Michelangelos Shoulder | Page 5

was from away; he was being polite.
"Live in Portland, born in New York. Family came over in the famine."
"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 nobody 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--classics--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. "Hello, Tucker."
"Hello, 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 glasses. "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 grasses 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. Damn fine horse." Tucker tilted his glass 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."