The Lost Country

by William Gay

  He walked past hedgetrimmed yards replete with car casing planters that seemed to have been halved with gigantic pinking shears. He seemed to be regaining his assurance, undergoing a curious metamorphosis. He became a figure of dignity nodding gravely to whoever he met on his way, a returned veteran perhaps, arm lost at Anzio, Normandy. Perhaps he had sensed some minute shifting of the weights, a delicate compensatory adjustment to the scales. A change in the tempers of the times.

  He passed a used car lot where the old cars sat in neat rows like some curious crop awaiting harvest and he paused for a time and studied them with the appraising eye of one who had the wherewithal to make his choice did he care to. He went on and after a time he passed a filling station where he paused long enough to buy himself a cold drink and break one of the twenties. The next place he came upon was set on the corner and the sign proclaimed it the Savannah Motor Court. There was a sign of painted plywood hung by a chain and on the red wood, VACANCY. Roosterfish stood staring bemusedly and then after a while he started across the graveled yard toward the office.

  ———

  Roosterfish was still and watchful a long time before he moved but when he did he was fluid and catlike, movements shorn of the extraneous, man and task welded seamlessly to one. It was an evening that suited him very well for settling a score with Tyler. He had waited for just such a one. The night was absolutely dark with no moon scheduled and you could not have told where the trees ended and the sky began. He came out of the scrubby pines and loped across the road and silently ran and stopped below the battlement of hedge to where the black Oldsmobile sat. He was carrying a homemade rope, rolls of strips of cloth torn from a bedsheet and tied together and the whole thing was soaked with gas. He spun off the gascap and began to feed this juryrigged fuse into the tank and turning ran back, uncoiling the strips like a man paying out line and he was back where the dark pooled on the pine needles.

  He glanced at the house: it lay steeped in sleep, a vague bulk he could hardly discern. But he had seen it by daylight. A pleasant white frame with green trim and no neighbors within half a mile and time running out like the whirring hands of a clock.

  He took off the gas-soaked glove and stuck it in his hip pocket and sniffed his hand then wiped it on his pants and sniffed again. Satisfied he fumbled for his matches.

  When he touched the fuse a rope of fire blossomed instantaneous across the road and the yard was afire, then there was a loud whump from the Oldsmobile and it erupted in flames. The trunklid blew up and off and for a second seemed to lift and then settled back on its springs. It roared like a locomotive, burning fullthrottle away in the night. There was no wind and the flames tended straight and plumb twenty or thirty feet in the air and he could feel the heat from where he lay. The tires caught and oily black smoke began to rise and the rubber shot sparks off into the night like Roman candles and when they burned through the air hissed out. The windows went with dull thumps and began to melt, viscous flaming mass creeping down the quarterpanels.

  He lay behind a clay embankment like a soldier in the trenches and he peered down the barrel of the secondhand shotgun at the picture window moiling orange with refracted light as if the interior of the house was in flames. He not with me is my enemy, Tyler had said. As if to remove all doubt as to this enmity Roosterfish steadied the barrel against a gnarled root and shot out the picture window and there were no flames at all but only a shaft of black emptiness like the opening of the mouth of a tunnel and the echo of the shot rolling back from the timbered hills and all the other myriad sounds of the night held in shocked abeyance. A last piece of glass fell like an afterthought.

  He moved the aim of the gun smoothly from the window to the door and cocked the hammer of the other barrel. He waited. He could feel sweat creeping down his ribcage, an ant or mosquito on his arm. He willed Tyler to appear, the door to open and an image to materialize there like a slowly developing photographic plate.

  There was no one. Then after a time a porchlight came on far down the roadbed and a little bit after that he heard a car crank and the headlamps came on. They yawed against the trees, wheeling back, spun into the road.

  He uncocked the shotgun and turned and eased into the thickening umber following some trail of his own back into the darkness. He looked back once and the car was burning like a funeral pyre, an enormous candle flailing against the night.

  Ropes of fog swirled near the ground, serpentine phantoms accompanying him like familiars down this road. A pale rose predawn light washed the east like light through tinted glass. Off his left hand must lay a river, for fog rose thickly here and opaquely immeasurable, walls of gray stone out of darker trees from which his mind built old lost cities of another time, bastioned walls fallen in by forgotten wars.

  When the car came he thumbed it as soon as he could discern its lights. It came slow and dreamlike and near silent out of the fog, as if he were watching its creation rather than its arrival, saw it gather solidity and form and detail and saw too late the escutcheon on the door, family crest of some brotherhood aligned forever against him. He pocketed his hand, turned to walk on up the blacktop as if the fog might open to receive him then close behind him.

  The car slowed, ceased a few feet past him. Edgewater walked on up the road, his eyes ahead.

  Hey.

  He stopped.

  You stay right where you are and keep your hands where we can see em.

  Edgewater stood waiting, watched the door open, the sheriff get out. The face close to his own, intent as if the eyes would call forth from memory some old lost unsolved crime to match the countenance they studied. They were haggard, tired, the face once handsome matinee idol of generations past resurrected dissolute and wasted. Water beaded on the polished visor and ran down the edge.

  Put your hands up against the car here and spread them legs.

  The door on the other side opened and a deputy got out. Polished leather and blued steel, all the trappings. Edgewater stared at the moist metal where water ran and dripped and at his vague ghostlike reflection, two eyes staring apparitionlike uncomprehendingly from underwater. There were hands busy at him, the radio said something unintelligible and official sounding, some language foreign to him.

  The search ended. Get in, a voice told him. He got into the back seat. The two got back in and closed the doors. The motor was still running, the radio staticking as if trying to devise a signal from some station that no longer existed. The windshield wipers clipped on endlessly, water funneling down the sides of the glass.

  The sheriff handed him the folded money across the seat. Edgewater took it wordlessly, pocketed it. The sheriff seemed to be studying Edgewater’s other belongings.

  That’s it, Edgewater said lightly. No ransom note out of cutup newspaper. No bloody knife, no smoking gun.

  Not much in the way of worldly goods, the sheriff said at length. A toothbrush, a razor, a mouthharp. Wherever you’re going, you’re travelin mighty light. But I don’t see nothing here tells me who you are.

  My name’s Edgewater. I’m just passin on through.

  I hear you sayin it. I would have liked seein it in print. You know it’s against the law to hitchhike in this state?

  No.

  Well it is. He raised his face to study Edgewater, did not seem pleased with what he saw.

  How come you ain’t got any papers?

  Papers?

  Papers. ID card, driver’s license, social security card. Don’t get smart with me. You know what I’m talkin about.

  Oh. All my stuff got stolen out of the bus station. I’m tryin to get home, up by Monteagle.

  We’ll find out who you are, the cop said.

  Try to prove who I am, Edgewater thought. Rifle through the files, lookin at fingerprints, snapshotted likeness, mug shots, already charring to yellow, word of mouth, transcripts of a fugitive order, well he was here, but he went on. Now you see me, now you don’t, like the flicker of shadows, like a face briefly glimpsed or imagined
through the windowglass at night, already warped as to be unrecognizable. Take nothing with you and leave nothing behind and when you know who I am let me be the first one you tell.

  Ask him did he detour over by Natural Bridge, the deputy said.

  You been around the Natural Bridge Road?

  I don’t even know where it’s at.

  Then you couldn’t rightly say whether you been around it or not.

  No, I just come straight in from McNairy County.

  Ask him does he remember cuttin that girl’s throat and slicing her titties off and droppin what was left her off Natural Bridge, the deputy said.

  Edgewater remained silent. Somewhere a door into darkness had opened, an icy wind blew on him. His mouth was dry.

  Warren, the sheriff said. If you want to run this job you’ll have to run for the office the way everybody else does. That’s just the way it’s always been done.

  Well, he just looks like a smartass to me.

  He may well be, the sheriff agreed. He turned back to Edgewater. Where’d you get that money?

  Chopping cotton down in Lake County.

  You workin now.

  I said I was passin through.

  A early riser like you are must surely find the world his oyster. Work oughtn’t be hard to come by for a man on the road before daylight.

  Edgewater remained silent.

  If I didn’t have a good notion of who I’m huntin for this morning I’d take you down, the sheriff said. I’d unbreech you and break you down like a shotgun and I’d come up with something. I can tell by the look of you. After twenty years I ought to. You just don’t feel right to me. If I had time I’d do it anyway. Do you know why?

  No.

  Do you want to know why?

  Not particularly, Edgewater said. He was staring out the window to where day was coming. He was intent on the bleak landscape as if he could draw himself into it, the grating noise ebb and fade from hearing. Trees looming like wet black monoliths out of misty fields, trunks half immersed in fog as if they were swimming in rising water. Blackbirds silent as phantoms foraged in a distant field.

  Because I am sick of you. I am tired of turning over rocks and you son of a bitches crawlin out. No shave and no haircut and nothing to your name but a shittin French harp and a go to hell look on your face. No more ID than a newborn baby brings into the world. Hell, you can’t live like vagrants. Always headed somewhere else. Well, mister, we work county prisoners in this part of the state. That’s why the roads is kept up so good. So if you don’t want to apply your talents to pickin up bloody Kotex and litter and shovelin dogshit you best be huntin you a Greyhound bus.

  Edgewater looked him in the eyes for the first time. I told you as plain as I could I was passin through. If I had known a road around this place, whatever it is, I would damn sure have taken it.

  Let’s book the smart cocksucker for suspicion, the deputy said.

  Suspicion of what? Edgewater asked.

  Of bein a smart cocksucker, the deputy said and laughed.

  Hell, we know he’s that, the sheriff said. We don’t suspect him of it.

  Come in Unit Four, the radio said.

  The sheriff took up the microphone. This is Parnell, he said. His eyes were on Edgewater all the while as if he were addressing him and not someone invisible and listening.

  Sheriff, you need to get down on Sinkin. It’s a bunch down there got somebody treed they say killed that girl and they liable to do away with him before you talk to him.

  Where on Sinkin?

  Up by the mouth where that old huntin lodge is.

  I’m on my way. He released the button on the microphone. Get out, he said. Edgewater sat mute, looked about him, there were no door handles. The sheriff sat still and angry for a moment then he got out disgustedly and opened the door. Edgewater climbed out.

  If I ever see your face again let’s let it be through a bus window, Parnell said as he got back in, rolling the window up, the face behind it going pale and indistinct.

  The tires spun on the blacktop, caught and hurled the cruiser into the morning breaking and from his sight.

  There was no bus station in Waynesboro, only a sign behind the café counter and a cigar box of tickets the waitress took up when he asked. She studied a worn schedule.

  The next bus to Chattanooga is one o’clock.

  Well, thanks.

  You want your ticket now?

  I guess I’ll just wait.

  They won’t be no cheaper at one o’clock, the woman told him. He grinned and went on out.

  Noon found him ensconced with other Saturday idlers in the poolhall. He drank a beer at the bar, idly watched a pill game progress in the rear. A ceiling fan listlessly rotated the stale lethargic air. He listened to talk of the last night’s horrors. Some mad vivisectionist abroad in the land. Men feared for their womenfolk while they drank, with each beer, each halfpint, each retelling the horrors grew worse. Unspeakable evil had passed through here under cover of darkness. He felt their eyes on him, appraising him, stranger, pariah.

  In midafternoon, a diminutive and curious young man blew in. He kicked the door to and looked all about him. He raised a hand in expansive greeting to all present although no one save Edgewater had seemed to notice him. He looked half mad, harried, as if he must be in three places at once and could not decide where to go. He leaned against the counter next to Edgewater. He wore a pair of overalls too big for his skinny birdlike frame and no shirt. There was a smell of the woods about him.

  Gimme two beers at once, he told the counterman. What say sport, he said to Edgewater. You think you can whip my ass or not?

  The face was sharp, demented, beyond madness. The eyes were beset and wild.

  I never give it any thought.

  A wise move, the little man said. It would pay you not to. I’m so bad the undertakers in three counties gives me a kickback.

  The counterman set two bottles of beer on the counter. The man tilted one up, his Adam’s apple pumping the beer down in great chugging gulps. He sat the empty down and took up the full bottle. He winked at Edgewater.

  I’m a bad son of a bitch, he said. He began on the second beer, peering all about him. No one paid him any attention.

  He set the empty down and fumbled in his overall pocket, drew out a wadded bill. He unfolded it with care, laid it on the countertop. The fan moved it listlessly and he set the empty beer bottle on it.

  I’ve got twenty dollars says I can kick any ass in the house, he announced loudly.

  The game went on in the back. No one even looked up. The counterman rolled his eyes upward and went to wipe the bar somewhere else. Edgewater went back to his beer.

  What about you, sport?

  I been sick, Edgewater told him. Not me.

  You’re a wise man, a little chickenshit maybe but wise all the same. I’ve got twenty dollars says I can whip any son of a bitch in here, he screamed.

  An enormous barrel-chested man arose from the bench with an air of weariness, of boredom. He racked his cue and came through the swinging door separating the rear and moved the man aside, saying no word. He picked up the twenty-dollar bill and pocketed it and stood with a patient air. Then after a moment he shrugged and went back to the pill game.

  The glass on the door rattled when the little man stormed out. He stood on the sidewalk for a time shaking his fist, raving. Then Edgewater saw him peering in the window, his eyes shaded for the dark interior. He had a pocketknife open in his hand. He seemed to be talking to himself. After a while a fat woman came and drug him away.

  In midafternoon a commotion on the square drew him out to see what transpired. The sidewalk had become thronged with people all staring toward the front of the courthouse, where two uniformed officers drug a manacled man from the backseat of a parked cruiser. The red light flared and died, flared and died all in silence. People struggled forward forcing Edgewater with them, surged slow and implacable as floodwaters toward the trio ascending the steps
to the courtyard. They watched in awed silence as if the horrors of the transgressor’s deeds had transcended some other world than this one, left them with no comment adequate to make.

  It was an old man. He protested, hung back, he locked his legs and his feet went skittering, stabbed at the concrete as they drug him; for a moment he and his captors swayed almost motionless like some perverse and graceless dance, he fell, they seized him up and bore him on like some fallen comrade seared in battle.

  Open a hole up there, Parnell ordered.

  The old man’s white whiskered face was twisted on his corded neck as if he were trying to see his tormentors, his unseeing eyes wild with rage or madness.

  Edgewater was trying to back up but there was a wall of flesh and bone behind him, he could feel the heat from it, smell the sweat and musk of the crowd. A contagious madness touched him. The old man passed very near. Edgewater could hear his ragged breathing, see the tobacco juice stains in his beard, saw how his hands were stained to the wrists with something dark and dried halfmoons of this substance ringed his fingernails. He wore what appeared to be a dirty flannel nightshirt tucked into overall pants and as he passed his clawed hands seized Edgewater’s shirt as if he were drowning and would drag him down with him as if Edgewater could halt his passage.

  Parnell hit the old man’s wrist with the flat of his hand and grasped it and forced it to the old man’s side. The arm was thin, the hand was old, gnarled and ageless like weathered wood or the talon of a desiccated bird. Parnell’s harried face looked for a moment at Edgewater’s eyes but there was no remembrance or recognition. Then they passed and went up the courthouse steps.