Chapter Fifteen

Three days later, Brian and John stood in Michael Taggart’s parlor with John’s youngest brother, Shawn.

“Boy, the furniture you two made will go over real well with Taggart,” Shawn whispered. “I don’t recall you being that good, John. I mean, I saw you did fine work, but that out there on those wagons is better than I remember.”

Brian waited for John to sign into his hand before he spoke for John. “Pa says you didn’t pay good enough attention.”

Shawn gave a hearty laugh. “Nah. You just got Brian here. He’s the real talent.”

Haha, John signed. Your uncle thinks he’s a comedian.

Brian chuckled.

“What?” Shawn asked.

Ask him how his wife and children are doing, John signed into Brian’s hand.

“Pa wants to know how your family is doing,” Brian said.

Shawn grunted. “You two have no business doing those personal messages back and forth. Other people are in the room, you know. But since you asked, they’re doing great. In fact, Molly is expecting again. That’ll make three blessings come into our home.”

Tell him your news, John signed.

“I married a good woman in April,” Brian said. “She’ll have a baby in March.”

Brian felt a pat on his back. “Mine’s due in February. Hey John, that makes you a grandpa. Don’t you feel old now?”

Other men my age have grandchildren, John signed.

“He says other men his age have grandchildren,” Brian said.

“Maybe,” Shawn consented, “but your pa has a couple of gray hairs. He’s getting old. You should buy him a pipe for Christmas.”

“Why a pipe?” Brian asked.

“All old men have pipes, don’t they?” Shawn replied. “That or you can get him a cane.”

Brian felt a vibration along the hard floor before he heard footsteps. He turned his head in the direction of the sound and straightened his shoulders.

A man cleared his throat and stepped into the parlor. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. I’m Michael Taggart.”

Brian mentally categorized the man’s voice and handshake as the introductions were made so he’d remember Michael if he ever happened to meet him again. The man also had a faint musky scent about him. “Nice to meet you, sir,” Brian said after their handshake. Then he returned his hand to his walking stick while keeping his other hand over John’s.

“I take it that’s your furniture out there in those wagons,” Michael said, his voice seeming to be directed at John.

I’m nodding, John signed to Brian.

“Shawn, you were right,” Michael said. “Your brother and nephew do fine work. Those pieces will be a fine addition to this home.” Footsteps echoed as Michael walked away from them and stopped on the other side of the room. “I’ll be happy to pay the full amount. Will you men be bringing them in?”

Shawn cleared his throat. “I’ll help John. Brian’s blind so he can’t.”

“Very well,” Michael replied.

I’ll be back soon, John signed to Brian before he released Brian’s hand. The sound of footsteps notified him that John and Shawn were leaving the room.

“I hope you don’t mind if I sit,” Brian told Michael.

“Oh, please do,” Michael replied. “I’m gathering the money to pay you and your pa.”

Brian tapped the floor with his walking stick until it hit something solid. He reached out and felt soft fabric covering a chair. He sat down and waited for John and Shawn to finish bringing the furniture into the house.

After they were done, Michael paid John and the three men left. John held Brian by the elbow as they walked down the sidewalk. John stopped so Brian halted his steps.

“What’s wrong?” Brian asked.

John slipped his hand under Brian’s and signed, Nothing. I see a hat I think your ma would like. There’s a nice shawl that will match Lucy’s favorite dress. Ask Shawn if Molly needs something.

“Pa wants to know if Aunt Molly needs anything,” Brian told his uncle.

“I don’t know,” Shawn replied.

Tell him to come in the store with me, and we’ll see what we can find for her. I owe him for helping us with the furniture.

“He wants you to go in the store and pick something out for her. It’s a thank you for helping us,” Brian told Shawn.

“Alright,” Shawn replied.

Do you want to come in? John signed.

“No. I’ll stay out here. Is there somewhere to sit?” Brian asked.

Yes. I’ll lead you to it.

John took Brian by the elbow and led him forward, so Brian followed. When John stopped, Brian reached out, felt the metal bench, and sat down. “I’ll wait for you and Uncle Shawn.”

John let go of Brian’s hand, and Brian set the walking stick on his lap. He sat back, listening and taking in the smells around him. Sioux Falls was noisy compared to what he was used to. He heard the jostling of buggies and the pounding of horses’ hooves on the brick street. The air was cooler on his upper body than on his feet, so he surmised he was sitting in the shade. People chattered as they walked past the bench.

His mind wandered to Lucy and he smiled. A couple more days and he’d be with her again. He couldn’t wait. He recalled the feel of her soft skin, the sweet smell of lavender in her hair, and the soothing tone of her voice whenever she talked.

Then a familiar voice jarred him out of his pleasant thoughts. And in that instant, he knew who was passing by. It was his real father. In an instant, his mind flashed back to the past which he’d carefully buried so deep he no longer gave it any thought. The images of his childhood up until he was eight came crashing down on him, and though he fought to suppress them, they demanded his full attention.

“Your father wasn’t always this way,” his mother had whispered to him as she held him in her arms. He felt her shaking as his hair became damp from her tears. “It’s the moonshine. If he’d only stop drinking…”

But his father didn’t, and every time his father came home drunk, his mother would cry and hold Brian once his father’s rage died down. Brian hated those times. His mother always told him to hide under the porch and put his hands over his ears.

“Keep your ears covered until I come and get you,” she’d tell him.

He obeyed until one day when he was eight—when he knew his father came home drunk and found that his favorite pair of leather boots had gotten wet. While his father yelled about the stains, his mother gave Brian the familiar nudge that told him he needed to go to his hiding place under the porch.

Brian hastened to do so and as he crept out the open window, he heard his mother say, “I can take care of those. All I need is some saddle soap or vinegar. They’ll be good as new. Just give me the money and I’ll pick up what I need in town.”

“How did this happen?” he demanded, his speech slurred.

“Carl, I can take care of it. It’ll be as if nothing happened,” his mother said, her voice shaking. “This is a simple fix.”

A loud slap made Brian wince. He clung to the side of the house and listened beneath the open window, wondering what was happening and wishing for once he could see. However, in retrospect, he concluded it was best he didn’t see anything. It was bad enough hearing it.

“Did the boy do this?” his father screamed. When she didn’t answer, something heavy hit the floor. “Well? Who did it, Fran? You or the boy?”

“I…it was me,” she replied, and Brian could hear the tears in her voice.

That was a lie. Brian had been drinking some water and tripped over something in the parlor. He hadn’t realized they were his father’s boots until he felt the wet leather and told her. She put them back to where they belonged and told Brian as soon as they could get to town, she’d find something to take the stains out. She said she’d see about going the next day once his father gave her the money she needed. Then she warned Brian against mentioning the boots or the glass of water.

But his father found the boots anyway, and he wasn’t buying her lie any more than Brian thought he would. “Where’s the boy?” his father shouted, making Brian shrink closer to the ground.

Footsteps thundered in the house, and it took a moment for Brian to realize his father was searching for him. His mother’s lighter footsteps followed him.

“Please, Carl. He’s only eight!”

“Stop hiding him from me! You’re always protecting him. I’m your husband, damn it! Tell me where he is!”

“Please don’t. You’re hurting me,” she cried.

“Tell me where he is and I’ll let you go!”

She didn’t answer him. She only sobbed louder, and then came several resounding slaps that made Brian realize that his father was hitting his mother. That was why she told him to hide and cover his ears. She didn’t want him to find out.

Scared, Brian did the only thing a child would think to do: he went to his hiding spot under the porch. He put his hands over his ears and drew his knees up to his chest. As he struggled not to cry aloud, he sensed the vibrations coming from above him and knew someone was on the porch. And that someone was furious, if the strength of the vibrations was to be believed.

“Brian!” his father yelled. “Brian!”

Startled, he put his hands down and crawled further into the small space under the porch.

“Damn you, Fran! Where is he?”

His mother cried out and Brian heard a series of footsteps before something fell to the porch.

“I got your ma, boy! Get over here or I’ll hurt her!”

“No, Brian! Don’t come out!”

Another harsh slap and stomping on the porch, what sounded like a body rolling, and his mother begging his father to stop were all Brian could understand.

Then footsteps pounded down the steps, and Brian squeezed his eyes shut tight, fully expecting his father to find him. He held his breath and clasped his arms around his legs. He bit his lower lip so he wouldn’t cry and give away his location. He kept waiting for his father to find him, but he never did.

It wasn’t until Brian heard the horse neighing that he crept closer to the hole under the porch. He waited and listened. The horse’s hoofs dug into the dirt. Once the sound faded, Brian tentatively emerged from his hiding place and felt along the wood frame of the porch until he found the steps and climbed them.

“Ma?” he whispered and reached out his shaky hands. She was out here. He knew she was. His heart raced with certain dread. He heard labored breathing and moved in that direction. “Ma?”

She groaned and swallowed.

He found her and grasped her hand, feeling something sticky and wet. “What is this?”

“Never mind that.” She gasped.

He brought his hands up to her face, but her hands closed around his.

“No.” Then she brought his hands back down. “Don’t.”

His lower lip trembled. “Why?”

She moaned, her breathing still irregular.

“It’s chilly,” he whispered. “Come inside.”

She didn’t answer, and that scared him. She’d always been able to talk to him in the past after his father came home and then left.

“Ma?”

“I…I can’t move.”

He hurried into the house, stumbling over objects littered about the parlor, until he found the blanket she kept on the couch and brought it out to her. Blinking as his tears fell down his cheeks, he tucked the blanket around her.

“Is that better?” he asked.

He heard her swallow and try to speak but there was a slight gurgle that he knew wasn’t right. “Ma?” He reached up to touch her face, and though she turned her head from him, he found her nose which felt out of place. His hands went lower to her mouth, and he felt the same sticky wet substance coming from her lips. He brought his fingers to his nose and inhaled the strange odor. He’d smelled it before but couldn’t place where.

“Brian,” she whispered.

He waited for her to continue. He dropped his hand and focused on her but didn’t hear anything. The absence of her breathing didn’t dawn on him right away. “Ma?” He waited, perfectly still as he silently urged her to answer him.

But she never did.

He stayed with her on the porch into the evening, aware something was wrong but not grasping what. His mother wasn’t answering him, and she wasn’t breathing. No one explained death to him. How was he to know what just happened?

Looking back he understood it, and even as he sat there in Sioux Falls at twenty, he felt a tear slide down his cheek. His father returned from doing who knew what, but even knowing how bad his father’s anger could get, he refused to leave his mother. His father finally pushed him away and took her from him. “The wolves got your ma, boy. That’s what happened.” Brian could still hear the echo of his father’s footsteps as he carried his mother’s body down the porch and out…somewhere.

The townspeople had to have known it wasn’t the wolves. But no one wanted to do anything. They acted like nothing was wrong. Brian brushed back his tear and forced any other thoughts of crying aside as he stood to his feet. Now he understood the whispers when his mother took him to town. They commented on her bruises, but they didn’t do anything to help her. If they had, she might have lived.

Why didn’t they do anything?

His father got away with it. And now his father was carousing through Sioux Falls, laughing as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Brian grabbed his walking stick and followed the sound of his father’s voice. With each step, years of suppressed fury rose to the surface. Blood. That’d been blood on his mother’s hand and dribbling out of her mouth. Her nose had been broken. Her face was swollen. He wasn’t sure exactly what killed her, but his father had done something to her to cause internal bleeding.

Gritting his teeth, Brian hurried down the sidewalk, bumping into people but not caring. His heart pounded loudly in his ears but he kept his focus on the voice of his father as it carried on the wind. Then his father’s voice veered off to the left, and Brian reached out to feel what was on that side. A wall. He rushed forward, feeling his way along and then felt the swinging door.

Going through it, he smelled the alcohol and smoke in the room. A bar. Even after all these years, his father was still drinking. A round of laughter came from his right. Then he heard a man order a shot of whiskey and knew it was his father. He approached him and tapped on his father’s shoulder.

The chair squeaked as his father turned around. “May I help you?”

Brian stood there for a moment, his hands slightly shaking. It was unreal. Standing here, before his father, after all this time. And all he could smell was blood and hear the sound of labored breathing. Gulping, he asked, “Are you Carl Reeves?”

“Yes,” the man replied, sounding uncertain. “Do I know you?”

“You were married to Francine and had a son named Brian?”

“Who the hell— Wait a minute.”

Brian took a step back, as the chair squeaked again. He balled his hand into a tight fist, adrenaline pumping through him. He recalled his mother begging for his father to stop hurting her.

“Are you—?” his father began.

But Brian didn’t let him finish the sentence. He dropped his walking stick and touched his father’s face before he punched his father. Crashing and shouts of surprise were things Brian hardly noticed above the pounding in his ears. He reached forward and grabbed his father’s shirt.

“You bastard!” Brian shouted. “You killed her! You killed her!” Then he flung his father back onto the chair and punched him over and over, recalling each time he heard his father hitting his mother. “You killed her!”

Someone seized Brian from behind and pushed him into something. It took Brian a second to realize it was a chair.

“Let me go! He killed my mother!”

Brian struggled against the man holding him down while some of the men cheered for both sides. The man grabbed his hand, but Brian shoved him away and stood back up. He lurched for the spot his father had been sitting, but the chair was empty.

“Carl Reeves!” Brian shouted and stumbled to the next few chairs, his hands stretched out but not feeling anyone.

Someone grabbed his hand and placed his hand under it. Stop it!

Brian shoved him away again and ran for the entrance. His father must have bolted out of there. Before he could get to the door, the man behind him took hold of the back of his shirt and pulled him back. Brian fell and crashed into the man. The world tilted around Brian and he landed on a table which toppled over. His head struck one hard surface and then another before his back slammed against the floor.

Someone put his hand under Brian’s and signed, Stop! Don’t!

It took Brian a moment to realize it was John. “That was my father! The bastard deserves to die!”

No. I’m your father. You listen to me.

He snatched his hand away and tried to get up but John held him in place. His father was getting away. Once again, he was getting away with murder.

John grabbed Brian’s hand and forced his hand under it. I am your father. I raised you. I work with you. I gave you my name. You are Brian Evans. Now, listen to me.

Brian cried and shook his head. “He beat her until she died. My mother’s dead because of him.” It was the first time he’d ever said the words aloud, and he hated the tears that fell from his eyes for they exposed too much of the pain he’d buried long ago.

I’m sorry. What he did was wrong.

“He needs to be brought to justice. He needs to pay for what he did.”

He’s sick, Brian. He’s not going to live much longer. You couldn’t see him, but I could. His face is too pale. He’s too thin. He can’t stand up straight. He’s weak. His eyes are sunken in. He’s dying. He doesn’t have more than a few months. Judgment’s already been made. It doesn’t have to come through you.

Brian shook his head and wiped his eyes. “I hate him. I hate him for what he did to her. How can you expect me to let him go?”

After a moment, John signed, You have a wife and a child on the way. They need you. If you kill him, then you’ll go to prison or hang.

“It’s not fair. He killed my mother, and no one put him in prison.”

Life is not always fair. Bad things happen. All we can do is forgive and move on.

Brian let out a bitter laugh. “You expect me to forgive him?”

Not for his sake but for yours. You won’t be free until you let the past go. God will take care of it.

“But I can’t love him.”

I didn’t tell you to love him. I told you to forgive.

“I don’t know if I can.”

Time. Give it time.

All the fight departed from Brian and he turned his face to the ceiling. For a moment, he remembered resting his head on Lucy’s lap as she read to him. He remembered wishing he could see her, wondering how she looked as she read the book. He closed his eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath. No. Carl Reeves wasn’t worth giving up his life with Lucy and their child.

Come. I’ll get your stick and we’ll go have supper at your uncle’s house. John reached under Brian’s shoulders and helped him to his feet.

Brian stood still when John let go of him. He flexed his hand and realized it was sore. He should have felt better, at least, because he’d been able to punch Carl Reeves, but oddly enough, he didn’t. In some ways, he only felt worse.

A gentle tap from his walking stick alerted him to the fact that John had returned. He took the stick and waited for John to take his elbow before walking forward. They’d finish up their business in Sioux Falls over the next couple of days and then return home. And if Brian never came to Sioux Falls again, it’d be too soon.