The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 2

by Donald Harington

  “No, thank you very much,” says Ben. “Our hostess has already filled us with khinkali, an exquisite breakfast dumpling common to her native Georgia.”

  “Georgia?” says George. “I thought she was from some’ers in Europe.”

  The injun laughs. “There’s a Georgia in Europe too, you know.”

  “Where’s your boss-lady?” George asks.

  “She’s very busy reading. Very busy reading.”

  He says it twice as if George might be feeble-minded, which he aint.

  When their coffee was finished, Ben says, “Would you care to go for a drive?”

  Actually George wouldn’t, but he needed a good excuse not to go to work for Ingledew Ham this morning. He’d overdone it yesterday, and besides he had to get used to letting others take over his job, because when this here campaign really got clicking, he wasn’t going to be around very much anyhow. “In that thing?” George says, and pointed at the Pierce-Arrow.

  “If you want to sit in back, you could pretend I’m your chauffeur,” says Ben.

  “I’d as lief sit up front with you,” says George.

  “How sweet!” says Ben, and pats him on the arm. “You wouldn’t happen to have a chainsaw I could borrow?”

  George fetched his chainsaw, and after debating it with himself decided not to ask the injun what he wanted it for. If he was a-fixing to use it on human beings, leastways I aint a Ingledew, George reminded himself.

  That there Pierce-Arrow was some automobile. As they rode around, hither and yon, not going nowheres particular, Ben told him all about the car, its whole history, how many cylinders it had, etsettery. Seems that when the Osages commenced getting rich from all that oil, back in the Twenties, the Pierce-Arrow was their vehicle of choice, and became as common as clothes, though you hardly ever saw one anymore, leastways not in Osage country. It sure was a fine-riding car, and George felt rich just a-setting in it.

  Ben interrupted his harangue about the Pierce-Arrow to say, “What beautiful country! These glorious mountains! All my life I’ve lived in flat country, Oklahoma, with scarcely a hill. And my people, you know, the Heart Stays band, always had to have a flat but hummocky creek bank to settle upon…like that one.” Ben pointed, and George all of a sudden caught on that the injun hadn’t been just gadding about without no purpose but had been heading all along for this particular spot, which George knew was where the Osage camp had stood when Jacob and Noah Ingledew came to settle Stay More. There wasn’t ary trace of it left behind, not a piece of pottery or nothing, maybe an arrowhead somewheres but not in the camp itself. There was just this hummocky stretch of meadow right beside Swains Creek. Hadn’t no white man ever built on it; it had been the Duckworths’ pasture at one time, and during the Second World War it had been a bivouac for army tanks on maneuvers, and then the Duckworths reclaimed it, and it had stayed a pasture for some years until Boss had cut down all the barbed wire so the hogs could run free.

  Ben stopped the car. He just sat there and looked out at that meadow for a while, kindly wistful-like. George had him a idea what the injun might be thinking and, recalling what Boss had said last night about letting the injuns have it back if they cared to, and what Ben had said yesterday about pitching a wigwam on it, George says, “It’s yours if you want it.”

  Ben’s eyes was full of water when he turned his head back to look at George. “Really?” he says. “On whose authority? Is it yours to give me?”

  “It’s Boss’s,” George says. “All the land hereabouts belongs to him. And he says you can have that piece where your ancestors made their home.”

  Ben swept his mighty arm to take in the whole world. “My ancestors had ‘all the land hereabouts’ which now belongs to your boss. Of course my ancestors did not have it, because they did not know the meaning of property ownership, but it was theirs.”

  “You wouldn’t settle for that there whole meadow?” George asks.

  “It appears that your swine have already taken full possession it,” Ben says. And sure enough there was a whole bunch of hogs a-rooting and a-wallowing all over the place.

  George laughed. “I reckon them swine sort of feels the same way about it your ancestors did. They don’t own it, because creatures, like men, can’t own the earth. And if you was to set up your wigwam or whatever, even right atop their favorite wallow, they’d just move on across the creek or somewheres else.”

  Big Ben real sudden gave George a mighty hug. It was embarrassing. While Ben was a-hugging him, with arms that could’ve crushed him if George wasn’t pretty darn sturdy hisself, George could only pat him on the back and say, “There there. There there.”

  “Can I cut down a few of those trees?” Ben asks, and points at a thicket of bodark saplings.

  “It’s your land,” George says.

  George had nothing better to do this morning, so he helped Ben make his wigwam, or rather the pair of them, a sort of double hut bound tight together. Ben explained that the sapling George called bodark was the Bois D’Arc, Maclura pomifera, also called Osage Orange, not just because of its orange-colored wood and its fruit which looks like an over-sized orange (“We call ’em horse-apples,” says George), but also because the Osage Indians had used the tree to make their huntin bows and to build their houses. What Ben and George would do was, they’d use the chainsaw to cut down a long slender trunk of the bodark, sharpen both ends with an ax (which Ben already had, maybe to do some ax murders with), and then the two of them would bend that pole into an arc and stick both ends deep into the ground.

  “I could never have done this by myself,” Ben says. “Thank you so much. Thank you so very much.”

  Then when they had about ten of them poles interwoven and arched into a big circle, they covered the sides with reeds and cattails, which grew all along the creek bank.

  It took ’em just two days to finish the job, hooking the second beehive-wigwam to the first one on the second day. There wasn’t no door connecting one beehive with the other’n in between. “What’s the point of joining ’em?” George wants to know.

  “Now that is a mystery,” Ben said. “My lady’s mansion in Oklahoma is constructed in pretty much the same design, only infinitely larger, of course, and there are several connecting doors between one ‘beehive’ and the other. But here…” Ben fetched from the Pierce-Arrow a book, called The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks, and showed George one of the pitchers. The pitcher was exactly what they’d just been doing. “I’m just following orders,” Ben says, and his voice was kind of wistful. “I’m just doing what my lady asks me. All my life it has been that way.”

  When they had the double wigwam all done, Ben’s lady come down to take a look at it, and she had the Woman, Cat, with her, and also Bo, who was driving ’em in his Nissan four by four, and even the dog Threasher. But no Boss. “Wonderful,” the lovely gal says, and gives Ben a big hug despite he’s all wet from the sweat of his work.

  “Half the work was his,” says Ben, and the smiling eyeful goes to give George a hug too, but he backs off, not on account of he’s soaked with sweat but because he knows if she touches him he’ll turn into a pillar of mush.

  “You’ve been more than kind,” she says to George.

  “Aw, it wasn’t much of nothing,” George says. “I just did what he told me to.”

  “Is it ready for me to try it out?” she asks Ben.

  “I haven’t put the bedding in it yet,” he says, “but the structure is finished.”

  “You’re going to sleep here?” Bo asks her. “May I have the other side?”

  The gal laughs. “Bo, you’d have incredible dreams if you did. No, I have to spend at least one night here all alone.”

  George has been thinking that if these injuns really intended to use this beehive combo for living purposes, that the reason there are two of them without no door in between is that one is hers, the other’n is his, but it appeared that’s not what she had in mind. Bending Bear wouldn’t sleep here at all, or not
unless he built another beehive combo for hisself.

  Ben had been sleeping in one of the spare rooms at Cat’s house, although just last night when he drove George home he stayed a awful long time, drinking George’s bourbon and making hints so plain any fool could’ve figured out that Ben was trying to get hisself invited to spend the night. George had a terrible time getting rid of him.

  “Look, Threasher’s pointing!” Ben says, and sure enough that dumb dog was just a-standing there with his tail straight as a rod. Ben ran and searched and came back a-holding this here big soft-shelled turtle, who was trying his best to bend his neck and bite Ben’s hand.

  “My supper!” says Juliana Heartstays as if she’d been in that Maisonette restaurant in Cincinnati. George would have puked but he had a empty stomach. “Good boy, Threasher! Point a few more, and I’ll invite all these people to a feast.”

  And sure enough, that turtle dog rounded up a whole bunch of terrapins and box turtles and softshells, and even a snapping turtle out in the creek. That crazy dog just went wild, and pointed them critters as fast as Ben could catch ’em and chop off their heads with his ax, the same ax he’d used to build the wigwam with.

  And Juliana Heartstays declared they’d have a real feast that evening for supper, right here on the creek bank, to “housewarm” the new habitation. An old-style injun celebration. Cat said she’d be glad to take a couple of the turtles and use a old Svanetian recipe on ’em, and contribute ’em to the feast.

  Near about everbody was invited—Day and Diana, Sharon and Larry, Boss and Jelena, etsettery. Cast showed up with a local girl, Sheila Kimber, who was the bookkeeper at the plant, and who was a real looker herself. But Boss never showed up. Jelena said he claimed he was rehearsing a speech he was a-fixing to give in Pine Bluff next week—and George realized his services as helicopter pilot would remove him from the presence of these injuns in just a few more days. But when Jelena was making excuses for Boss, George noticed she winked at Bo, as if she and Bo knew the real reason Boss wouldn’t come—but so did everbody else, practically, except Juliana herself—not that he was scared of the threat that these injuns was out to assassinate him, but pure and simple that he couldn’t face womenfolks on account of his congenital Ingledew disorder: pathological woman-shyness. The way it worked was, the prettier the woman was, the worse an Ingledew’s disorder. And Juliana Heartstays was just about as pretty as they make ’em. Even if Boss hadn’t even laid his own eyes on her yet, but just had to go by George’s and Bo’s descriptions.

  She threw a real spread. Right out there on the creek bank. George was happy to tote in a bunch of sawhorses and planks to set up some tables, and Cat and Jelena covered ’em with nice tablecloths, and all the womenfolks contributed their very best desserts: you never in your life saw such a passel of tasty pies and cobblers and a fancy Georgian lemon tea cake made by Cat that George couldn’t wait to set his teeth into, but first he had to at least pretend like he was a-sampling some of that turtle meat. Why couldn’t some of the women have brought a platter of fried chicken? There wasn’t nothing but turtle: the main course was little meat pies made with turtle, but there was side dishes of turtle stew, fried turtle, and turtle soup, with plenty of good wines and George’s own contribution of a case of Molson’s ale. When Thomas Bending Bear saw that George wasn’t even tasting any of them turtle dishes, he practically held him down and forced him to bite into a piece of fried snapping turtle, and George was amazed to discover it wasn’t uneatable, in fact it was pretty tasty, sort of like a cross between chicken and ham. George was just half-kidding when he told Ben that the two of them ought to put Threasher into business and start a turtle-packing company to compete with Ingledew Ham. “I’d love to be your partner,” Ben says.

  All and all, it was one of the best eatin parties George had ever attended. He just wished Boss could’ve been there. Juliana and Ben both made little speeches, saying they was so happy to be here and so happy to get to know all these good people, and although they had come originally with some ill feeling in their hearts toward the descendants of the Ingledews who had forced their ancestors away from this homeland, they realized that such removal and change had been inevitable, almost a part of Nature’s plan, and now we were privileged to witness this handsome edifice as testament to the cooperation of an Osage Indian, Thomas Bending Bear, and a near-Ingledew, Mr. George Dinsmore.

  At home later that night, after getting rid of Ben, who wouldn’t hardly take no for a answer, George was just a-setting around digesting that big supper and the three pieces of lemon tea cake he’d eaten, and he got to pondering about Juliana spending the night all by herself out there in that wigwam. George knew she didn’t have nothing to fear from the hogs, even if the hogs was resentful that Juliana had forced them out the same way that Boss’s ancestors had supposedly forced out Juliana’s ancestors. No, the hogs wouldn’t bother her. And there wasn’t no coyotes or wolves or bears or nothing hereabouts. But George wondered if that fine woman might get any trouble from human beings. Who knows? That Bolin Pharis sure had the hots for her. George had noticed how Bo had kind of cozied up to her during the party, always talking to her and laughing with her and what-all. Obviously the fool had his heart a-sliding down his wrist. No telling but what he might take a notion to see if she didn’t need some company in the wee hours of the night.

  George couldn’t put it out of his mind. Nigh on to midnight, he got into his Explorer and drove over pretty near the Osage camp, switched off his headlights, drove on closer, stopped, and walked the last quarter-mile or so. It was a dark night, dark as pitch, no moon, and George stumbled a couple of times. He wasn’t young any more. He was thinking, when this here campaign was all finished and done with, and Boss was either elected governor or defeated enough to drive some sense into his head, George might just take a early retirement.

  He crept as soundlessly as he could to the vicinity of the Osage camp. There was no light of any kind inside the wigwam. She’d be fast asleep this time of night. But George could hear voices. One of the voices was some man’s, but George couldn’t tell if it was Bo or not. George tried to creep closer, but then Threasher caught wind of him and commenced barking, and George hightailed it out of there, falling down more than once.

  Just as he was making it back to his Explorer he happened to detect the looming bulk of some other vehicle parked off the road amongst the brush. He went up to it until he could tell, practically by feel, that it wasn’t Bo’s Nissan. It was a Land-Rover. George was abashed that it took him a while to figure out who it was, hereabouts, that owned a Land-Rover. It ought to have hit him all at once, all of a heap: fellow name of Ingledew, better known as Boss.

  Chapter thirteen

  They were made to wait in the Reception Lounge of Republican Headquarters, which was not in customary downtown Little Rock but in an elegant new building on Chenal Parkway in the upscale western suburbs. They were offered their choice of beverages, even alcoholic ones, but still they had to wait. Bo explained to Cast that this was just a transparent ploy that Billy Joe Slade was using to put them in their place. “He knows we’re here,” Bo told Cast, “and he’s not particularly busy. But he wants us to cool our heels as an additional reminder that we’re on his turf, that this is his show, and he’s going to call all the shots.” But if any of this explanation was getting through to Cast, there was no way of telling.

  Bo had invited Cast along for three reasons: one, the kid needed the experience, especially of how to sit at the bargaining table with the enemy; two, on the long drive in the Jaguar from Fayetteville, Bo preferred for a change not his haunting solitude but a sounding-board for his ideas, not just about the campaign; and three, Bo wanted somebody on his side of the table in this showdown. But it may have been a mistake: during the recent interlude, Cast too had fallen under Stay More’s magic spell, and had apparently become deeply involved with some local girl he’d found picking flowers in the forest, and couldn’t get her off his mind.

&n
bsp; Bo had thrown enough loaded questions at Cast to be able to determine that, sure enough, Cast had managed to rid himself of his long-standing virginity. Maybe he’s the only one who got any, Bo reflected. He certainly hadn’t gotten any himself. And Bending Bear’s lust for George Dinsmore had gone unrequited, apparently. And Vernon…despite Bo’s best efforts as a pimp, after all the trouble Bo had gone to, setting up an assignation for Vernon and Juliana that would’ve circumvented Vernon’s appalling shyness toward women, in much the same fashion that his ancestor Jacob had been able to get around his shyness toward Juliana’s ancestor (using full darkness but without benefit of whiskey), you would think that Vernon might at least have reported back to Bo on the success or failure of the venture. But Bo still did not know if anything sexual had ever transpired between them.

  “Did you catch a word of what I said?” Bo asked Cast, who was staring dreamily off into space, his gaze narrowly missing a huge poster of Shoat Bradfield smiling and offering his hand to the world.

  “Sir?” Cast said. “Oh, yes sir, we have to sweat it out to take the starch out of us, so we’ll be meek and nervous when he tries to put one over on us.”

  Bo chuckled. “Good enough. We didn’t have to do this, you know. We could have insisted he come to Fayetteville, on our turf. Or we could have met him for lunch at a neutral place.” The first polls following Vernon’s victory in the run-off had shown Vernon trailing Bradfield by twenty-four points, 57 - 33, with eleven percent undecided. Of course part of that lead was from Democratic supporters of Reverend Dixon (and of Barnas) who were still bitter over Vernon’s win. But as of right now, Billy Joe Slade could afford to gloat over his man’s commanding lead. Still, Bo felt very condescending toward Billy Joe, whom he hadn’t seen for years, who was just a deputy assistant campaign manager the last time he’d seen him, who had supposedly risen from the ranks of salesmen: Slade had made his reputation as a live-wire peddler of pharmaceuticals, winning national awards for his prowess as a pitchman.