“Pa owns to the bend in the river,” I said, pointing.

“And how far down does he own?” Tom said.

“His property goes down to the mouth of Schoolhouse Branch,” I said. I could see his interest, how his thinking was going. But it didn't matter to me. Maybe it should have, but I didn't care. Tom didn't have any land of his own and it was natural he would be attracted to this fine bottomland. It made sense that he would fall in love with the land as much as with me.

“We own from the river all the way to the top of the ridge yonder,” I said, and pointed to the summit where Pa put his peach and apple orchard.

“The ridge is the right place for peaches,” Tom said, “to keep them from budding too early and getting killed.”

“The line runs all the way to the church,” I said. “Pa give the land for the church.”

I leaned closer to him. “Pa is going to give me the house and the big flat bottom,” I said.

Tom didn't say a thing, but I could feel him thinking. It excited me because he was excited. And because I understood him. I had never felt before that I understood a man that well. I was afraid of him a little, but I knowed what he was thinking. When I was around other boys I felt how big my hands and feet
was, and how tall I was. And how I read too much. But when I was with Tom I felt attractive. I couldn't have explained it.

“I come out here to look up the valley and feel close to God,” I said. Tom did not answer. “Sometimes I just repeat Bible verses in my mind. This is a good place to think and pray. After Mama died I used to come here and set for hours.”

“What was that?” Tom said, and turned toward the north. I looked but didn't see anything but the stars coming out over Olivet Ridge. It was on the way to getting dark.

“We'll step on a snake going back,” I said.

“Not if we go slow,” Tom said. “Give them time to get away.”

“Snakes are blind this time of year,” I said.

“They ain't,” Tom said.

“That's what I've heard. Snakes crawl blind in Dog Days.”

“I seen a pilot the other day, and it could see well as ever.”

“Then why do people say it?”

“Cause they like to scare theirselves, I reckon.”

Just then I saw something in the north. It was like a spike drove in the sky. Sparks shot from the point. There was another, like a nail on fire an instant. And another, and another.

“Meteors,” I said. “This is August, when meteor showers come.”

This line of fire streaked in the north and cut across the sky. It was coming right at us. The light got bigger, and then melted into sparks. There was a puff of sound.

I tried to think of something I had read about meteors. What famous thing had been foretold by a shooting star? I leaned against Tom and shivered. It was dark now in the west. The only light was from the stars, and the katydids got louder than ever.

“What makes them shoot so fast?” Tom said.

“They're pieces of rock from way out in space,” I said. “They burn up when they hit the air.” I went on, remembering what I had read about meteors in
The American Magazine
.

“How could air make rocks burn up?” Tom said.

“Cause they are moving so fast.”

“I don't believe it,” Tom said. But from the way he said it I could tell he must be grinning.

“It's true,” I said, and laughed.

Just then a bigger flare shot out of the northwest and stretched all the way over Pinnacle Mountain and Chimney Top and disappeared in the south without ever burning out.

“What if one was to hit you?” Tom said. In the dark he was talking more than I had ever heard him. That was the first time I saw he liked to talk in the dark. And I remembered that before Mama died, when I was a girl, I used to hear her and Pa talk in bed way in the night. I had forgot about it till that moment.

“People have been hit,” I said. “Rocks have fell out of the sky through people's houses. A woman was ironing in Cincinnati and got hit on the head by a rock that come through the roof.”

“Was she killed?”

“No, I think she was bruised.” But I couldn't quite remember, except about the meteorite coming through the top of the house.

A point of fire appeared in the sky almost straight above us. It just glowed there like a coal giving off sparks, as if somebody had hung a lantern that kept getting brighter.

“It's coming toward us,” I said.

The point got bigger and brighter, like somebody was blowing on it. I couldn't tell how far away it was. Sometimes it looked just overhead. The light swelled and flared. I gripped Tom's arm and wondered if we should run. But which way could we run?

“It's coming,” I said. But Tom didn't answer; he looked up as if he was watching a bird flying.

I turned my head away, and then looked up again. The light was bigger and whiter. It was whitehot. As far as I could tell it was aimed straight at us. “What are we going to do?” I said, and grabbed Tom's arm even harder. I had read that if a meteor was big enough it would destroy the world. It would be like a bullet hitting a peach. A hole would be punched in the earth and all the water and fire would pour out.

When I looked up again it appeared the ball of fire was just a few hundred feet above us. It had swelled till it was the size of a washtub and bright as the sun when it comes up. “Here it comes!” I said. “Lord help us. Is this the Rapture?”

But just then the ball of fire busted into a thousand pieces. It was bigger than the fireworks you see on the Fourth, a million times bigger. Sparks and pieces of fire went streaming and showering every which way. Rags of fire shot across the sky, falling on all sides. It's going to catch the woods on fire, I thought. I reckon my mouth was open with awe and surprise.

The tatters of flame falling on every side of us went dark, either quenched or falling beyond the mountains. That was when I saw the meteor was further away than it appeared.

“Whew!” I said, and breathed. I must not have took a breath for a minute. The pasture and woods looked darker than ever.
I couldn't even see Tom, but felt his calmness in the cool air. It was like a smell that I couldn't describe. It wasn't just the soap he had washed up with after working all day, and it wasn't just the smell of his fresh ironed shirt which had got a little sweaty on the walk over from the Lewis place. He wasn't at all startled or flustered.

“Wasn't you scared?” I said.

At that instant a big light shot out of the north, bigger than the meteor we had just seen. It come low over the Olivet mountains throwing sparks like little shooting stars. It was skidding to the west. At first it was red, and then yellow and white. It was streaming and fizzing off light. My first thought was it was going to set the trees on fire it was so low.

“Where's it going?” I hollered. “It's the end of the world. It must be Jesus coming.” But Tom just looked at the streak like it was a June bug playing in front of us. The fire got bigger and bigger. It appeared to be going to land in the pines, or in the river.

“It's the end of time,” I said.

But the rags of fire disappeared over the trees and the night was dark again. I was blinded and couldn't see a thing for a few seconds. Then the stars come winking back. And I heard crickets in the grass and katydids on the hill. Tom set there without saying anything, and I now could hear the waterfall over at the Johnson Mill. Nothing had noticed the sky exploding except me. Tom was listening to the night sounds as usual. I hugged him close and put his arm around me. That's when I fell in love for sure. After that I just couldn't help myself.

Now people say women always fall in love with danger, that if they're not scared by a man they can't really love him. I know
there's some truth to that. They say women like a man that will order them around and take charge of everything. And even a man that will threaten them. I've heard a woman brag that her husband said he would kill her if she tried to leave him, and that thrilled her because it showed how deep he loved her.

But I guess I was born different. What made me fall in love with Tom was to see how calm he was when the sky exploded and fell down in flames. He didn't have anything to say about it. He watched like it happened every night. Maybe I was so nervous and confused in my mind his calm felt mysterious and dangerous. I know you can say a thing any which way to make it sound like it makes sense. But all I know is how I felt. He didn't threaten me at all far as I could see, except it appeared he could see through me. He saw how I did things in spells of feeling, and that I was scared in ways I didn't hardly understand.

“I thought we was finished,” I said. “I thought it was the end of time, and Jesus had come for sure.”

“Nothing is the end of time,” he said.

“It says in the Bible time will come to a stop at the Rapture,” I said.

“That's what some people say,” he said.

“You don't believe what you read in the Bible?” I said. I didn't know that Tom could just barely read. He hadn't gone to school but a few months in the hard times after the war.

“I don't believe everything people say about the Bible.”

“But you believe in the Bible?” I said. “You believe in the signs and wonders?”

“I don't believe everybody's opinion about the Bible.”

I should have been worried right there, but I wasn't. I was falling in love, and in love you see things the way you want to.

“Do you reckon it is a sign?” I said.

“What is?”

“The meteor. What do you reckon it foretells?”

“Don't know,” he said. “A sign of what?”

I put my head against his. His hair smelled of sweat in the hot sun, and some kind of rose oil. “A sign for us?” I said.

“Could be,” he said.

And that was our engagement. Those two words was his proposal. That was when we agreed to stay together. And to me it was as romantic as if he had got down on his knees and took off his hat and recited lines of poetry.

I could feel the heat of the sun on his neck and face. Tom had the kind of skin that was always a little flushed. It made him look more alive than others. He worked in the sun and was always a little sunburned where his hat didn't protect him. He felt warm as a stove. It was like his face give off a kind of light.

“We better go back,” I said. “I bet Pa has made a pot of fresh coffee. We can have coffee and biscuits and molasses.”

Tom got off the rock and lifted me down. The air was chilly now and I shivered. Everything was wet with dew.

“What if there's a copperhead?” I said. As we started back on the trail it felt like there was copperheads in front of us.

“I'll walk in front,” Tom said.