Sun-Struck Eagle: Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

 

The cold night air tears through the homestead with violent ease. Look, there, in front of the hearth. See the trinity. A Father, two sons. They are huddled and hunched over the remains of some meager meal. Potatoes and gristle and cornbread. Same as last night and same as tomorrow. Father sits in the only chair they own, holding court with his twin boys. They strain their ears to hear him over the wail of wind that pushes up against the creaking wooden walls like some ghostly tide. They are young and know little of the world outside of their acrid farm where hardly anything grows and even fewer visit. On the left, sits the brown-haired child. To the right, sits the blonde one.

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Born just seconds apart, the brothers look as if they could be from different stock entirely. But tonight, as with most nights after supper, they share their gaze—four eyes fixed squarely on their Father. A wave of wind crashes into the side of their home; a whistle, then a howl. The assorted skins and furs strewn across the dirty wooden floor and used as rushes begin to flutter as if about to take flight like some flattened, stinking flock. The tide of wind recedes, the skins settle down, the boys hold their breath in anticipation for the night’s story. Even the crackling fire seems to extinguish itself in preparation for Father’s voice. He breaks the silence.

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Your great-granfather built this house hisself, you know. Brought the lumber all the way down from Pennsylvania on account ain’t ‘nough wood down’ere in Texas. Loaded up two whole wagons with every tool and gadget and piece of furn’ture you could imagine. They was rich back then—your great-granfather an’ his wife. Struck it big sellin’ furs an’ such in Pittsburgh. The Father sips from his tin cup. Mostly whiskey, a little water. He continues. But once Texas came ’bout in the Union, an’ all the folk up in the cities started talkin’ tales of the open land and clear air and the gold, well. He pauses with a disapproving smirk. Well your great-granfather couldn’t help hisself. He packed near everything the family had, took out all his money from the bank downtown, bought hisself ‘nough wagons and lumber to move the family, an’ headed out South. Your great-granmother thought him crazy. My paw—your grandaddy—was too young to ‘member anythin’ he said back then, but he never forgot the look in your great-grandaddy’s eyes. Used to tell me ’bout it growin’ up when we’d sit ’round the fire just like this. Used to say it was a look that spent half the time lookin’ at you and half the time lookin’ through you, like he was seein’ somethin’ off in the distance out in the horizon. It was a wild look, paw would say. Somewhere in-between animal an’ man, alert an’ eager an’ hungry. Always hungry. Pupils that could’n stay still he’d say. Constantly darting to the next thing they could see when, really, he was only lookin’ for one thing. That damned gold. Guess he ain’t never get to lookin’ at a map, though. If he did, he would’ve seen just where the Hell this here town actually is. Set up this here ‘stead in the middle of a damn desert an’ started lookin’ for gold that wan’t even there. Drove the family all the way poor. ‘Ventually had to even sell all that fancy furn’ture they hauled down from Pittsburgh—that is, the furn’ture they ain’t yet used to patch this place up.

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The Father takes long sip from his tin. The ghostly tide picks up once again and whips itself against the homestead. Each slit and slat of rotting or rotted wood howling in defiance of the wind. Lumber planks hauled from up North all those years ago intertwined with bits of furniture—a cabinet door up in the roof, the back end of a dresser on the wall, pieces of chair holding up the structure’s only door frame. It is an old place, and it smells. They are an old family, they smell worse. They are all that is left, these three. A Father, two sons. A dying name in a dying home in a world that wants to be rid of them entirely. Blistering heat in the daytime, frigid cold in the night. Snakes and scorpions and wolves and cactus and nightshade. All manner of flora and fauna and weather working hand-in-hand to accomplish one mission—to remove the family from their otherwise untouched earth. But they persist nonetheless, these three, and make their measly existence without even the hint of complaint. Hardened by life itself they live amongst their sheep and their potatoes. Father finishes his long-drawn gulp with nary a wince. The wind dies down once again. And he speaks.

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Then the war came. War between the states they called it; them states up North sayin’ it was about slavery an’ freein’ their fellow man. States down here South sayin’ it was for freedom an’ states’ rights. End of the day it din’t matter who was right—war between the states was just like any war from any other time in human hist’ry: fought between men who ain’t have no business bein’ there. Takin’ over life and killin’ those who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even way out here in Wise County wan’t safe from that war. You see, ‘ventually, the Confederates started runnin’ out of troops so they started goin’ ’round to all the towns and villages and little counties an’ conscriptin’ folk to fight for their cause. But that din’t sit right with a lot of folks up here in North Texas. Folks who was too poor to own any slaves, folks who din’t think slavery was good for the soul, folks who still had family back up North. Your great gran-father was one of them—still had relatives up Pittsburgh way an’ he couldn’t bring hisself to stand an’ fight any battle where his kin might could be standin’ across the field from him. That type of thinkin’ din’t sit too well with a lot of the rich folk an’ real Southern stock. Din’t sit too well at all. One day, a group of ’em came riding in to Decatur from Cooke County—bunch of Gainesville boys, paw used to tell it—raisin’ Hell and roundin’ up any fellow who they suspected din’t want to fight the good fight. Said they was to be brought back to Gainesville to stand trial. Forty-one Decatur men they tied up an’ took. Beat ’em bloody an’ found the biggest tallest tree they could find an’ hung every last one of ’em—your great-granfather included. After that, his wife an’ my paw was on their lonesome; poor as poor could be stuck out here on this dead land with hardly a penny to their name.

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The Father stops, gives a half-snort and a smirk and shakes his head. All for some damned gold that wan’t even there. To think, if he was smart ’nuff to know how important oil would be, he might could have struck it rich somewhere ’round these here parts with all them rigs goin’ up nowadays. Father shakes his head again and turns away from the fire and sets his tired blue eyes on his children. Your great-granfather was no good, boys. Too greedy for his own good, you understand? Yes Father. Barney, go an’ fetch me some more whiskey. Yes Father, the fair-haired child sets down his empty copper plate with a soft clink and rises to his bare and dirty feet and shuffles off with a quiet patter. Father, says the dark-haired child still sitting in front of the crackling fire into which he stares. You really think we could’ve been rich if he was looking for oil instead of gold? Father gruffs, prob’ly so. There any oil on the land we got? Another gruff, no son, just potatoes an’ a few sheep and too many rattlers. A roof over our heads though, an’ enough to get by—that’s what we’ve got an’ that’s what we’ll have. This is the lot we’ve drawn, but it beats the hangman’s noose or the highwayman’s bullet. Potatoes an’ sheep have never killed a man. You grow ’em an’ take care of ’em an’ they’ll take care of you. You understand, Luke? Yes Father.

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The boy shifts in his place on the dirty calfskin rushes and continues his unflinching gaze into the fire, its crackling light spitting shadows across the homestead walls. The ghostly tide churns up once again, slamming its frigid air up against the structure. For near eighty years the cold North Texas night has tried to bring the homestead down. And for near eighty years it has failed. Tonight, it will fail once again. Each gust an ebb and flow that washes over the ancient wood planks, penetrates its many cracks and holes, but passes right through off into the nothingness of the inky black twilight. It is a timeless place. Born out of greed and poverty and death, it endures nonetheless. Tomorrow, the boys and their Father will awake to the heat of the Texas sun and begin their toil amongst the potatoes and ewes, just as they had their entire lives. But tonight, tonight it is cold and work is far from their minds.

 

The boy continues his gaze into the flame long after Father and Barney nod off into slumber. The bright red glow casting Luke’s lone shadow across the entirety of the back wall—his small frame amplified by the light as if he has become a man already grown. But he is still just a child. A child with no coat. A child with no shoes. A child with no mother. His gaze remains fixed on the hearth for hours, looking into the flame, then past the flame, to somewhere beyond the flame. As if he could stare long and deep enough into the glow to see something that isn’t there. While the others sleep, he begins to dream. His eyes see the future that is not yet there, the life he has not yet lived, the comfort that he has never experienced. The wind outside whips itself into a fury. Up against the siding it throws itself, and over bits of lumber and furniture it climbs, and into the crude brick chimney it slides—howling like a banshee and stoking the fire into a frenzy, sending dust that stings the boy’s cheeks. The deep red glow now a molten yellow gold roaring from the hearth illuminating his face. And in this moment, the world outside has become one and sees the boy laid bare before itself. Fire and wind and dirt all looking up at him and his long, dark shadow spread across the homestead; taking him in and seeing him for who he is and who he is to become. His eyes looking at them and through them and beyond them all at once—pupils darting like whisps of wind or licks of flame or flecks of dirt from one place to the next. Searching, constantly searching, for a future different than the one he has been given. And in this moment, the world outside knows fear for the first time. For it sees the boy and knows that he is not just a small, cold boy with no shoes. It has seen small, cold boys with no shoes before. No, he is more. He is different. Different than Father and his brother. He is fire and wind and fury and dirt. He is a child of this harsh place. He is a child of death, and he will not stop until he brings himself up out of the very place that made him. The world sees him and fears him, because it knows that his climb will bring nothing but blood to the land. The ghostly tide recedes. The wind finds its rest. The fire calms its fury. The dirt settles on the stinking rushes. The world outside goes to sleep. The dark-haired boy stays up a little while longer.