It was two boys that found Pa dead in the saddle.
It was two boys that found Pa dead in the saddle. They said he thought he was just asleep but then were confused when he didn’t answer their calls. Pa was never one to do something like that, not answer someone. My guess was that he never had a reason to hang his head down in his life. War heroes don’t hang their heads down when talking to anyone, and Pa was definitely that.
They were skinny boys, people in Creekborn called them the beanpole twins, even though they weren’t twins. Just close in age. They were skinny, though. The beanpole twins.
One of them told me that Pa still had the reins in his hand when they finally got the horse stopped. He thought Pa might have been playing some game at it for a second, then realized that Sheriff Tom Wade wasn’t one to play games.
What they did is kept him there on the horse and went to get Mayor Tibbets.
My guess is that Tibbets knew Pa was dead the moment he heard the news. He knew Pa just about as well as anyone could. They were in their respective positions for all of my life. He knew Pa would never sleep in the saddle, or even worse, ride drunk upon a horse.
It was Tibbets that brought me the news. He was, in those days, still splendidly dressed. I was kneeled at the row of corn when he came up on his horse, and right then and there, I knew it was bad news. Tibbets did not often ride a horse, except for show in ceremonies. Pa had planted the row of corn with me the week before. Just the first row. He said he would come back next week and we could add to it. But for now, or then, just to get the farm started, he said it was enough.
The next few weeks would teach me what enough was.
Pa’s full name was Thomas Leonard Wade Sr. and he was the sheriff here for twenty-five years. Him dying in the saddle seemed right for a man like Pa. Older folks called him Tom Wade and those that didn’t called him Sheriff Wade. If there was someone new in town and they saw Pa, and saw the tin badge he wore on his shirt or outside his coat when it was cold, they knew enough to call him Sir. Pa had a stern face and serious eyes enough that even a stranger would know not to mess about in addressing him.
He got his sherrifship based largely on his performance in the War of the Rebellion. Now, when it’s writ down, I suppose that Iowa should not be highly noted in that war. More likely the pen of the historian will writ down what happened to the soldier of the east, else how the Rebs were beat down, else the March to the Sea. Probably a lot about generals. But if one historian is so inclined, and looks to dig back through the medals of that war, they should find Tom Wade’s name among the most highly decorated.
Grant wrote a letter about Pa, specially commending him to Lincoln, for Pa’s service in the 14th Infantry Regiment. It was a short paragraph, but Pa’s name is in it. He was a captain then. There’s something about how brave Pa was, how he kept fighting after he was shot, how he was back to work the next day. There’s something about how the 14th saved Grant’s ass. I would guess it was true. Not the letter, I mean. I saw the letter, I mean. I just mean what Grant said. I could net well imagine such a vital General lying to the President of the United States and for what.
I was born the year that war ended. Pa caught another bullet, late and just before the end of that war, and was sent back home. I came about to be in the winter of 1865. My Ma, her name was Nettie, died the next spring. Was pneumonia they tell me. I always wisht I could remember something about her, just one thing. When I was a kid, I used to lie and say all kinds of things of false remembering about her. I felt pressured to by the adults that said kind things about her and Pa, else I felt embarrassed by kids saying I was a bastard (even though that wasn’t true by any measure) and I spun some wild tales. How I was talking a month after I was born, else the games I would play with her even before I walked.
I always heard growing up that Pa was the King of Creekborn. That’s what everybody called him. Kids called him that, the ones I would lie to. Every grown person called him that too. It took me a while in my growing to understand that he wasn’t, that the sheriff of any town is not the king. Until I was old enough to understand a little, I wondered where his crown was. I asked him about that crown one time. It was of the few instances that I can remember him laughing. One of the few times I remembered the straight of his mouth curling up.
