The Orchard Keeper (1965)

by McCarthy, Cormac

  She passed through the honeysuckles by a dark tunnel where the earth still held moisture, down the bank to a culvert by which she crossed beneath the road and came into a field and into a dry gully, the cracked and curling clay like a paving of potsherds, and turned up an artery of the wash, grown here with milkweed and burdock, following a faint aura of vole or shrew, until she came to a small burrow in the grasses. She scratched at the matted whorl, caved it in and trod it down, moved on across the field, crickets scuttling, grasshoppers springing from their weed-stems and whirring away. A shadow passed soundlessly overhead, perhaps a flock of late-returning birds.

  Near the center of the field was a single walnut tree bedded in a crop of limestone which had so far fended it against axe and plowshare. Among these rocks she nosed, in their small labyrinths undulant as a ferret. Odor of walnuts and ground squirrels. But she found nothing.

  When she left the rocks, was clear of the overreaching branches of the tree, there grew about her a shadow in the darkness like pooled ink spreading, a soft-hissing feathered sound which ceased even as she half turned, saw unbelieving the immense span of wings cupped downward, turned again, already squalling when the owl struck her back like a falling rock.

  Mr Eller closed the lionheaded door behind him and rattled the latch to see that it was secure. Then he checked the plaited fob on the notecase in his hip pocket, adjusted his straw hat, and started up the road toward the house. At the mailbox he was arrested by the high thin wail of a cat coming apparently from straight overhead. He looked up but there were no trees there. He shook his head and went on, stepping carefully in the gutted drive. The squall sounded once more, this time more distant and to the ridge of pines behind the house. He continued on, to the porch where a yellow bulb held forth its dull steadfast light, to a place of surcease.

  A young social worker recently retained by the Knox County Welfare Bureau, having been notified through his office of the detention of one aged and impecunious gentleman at the county jail pending hearing of his case (charges ranging from Destruction of Government Property to Assault with Intent to Kill) proceeded to make such investigation as would determine whether the gentleman had relatives, and if not, to what department or agency he might properly be assigned as ward. The agent, having been admitted into the cell where the elderly gentleman was confined, addressed him:

  Mr Ownby?

  Yessir.

  I represent the Welfare Bureau for the county. Welfare?

  Yes. We … you see, we help people.

  The old man turned that over in his mind. He didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the thin young man standing just inside the door. He scratched his jaw and then he said, Well, I ain’t got nothin. I don’t reckon I can hep yins any.

  The agent made a fleeting effort at comprehension, passed it over. All we need, he said, is some information.

  The old man turned and looked at him. You another policeman? he asked.

  No, said the agent. I represent the Welfare Bureau for … I have been asked to see you—to see if perhaps we can help you in any way.

  Well, the old man said, I kindly doubt it. I’m what you might call Brushy bound.

  Yes, said the agent. I mean … you see, Mr Ownby, there are certain benefits to which you may be entitled. You seem to have been overlooked by our department for some time and we would like to have a record of your case for our, our, records, you see. And so I have some forms here that I need your help in filling out.

  Hmm, the old man said.

  Do you mind answering a few questions?

  Don’t reckon, the old man said. Here, set down.

  Thank you, said the agent. He lowered himself gingerly onto the cot and began to unstrap his briefcase. His hand disappeared inside and emerged with a sheaf of printed forms intershuffled with carbon paper. Now, he said comfortably, first of all, your age.

  Well, I don’t rightly know.

  Yes. I beg your pardon?

  Don’t know for sure, that is. There’s a part of it I don’t remember too good. Well, could you tell us when you were born? The old man eyed him curiously. If I knowed that, he said patiently, I could figure how old I was. And tell us that.

  The agent smiled weakly. Yes. Of course. Well, could you estimate your age then? You are over sixty-five?

  Considerable.

  Well, about how old would you say?

  It ain’t about, the old man said, it’s either. Either eighty-three or eighty-four.

  The agent wrote that down on his form, studied it for a moment with satisfaction. Fine, he said. Now, where is your present residence?

  If’n I’m eighty-four I’ll live to be a hunerd and five providin I get to eighty-five.

  Yes. Your …

  When was you born?

  The agent looked up from his forms. Nineteen-thirteen, he said, but we …

  What date?

  June. The thirteenth. Mr Ownby …

  The old man tilted his eyes upward in reflection. Hmm, he said. That was a Friday. Kindly a bad start. Was your daddy over twenty-eight when you was born?

  No, please, Mr Ownby. These questions, you see …

  The old man hushed and the agent sat watching him for a minute. Now, he said. Your present address?

  Well, the old man said, I did live on Forked Creek—Twin Fork Road, but I moved to the mountains. I got me a little place up there.

  Where is that?

  That’s all right where it’s at.

  But we have to have an address, Mr Ownby.

  Well, put down Twin Fork Road then, the old man said.

  You live alone?

  Jest me and Scout. Or we did.

  Scout?

  Dog.

  The agent continued to write. You have, I believe, no family or relatives.

  Yessir.

  The agent looked up. Well, he said, we’ll need their names then.

  I mean yes I don’t have none, the old man said wearily.

  The agent continued with his questions, the old man answering yes or no or giving information. Upturned upon his knee his right hand opened and closed with a kneading action, as though he were trying to soften something in his palm. Until at length it stopped and the old man sat upright, fist clenched and quivering and the veins like old blue thread imprinted in the paper skin, sat erect and cut the agent off with a question of his own:

  Why don’t you say what you come here to say? Why not jest up and ast me?

  I beg your pardon? said the agent.

  Why I done it. Rung shells and shot your hootnanny all to hell? Where you from, heh? You talk like a Goddamned yankee. What you do for a livin? Ast questions?

  Mr Ownby …

  Mr Ownby’s ass. I could tell you why—and you stit wouldn’t know. That’s all right. You can set and ast a bunch of idjit questions. But not knowin a thing ain’t never made it not so. Well, I’m a old man and I’ve seen some hard times, so I don’t reckon Brushy Mountain’ll be the worst place I was ever in.

  Mr Ownby, I’m sure you’re upset and I assure you …

  Ahh, said the old man.

  Mr Ownby, there are only a few more questions. If you’d like I could come back another time. I … We at the agency feel …

  I reckon you could, the old man said. I ain’t goin nowhere. He leaned back against the wall and passed one hand across his eyes as if to wipe away some image. Then he sat very still with his hands on his knees, his shaggy head against the bricks, restored to patience and a look of tried and inviolate sanctity, the faded blue eyes looking out down the row of cages, a forest of sweating iron dowels, forms of men standing or huddled upon their pallets, and the old man felt the circle of years closing, the final increment of the curve returning him again to the inchoate, the prismatic flux of sound and color wherein he had drifted once before and now beyond the world of men. By the time the agent had gathered his forms and tucked them once again into his briefcase the old man had closed his eyes and the agent called quietly for the jailer and left
him.

  The jailer walked with him down the corridor. The agent had regained his composure. Well, he said cheerily, he’s a cantankerous old rascal, isn’t he?

  The old feller? I reckon. Been pretty quiet here, but then they shore had a time gettin him here.

  How’s that? said the agent.

  Why, he shot four men. Luther Boyd’s stit hoppin around on crutches.

  Did he kill anyone? the agent asked.

  No, but it wadn’t from not tryin. That old man’s ornery enough.

  Yes, the agent said, musing. Definitely an anomic type.

  Mean as a snake, said the jailer. Here, watch the door.

  The agent thanked the desk sergeant as he passed through the outer room. He swung the briefcase to his left hand and dabbled his handkerchief upon his forehead. Over the worn runner on the flagged hall floor his steps were soundless and he moved with a slender grace of carriage, delicate and feline.

  In the spring of the year you may see them about the grounds walking or sitting perhaps in the wake and swath of the droning mowers lifting up strewn daisyheads white and torn, softly fallen in the grass. Long monologues rise and fall, they speak of great deeds and men and noble eras gone. The mowers return along the fence in martial formation drowning the babble of voices.

  The brick buildings atop the hill are dark with age, formidable yet sad, like old fortress ruins. Families come from the reception room into the pale sun, moving slowly, talking, grieving their silent griefs. The un-visited amble hurriedly about the grounds like questing setters, gesticulant and aimless.

  There are others who sit quietly and unattended in the grass watching serene and childlike with serious eyes. Tender voices caress their ears endlessly and they are beyond sorrow. Some wave hopefully to the passing cars of picnickers and bathers. The eldest of all sits a little apart, a grass stem revolving between his yellowed teeth, remembering in the summer.

  The mountain road brick-red of dust laced with lizard tracks, coming up through the peach orchard, hot, windless, cloistral in a silence of no birds save one vulture hung in the smokeblue void of the sunless mountainside, rocking on the high updrafts, and the road turning and gated with bullbriers waxed and green, and the green cadaver grin sealed in the murky waters of the peach pit, slimegreen skull with newts coiled in the eyesockets and a wig of moss.

  The old man paused at the door, the attendant leading him by one arm through and into the room apparently against his will, peered at the boy through slotted lids as if unused to light of any intensity. He looked older than the boy remembered him. The attendant pulled him into the room, him shuffling in the old brogans with the paper-thin soles, a rasping sound on the concrete floor.

  They came over to where the boy sat. Here’s your nephew, the attendant said loudly into the old man’s ear. You remember him?

  The old man flashed a glint of blue eyes from deep beneath the closing lids. I reckon, he said.

  The attendant pushed him down into the wicker chair next to the boy and left them, going back through the door, high squeak of crepe diminishing in the corridor. The old man sat in his chair staring across at the unrelieved spanse of whitewashed plaster.

  Uncle Ather?

  He turned. The boy was holding at him a huge bag of chewing tobacco.

  I brought you some tobacca, he said. Beech-Nut, like you like.

  The old man took it from him slowly and slid it inside his shirtfront. Thank ye, son, he said. I’m much obliged.

  They sat quietly. The mowers passed again beneath the window, droning louder and then fading. Laughter and distant voices, someone crying, quite softly, like a child who is just lonely.

  Kindly warmin up a little, ain’t it? the old man said.

  We had a little rain out to the mountain, the boy said. Sunday week I believe it was.

  Yes, the old man said. Well, be little of it this year I reckon. Done had it all at oncet. They’s a good warm spell comin on. Won’t nothin make, won’t nothin keep. A seventh year is what it is.

  He gazed at the floor between his shoes, out of the bell-flared tops his shinbones rising hairless, pale and polished as shafts of driftwood and into his trouser legs. Get older, he said, you don’t need to count. You can read the signs. You can feel it in your ownself. Knowed a blind man oncet could tell lots of things afore they happent. But it’ll be hot and dry. Late frost is one sign if you don’t know nothin else. So they won’t but very little make because folks thinks that stuff grows by seasons and it don’t. It goes by weather. Game too, and folks themselves if they knowed it. I recollect one winter, I was jest a young feller, they wadn’t no winter. Not hardly a frost even. It was a sight in the world the things that growed. That was a seventh year seventh and you’ll be old as me afore it comes again.

  The old man paused, consulted a trouser button. Then he said: I look for this to be a bad one. I look for real calamity afore this year is out.

  When the boy asked him the old man explained that there was a lean year and a year of plenty every seven years. The boy thought about it. Then he said: That makes it ever fourteen year then, don’t it?

  Well, said the old man, depends on how you count I reckon. If’n you count jest the lean and not the plenty, or the other way around, I reckon you could call it ever fourteen year. I reckon some folks might figure thataway. I call it the seventh my ownself.

  He gazed at the wall above the line of wicker chairs. The attendant passed through the room with a young man and a woman. She was drying her eyes with a yellow lace handkerchief. They went out. After a while the boy said:

  They got Marion Sylder.

  The old man turned his head, the fine white silk of his hair lifting slightly with the motion as if a breeze had touched it. Who’s that? he said.

  Sylder. The … the feller used to haul whiskey for Hobie. They caught him with a load and sent him to Brushy.

  Thought his name was Jack, the old man said.

  No, Sylder. Marion Sylder. He was a friend of mine.

  Yes, the old man said. I recollect seein him on the mountain time or two. Had a black car. Kindly a new one I believe it was. Say they sent him to Brushy.

  Three years. For runnin whiskey.

  That’s pitiful, the old man said. Feller nowadays you don’t get by with much. Yes, I recollect the boy, don’t know as I ever did meet him. Well, I hope he fares better’n me. I cain’t get used to all these here people. The old man looked like he might be going to say more but he stopped and he looked at the boy, his wiry and tufted brows bunched whether in pain or anger and eyes blanched with age a china-blue, but fierce, a visage hoary and peregrine.

  How long do you have to … stay in?

  Here? he said, looking about him. Likely a good while, son. They ain’t never said what I was charged with nor nothin but I suspicion they think me light in the head is what it is. I reckon you knowed this was a place for crazy people. What they tend to do with me when they come to find out I ain’t crazy I couldn’t speculate. He patted the front of his shirt where he had put the tobacco. How’s young Pulliam? he said.

  He’s gone up in the country to stay with his gram-maw, the boy said. Ain’t nobody much left around no more.

  No, the old man said. He ever catch him a mink?

  No. I caught one though.

  Did, eh? What did it bring?

  It never brought nothin. They was a bobcat or somethin got aholt of it and tore it up.

  That’s a shame, said the old man. Did ye lay ye a set for that old cat?

  Me and Warn did. But we never caught nothin but a big old possum.

  Cats is smart, allowed the old man. Course it could of been a common everday housecat. They’ll tear up anything they come up on, a cat will. Housecats is smart too. Smarter’n a dog or a mule. Folks thinks they ain’t on account of you cain’t learn em nothin, but what it is is that they won’t learn nothin. They too smart. Knowed a man oncet had a cat could talk. Him and this cat’d talk back and forth of one another like ary two people.
That’s one cat I kept shy of. I knowed what it was. Lots of times that happens, a body dies and their soul takes up in a cat for a spell. Specially somebody drownded or like that where they don’t get buried proper.

  But not for no longer than seven year so he would be gone now and I don’t have to fool with him no more except he ought not to of got burnt, that ought not to of happent and maybe I done wrong in that way to of let that happen, but it’s done now and he’s gone, that had to of been him Eller was supposed to of heard, wonderin what all it could of been squallin thataway, not that I’d of told anybody—him leavin out cat and all and bound most probably for hell and I hope they don’t nobody hear no more from him never. So that man put him there either justified or not is free too afore God because after that seven year they cain’t nobody bother you, what that lawyer said and I had been scoutin nine year he said was two year longer than needful but this time I was too old and they catched me.

  Yes, he said, they’s lots of things folks don’t know about sech as that. Cats is a mystery, always has been. He stopped, passed a hand across his face dreamily. Then he turned to the boy. Believe you’ve growed some, ain’t ye? he said.

  The boy ran his palms along his knees. I reckon, he said.

  Mm hm, the old man said. What do you figure you’ll make?

  I don’t know, he said. Not much of nothin.

  Well, the old man said, it’s always hard for a young feller to get a start. Does seem like they’s any number of ways to get money nowadays, not like when I was growin up cash money was right hard to come by. They’s even a bounty on findin dead bodies, man over to Knoxville does pretty good grapplehookin em when they jump off of the bridge like they do there all the time. They tell me he gets out fast enough to beat anybody else to em only not so fast as they might stit be a-breathin. So they tell it leastways.