Michelangelo's Shoulder Part 3

"Well, then." The world divides into people who have been hungry and those who haven't. Charlie felt himself grandfathered into the right camp. It was strange how some people you got along with and some you didn't. "I'll tell you one thing," Tucker said, "there weren't n.o.body smarter than Margery Sewell ever come out of here. She got prizes, awards--some kind of thing from the governor, even. Whoever he was.

Can't recall."

Charlie nodded. "She's a professor--cla.s.sics--Latin and Greek."

"It don't surprise me," Tucker said.

They talked, from time to time glancing into the graveyard. Tucker was waiting for Margery, Charlie realized. When she appeared, she was walking slowly. Her head was up but her attention was dragging, as though she were pulling part of herself left behind. She was nearly to them before she focused. "h.e.l.lo, Tucker."

"h.e.l.lo, Margery."

"Good to see you," she said. "It's been a while."

"Yep. Since the service, I guess." Tucker straightened. He seemed younger.

"Tucker lived up the road from us," she said to Charlie. "He made me the most marvelous rocking horse. I think that was the nicest present I ever got. When William--" She swallowed. "When--I'm sorry." She turned away. "William loved it too," she said in a low voice.

There wasn't anything to say. Margery gathered herself and turned back to them.

Tucker cleared his throat. "I was--thinking you might come over for a bite to eat, for old times sake." Charlie expected Margery to decline, but something in the old man's tone had caught her attention.

"Well, that's nice of you. You have time, don't you, Charlie?"

"Plenty of time." A few years earlier, she had shown him where she lived, not far from the cemetery. "Ride or walk?"

"Ride," Tucker said. "I'll just put this shovel in the shed."

Tucker's house was a weathered collection of gray boxes that were settling away from each other. A reddish dog got down from a couch on the porch and came to meet them. There was white around her muzzle.

"Company, Sally. Margery Sewall and her friend, Charlie." The dog received Tucker's hand on her head and greeted them, sniffing each in turn. "Sally don't see as well as she used to--do you girl?" Her tail wagged and she led them to the house.

"You've got bees." Charlie pointed at four hives that stood on 2x4's at the end of a narrow garden.

"Yep. Good year, last year."

"The lilacs are even bigger than I remember," Margery said.

"They keep right on going." Tucker took them through the house and kitchen to a screened back porch. Charlie and Margery sat at a large table while he brought bread, cheese, pickles, salami, mayonnaise, mustard, a bowl of lettuce, and a smaller bowl of radishes. He set plates and three gla.s.ses. "I've got beer, water, and--a little milk."

"Beer," Charlie said.

"Margery?"

"Beer."

"Three sodas coming up," Tucker said.

He and Margery reminisced. "Jack had a taste for the good stuff,"

Tucker said. "Five o'clock, regular. Never minded sharing, did Jack."

Charlie ate steadily and accepted another can of beer.

"Not bad, Tucker," he said. He had noticed a small wooden horse on a shelf when he first entered the porch. During lunch, as Tucker and Margery talked, his eyes kept returning to it. He got up and walked over to the shelf. "What's this?"

"Something I made."

"Do you mind if I look at it?"

"Nope."

Charlie carried the horse back to the table. It was carved from wood, light colored, about five inches high, galloping across a base of wooden gra.s.ses and flowers. There was an air of health about it. It seemed to belong where it was. "Nice," he said. "What kind of finish is that on there?"

"Nothing much. Linseed oil, thinned some."

"Mighty nice."

"It's beautiful, Tucker."

"I made it for your mother." It was a statement of fact, but it carried something extra, like the horse. "You probably don't remember Mesquite, Margery."

"Mesquite--" Her face began to open.

"Must have died when you were about four or five."

"I'm remembering, now."

"Mr. Randolph brought him back for your mom--Helen," he said. "Got him at a show down south somewhere. He was a quarter horse, Mesquite. From Oklahoma originally, if I remember right. d.a.m.n fine horse." Tucker tilted his gla.s.s for two swallows. "I used to take care of him once in a while--when the family was away, you know. Well, one day Helen was out riding and I was walking along. It was in June. The flowers was all out. Mesquite got to cantering and I run along to keep up. Never forget it. The flowers all different, blurring together and flowing along like I was running through a river all different colors. And Helen sitting up tall--she had hair just like yours, Margery, short and thick, straw colored, went with her blue eyes." Tucker slowed down. "Well, I had to do something. I made the horse."

"Mesquite."

"Yep."

"Why didn't you give it to her?"

"It's a long story, I guess. Took me a while to make it. Your mom took a fancy to Jack. What with one thing and another, I went in the Navy.

When I got out, I guess you was three years old already."

"Oh, Tucker."

"How's she doing? She still in Florida where they went?"

"St. Augustine. She's down to one lung. She lives in one of those--a.s.sisted living places, they call them. She has her own s.p.a.ce, but there's help if need be. She gets around on a walker." Margery paused.

"Tucker, why do we cling so to life?"

"Guess we ain't done yet."

Margery looked at him for a long moment, and they exchanged what could be exchanged in small smiles. Tucker went inside the house and returned with a heavy cardboard box. "While I'm at it," he said and began taking out carvings and putting them on the table--more horses, deer, squirrels, birds of all kinds, a woodchuck. Charlie held up a fox and looked at it from different angles. Its tail was full, straight out behind him, level with his back. His ears were sharply pointed, his head tilted slightly, all senses alert. Charlie was sure it was a he; the fox was elegant and challenging, superior.

"d.a.m.n near alive," Charlie said. "You could make money with these."

Tucker shook his head negatively. "Only do one a year. In the winter, not much going on." He looked into the back yard. "Try to get it done on February 15th."