Visible Spirits

The mud on Main Street was half a foot deep and mixed with enough horse shit to make him wish he had something to clamp over his nose. But he'd lost his handkerchief on the train coming up, and anyway, it was stained with blood: in New Orleans a fellow had punched him in the mouth. He couldn't remember who it was, though he did recall how much it hurt. A supply wagon loaded with hundred-pound sacks of feed grain and hog shorts waited in front of Rosenthal's General Merchandise, and a couple horses were tied up in front of the hardware. But he knew, because he knew his brother, that Leighton would already be inhe'd probably been at the office since five or five-thirty. He went to bed every night at nine o'clock and rose at four so he could get an hour's worth of reading done before setting to work. He'd always done that and always would, especially now that he had two jobs instead of one. The legend on the window said loring weekly times. The building had once been a saloon, but that closed down back in '96 when the drys won the local option election. Leighton had played a role in their favor, editorializing at length, arguing that the whole community should be outraged at the sight of drunks staggering along the sidewalk, bumping into women. Through the window this morning, Tandy could see him sitting at his rolltop desk, back where the poker tables used to be, reading a big leather-bound volume. He wore a gray suit, and Tandy knew the suit was clean and fresh-smelling, that the collar of his white shirt had been pressed this very morning. He knew who had pressed it, too. The door was unlocked; he opened it and stepped inside. Blank sheets of newspaper were stacked on the floor near an old copper-plated handpress, and on the counter were metal baskets with copy in them. A Western Newspaper Union calendar hung on one wall. Instead of smelling like cigarettes and whiskey, as it used to, the place stank now of ink and dust. Leighton didn't even look up. "I was wondering when I'd hear from you," he said. Tandy stomped each boot on the floor, and clots of mud flew off. Leighton laid the book down. He stared at Tandy's boots. "Most folks would've stomped the mud off outside." "Course, I'm not most folks. I'm family." Leighton stood. As always, when Tandy had been away for a while, the size of his brother took him by surprise. Tandy was not a small man himself, but Leighton stood six foot five, an inch taller than their father, and even though he lacked their father's weight, he could still fill a room by himself. When Leighton was present, Tandy felt he had less of everythingless space to move around in, less air to breathe. A big lightbulb hung from the ceiling. Pointing, Tandy said, "I heard y'all had got electric power." The civic booster in his brother asserted itself: you could almost see his chest swell. "Got it last fall. Right now, it's only on from six till midnight, but that's a big help to us on Wednesday evening, when we're actually printing the paper." He smiled and crossed his arms. "You hear what happened over at the livery stables?" "No." "Uncle Billy Heath decided he needed him some electric power. Said he wanted to be able to check on his horses without worrying about toting a coal-oil lamp in there and having one of 'em kick it over and set the whole place afire. So he had Loring Light, Ice and Coal string a cable in and suspend a big old bulb from the rafters. When they turned on the power, all the horses went crazy. They kicked open the stall doors and tYarbrough, Steve is the author of 'Visible Spirits', published 2002 under ISBN 9780375725777 and ISBN 0375725776.