Read Online Beast of the Field by Peter Jordan Drake - Free Book Online
Authors: Peter Jordan Drake
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didn’t.
“Hey soldier,” he’d said. They’d been in the mow together. She was throwing a pocket knife into a target she had drawn on a potato sack and draped over a wall of hay bales; he was lounging across more bales, Ambrose Bierce opened but pages-down on his stomach. This was after supper in the spring of her eleventh year, a season after he came back home from the college, a year before he was killed. The plowing was done for the day and Tommy was tired but too restless for sleep.
She tossed the knife but it slapped broadside off the target, clattered to the floor. She was snatching it from the floor as she answered. “You’re messing me up Tommy.”
“I have a question.”
“So then ask it and then leave me alone.”
“Do you remember what Junior was like before the war?”
She was suddenly frozen there, knife-tip between her thumb and finger above her head. Eventually, her arm with the knife came down to hang at her side. Tommy was already up off his back, brushing hay from his shirt. From his satchel he pulled a cigar box—“El Dorado Cigar Company, Wichita, Ks.” it had on it, with a Spanish explorer and an Indian in a headdress smoking a peace pipe. He moved to sit on the wooden floor of the mow. With his head he motioned for her to sit while with his hands he spread out the letters. Millie still couldn’t move, standing there with her eyebrows brought in together in thought—she was frozen because the answer was no. She couldn’t remember Junior before the war.
“Sit, soldier,” Tommy said. He placed the lantern out in front of the arrangement of letters, so they could be seen. “Let’s solve a mystery.”
*
He said, “The first thing you do is place them in chronological order. If you’re going to tell a story, you have to have a beginning, a middle and an end, right?”
She didn’t answer. She was staring at the letters, not the words or numbers on them, but the letters themselves. They were on yellowing pieces of paper, given to the soldiers by the YMCA or the Red Cross. There were dried brown streaks and smudges on the ones from the front, because they had been written in trenches or French barns, Tommy explained. She had never seen Junior’s handwriting before, sloppy, uneven lines in a rushed, sometimes-print-sometimes-script that was like reading code. She could tell by the way he handled them that Tommy had been over these letters many times.
“Here,” he said, handing one of the more neatly written and neatly folded letters to her. “Now read. A garter snake has a beginning, a middle and an end. A story is so much more than that.”
March 11, 1918
Camp Lee, Vrg
Little brother,
Well, it looks like Im in the Army now. This camp is a lot more different than Army City up in Garnett, or down in OK. The officers here mean business, let me tell you. I like it tho, I was beginning to worry about Uncle Sams Army, all that drinking and carrying on we have had up to now. You can bet thats over. Now we dress and act and look like soldiers, tho they had special fatiges and a uniform made for me because of my size. We have been in this camp for three days now and let me tell you, I havent eaten so good in all my life. Dont tell Mother. They got beefstake here that will melt your mouth. We get up at 445 in the morning, which let me tell you for these city kids this isnt a treat, but for us boys from the farms, the Army is like a pade vacation. Which I havent been pade yet, but Im sure I will be soon. Until then I got a few bucks Paw gave me which will at least get me some chocolate bars when I need it—which is all the time! HAHA!
“Hey soldier,” he’d said. They’d been in the mow together. She was throwing a pocket knife into a target she had drawn on a potato sack and draped over a wall of hay bales; he was lounging across more bales, Ambrose Bierce opened but pages-down on his stomach. This was after supper in the spring of her eleventh year, a season after he came back home from the college, a year before he was killed. The plowing was done for the day and Tommy was tired but too restless for sleep.
She tossed the knife but it slapped broadside off the target, clattered to the floor. She was snatching it from the floor as she answered. “You’re messing me up Tommy.”
“I have a question.”
“So then ask it and then leave me alone.”
“Do you remember what Junior was like before the war?”
She was suddenly frozen there, knife-tip between her thumb and finger above her head. Eventually, her arm with the knife came down to hang at her side. Tommy was already up off his back, brushing hay from his shirt. From his satchel he pulled a cigar box—“El Dorado Cigar Company, Wichita, Ks.” it had on it, with a Spanish explorer and an Indian in a headdress smoking a peace pipe. He moved to sit on the wooden floor of the mow. With his head he motioned for her to sit while with his hands he spread out the letters. Millie still couldn’t move, standing there with her eyebrows brought in together in thought—she was frozen because the answer was no. She couldn’t remember Junior before the war.
“Sit, soldier,” Tommy said. He placed the lantern out in front of the arrangement of letters, so they could be seen. “Let’s solve a mystery.”
*
He said, “The first thing you do is place them in chronological order. If you’re going to tell a story, you have to have a beginning, a middle and an end, right?”
She didn’t answer. She was staring at the letters, not the words or numbers on them, but the letters themselves. They were on yellowing pieces of paper, given to the soldiers by the YMCA or the Red Cross. There were dried brown streaks and smudges on the ones from the front, because they had been written in trenches or French barns, Tommy explained. She had never seen Junior’s handwriting before, sloppy, uneven lines in a rushed, sometimes-print-sometimes-script that was like reading code. She could tell by the way he handled them that Tommy had been over these letters many times.
“Here,” he said, handing one of the more neatly written and neatly folded letters to her. “Now read. A garter snake has a beginning, a middle and an end. A story is so much more than that.”
March 11, 1918
Camp Lee, Vrg
Little brother,
Well, it looks like Im in the Army now. This camp is a lot more different than Army City up in Garnett, or down in OK. The officers here mean business, let me tell you. I like it tho, I was beginning to worry about Uncle Sams Army, all that drinking and carrying on we have had up to now. You can bet thats over. Now we dress and act and look like soldiers, tho they had special fatiges and a uniform made for me because of my size. We have been in this camp for three days now and let me tell you, I havent eaten so good in all my life. Dont tell Mother. They got beefstake here that will melt your mouth. We get up at 445 in the morning, which let me tell you for these city kids this isnt a treat, but for us boys from the farms, the Army is like a pade vacation. Which I havent been pade yet, but Im sure I will be soon. Until then I got a few bucks Paw gave me which will at least get me some chocolate bars when I need it—which is all the time! HAHA!
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