The pine woods were centered between the town of Caroline and Amboy’s house with an equal distance on either side. There, where the air was tree sweetened and piney to the point it could make a bottle of Pine Sol blush with shame, was where Amboy felt safest. In the days before everything went to hell in a handbasket, long about when he was pushing on his seventh birthday, Amboy was already alone in life, and for the most part, he liked it that way. He found a measure of solace in the stretched shadows of the Georgia Pines.
A mother’s love, a father’s love, God’s love, all were unfamiliar to Amboy. If one were to say that the game was rigged against him, even at that young age, they’d be right. But one could point at damn near anyone in Caroline, say the same thing, and not be wrong. Maybe, the gypsy’s curse went beyond soulmates, and brides, perhaps, it applied to all love.
Maybe, Caroline was the place where God cut the herd and separated the unlovable from the prime stock. Later, when Amboy was a little older, he’d ask himself why he didn’t know anyone who had actually set their sails for Caroline. As far as he knew, no one had ever actually meant to come there, they’d just ended up there.
When a dog gets old and brittle and they know it’s over, they will crawl off and find a place to die alone. They don’t want anybody watching when life leaves them. Sometimes, in spite of his age, Amboy felt old and brittle. He felt that life was leaving him, or at the very least, it was passing him by. The pine woods was the perfect place to find peace and feel sorry for yourself.
When he first heard it, he thought it was a bird. A whimpering chirp. However, it was well into summer, when God moves West Texas as close to hell as he can without it melting, and most of the birds reserved their song for early in the morning when it’s almost cool enough to catch their breath. So, when Amboy heard it, it truly puzzled him. It wasn’t until he’d heard it twice more that he’d realized that someone was crying. Of course, Amboy quickly deduced that it was a ghost; some lonely specter doomed to roam the pine woods and eat little boys.
Bobby Dupree, having witnessed his share of ghosts in the pine woods, would not go near the place within three days either side of a full moon. He was sure that ghost activity, was somehow connected to the lunar cycle. He also claimed that his cousin knew a kid whose friend was eaten by a ghost.
Naturally, the possibility of it being a ghost intrigued Amboy as much as it scared him, so he set out to find it. He was pretty sure that ghosts couldn’t see very well in the daytime. As long as he saw it, before it saw him, he should be okay.
It wasn’t until he’d heard it a third and a fourth time that he located the source of the sound and saw that it was a small girl. Even if she wanted to eat him, she was small enough that she would have to work hard at it. She was sitting on the corpse of a Georgia Pine that bore the charred scars of a lightning strike.
He’d never seen her before; he was sure of it. He knew most everybody in Caroline, minus the shut-ins and newborns. This fact lent credence to the possibility of her being some sort of a phantom or apparition, so he decided to watch her for a bit, if for no other reason than to see how hungry she looked. But just as he crouched down behind a tree, the snap of a twig gave him away. She startled and jumped to her feet with the look of a white tail deer about to bolt away. Her eyes were wide with fear, and her hair was wild and curly and sun-kissed. She was beautiful.
“Who’s there?” she asked. She looked straight at him.
“Amboy Buford. I live ‘bout a mile from here.” He’d said it without thinking. There he was, alone in the pine woods with what could very well be a very hungry ghost, and he as good as invited her to supper.
“It’s poor manners to go spyin’ on people. Come out to where I can see you.” She commanded. She quickly wiped the tears from her eyes and smoothed the front of her dress. She tossed her hair and tried her best to look brave.
She was, quite possibly, the prettiest girl Amboy had ever seen. She looked brand new. In a hundred years, he would have never imagined something like her being out in the pine woods. He found himself, against his better judgment, obeying her order and stepping out from behind the tree. At that point, there was nothing between him and her but the mercy of the Almighty if she truly was dangerous, he was in God’s hands.
He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. A moment ago, he couldn’t control what fell out of his mouth, but the way she was looking at him had struck Amboy dumb.
“My mama says that only deviants and miscreants peep at folks without their permission. Which one are you?”
“Neither one, I’m Amboy Buford, I live ‘bout a mile from here,” Amboy repeated, knew he sounded silly and dim, but name, rank and serial number appeared to be the best that he could do with her looking at him.
“So you said, but there could be any number of deviants and miscreants living within a mile of here. How do I know that you’re not one of them?”
“I don’t even know what a deviant or a miscreant is, so if I am one, it’s without my knowledge.” It wasn’t much, but it seemed to Amboy that he was regaining a portion of his faculties. “And I wasn’t peeping. I thought I heard somebody crying?”
The boy looked mostly harmless, and the look in his eyes told Tallahatchie that he was more scared of her than she was of him. “That was me,” Tallahatchie said sheepishly, “I’m lost. I know that crying doesn’t help matters, but sometimes a girl needs a good cry to put things into perspective. That’s what my mama says.”
“I don’t know about perspective, but around here if you cry, for no reason, someone will give you one. How’d you get lost? Never heard of anyone gettin’ lost out here.”
“I don’t know. If I knew how I wouldn’t really be lost. I was following a rabbit, and I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“Chasing a rabbit, like a dog?”
“No. Not chasing, like a dog, Amboy Buford who lives ‘bout a mile from here. I was following a rabbit, like Alice.”
“Alice who?”
“Alice in Wonderland.” Tallahatchie began to wonder if she might be over crediting this boy with intelligence. “Do you mean to do me harm, Amboy?”
“I was just wondering the same thing ‘bout you.” Amboy looked down, brushed his foot over some dead leaves, and blushed, “I thought you was a ghost.”
“Why would you think I was a ghost?” Tallahatchie glanced at the sky through the tops of the pines. “It’s nowhere near dark, and the moon isn’t even up.” Tallahatchie suddenly felt pity for the boy, he appeared to be utterly ignorant.
“I can show you how to get back to Caroline. If that’s where you got lost from. If you got lost from someplace else, I can get you there, too, as long as you give me a name to go by.”
“I’m Tallahatchie Tidwell, formally of Dallas.
“Pleased to meet you, Tallahatchie, but I meant the name of the people you got lost from. I know everybody in a ten-mile radius, ‘cept for shut-ins and some of the newborns.”
“I need to find my way back to town. We just moved here, and I’m sure Pleasant is worried sick.”
“Pleasant. Is that the name of a person?”
“My mama. Pleasant Holt Tidwell, formally of Caroline, by way of Dallas.” Tallahatchie stepped closer to Amboy for a better look at the boy. If he did mean to harm her, he didn’t appear to be smart enough to do any real damage. There was, however, a deep sadness in him, she could feel it. Tallahatchie had a sense about people.
Pleasant had told Tallahatchie she’d been born with the gift of discernment. Although it didn’t actually give her insight into the intelligence of an individual, she could feel what they had in their hearts. Amboy was much sadder than he looked.
Amboy had never been so close to a girl so pretty. She had a light around her. It was as if God had special rays of sunshine that he’d designated just for her. She made him extremely nervous, and the closer she got, the more nervous he got. He felt his hands shaking, so he shoved them into his pockets. Something deep inside him ached, and his stomach felt suddenly hollow. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but he suspected that he’d just fallen in love.
She repeated her question, “Amboy, do you mean to do me harm?”
He shook his head no several times before he finally said the word. “No.” They way she’d asked the question with such seriousness had Amboy struggling again to find his words.
Tallahatchie smiled as if she’d just won an argument. “Will you show me how to get home?” she asked, her tone had changed, she suddenly sounded quite pleased to be lost. “Pleasant says I’m quixotic and precocious, and that I bite off more than I can chew. I guess she’s right, or I wouldn’t be at the mercy of those who know the way home. Isn’t that right, Amboy Buford who lives ‘bout a mile from here?”
Amboy had no idea what she’d just said, but the change in her voice seemed to grant Amboy a pardon and his tongue broke free of her spell. “Well, I was getting thirsty anyway, so you can follow me to town. I usually get a drink from the hose at the gas station. Winkler don’t charge for water.” Amboy found himself unable to shut up. One minute he was tongue-tied, the next it wouldn’t stop wagging. “I always take a big drink before I come out here. You should too, especially if you’ve never been here before. A person could die of thirst out here. Even if you was to find water, some animal has probably pissed in it.” Amboy felt stupid the moment the words came out of his mouth, but something in the girl’s eyes, the way she looked at him required him to say something, to respond in any manner. Water and animal piss, for some reason, had been handy. In short, he couldn’t shut up. “I don’t think animal piss is poisonous, though.” There, it was done, he felt thoroughly stupid, all the way to the bone. There was nothing he could say that could possibly be any dumber, nor was there anything that would divert her attention away from his stupidity―“I like the name Tallahatchie.” He quickly pointed in the direction of town and began to walk. His feet felt heavy and clumsy. What the hell, was wrong with him?
“My mama’s favorite movie is Ode to Billy Joe. She says, had I been born a boy, my name would have been Billy, but since I was born a girl and the fact that Texas has more female Billy Joes than it does oil, she named me Tallahatchie — Do you love me, Amboy?”
The words had robbed him of the use of his legs, and he suddenly stopped walking. “I just met you. But I think I do.” The words jumped out of his mouth before he even had a chance to look them over. She truly was dangerous. “I’ve never seen anyone prettier than you.” Amboy no longer felt clumsy and stupid, now he felt fear. “Tallahatchie? Do you mean to do me harm?”
“I hadn’t planned on it.” Again, she smiled as if she’d just won an argument.
He didn’t know it right that minute, but Tallahatchie’s image was to be forever enshrined in his mind. Her unruly hair and sunshine smile had branded him like a hot iron. He was hers for the asking.
All the way to Caroline, they talked. It was a new thing to Amboy, talking was. Up until then, he’d had no practice with it and he found himself, saying remarkably silly and completely embarrassing things, but he talked anyway. And she listened. Amboy had never considered himself to be wise, few children of that age do, but he did reckon he had a fair share of common sense, nevertheless, at that moment, there was precious little of it, he could gather. Whenever he said something that pushed the boundaries of stupidity, she would reassure him with her smile, Amboy’s heart would soar, and he’d take off babbling in another direction. It was if all the words he’d never spoken were fighting to all come out at once. He never knew he had so much to say.
He told her all about Caroline, and she told him about Dallas. He told her about his mama and daddy, though, he was careful to put it in such a manner that it didn’t draw her sympathy or pity. But from the look on her face, he thought he could see it. He liked it when she did the talking, she had a lot to say, too, but none of it sounded stupid. She told him all about her mama and how her daddy had leaped from the tallest building in Texas. She said she had no proof that it was the tallest, it was just something her mama always said, so she had taken her at her word.
“Pleasant says my daddy didn’t have the sense that God gives the average dirt clod, but he had a big heart. He jumped off that building and sacrificed himself so Pleasant could collect his life insurance and continue to live in a manner to which she’d become accustomed. That’s what she says. Only it didn’t work out that way. He tried to make it look like he fell off that building, but he left a letter laying on his desk telling me and mama goodbye. The police said that people don’t usually write letters before they have accidents and the insurance company agreed. Pleasant argued with them, but it didn’t do any good. Besides, she knew daddy didn’t have no sense, so her heart wasn’t really in it.”
“My daddy wouldn’t do that, he wouldn’t make no sacrifice. He don’t give a damn about me and my mama. People call him a lush, ’cause all he cares about is whiskey. I wouldn’t put the idea past my mama, though. I’m pretty sure she’d jump off a building just to get away from my daddy.” Amboy caught the look of pity on Tallahatchie’s face again and changed the subject. “So why did y’all come to Caroline, you and your mama?”
“Pleasant was born here. So was her mama and daddy. It’s funny, her worst fear in the world was that she’d end up back in this place, yet here we are. It don’t look so bad, not from what I’ve seen so far. That’s what I was doing when I saw the rabbit.”
“What were you doing?”
“Familiarizing myself with my surroundings. I figured that since this is the home of my ancestors, I feel I should know it like the back of my hand.” At the edge of town, Tallahatchie stopped dead in her tracks. Along the edge of the road were several white and black cows.
“Ain’tcha never seen a cow before? Hell, they ain’t nothing to be scared of, they don’t bite.”
“Do you like to dream, Amboy?”
“You mean like sleeping dreams?”
“I always have the most beautiful dreams.”
“I think I sleep too hard to dream.”
“I dream that one day my knight in shining armor is going to ride up on a white cow with black spots and rescue me. They say that you have to dream the same thing at least seven times before it can come true . I’ve dreamed my dream better than seventy times.”
“Nobody around here rides cows.” Amboy studied the animals for a moment. If he could get a rope around the neck of one of them, he reckoned he could ride a cow. It was something to think about.
The rest of the way to Winkler’s, Tallahatchie asked Amboy who lived in each house they passed, and he told her without fail. By the time they got to Winkler’s, Tallahatchie knew the names of more than twenty families.
“You sure know a lot of people.”
“I really don’t know any of them, I just know their names. Around here, we got this thing called, ‘Sins of the Father.’ All these people are just waiting for me to turn into a lush. It’s expected of me. They know they won’t want to know me then, so they don’t bother trying to know me now.”
“I hope they don’t expect me to jump off a building like my daddy did because I won’t do it.”
Amboy pointed at Winkler’s Gas and Oil. “He’s got a water cooler inside, but I usually just drink out of the hose out back and save the cold water for Winkler, it gets hotter than a new bride in those service bays, I’ve heard him say so. He always tells me to come inside and get a drink, but I’m happy enough with the hose.” Amboy took Tallahatchie’s hand in his and led her into the gas station. “He don’t know you, but he won’t mind sharing the cold stuff.”
Inside, Tallahatchie wrinkled her nose at the overwhelming smell of grease and oil.
“Smells good in here, don’t it?” A smile spread across Amboy’s face from one ear to the other. “Winkler says that’s the smell of money.” Amboy was in his element at the gas station. He found his peace in the pine woods, but he found happiness at Winkler’s Gas and Oil. He wasn’t yet old enough to be Winkler’s friend, but he planned on getting older. “You’d think that he has a lot of it from the way it smells in here, but he don’t. Not according to him. He says this place is going to kill him, and he’ll die a poor man. He says the only reason he’s in the gas and oil business is because he bought this place for an apple and an egg. Before this place came along, he had planned to be an engineer on the Southern Pacific. Man, I’d sure like to drive a train.” Amboy stuck his head into one of the service bays and shouted, “Hey, Winkler, come meet somebody!”
Somewhere in the back of the station, a wrench clattered to the floor and there was a fair amount of banging and swearing.
Amboy smiled at the look of shock on Tallahatchie’s face. “That’s Winkler. He came over from Ireland on a boat, so he cusses like a sailor.” A moment later, the grease-smudged form of Angus Winkler appeared in the doorway. He was short and stocky, and filthy. Tallahatchie suspected that he was the likely source of the smell of grease and oil.
Angus Winkler hailed from Ireland, though, he originated from German stock. His penchant for swearing came from both, Athartha the and the Vaterland. He’d come to America as a boy with railway dreams, but somehow got stuck in Caroline. Forty years in Caroline and not a lick of Texas had rubbed off on his Irish brogue. He’d sworn an oath that the word “y’all” would never come out of his mouth, though, he was quite fond of the word “howdy.” “Howdy, Amboy. Whatcha got there?”
“This is Tallahatchie Tidwell. She just moved here from Dallas, but she’s okay. Tallahatchie, this is Winkler, he’s famous in Caroline. People say he’s handy as a small pot when it comes to cars. I told her you wouldn’t mind if she got a drink from the cooler.”
“Pleased to meet you, lass. Go on and help yourself.” Winkler said with a nod, he rubbed a rag around in his hands and begged Tallahatchie’s forgiveness for not shaking hands. If Winkler wasn’t working, he was wiping his hands. He was ashamed of them and the dirt they collected. “I believe I know yer ma.”
“You know my mama?” Tallahatchie asked, a little surprised. Her mama had been gone from Caroline for more than seven years, a lifetime as far as Tallahatchie was concerned. She was pleased as punch, that someone still remembered her. Somehow, in a roundabout way, it made her feel welcome.
“If your ma be, Pleasant Holt, I truly do. She broke a lot of hearts around here when she got married and moved away. You’re the spitting image of her.”
“She’s a Tidwell now.”
“Yes, she is. I’m sorry to hear about your da. You’ll tell your ma the same for me, right?” Winkler paused as if he were remembering something he hadn’t thought about in a while, then turned and disappeared into the back of the station to resume his banging. Amboy knew that Winkler would wait until Tallahatchie left before he went back to cussing. He’d never swear in front of a lady, at least not on purpose.
It was good and easy, the way Amboy and Tallahatchie talked. Though Amboy had a rough time, in the beginning, getting his mind, heart, and head to work as one, by the time he got her home, Amboy felt like he’d known her all his life.
“Tallahatchie, that boy has worms, stay away from him!” Tallahatchie’s mama yelled from behind the screen door.
“She thinks everything has worms.” Tallahatchie gave Amboy a peck on the cheek. “Meet me at the same spot tomorrow,” she whispered.
The kiss damn near scalded his cheek. Amboy opened his mouth to speak, but only air came out. He was stupid, again. He was back to square one.
Free Borne Wilder ebooks, July 25th and 26th:
Dead Nolte, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013N6E2YC
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The Last Summersbitch, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0742NSXY8
Somebody Stop Me, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01IL887SE
I must say that I was entranced with this interlude between kids very much. Made me want to see how this friendship blossomed. I certainly like phraseology like, "… Handy like a small pot."It could be a cliché in some parts of the country, but I never heard or read it before.
3 WAY MIRROR is about a lost identity as experienced by a twenty-eight-year old who thinks he's Charles Randall, until strange events suggest otherwise.
The pine woods were centered between the town of Caroline and Amboy’s house with an equal distance on either side. There, where the air was tree sweetened and piney to the point it could make a bottle of Pine Sol blush with shame, was where Amboy felt safest. In the days before everything went to hell in a handbasket, long about when he was pushing on his seventh birthday, Amboy was already alone in life, and for the most part, he liked it that way. He found a measure of solace in the stretched shadows of the Georgia Pines.
