by William Gay
After a while it began to rain. Winter lightning bloomed and showed him a rainstreaked window. Inkstained Rorschach trees on the move. Beyond the window the night looked purple. The window vanished and thunder came rumbling down the corridors of the night. The rain came in hard, windy gusts, then subsided to a slow, steady winter drizzle, and he wondered where Sutter was. Under boughs of cedar, hidden with the nightbirds clotted about the branches like malefic fruit, driven to earth like the rest of the beasts of this fabled wood. Crouched in a dry spot beneath the caved roof of an abandoned house, malign revenant among other revenants keeping council. Cursing the rain and biding his time. Or maybe he had just trudged on, as impervious to the vagaries of the weather as stone.
He went to sleep thinking about the girl. Shucking her nightgown over her head, the pale secret bloom of her body. The warmth of it laid against him, breasts pooled against his chest.
But it was not Claudelle but Claude himself who shook him awake at some clockless hour. He came awake slowly as if he were rising in muddy yellow water.
Get up.
Just crawl on in here, Tyler said sleepily.
What? Wake the hell up, boy. He awoke instantly then, coming halfupraised in bed, eyes sweeping the room, though there was nothing save dark to see, and the voice came again, and in a drunken rush of relief he realized it was not Sutter but Claude.
What is it?
Get up. It’s mornin.
He looked about. He couldn’t even see a window. It was still raining.
If it’s morning why ain’t it light?
It’s getting light, Claude said inanely.
Where? Tyler wondered.
Claude fell silent though Tyler could hear the steady rasp of his breathing. He seemed to be leant forward in the dark.
What was it you wanted?
You didn’t have a little drink hid out, did ye? Down there by where we picked you up?
No. No, I don’t even drink.
I just thought bein as you was Moose’s boy, you might. I had some, but she’s hid it or poured it out, one. I wisht I knowed which. If it’s poured out, there’s no use lookin, but if it’s just hid, I might find it if I go on lookin.
Well. I don’t know what to tell you. What does she say?
She’s not sayin much one way or another, Claude said.
I thought you quit, anyway.
I did, I did. I just hate havin somethin and not knowin where it’s at. I reckon I’ll go back to bed.
Tyler lay back on the pillow. Footsteps wandered away in the dark.
He went back to sleep to the windy rain and when he awoke again, there was gray light at the window and it was raining still. He didn’t know if the rain or the light or the voiceshad awakened him.
If you ain’t the beat of all I’ve ever seen, Pearl was saying. You take the cake. Baptized one night praisin Jesus and up before daylight huntin whiskey. If that ain’t the beat.
Claude was trying a reasonable tack. The Bible ain’t down on spirits, he said. Why even them old prophets and disciples and suchlike of old was known to take a dram of wine.
They never blowed the grocer money on it, though.
Claude gave up. They would if they had a sourtongued old bitch like you doggin their ever move, he said.
They fell silent save the clatter of pans, the rattle of cutlery. After a while he could smell coffee boiling and this drew him up out of the warm quilts. It had turned colder during the night and he could feel drafts in the room, cold air sucking under the door, tinkling the unglazed windowpanes with soft chimes. He checked under the couch for the rifle, then hunkered before the heater tying his boots. As he straightened and held his hands toward the fire, Claude came through the door with a cup of coffee in his hand. In the cold room the coffee seemed to be smoking.
Get you a cup of coffee.
I believe I will. Turned off cold, ain’t it? Tyler could see his breath in the cold air.
It’ll warm up here directly. It’s that north wind. I ever build another house, I’ll never build it facin north like I did this one. Get you a cup of coffee. It’s done.
He was spooning sugar into a cup when she said, We about out of sugar around here. Best save what’s left for them kids’ oats. I got to get em some breakfast here directly.
He’d had an uplifted spoonful bound for his cup but returned it to the jar. He’d wondered about cream but figuredthat might be rationed too and started with his coffee back to the front room. She was watching him with bitter eyes, her face stony as a banker’s.
What’d I do? he asked, pausing in the doorway.
She didn’t answer for a time. When she did, her voice was a hoarse croak. You got him to thinkin about whiskey again.
Tyler guessed that whiskey was never very far from Claude’s mind but he didn’t say so. If I did I never meant to, he said. He went back into the front room, where Claude was standing with his back to the fire.
We still going to town today?
Sure, it’s Saturday, ain’t it? We got to. We about out of groceries.
She thinks I got you started thinking about liquor.
Don’t pay her no mind. I don’t need it nohow, I’m shut of it. Givin up drinkin and cussin and startin a new life. I just had me one of them white nights where you can’t sleep, and along about three o’clock in the mornin it laid pretty heavy on my mind. I just can’t for the life of me think what she could of done with it. I know she ain’t thowed it away. That woman’s so tight she’ll boil coffee grounds till they fade plumb out.
The front door blew open in a gust of wind and Drew came in. Shut that door, Claude said automatically before the boy was even in the room. It’s got a awful raw breath.
You think it’s raw here, you ought to try it down by the hogpen, Drew said. His cheeks were red and chapped, and his nose was running, and he kept rubbing his hands together to show how cold it was.
When we goin to town? he asked.
I believe we’ll wait till after breakfast.
There was a curtained doorway leading off to a room Tylerhadn’t seen and through this door Claudelle and Aaron came barefoot and sleepyeyed and aligned themselves before the fire. Why is it so cold? she asked.
It’s wintertime, Claude said.
Tyler moved aside to make more room by the heater. Claudelle caught his eye when Claude was looking the other way and shrugged elaborately. I couldn’t, she mouthed.
Don’t you let Aaron touch that hot stovepipe, Claude told her.
It’s ready, Pearl called.
Breakfast was a hasty meal of smoking oatmeal with buttered biscuits and more coffee. Going to town seemed to be on everyone’s mind and there was an undercurrent of restrained excitement. An almost holiday mood that touched everyone save Pearl. Tyler glanced up once from his bowl and she was watching him with something akin to trepidation and he wondered what new offense he had committed. She seemed to have concluded that the sooner they were shut of him the better, but the girl had slipped down in her chair and stretched her legs out and imprisoned Tyler’s ankles between her own. She went on spoonfeeding Aaron oatmeal as if she didn’t know Tyler existed.
Drew finished and pushed his bowl back with a thumb. He drained his coffee cup and set it aside and stood. We best be getting ready, he said. I aim to be there when the show opens. You want me to warm up the truck?
I don’t reckon you’re runnin this operation just yet, Claude said. I’ll say when to get ready. And you ain’t goin to no show.
Am too. You done said.
If he goes, I’m goin, Claudelle said.
I said ain’t nobody goin. Them shows ain’t nothin butshootin and fistfightin and them gals runnin around with their bosoms hangin out.
I ain’t never seen that one, but it sure sounds like a good one, Drew said. You don’t recall the name of it, do you?
You ain’t goin.
Watch me.
At length they were ready. The girl in a blue-and-white-checked calflength dress Tyler kn
ew she thought of as her town dress. Claude in a white shirt buttoned to the chin and suitpants and brogans blacked with shoepolish. Dressed for town Drew looked like a diminutive and amateur pimp. He wore a semitransparent nylon seersucker shirt and trousers baggy at the upper legs and pegged sharply at the cuffs. They were a pale limegreen with contrasting stitching of a darker green.
I ordered these special out of Chicago, the boy said. They come mailorder from a place I seen an advertisement for. The Hep Cat. I dug several fenceposts to get the money to buy them britches. I’m savin up now to get me some of them pointytoed shoes.
Claudelle was studying his hair curiously. It was slicked back stiffly in a grotesque pompadour. What on earth has he got on his hair? she asked rhetorically. She leaned to smell. He was at pushing her away. That boy’s got a double handful of lard on his hair, she said.
Least I ain’t got socks crammed in my brassiere, Drew said viciously. That hadn’t sounded right, and he glanced around to see who’d heard. Or wouldn’t if I was wearin one, he amended hastily.
Boy, that mouth of yourn needs some tendin to, Claude said. And it’s fixin to get it here shortly. You and Lost Sheephere go get that tarpaulin and lash it over them sideboards. Less you wantin to swim to Ackerman’s Field.
You could of come up with this before I got ready, Drew said.
Them slickers is on the back porch.
The yard was already filling with water, here and there islands of higher ground crested with dead yellow grass and the tilted husks of last year’s weeds, and they progressed island to island to the barn. There was a crude ladder nailed beside a crib door and Drew skinned up it. I’ll thow it down to ye, he called. See if you can find any wire anywhere.
Tyler found several footlong pieces bent and hooked through a logchain secured to the ridgepole and dangling a little over headhigh in the hall of the barn. He stared a moment trying to divine its purpose, but if it had one other than the storing of wire he couldn’t divine it. The folded tarp fell heavily in a dirty slipstream of drifting straw and several drownedlooking chickens ruffled their feathers and turned quarreling to study Tyler with jaundiced, unblinking eyes, then turned back and stood humpbacked and disconsolate, watching the rain stream off the edge of the tin roof.
Hellfire, Drew said. We’re goin to get as wet foolin with this damn tarp as we would ridin to town. You can’t get any wetter than wet less you drown.
They trudged out into the rain and unfolded the tarp over the sideboards and pulled it taut and began wiring the eyelets through fence staples driven into the slabs.
We goin to get them town girls? Drew asked.
Bring them on, Tyler grinned. Water was streaming out of his hair and down his face, and he had to be continually wiping it out of his eyes. Drew’s hair had risen in sharp, stiffspikes, and greasylooking gray water ran out of it and beaded like oil on his freckled face.
Damned if we ain’t a pair of drowned chickens, Tyler said.
What the hell. We goin to town.
When they had warmed and approached a semblance of dry and were aligned expectantly in the truckbed the truck would not start. The motor whirled but it would not fire nor hit and after a few moments the strong odor of raw gas came seeping back under the tarpaulin. He’s floodin it, Drew said. You’re floodin it, he called through the sideboards. Claude got out and raised the hood with an attendant squawk of protesting rusty hinges and propped it with a stick and stood peering down into its mysteries. One by one they got out and stood with him watching in commiseration or aiding him with their silent prayers and when he felt the weight of their eyes he turned upon them a confident gaptoothed grin.
Likely it ain’t much, he said. It ain’t never done this before. Likely it’ll hit here in a minute. He shoved his hand into the maze of wires and tubing and wiggled a few things at random. There now, he said professionally. He dusted his hands together. Try it, Drew.
Drew got behind the wheel and whirled the motor a few times. More of the same.
Timin may be a little off, he said. He turned the distributor cap an infinitesimal degree. Now try it.
Come on, Tyler prayed.
Nothing.
Claude turned upon them all his look of beaming benevolence and then back to the motor, staring at it fiercely as if he would brook no more insubordination or yet as if he could by the sheer force of his stronger will raise it from the dead likesome decrepit mechanical Lazarus and set it on the road to Ackerman’s Field.
We’ll just let it rest a minute, he said, his manner suggesting that the truck might be merely tired or had perhaps dozed off.
I ain’t standin out here in the rain like a fool, Claudelle said. I’m goin in the house.
Then get this chap in the dry, Pearl said.
The girl turned walking away and gave Tyler a sloe-eyed look back over her right shoulder. He stood looking at her retreating back and tried to think of an excuse for going back to the house.
More than likely the distributor cap’s just got water inside, he said. If I got a clean, dry rag and dried it out, more than likely she’d crank right up.
Not so much of a fool as he might have liked, the old woman gave him a look transparent with fierce malice, and Claude said, I reckon you been to mechanickin school. The edge of his smile jerked nervously, and his eyes looked harried.
Tyler just stared off to where the woods took the muddy road. The bowed trees stood bent like penitents under the windy rain and through the blowing water the horizon seemed in tumultuous motion, wavering like a horizon seen through fire and it seemed to be receding from him.
Likely it’ll just get well on its own, he said.
Claude ignored him. Nothin else works we can always push it, he said. Get her rollin down this grade and she’ll fire right up like a sewin machine.
This having occurred to him, nothing would do but they must try it right away. With Claude behind the wheel andeveryone else, even the old woman, leant with shoulders to the truck, it began to inch forward through the sucking mud to the slope. Tyler pushed with a kind of fevered desperate hope that the truck would start. He felt that his lungs would burst and funny lights flickered behind his eyes and his feet were slipsliding wildly in the slick gray muck. The truck rolled silently toward the downgrade.
We got her on a downhill run now, boys, Claude yelled. Halfway down the slope he popped the clutch and the truck slewed sideways when the gears meshed and the wheels threw great contemptuous gouts of mud back toward them, but it did not hit, nor did it the next time when he tried where the slope leveled out and where it ultimately ceased, sulking in the roadbed like some illformed creature with a malefic will of its own. When Claude leapt out he slammed the door so hard glass rattled in its panel and he kicked the door with a vicious broganned foot and looked wildly about for some weapon to strike it with.
You goddamned eggsuckin son of a bitch, he told the truck. I ain’t never in my life seen nothin so aggagoddamnvatin.
We ain’t goin, Drew said.
We goin too, Claude said. It’s done got me mad now. Let me think a minute.
I’m goin to the house, Pearl said. She was slathered with mud and anger smouldered and flickered in her eyes. You may as well quit on it. Like you do on everthing else. She started up the slope, skirting the worst of the mud.
Put on a pot of coffee, Claude called after her, but she didn’t say if she would or she wouldn’t.
Claude opened the truck door and sat with his feet on therunningboard. Sheltered so from the rain he began to build a cigarette but when he raised it to his lips to lick the paper water dripped from his hair onto it and he was left with half a shredded paper in each hand and brown flakes of tobacco strewn over his lap. He sat staring at it not in anger but a kind of bemused stoicism, set upon by all things mechanical and now by the very elements themselves, as if whatever god had plucked him from the midst of sinners was sorely testing his newfound faith.
Claude got out of the truck and dusted the tobacco fla
kes from his trousers. Boys, there ain’t but one thing to do.
Tyler dreaded hearing it, but there seemed no choice. Let’s have it, he said.
We’re goin to have to push her back up the grade and roll her off again. We’ll scotch her and take another bite and work her on up.
Hell, there ain’t no way, Tyler said.
Claude ignored him. Drew, you and Lost Sheep go get some big cuts of that heater wood and tote em down here. I aim to warm my hands and see about that coffee. Yins get the wood down here, come on to the house and warm. I believe it’s turnin colder.
They went lethargically back up the hill to the barn. Tyler could feel his wet clothes chafing his body. He could hear frogs singing somewhere below the barn where a pond might lie. Rain sang on the tin. Drew began stacking wood in his arms.
Don’t overload yourself, Tyler said. There is no earthly way we’re going to get that truck back up the hill.
Drew just shook his head and went on stacking his arm full. So bedraggled and mudslathered and absolutely wet heseemed set up as some cautionary symbol of such depths as human misery can descend to. Tyler was touched by a pity for Drew and a sorrow he couldn’t put a name to.
Hell, cheer up, Drew. There’ll be another day. They’re not goin to run out of town girls.
When they had the wood at the foot of the hill the thought of heat drew them to the house and they found Claude seated on the couch before the fire, his clothes steaming richly from the heat and a quart jar three-quarters full of a colorless liquid clutched in his lap that he stroked absentmindedly like an alien pet and a fey look of distances in his eyes.
