Little Tomato (F)

The land was so flat cattle sometimes stumbled over the tracks of moles hunting worms. But by god the sky was something to see, a canvas of color and cloud, a ceiling of stars and the moon when it came round.

Four-year-old Thomas Franklin Washington was digging in the dirt behind the barn, digging with a spoon he found next to the old well.

A ranch hand called him a poco de tomate when he came home from the Goodland hospital. From that moment, older brothers and sisters each and every day called him Toma. Sometimes his mother would call him Little T, but his father would only pronounce him Thomas, which was his father’s name and his grandfather’s name.

The spoon was just a kitchen spoon, larger than a tablespoon but not a proper serving spoon his mother insisted. Toma would say he was “working the dirt”. When he dug in 3-feet out from the northwest corner of the barn, his scraping made a new sound, somehow different, enough to make him cock his head.

He chipped out a few pieces and looked at them in his hand. He took what he had found to his mother who was chopping onions for the bean soup.

“What do you have there, T?”

“It’s crunchy.”

Oldest brother William who attended the state college had a notion. The following week the expert from Golden drove over after his breakfast. He wanted to see the spot where Thomas made his find. Mother ordained they eat first, and that was that.

After the meal, they marched to the dig. The visitor set down his canvas bag, lowered himself to his knees, took out a 14-ounce rock hammer and with the pointed tip made a strike. Holding the small piece in sunlight, he exhaled. The family, gathered round, except for Mr. Washington who was in town to wrap up a contract, held their breath.

Professor McCleary stood up and stared west as if trying to make a thing visible in the distance. “Shouldn’t be here like this.”

William took the lead. “Is it?”

“It is.”

Mr. Washington signed the contract in Denver. The barn had to go. The fencing for the pasture gone, too, and a wider road built to meet MSHA policy requirements. CNN and FOX and NBC and CBS Sunday Morning covered the story. They all referred to Thomas as “The Golden Kid”, but at home, he was still Little T, Toma, Thomas.

Below the big new house, the property was so steep that in the dry season the children would in their boots slide-slip for a hundred feet before meeting up with the driveway that snaked downhill to the state highway.

At night, before them was the city and so many lights that by god it looked like a fairyland, and further east the empty land, like a great black sea. But still the sky was the sky, and the stars the stars, and the moon, too, when it came round.  Ladson 2013