Titans

The sun was behind him and sinking fast when Nathan stowed hammer and saw and nails and started homeward carrying his toolbox and lunch pail. The sandwiches his mother had prepared with the extra bacon and onions and packed in the pail with pickles, tomato, and boiled egg had long disappeared, and he was hungry for his supper. It would be waiting when he returned, but it would be a while before he sat down to the evening meal. He had Daisy to milk. His siblings would have fed the horses and pigs and chickens before sundown, so he’d have only the cow to tend before he washed up and joined the family at table.

It was always something he looked forward to, going home at the end of the day. His mother was a fine cook and served rib-sticking fare, and he enjoyed the conversation round the table and the company of his family before going to bed. Soon, his siblings would be gone. Randolph, a high school senior, seventeen, had already been accepted at Columbia University in New York City to begin his studies, aiming for law school after college. His sister, sixteen, would no doubt be married within a year or two. How the evenings would trip along when they were gone, he didn’t know. Nathan didn’t contribute much to the gatherings. Like his father, his thoughts on things were seldom asked and almost never offered. He was merely a quiet listener, a fourth at cards and board games (his mother did not play), and a dependable source to bring in extra wood, stoke the fire, and replenish cups of cocoa. Still, he felt a part of the family scene if for the most part ignored, like the indispensable clock over the mantel in the kitchen.

Zak trotted alongside him unless distracted by a covey of doves to flush, a rabbit to chase. Nathan drew in a deep breath of the cold late March air, never fresher than at dusk when the day had lost its sun and the wind had subsided, and expelled it with a sense of satisfaction. He’d had a productive day. His father would be pleased that he’d been able to repair the whole south fence and that the expense of extra lumber had been justified. Sometimes they disagreed on what needed to be done for the amount of the expenditure, but his father always listened to his son’s judgment and often let him have his way. More times than not, Nathan had heard his father say to his mother, “The boy’s got a head for what’s essential for the outlay, that’s for sure.” His mother rarely answered unless it was to give a little sniff or utter a humph, but Nathan understood her reticence was to prevent him from getting a big head.

As if his head would ever swell over anything, he thought, especially when compared to his brother and sister. Nathan considered that everything about him—when he considered himself at all—was as ordinary as a loaf of bread. Except for his height and strong build and odd shade of blue-green eyes, nothing about him was of any remarkable notice. Sometimes, a little ruefully, he thought that when it came to him, he’d stood somewhere in the middle of the line when the good Lord passed out exceptional intellects, talent and abilities, personalities, and looks while Randolph and Lily had been at the head of it. He accepted his lot without rancor, for what good was a handsome face and winning personality for growing wheat and running a farm?

Nathan was a good thirty yards from the first outbuildings before he noticed a coach and team of two horses tied to the hitching post in front of the white wood-framed house of his home. He could not place the pair of handsome Thoroughbreds and expensive Concord. No one that he knew in Gainesville owned horses and carriage of such distinction. He guessed the owner was a rich new suitor of Lily’s who’d ridden up from Denton or from Montague across the county line. She’d met several such swains a couple of months ago when the wealthiest woman in town, his mother’s godmother, had hosted a little coming-out party for his sister. Nathan puzzled why he’d shown up to court her during the school week at this late hour of the day. His father wouldn’t like that, not that he’d have much say in it. When it came to his sister, his mother had the last word, and she encouraged Lily’s rich suitors.

Nathan had turned toward the barn when a head appeared above a window of the coach. It belonged to a middle-aged man who, upon seeing Nathan, quickly opened the door and hopped out. “I say there, me young man!” he called to Nathan. “Are ye the lad we’ve come to see?”

An Irishman, sure enough, and obviously the driver of the carriage, Nathan thought. He automatically glanced behind him as though half expecting the man to have addressed someone else. Turning back his gaze, he called, “Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“I’m sure not.”

“If ye are, ye’d best go inside. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

“Who doesn’t like to be kept waiting?”

“Me employer, Mr. Trevor Waverling.”

“Never heard of him.” Nathan headed for the barn.

“Wait! Wait!” the man cried, scrambling after him. “Ye must go inside, lad. Mr. Waverling won’t leave until ye do.” The driver had caught up with Nathan. “I’m cold and… me backside’s shakin’ hands with me belly. I ain’t eaten since breakfast,” he whined.

Despite the man’s desperation and his natty cutaway coat, striped trousers, and stiff top hat befitting the driver of such a distinctive conveyance, Nathan thought him comical. He was not of particularly short stature, but his legs were not long enough for the rest of him. His rotund stomach seemed to rest on their trunks, no space between, and his ears and Irish red hair stuck out widely beneath the hat like a platform for a stove pipe. He reminded Nathan of a circus clown he’d once seen.

“Well, that’s too bad,” Nathan said. “I’ve got to milk the cow.” He hurried on, curious of who Mr. Waverling was and the reason he wished to see him. If so, his father would have sent his farmhand to get him, and he must tend to Daisy.

The driver ran back to the house and Nathan hurried to the barn. Before he reached it, he heard Randolph giving Daisy a smack. “Stay still, damn you!”

“What are you doing?” Nathan exclaimed from the open door, surprised to see Randolph and Lily attempting to milk Daisy.

“What does it look like?” Randolph snapped.

“Get away from her,” Nathan ordered. “That’s my job.”

“Let him do it,” Lily pleaded. “I can’t keep holding her leg back.”

“We can’t,” Randolph said. “Dad said to send him to the house the minute he showed up.”

His siblings often discussed him in the third person in his presence. Playing cards and board games, they’d talk about him as if he wasn’t sitting across the table from them. “Wonder what card he has,” they’d say to each other. “Do you suppose he’ll get my king?”

“Both of you get away from her,” Nathan commanded. “I’m not going anywhere until I milk Daisy. Easy, old girl,” he said, running a hand over the cow’s quivering flanks. “Nathan is here.”

Daisy let out a long bawl, and his brother and sister backed away. When it came to farm matters, after their father, Nathan had the top say.

“Who is Mr. Waverling, and why does he want to see me?” Nathan asked.

Brother and sister looked at each other. “We don’t know,” they both piped together, Lily adding, “But he’s rich.”

“We were sent out of the house when the man showed up,” Randolph said, “but Mother and Dad and the man are having a shouting match over you.”

“Me?” Nathan pulled Daisy’s teats, taken aback. Who would have a shouting match over him? “That’s all you know?” he asked. Zak had come to take his position at his knee and was rewarded with a long arc of milk into his mouth.

“That’s all we know, but we think… we think he’s come to take you away, Nathan,” Lily said. Small, dainty, she came behind her older brother and put her arms around him, leaning into his back protectively. “I’m worried,” she said in a small voice.

“Me, too,” Randolph chimed in. “Are you in trouble? You haven’t done anything bad, have you, Nathan?”

“Not that I know of,” Nathan said. Take him away? What was this?

“What a silly thing to ask, Randolph,” Lily scolded. “Nathan never does anything bad.”

“I know that, but I had to ask,” her brother said. “It’s just that the man is important. Mother nearly collapsed when she saw him. Daddy took charge and sent us out of the house immediately. Do you have any idea who he is?”

“None,” Nathan said, puzzled. “Why should I?”

“I don’t know. He seemed to know about you. And you look like him… a little.”

Another presence had entered the barn. They all turned to see their father standing in the doorway. He cleared his throat. “Nathan,” he said, his voice heavy with sadness, “when the milkin’s done, you better come to the house. Randolph, you and Lily stay here.”

“But I have homework,” Randolph protested.

“It can wait,” Leon said as he turned to go. “Drink the milk for your supper.”

The milking completed and Daisy back in her stall, Nathan left the barn, followed by the anxious gazes of his brother and sister. Dusk had completely fallen, cold and biting. His father had stopped halfway to the house to wait for him. Nathan noticed the circus clown had scrambled back into the carriage. “What’s going on, Dad?” he said.

His father suddenly bent forward and pressed his hands to his face.

“Dad! What in blazes—?” Was his father crying? “What’s the matter? What’s happened?”

A tall figure stepped out of the house onto the porch. He paused, then came down the steps toward them, the light from the house at his back. He was richly dressed in an overcoat of fine wool and carried himself with an air of authority. He was a handsome man in a lean, wolfish sort of way, in his forties, Nathan guessed. “I am what’s happened,” he said.

Nathan looked him up and down. “Who are you?” he demanded, the question bored into the man’s sea-green eyes, so like his own. He would not have dared, but he wanted to put his arm protectively around his father’s bent shoulders.

“I am your father,” the man said.

Nathan frowned and cocked his head as if he’d heard an echo but could not determine its origin. “Say what?”

The man put up his hands in the gesture of one quieting a crowd. “I’m sorry to have to tell you like this. I’d hoped for… a less shocking introduction, but you’re my son, Nathan. Mr. Holloway here”—he gestured to Leon—“is your stepfather, but I’m your father.”

Nathan did not hold to violence. He was by nature nonconfrontational, but a surge of fury almost brought his arm back to drive a fist into the man’s handsome face. Who did he think he was to come onto their land and make such a claim to set his father crying, a sight Nathan had never seen or expected to see? He had a good mind to run to the barn for a pitchfork to prod the fancy stranger into his carriage and on his way. For the confusion of a few seconds, he wondered why his father had not.

“Have you escaped from an insane asylum, mister?” Nathan said, breaching an innate respect for his elders that his parents had not needed to reinforce. “You must have to say something like that to me. Either that, or you’ve made a bad mistake.” He pointed to Leon, who had straightened up and turned away to wipe at his wet face with his jacket sleeve. “That man is my father.”

“He’s the man who raised you, but you’re my son,” the stranger said. “Your mother can testify to it. Shall we go inside and discuss it? I for one could use the heat of the fire.”

“I’m not discussing anything with you, and you can freeze your backside off, for all I care.” Bigger than his father, taller, Nathan stepped in front of Leon. “Get off our property.”

“Son… Nathan,” Leon said, blowing his nose into a large handkerchief. “You need to listen to him. He has merit. We’d better go inside.”

Nathan refused to budge. “Daddy…” His childhood address for his father slipped out on a note of panic. “What’s he saying?”

“He’s sayin’ he’s your father, son, and he is.”

Nathan heard the words like the crack of a gunshot. Leon put a hand on his elbow to steady him. “I’m so sorry you have to learn… the truth,” he said, his voice fading to sorrowful resignation.

The stranger made a move to take Nathan’s other arm, but Nathan rejected the gesture and stepped away from both men. He looked over his shoulder at his brother and sister, heads stuck around the door of the barn, faces scared and worried. He was their big brother, their protector, a known and steady quantity in their lives. Nothing had ever happened to shake their faith in his permanence. Nathan knew it was his father’s place to reassure them, but he called, “Everything’s fine. You won’t have to stay out there long. Settle Daisy down. She’s nervous.”

“All right,” Randolph answered in a thin, doubtful voice. “But you’ll… come get us soon?”

“I promise,” Nathan said.