by Ron Rash
Laurel hadn’t meant to say so much. Walter didn’t move his head or shrug his shoulders but he was listening. She could tell by the way he looked at her while she talked. To have someone meet her eyes was as pleasing a thing as him listening, because so many people looked away or past her like she wasn’t even there. Her coffee cup was empty and there were plenty of chores to be done, but Laurel decided they could wait a few more minutes.
“I heard you playing your flute the other day. I was down the creek below you. It was the prettiest thing I’ve ever heard. Sometimes when I was in school we’d do some singing, and there’s music at the victory jubilees, but we’ve never had it here. Daddy and Momma hadn’t a fiddle or guitar or the least sort of music maker. Not that we had much to sing about, at least in a happy way. But just hearing music, even the saddest sort of song, lets you know you’re not all of every way alone, that someone else has known the likesomeness of what you have. At least that’s what I felt when I heard you playing. Does it ever feel such to you?”
Walter let his eyes settle on the coffee cup. Pondering the question in a serious sort of way, she could tell, like it was something he’d thought about before. He looked up and gave a slight nod.
Laurel smiled.
“You might figure it a blessing this morning that you can’t talk, because I’ve got a peck of questions I’d love to ask. If you could write, I’d surely have you wear out both those yellow pencils on the bookshelf yonder. Well, I do know one thing. You sure look better today than yesterday. Are you feeling more your ownself again?”
Walter nodded and raised the cup to his lips and drank the last of the coffee, shook his head when she asked if he wanted more. He gestured toward the back window and stood up. As he walked out to the privy, Laurel took the dishes and knife to the basin. When Walter came back inside, he seemed unsure what to do so lingered near the door. She watched his eyes take in the room, settling on nothing long until he saw Hank’s tunic on a peg.
“That’s Hank’s army coat. I guess you can’t be a soldier unless you can speak.”
Walter nodded.
“You’re lucky. Hank didn’t want no part of that fight but they made him go anyway.”
Laurel washed the dishes and tinware, set them out to dry.
“I’ve got to fetch the eggs and feed the chickens. Just sit comfortable where you like. I won’t be long.”
She did the chores as quickly as she could, looking toward the cabin every few minutes. When she came back inside, he was in the bedroom. The bureau was bare and the haversack lay beside the door.
“You ain’t got need to pack up,” Laurel said. “I’ll be fixing noon-dinner before long. It’d make me feel a poor host if you just up and left.”
For a few moments he didn’t tilt his head one way or another.
“It ain’t the least bother.”
He nodded then.
“You can sit at the table or just rest in here.”
He nodded that he’d stay in the bedroom.
Probably tired of my prattling on, Laurel thought, but it had felt so good to speak to someone. She hadn’t talked this much since seeing Marcie at the victory jubilee last month. Slidell, good a man as he was, talked easier to Hank than to her. As for Hank, it seemed they spoke a little less each day. Sometimes they’d eat a meal with hardly a word between them. But to never be able to speak, what an awful thing that would be. Music might be the onliest thing that gave you cause to stand it, because it flowed out on your breath like words, and you could hear it. In its way, it answered you.
He’s asleep, Laurel thought, but after a while a few notes came from the bedroom and then a song. The whole cabin suddenly became less gloamy, as though the music pulled in more light through the windows and chink gaps. One song blended into another as Laurel got the eggs and milk and flour and mixed the cornbread batter and smoothed it in the bake pan. As she set the table, Laurel wished she knew the songs so she could hum along. She was about to take the cornbread out of the stove when she saw Hank in the doorway listening. Laurel wiped her hands on her apron and went to the door.
“You ever heard anything as pretty?” she asked softly.
“It’s nice to the ear,” Hank admitted, his voice soft too.
Hank came inside. He stepped lightly across the puncheon floor. Laurel took the cornbread from the stove and quietly closed the metal door. She set the bread basket and yellowware bowl on the table and poured spring water in the cups. Only when the song ended did she go to the bedroom door and tell Walter the meal was ready.
“You look a sight more alive than when we hauled you in,” Hank said when Walter joined them. “So you’ll be heading on, I guess.”
Walter nodded as Laurel passed him the bowl.
“There’s plenty so don’t be shy about taking what you want. We much admired your music earlier, didn’t we, Hank?”
“It was pleasing enough,” Hank said.
“That’s what you do, play music, to make a living I mean?” Laurel asked.
Walter nodded.
“And you were on your way to New York to play music but something happened?”
Walter nodded again.
“If you’d been robbed you’d not have that sixty dollars,” Laurel said, “but whatever happened, it caused you to get lost up here, right?”
Walter nodded.
“I guess I was wrong to take you for a tramp,” Hank said, and for the first time Laurel noticed a change in his tone. “There’s a lot I’d think you not able to do since you can’t talk, but your being able to make your music, people got to respect that.”
They spoke little for a few minutes, Walter again taking only food he was offered, something that she could tell Hank noticed too. After they finished, Walter walked over to the bookshelf and pointed at the yellow pencils, waiting until Laurel nodded that it was okay. He came back to the table and took the note from his pocket and turned it over.
“I thought you couldn’t read nor write?” Laurel said.
Walter drew two vertical lines, across them six slashes. He studied his drawing a moment and flipped the pencil stem and shortened the slashes with the eraser, brushed off the specks of rubber.
“You want to know where the railroad is?” Hank asked.
Walter nodded.
“It’s in Mars Hill,” Hank said. “You want to go there so you can get on to New York, I reckon?”
Walter nodded.
“It’s a three-mile walk from here,” Laura said. “That’s likely too far after what you’ve been through, but Slidell goes every Saturday. He lives up at the notch. He’s got a horse and wagon and he’d not mind taking you.”
“Maybe Walter don’t want to wait till Saturday,” Hank said.
“We don’t mind you staying on a few days,” Laurel said. “You could help Hank stob the fences up, make you some extra money for your trip.”
“You think I might have the least little say in this,” Hank interrupted.
“He’ll lose his way without someone going with him, especially since he can’t read nor talk,” Laurel said. “Besides, you’re the one always says it’s shameful that a man of Slidell’s years is over here helping most every day. Walter and you could get that fence near raised by Saturday.”
“Sister, you don’t even know if he’s ever done farmwork.”
“Ask him then.”
“Have you?” Hank asked.
Walter paused, then nodded.
“What about all them stings?” Hank said to Laurel. “A minute ago you was fretting he’d be too puny to walk three miles.”
“If he gets to feeling puny he can stop and rest.”
Hank looked at her steadily for a few moments, like he saw something he’d not taken much notice of before. He raised his nubbed wrist and showed Walter where the skin had been knit into a crisscross of stitches.
“There’s things I can’t do by my ownself, so I’ll put a dollar a day in your pocket if it proves out you know what you’re doing. That’ll give you four dollars to add to what you already got, enough for a new shirt and britches, city clothes that fit. Four and a half if you got the grit to start today.”
“You can wait till morning,” Laurel said, but Walter nodded again and rose from the table.
“I’ll get the hammer and nails,” Hank said as they walked out the door. “The wire’s already up there but I’ll need you to fetch some locust posts.”
Laurel cleared the table, but before doing anything else she went to the window and peeked out. There’d be women who would fault his sharp-honed features, she knew, but he was handsome in his way. Hank was crossing the pasture, in his hand a pail holding staples and a hammer. Walter stood next to the barn, but he wasn’t loading his arms with locust posts. Instead, he looked first at Hank before glancing toward the cabin. He kneeled and slipped something into the rock foundation. Walter looked around once more and rose, began filling his arms with locust posts.
Laurel waited a few minutes and then took a roundabout way to the barn so the men didn’t see her. She felt inside the rock gap and found the chain and medallion. Save his life and take him in and he figures us to steal from him, Laurel thought, and grabbled deeper, expecting to find the money too. Nothing else was hidden. She studied the medallion’s one word, whispered how it might be pronounced before placing it back. She went to the cabin and opened the dictionary, thumbed past T and U before stopping at V. Laurel set her index finger on the slick onionskin paper and moved her finger down one page and on to the next. The word wasn’t there.
II
Chapter Six
Chauncey rose from his desk and walked to the recruiting office’s window. His gaze lifted over Lusk’s Barbershop and the post office and up the swath of green grass to the college’s clock tower. Fifteen minutes. Most men would pull down the blinds and leave and no one would think the least thing about it, but Chauncey Feith couldn’t do that. The one time he had, Ben Lusk lifted his white smock and checked his pocket watch, then looked at Chauncey like he’d just saluted a portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm. He sat back down and lifted the brass paperweight and straightened the recruitment forms, placed the paperweight back on the restacked paper.
Except for breaking up the brawl on the boardwalk, it had been another slow week. Which was only to be expected. The men who really wanted to fight for their country had volunteered last fall when America entered the fray. Now, with folks believing the war all but won, there was even more excuse not to enlist, though that didn’t keep Captain Arnold at regional headquarters from blaming Chauncey when he didn’t meet his enlistment quota.
Boyce Clayton passed by the window and Chauncey watched him cross the street and walk down the boardwalk to the Turkey Trot Gentlemen’s Club. When the tower’s bell rang, Chauncey would go to the Turkey Trot himself and ask about Boyce’s nephew Paul. It wasn’t something he wanted to do, or had to do for that matter. It would even be after he was officially off duty. Yet he owed it to Paul. Just one more thing that people in Mars Hill hardly noticed, or if they did notice took the wrong way. If folks like Ben Lusk or Marvin Alexander at the post office saw Chauncey entering the Turkey Trot, they’d believe he was only going to get liquored up, not inquire about a wounded soldier.
It was the same with Chauncey getting up fifteen minutes early to spit shine his shoes and iron his uniform. He never left the house until he’d checked that the RS and US on the collar buttons were aligned, the blue hat cord perfectly centered. Doing it just to look spiffy was what people wanted to think, not realizing that when potential recruits came in, especially the farm boys in overalls and brogans, they’d imagine themselves wearing the polished shoes and fresh-pressed uniform. Chauncey saw it in the way the boys scanned him from head to toe, not just inside the recruiting office but when he walked around town or drove out to visit a farm. Even Paul Clayton had once been like that, shyly asking to wear Chauncey’s campaign hat so he could look in a mirror with it on. Chauncey had let him. Later, when Paul turned eighteen, Boyce and his brother Ansel had tried to talk him out of volunteering, telling their nephew that his mother needed him more than the army did.
The bell finally rang and Chauncey closed the blinds. He made a last inspection to ensure he left the office in good order before walking out. As Chauncey turned the key, he saw his face reflected in the window. The skin was smooth and clear, which wasn’t always good since the slightest thing made him look flummoxed when he really wasn’t. But like his mother said, Chauncey had a strong chin, and people noticed that too. The Turkey Trot was on the outskirts of town so the law and the preachers could pretend it wasn’t breaking state law. Veterans drank there, including Tillman Estep, who’d lost an eye and had his face scarred rough as a washboard. The first time he’d seen Estep after his return, Chauncey saluted and Estep didn’t return the salute, just glared at Chauncey with his one eye like Chauncey had been the one who sent the mortar round into his trench. Estep went around Mars Hill telling anyone who’d listen that the war was nothing more than a bunch of men killing each other for a few acres of mud. Saying such things hurt morale on the home front, and things were already bad enough. The county was all but overrun with Germans. They spoke German, telling each other who knew what, and ate German food and just because they didn’t wear Hun army uniforms no one seemed worried a bit by them being here.
Chauncey walked down the street toward the one-windowed clapboard building. He pushed through the swinging doors, paused a moment to adjust to the lesser light. Tillman Estep sat at the table nearest the entrance, almost like he’d planned it so Chauncey would see him first. A man wearing an overseas cap sat at the table as well. Chauncey didn’t know his name, but he’d heard about the man and his ailment. Just pretend you were looking for someone else and leave, Chauncey told himself, but others had noticed him now, including Boyce Clayton, who was at the bar talking to Toby Meachum. Three old men sat on stools at the bar’s far end, liquor bottles out in the open. Maybe because of his war veteran clientele, or bribes, Meachum no longer pretended his “Gentlemen’s Club” was anything but a saloon. No one looked especially glad to see Chauncey, including Meachum, who began polishing the bar, acting like he hadn’t noticed his coming in. Didn’t turn away when he needed money from Feith Savings and Loan to buy this building, Chauncey thought.
The air suddenly seemed thicker and his ribs felt like laces pulled tight around his lungs, but Chauncey squared his shoulders and stepped to the bar, remembering his father’s advice on his first day at the bank—look confident and people notice and acknowledge that confidence. Chauncey placed his left boot firmly on the brass railing. Boyce, like Tillman Estep and the three old men at the bar end, chased his beer with a shot glass of clear liquid. Moonshine, and it was Boyce and Ansel Clayton who supplied it to Meachum. They probably didn’t think Chauncey knew about such things, but it was part of a recruiting officer’s job, at least a good one, to know what went on not just in Mars Hill but the whole county, especially since some of the youths in his Boys Working Reserve lived as far north as Shelton Laurel and south to Moody Knob.
Refusing to drink anything other than brown liquor was the sign of good breeding. That was something else his father had taught him, but there were times like this when doing so would seem high nosed and putting on airs. At the bank Chauncey had always known how to show customers he thought himself no better than anyone else. Sometimes it was using phrases like “lipping full” or “just as lief,” or offering his hand first to shake, yes sirring a farmer who owned nothing more than a couple of acres and a swaybacked mule, or rising from his chair when some snuff-gummed widow came in with her coupon book.
“I’ll have the same as Boyce here, Meachum,” Chauncey said, smacking a half eagle on the varnished wood, “and a round for all at the bar. Whatever they want, and pour
yourself one. We’re drinking to Paul Clayton, a true hero.”
The old men offered slurred thank yous and tapped their shot glasses for Meachum to fill. The bartender drew Chauncey’s beer and set it on the counter with a shot glass. He poured the moonshine, then went down the bar and filled the old men’s glasses.
“Have you another beer, Boyce,” Chauncey said, “long as it ain’t Schlitz or some other Hun beer Meachum’s hiding back there.”
“I’m fine,” Boyce answered.
“Pour yourself one, Meachum,” Chauncey said.
The bartender hesitated, then drew himself a beer and picked up the gold piece. The cash register chimed and the wooden drawer slid open. Meachum returned with four silver dollars, stacked them on the bar like poker chips.
Chauncey raised his shot glass and the old drunks did as well. He looked at Meachum and the bartender raised his tankard.
“To Paul Clayton, a hero,” Chauncey said.
He knew they were watching to see if he’d sip like a nancy pants or drink like a man. Chauncey tilted the glass and swallowed as if the shine was nothing more than a shot of sarsaparilla. It went down easier than he’d expected, an oily warmth settling in his stomach. He held the empty shot glass aloft for all to see, then set it down hard enough that the glass rang against the wood.
A chair scratched and Chauncey looked in the mirror. The man with Estep muttered something and stood, his hand still on his stomach. Tillman Estep helped the man to the entrance, a brief unfolding of late-afternoon light as the doors swung. The man had come back from Europe convinced, though he’d had no wound, that his guts were torn up. A doctor in Asheville said it was because he’d bayoneted a German. Chauncey knew such things happened, had read about it in a pamphlet the army sent him. Sometimes snipers went blind or a man who’d shot another in the leg would become lame. Still, any shirker could playact such a thing to get out of the war.
