Chapter 3
Distractions
Adam was quite determined not to let his bad mood ‘interfere with the ranch business or the peace in the family.’ He smiled readily at breakfast the next morning, made a joke on Joe’s account (he was pleased at his family’s failure to notice the slight slackness of bite in his punch line. For people watching him so closely, at times they were quite unperceptive), and even started to work the ledgers, as he was supposed to that day, with a whistle. He soon recognized that with this he had overdone his little display when his father shot him a suspicious glance, and so he slowly let “Early One Morning” trail off and concentrated on the task at hand.
Much to Adam’s relief his family finally stopped throwing him side glances and went outside to do their share of chores. Everything worked just fine, and he only miscalculated four or five times while counting expenses on medicinal help for ranch hands (La Traviata, Raymond must have been very lucky to get tickets for this grand new opera….), fees for their solicitors in San Francisco (just how long had Raymond stayed in San Francisco to be able to take Juliet out on so many occasions…?) and repairs of sawmill equipment (Troilus and Cressida, he would have loved to see Juliet’s reaction to the bawdy comedy contained in that play….), receipts from timber business (he bet that after hearing the Magic Flute Juliet had tried to sing Papagena’s part of the famous duet, hmm, or more probably The Queen of The Night’s aria Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen*…?) and horse trading (he really had to teach Juliet how to keep her horse calm on open range; he would take care of that next Sunday, when they’d finally have their long-delayed day out….)
Since no one was in the house to witness his struggles and how Adam went through every column at least twice to make sure his distraction didn’t leave any traces, his brothers and his father still were under the illusion that he was back to normal when they came home for lunch. They had sandwiches and beef soup and coffee and a lively discussion about the afternoon chores, and none of his family members noticed when Adam added six spoons of sugar to his coffee. Obviously he had them lulled in quite effectively, he thought while he drank the nauseatingly sweet concoction with a stony face. Good.
They could tell, though, that he still hadn’t gotten over what was riling him up, when later that afternoon they found him at the chopping block, staring into the far distance, the axe hanging from his slack right hand, the left one loosely holding a piece of wood on the block. When Joe sneaked up behind Adam, put his face close to his brother’s ear, and yelled, “Yoohoo brother, will we have some firewood tonight or do we have to burn your books instead?” Adam jumped at least a foot, and in one amazingly fluid motion tightened his grip on the log and swung the axe down on it. This display would have been very impressive, if the axe hadn’t slipped off the wood and chopped off a not-too-small chunk of flesh from Adam’s thumb.
The amount of blood that could flow from a vigorous cut into the extreme extremities was fairly surprising, Adam thought before his vision got a bit clouded and he decided to sit down for a spell. His way to the ground was quicker than he had expected, and then he felt Hoss’ strong arms on his back and under his armpits and he was supported into an upright position and guided into the house and to the settee in the great room, all the time hearing his father scold his little brother, “How many times did I tell you not to sneak upon someone with a sharp tool in their hands, Joseph?” and his not-so-little other brother mumbling, “Naw, big brother ain’t distracted. Naw, big brother ain’t riled up. Naw, big brother didn’t brawl with the Queen….”
Eventually his family left him, propped up with some cushions, his legs sprawled out on the settee, his thumb in a ridiculously gigantic bandage (courtesy of Hop Sing) and with the brandy decanter and a glass within easy reach (courtesy of Hoss, bless him). Adam found himself happily distracted from the day’s events and the mental images of a posing New York editor and an admiringly beaming lady writer by reading the book of the Bard’s sonnets with which a very apologetic Joe had provided him, the iambic pentameter working perfectly in rhythm with the dull throbbing in his thumb. Somehow he felt much more content than for what seemed ages, but was only a day and a half, and finally he fell into a deep slumber—both not in the least induced by the rapidly emptying brandy bottle.
When Hoss and Joe came home at supper time they found their brother still on the settee, clamorously snoring and with a complacent smile on his face. Joe refused to wake Adam, even though his brother wasn’t holding any ‘sharp tools’ in his hands, and so Hoss boldly ventured to rouse the sleeping beauty, only to be startled by the waking Adam’s cry of “And if I tell you it was the lark, it was the lark, Juliet!”
Hoss stammered quite puzzled, “What?”, but Joe pointed at the book in Adam’s lap and said genially, “That’s Shakespeare, Hoss. Older brother here actually dreams poetry these days!”
Of course, Hoss and Joe wouldn’t stop teasing Adam mercilessly about even dreaming Shakespearian quotes, not even after their father finally got home and promptly admonished them for making fun of the poor invalid. But the poor invalid himself didn’t see any need to stop them, because their tiringly frequently repeated mocking about their brother’s literary dreams didn’t leave them time to ponder which Juliet he had actually dreamt of. Anyway, it turned out to be a very long evening.
___________________________________________________________________
(*Hell’s vengeance boils in my heart.)
Dreaming is an act of pure imagination,
attesting in all men a creative power,
which if it were available in waking,
would make every man a Dante or Shakespeare. ~H.F. Hedge
Enjoyed re-reading this. Thank you. I especially enjoy the way you put Adam’s thoughts into words. Please don’t forget to let us into the secret of what happened to Juliet in San Francisco!
I love your writing, will you write more stories, I have read them all over and over, and they always hold up.
I believe that Marlowr did what Poole is going to do! What a great subplot here!
How can a smart man be so stupid? “It’s not easy”, Adam would say. And “Because he is a *man*,” I would. 🙂
Juliet and San Francisco…that’s something I never revealed. Yet. I plan to do it, someday. Did forget about it, tbh. But I will come back to it. Cross my heart!
How can such a smart man be so stupid? What in the world did she do in SAN Francisco?