For My Little Brother, So You Won’t Have To
April 1942
With an abundance of fresh-picked lamb’s quarters inside the flour sacks thrown over lanky shoulders, Marshall and Garner burst into their mom’s kitchen where she shuffles across the worn linoleum floor between stove and table, stirring and clanging, kneading and shaping, where whiffs of fresh baked goods and dish soap mix with splashes of their sisters’ laughter, where mayhem seems inevitable, but the promise of a big supper implies order and purpose. “We looked in every part of the fields. Do you need anything else, Mom?” Once the sassy aroma of the fresh harvest arrests their mom’s attention, the young men’s hands are free to steal remaining cold biscuits from beneath their guardian kitchen cloth. “Well, we’ll be out of your way for a few hours.” They take leave of the big kitchen through the lean-to exit where rifles are grabbed up and walk north from the farmhouse in Thieves’ Hollow toward the South Pease.
Early April’s chilly fog has dissipated by mid-morning when Marshall and Garner decide to shed their coats. Through the mesquite and low brush that thrive in the rocky red soil, the brothers walk a well-worn trail toward the river that flows high and red from a Texas Spring’s fury. A natural ledge formed by boulders and erosion offer seating for brunch and talk. They munch loudly on cold biscuits. Garner laughs when he pulls one biscuit from the bag to find it is filled with plum jam. “Wow! This must be from the last jar. I checked yesterday and thought it was all gone.” A cow and her calf break from their safe shadow and noisily scurry among the sharp twigs and fallen debris of winter storms and March winds. “Branding in a few weeks.”
Marshall ponders every word today. “Dad will expect more from you this branding time.” He pauses, wondering how to talk seriously without pouring an antiseptic onto their shared joy. “Your twelfth birthday is next week, kid. What do you want?”
Garner takes the last two biscuits when his older brother offers them. Marshall sees a smaller version of himself in the young brother; he pictures a twenty-year old Garner who will still look adolescent. At twenty now, Marshall is nearly as tall as his older brother Frank who is already fighting in the war that Marshall does not want to miss. “I bought a magazine subscription for you. It’s called The Blood Horse; should tell you everything you want to know about horse racing.”
“Wow, thanks!” Garner leans onto his older brother for several moments.
“Let’s sit here quiet for a while. Pretend we’re surrounded by a thick fog that changes how we see and hear everything.” Marshall knows that a twelve-year old boy has far more pounce and bounce inside himself than he can keep bottled for a long period but, as the older brother weighing uncertain events, he wants to continue today’s lessons. After several minutes, their patience is awarded a show of wild turkey, bobcat calls, more cows with buoyant calves, and muffled noises from the faraway barn where their dad and brother work. Marshall finally alights the rock and leads Garner along a higher ledge, where he frequently stops and stoops to examine rocks. Garner catches on that his older brother is hunting for arrowheads and stone tools. “This is a beauty. Unbroken. Color comes alive as I rub it clean with my fingers.”
Garner stares at the shiny veined stone that had been chipped by hand into a survival tool. “Marsh, I don’t know how you do it. I’d walk right over it.”
“Just lots of practice, kid. Anything worth your while to learn takes curiosity and patience. I’ve been doing this since before you were born.” They walk a little farther, both focused on colors and shapes that stand out against the bloodshot soil at their feet.
“What about this piece, Marshall?” Garner runs to his brother and shoves a shaped yellow stone near his face.
“Nah. See, it doesn’t have flaking. Though it might have been gathered for that purpose. It’ll look nice in Mom’s rock garden.” Marshall spends a few extra moments polishing and admiring the young boy’s find. “You’ll figure it out if you want to. Or you’ll try another skill. I hear you trying to play my guitar sometimes.”
Garner confidently states, “I like horses best. Dad says I can help some days with the Matador or Tongue River remudas if they let me. Says he’ll have to stay with me on those days until I learn to handle the horses.”
“Stick with it. Learn it well. It might be the skill that you later live by or survive by.” They walk, stop to listen a few times, eyeball other eroded areas where they find tool fragments, and explore the remains of a hunter’s camp before starting back. Marshall feels that he’s forgotten something, that every moment he spends just now is as large as the area they could cover without encountering another person but as small as the time that remains to know his little brother. He waited two years since registering for the draft for this day to happen; now that the wait is over, he worries whether the people he loves most are ready for his absence. “You know when I finally have to leave that you can look through my arrowhead collection and play my guitar. While I’m gone. Until I return.”
Garner stops to lay into his bigger brother. “Don’t talk about leaving yet. I miss Frank.” He pauses then resumes his speech with raised voice meant to shame Marshall. “And I know that’s why you spent all winter making me and Paul take the tractor apart and put it back together, over and over again. Showing us how to lift and switch out the plows, clean and repair parts. Paul and I figured it out. We’re not dumb, Marshall! You just want to leave here. You want to get away from me!”
“I don’t want to leave you, kid. I want to do my part before it’s all over. You’ve heard the news. Some places we’re winning the war; some places we’re bogged down in stalemate.” Marshall puts his hand on Garner’s shoulder and makes him look at his face. “This is one of the times when a man has to step up. Losing the wars to Japan and Germany means something far worse than leaving my family for a short while. I’m needed there now more than I’m needed here. You and Paul can drive the tractor and help dad with the farming. I got you ready. You can do it.”
Garner turns and runs ahead. Then he turns back around and shouts at his older brother. “Well, this isn’t a good time! How am I going to go to school if I’m helping Dad with all this farm work? Paul and me want to have some fun, too!”
Marshall catches up at a slow pace. He reaches for Garner’s rifle and carefully takes it. “Never carry a loaded weapon like this; you’re angry and running. Could stumble on this ground. Pay attention.” They walk in silence until they reach the rock where their coats were dropped. “Let’s sit again.”
“No. Think on it, Marshall. You just can’t leave us like this!” Garner obstinately walks ahead.
“Garner! Come back here and sit with me.” Marshall waits and notices that Garner does not go far before returning to the rock, walking quietly while tears and mucus wet his face. His little brother is kind and thoughtful, rather unusually so for an adolescent who is also the youngest in a family with seven children.
“Dad will be sixty in a couple years, mama not far behind. Who knows whether they’ll stay on this farm or move to Roaring Springs near Aunt Hattie? But most their seven children are already headed in different directions.”
Garner is calm again and tossing rocks toward a snake. They watch it cross the ravine and disappear in the shadows of thick mesquite. “You promised me the girl talk. Better do that before you go.”
Marshall laughs and wonders how Garner’s mind sprang to this topic. “Nah. It can wait. You’ll be too busy. Remember? I’ll make sure you and Paul have some picture show money. Just don’t start sitting with the girls in the dark theatre until we’ve had the talk.”
“Sure. I promise to wait for you. I won’t need a guardian like our sisters will.” Garner’s words try to catch up with all the new considerations. “Can I play your phonograph albums, even the new Bob Wills? What will you do in the war? I guess if you can drive a tractor, you can drive a tank!”
Marshall tempers his surprise to keep the talk headed where he’d planned it to be. “Handle the albums the way I’ve shown you and play them all you want. Mama enjoys the music, too. Won’t drive a tank. I was told that I’m the perfect build for a paratrooper. But no, again. I’ll be with the ski troops. We’re headed for high terrain.”
Now Garner laughs. “Ski! Snow and mountains? You’ve never seen mountains except in pictures. Better stick with mules or mountain goats. Now I know you’ll be here a while longer. It’s Spring everywhere and will be hot weather in another month or two.” Garner breathes two long sighs that exclaim profound relief. Marshall looks down again and examines the worn farm boots that will soon be replaced with sturdier Army issue. Garner captures his attention when he reaches for his rifle, still in the older brother’s hands. He whispers, “Look there. Bobcat with its meal. I’ll get him.”
“No. Not this time.” Marshall shuffles his feet just enough to alarm the bobcat and send it on its way. “Let it live.”
Garner jumps up to run again to show his displeasure. Loose rocks slip underneath his hand-me-down boots and send him to the ground. He snatches rocks and rises to throw them in all directions. New sobbing creates more puddles on his dirty face. Without a word, Marshall puts an arm around his little brother’s small shoulders and holds him closer than he has since Garner learned to walk. When the crying stops, “This is the last cry, Garner. Inattention can kill you. You’ve only a few scrapes this time. But no more crying. You leave childhood behind today.” While Garner wipes at tears and dirt and inspects the scratches on his hands, Marshall looks in all directions toward the Texas horizon. “They’ll expect us soon. Mom’s preparing a big meal. Virginia and Jack are at the house by now. Wouldn’t surprise me if Pauline has Red to the house, too.” Marshall hands one rifle to Garner with a stern look, and they gather the coats. “And, Garner, when we get to the house, wash yourself and put on clean underwear. The girls like clean guys. Clean and respectful.”
“I hope the girl talk you promised me will be more interesting than this one.” Garner runs ahead after saying this, just as Marshall’s hand misses him by a foot.
It’s early afternoon when they reach the house. They walk through the kitchen once in hope of finding something to eat while the bouquet of a big family meal scourges their stomachs. Their brother-in-law Jack hands them each a piece of fried chicken as they try to pass through unnoticed. But they are barely a bleep on the women’s radar. Jack takes another chicken thigh to the front porch and shares it with his baby girl, Charlotte. She sits in her grandpa’s lap and rubs his stubbly face, giggling loudly. This brings Charlotte’s grandmother to the screen door from which she scolds her husband, “Hugh! I told you to shave. Now do it before we gather.” Hugh hands Charlotte to her father and strolls unflappably into the kitchen where he prepares to shave. No one minds making room at the sink into which he pours hot water from the stove kettle.
Every space in the farmhouse pulsates. Today’s participants regularly shift among all the seating available in the kitchen, living room, and the front porch. It is as though each of them looks for Frank, who is so typically quiet that he might be forgotten if not for the enormity of his compassion. There is also the palpable anticipation. What is changing among the family today?
The women finally set the table with dishes of hot food. It is a big table in a big farmhouse kitchen. Nothing formal about it. Eleven people, including the baby who is passed from lap to lap, gather and eat together, swapping stories and passing dishes in an endless circle. Baby Charlotte ends up on her grandmother’s lap and is fed so much thick gravy that she falls asleep at the table. Mildred notices when the conversation ebbs; there is a tinge of nervousness that she wants to avoid. She says, “Have we forgotten that there’s a birthday next week?” They all look at Garner who flushes and takes the baby into his own lap to remind everyone that he is no longer the youngest. “It’s just a few days early, kid. But we wanted to have a party for you while everyone is together. Here’s your cake. As soon as Virginia lights the candles, we’ll sing and see if you have enough lung power to blow out all twelve!”
While Garner opens a few wrapped gifts and cake slices are passed around the table, Marshall and his twin, Mildred, step out of the kitchen. Garner does not notice this time; his sadness about Frank’s absence on another birthday and Marshall’s talk is abated for now by the surprise party. The childhood trait of being easily distracted is often misunderstood by adults who have forgotten what it is like to experience the full worth of every moment. Someone coughs and the entire room is silent. The silence breaks through Garner’s happy thoughts. He looks up in the direction of everyone’s gaze.
Marshall and Mildred stand before them in full uniform. Marshall in Army and Mildred in Women’s Army Corps. The twins had set their packed bags on the front porch while the party kept attention on Garner. Although they imagined this day, talked about it between themselves and with their parents, Hugh and Mae, their family’s reaction to the uniforms shakes thoughts and feelings loose that could not have been anticipated. Pauline and Paul, the youngest twins not yet sixteen, stand up first in their excitement. “Wow-Wee! You look so handsome, Marshall. And Mildred, you look like a magazine model. Wow-Wee.”
Mildred speaks first but both want to get this moment over with; their mom is already wiping at tears. Marshall and Mildred are too overwhelmed to take turns. “We have to make our enlistment connections on the train today. We’re not going in the same directions. I’ll be in Texas a while. And I’ll be at Camp Hale in Colorado for a while. This is goodbye for now, everyone. Let’s move to the front yard. Where’s that camera?”
They move to the front yard where hugs and kisses and a few poses for the camera preempt the final departure in the farm truck with their dad in the driver’s seat. Marshall finds Garner among the noisy crowd, nervous now that everyone wants this separation with its emotional tug to end and the letter writing and phone calls to begin. He places coins and the day’s stone tool in Garner’s hand. “Here’s picture show money. And this to help you remember some of what I said. No more crying. I’m doing this so that you won’t have to. Remember that. Couldn’t tell you I leave today because we wanted to make this a happy birthday, too. I love you.” Garner hugs his older brother closely and decides this day to become the best hugger the world will ever know.
A dust cloud follows the truck as Marshall and Mildred drive away from family and farm toward the unimaginable. They look back once at family standing on porch steps. Garner stands in front, waving wildly and hoping that Marshall sees a joyful face free of boyish tears.