Cronies (Perry County)

by Roy F. Chandler

  The cadets gave a team cheer for Bloomfield, so Logan got his players together and they returned one for Carson Long.

  It was over. They got a ride out to Dix Hill in Major Clouser's model A, because Mickey's leg was pretty bad. His folks would raise Cain. He wouldn't be much help with the work for a few days, but they would also be proud of him.

  Mickey rode up front with the Major and Logan sprawled across the back seat. The old soldier had taken an interest in his young thieves and could be expected at every home football or baseball game.

  On the ride home, Logan did most of the talking and Mickey appreciated the time to think how good it had turned out. He doubted he would ever forget his fears, or how the pass looked dropping down on him. Logan's long throws looked as soft as butterflies, but the pigskin hit a receiver as heavy as lead. He had held onto the ball and he had scored.

  Everybody exclaimed over how he had faked the cadet safety. Mickey wished he could see a movie of himself doing it, because he never would know exactly how his instincts had timed the shift. Movies were real dreaming. In all of their ball playing neither he nor Logan, nor any other player he knew of, had an action photograph taken. The best they could hope for was the traditional team photo, posed annually up against the school building.

  Logan's bedroom light went out only a minute or two after his own. A moment later Logan's wolf howl came soft but clear. Mickey groaned his way to the window to yip an answer, soft enough, he hoped, not to rouse his parents.

  Snuggled deep in blankets, with only his nose and eyes showing, Mickey waited for the bed to warm and take some of the throb from his knee. He was grateful the season was over because his running was finished for a while.

  Logan played basketball but Mickey was just too small. They had a gymnastics club that about everyone joined, and Mickey hoped his knee would be well for that. He and Logan had worked up some neat tricks over the years. By spring he would be fine, and in right field he got fewer plays than anyone else, anyway.

  Logan's wolf howl turned Mickey's mind back to their first times together. His family had been at dinner when a great howling and yipping started down in the woods.

  His father had wrinkled his face in perplexity and asked, "What on earth is that?" Even his ma had appeared astonished.

  Mickey explained, "That's Logan practicing his wolf howls. Once we get good enough, we figure we'll be able to draw passing wolves into our traps. Wolf pelts should bring good money, Logan figures."

  He had gone to the door and answered with his own howlings. His mother had laughed and his pap asked, "Are you sure that's a wolf howl, Mickey? Sounds more like a sick calf to me."

  "We haven't ever heard a wolf, pap. We figure it must be a lot like a dog though. I read where they yip sometimes, so we're putting them in, too."

  Mickey yipped and Logan answered.

  From the Logan porch a long, rich howl raised Mickey's neck hairs. "Holy cow, that must be Mister Dell."

  After a hesitant moment, Logan answered and Mickey joined in. He heard his pap's chair scrape and his mother's, "Oh, Paul."

  His pap pushed past, onto the porch. He cocked his head back and started a howl so mournful Mickey thought wolves might jump out any time.

  Logan howled, the men howled, and Mickey howled. Ma came onto the porch holding her ears and smiling.

  They all got stopped for an instant and from up the Ruby's way came a chorus of howls and even a few barks. Everybody howled some more before they all quieted.

  There had never been another howling. He and Logan worked at it but no wolves came to their deadfalls or old rope snares. They never discovered how much real money a wolf fur would bring.

  However, one year Logan made money with his snakeskins and Mickey shared in it. A man came through encouraging people to catch snakes and skin them out. He offered a few cents for fresh and ten cents for a properly dried skin. For dried rattlers and copperheads he would go fifteen cents. The man sold them in the city for belt making, and fancy hatbands as well, Mickey supposed.

  Logan said, "I knew those snakeskins would be worth money, Mick. We're going to be rich."

  "Most of 'em are yours, Logan."

  Logan seemed surprised. "We're pardners and best friends, Mick. We'll split right down the middle."

  "We've got forty-two skins, Logan. You think he'll buy them all?"

  "We'll make him say so before we sell him any. Pap says you've got to watch peddlers 'cause they'll try to get out of town without paying, or give you shoddy goods if you are buying."

  "We've got five rattlers and maybe fifteen copperheads."

  "Yeh, we're going to have real money."

  The man bought willingly. He paid fairly, and Logan's hands shook with the feel of the dollars and coins.

  "How much is there, Logan?"

  "We've got four dollars and fifty-four cents. That'll be, let's see, two dollars and a quarter each, and we'll spend the four cents on candy."

  "Whew, that is serious money, Logan."

  "Sure is. What bothers me is that we could of had a hundred skins."

  "I know what I'm going to do with my money."

  "What, Mick? I haven't decided yet."

  "I'm going to buy a pair of high-top boots, the ones with the knife pocket sewed on the side."

  "Wow, I'd give anything for a pair. I've seen 'em in the Sears Roebuck, but I'm not sure our stores have any."

  "Then we'll order from the catalog, Logan. We'll use our catalog and we'll do it tonight, up in my room, we'd best not let anybody know or they'd have different ideas."

  "We can't just put our money in the envelope. Somebody might hold it to the light, then steal it."

  "Let's go see the Major. He'll know how it's done."

  Major Clouser listened gravely to their enthusiasm and endured their laying out of each wrinkled dollar bill and the organizing of their change. He got out catalogs. Sears and Roebuck offered the boots; so did Montgomery Ward. Then the Major looked through a catalog special for hunters and woodsmen. The company was up in Maine, where there were a lot of bears and moose.

  The Maine boots were a lot better; anyone could see the difference. Their boots cost more as well, and the snake money did not cover it. Reluctantly, they returned to the more common catalogs.

  Major Clouser asked, "Hold on now. Just how close are we on the good boots?"

  "We're each a dollar shy, Major. If that skin buyer had hung around we might have gotten more snakes real fast, but we'd never have come close to two dollars."

  It was a considerable sum. Times were hard and a man took any work or wage offered. Grown men labored a ten hour day for a dollar and a noon meal. Everybody that could, worked a six day week. Six dollars for a sixty hour week was considered decent money. Small farmers could rarely afford such wages and their work days were often longer. Cash income was barely enough to keep going.

  Major Clouser scrubbed his chin and shifted his glasses, trying to get a decent focus on the catalogs.

  "Well, it might be we're in luck, this time." Hope quickened.

  It happens that I've ordered considerable from these outdoor folks, and they owe me a favor or two." The Major seemed again to consider.

  "What we'll do is this: we'll go into the square and get a postal money order for the full amount you'll need, with me putting up what you're short.

  "You boys can fill out the order blank and send in. I'll write a note, the next day or two, and remind 'em that they owe me. They'll likely send me the difference and we'll all be square. The outfitters will be paid, you'll have boots, and I'll have my two dollars back."

  The plan sounded perfect. Looking around, Mickey wondered where the Major kept all the fine things he bought from Maine. Upstairs probably, where nosy neighbors wouldn't see them. Mickey bet the Major had a tent and keen things like canteens and a hatchet with a leather belt sheath.

  They got two lamps going for the form filling. For fit, the company had a fold-out page that you put a foot on and
read the correct size. It was Mickey's suggestion that they get a full size too large. Otherwise they might grow out of the boots before they wore out. They could wear extra stockings until their feet got bigger.

  The boots included a genuine, two-bladed Barlow jackknife in the sewed-on pocket. Logan thought it would be a good idea to have a pocket on the other boot to hold a sharpening stone—in case a knife dulled while skinning a moose. He decided to mail the suggestion in after they had tested the boots for a while.

  Instead of candy, they spent a penny for a stamp and another for an envelope. That left a cent apiece. Mickey got bubble gum. Logan chose a jaw breaker, so hot he had to keep taking it out to cool his tongue.

  Snakeskins had been good business, but the skin buyer never came again.

  +++

  Those had been fine years. With high school finishing up it was plain that things would change. Logan was set for the army. Because of his knee, Mickey could not follow.

  Major Clouser said he should go to college. College meant Penn State, because tuition was cheapest and you could study farming, which Mickey wanted to do. He already had ideas on how farming could pay better, and college could surely help.

  Mickey and Logan had gone through the red schoolhouse and into high school as they did most things: Mickey Weston studied hard and made good grades; Logan Dell floated easily, his mind on other subjects, and got equally high marks.

  At home, Mickey worked willingly and read his father's farm journals and almanacs. Logan's pap got on with the state and commuted to Harrisburg by train. Later he was transferred to Duncannon, which let him get home more, but the Dell farm went downhill. John Dell didn't care. The state paid well and on time. Logan didn't give a rap about farming either. He read books about heroes and strange adventures.

  During the worst of the depression times, Paul and Mickey Weston took to farming the Dell acres. The additional land worked them near to death, but the extra cash crop brought in a little and the Weston's got by.

  The depression wasn't really over in 1936, but its bitterest edge was rolled under. Boys sent dollars home from CCC camps; the WPA and PWA were putting men to work.

  Logan looked around and saw only drudgery until death. Though a man worked until he dropped, he couldn't hardly afford shoes. The army offered security and, if a man measured up, eventual advancement and adventure. Logan valued them in reverse order.

  Recruitment was tight, but the old Major still knew a name or two. Few high school graduates chose enlistment, and Logan Dell would get in.

  Mickey Weston's college prospects were not as assured. The Westons could not afford tuition. Mickey would have to work his way, with his parents' help barely peripheral. Mickey's plan was to go up to State College during the summer and see if he could get a place on a close-in farm. He would board with the farm family, and any money they paid would go toward tuition. A school year could cost as much as one hundred and fifty dollars. Mickey thought he just might make it.

  Before graduation, Logan had to lick Bart Ruby again. It was the third whipping Logan had laid on old Bart and Mickey wondered if Ruby ever would learn.

  Bart had quit school after the sixth grade. He grew big but he was slow and awkward. Only two years older than Mickey and Logan, Bart Ruby looked at least in his middle twenties. His heavy jaw was rarely shaven and his belly already bulged against his overalls. Ruby did odd jobs and poked around the family farm. He knew the bootleggers and was often drunk.

  When boozed up, Bart could be mean. Sis Ruby could usually keep her brother in line, but the Saturday Logan again licked him, Bart had turned his mean on Sis.

  Mickey was glad Logan got the fighting. If Logan hadn't, Mickey would have had to try Bart Ruby himself. Mickey Weston had no illusions that he could handle the hulking Ruby, but Sis had gotten special with both he and Logan, so he would have tried.

  When Bart grabbed at his sister and shook her, Logan began edging over. They were by the alley alongside Trimmer's Five and Ten, and it was still light out. Bloomfield had lost to Blain because the Bower boys had knocked Logan's pitching all over the field. Logan Dell wasn't in the kindliest of spirits either.

  Ruby was between snarling and bellowing. His big beefy face was drink-flushed and, even from their distance, Mickey could see the mean in Bart's eyes.

  "I've told you before. Sis, you stay out a'my business. I'll go home when I'm a'mind.

  "You keep botherin' me and I'll make you sorry for it." Ruby jerked his sister around some more.

  Bart looked up, as though sensing people watching, and his eyes fell on Logan Dell, who was about the closest.

  "What're you starin' at, Dell?" Ruby Jerked his sister around again. "You lookin' to interfere in Ruby business?"

  Before Logan could answer. Ruby's features turned malicious. "Why after that pounding Blain gave you today. I'd think you had enough to last a while, Dell."

  Bart flung his sister aside, fanning his own fury and facing Logan straight on. Sis tugged at her brother's sleeve, but Bart jerked loose and began walking in on Logan Dell. His big hands curled into fists, and he got them about waist high, as though he held a pair of pistols.

  "I'm in a mood to clean your clock, Dell. You think you're too much, struttin' around like you owned the town. I've had about enough of you."

  Logan shifted away from Mickey, to give himself room. His voice was as calm as a bird bath, and Mickey marveled at how Logan picked just the right words.

  "Bart, you were big and stupid the first time I walloped you. Now you're bigger and even dumber, so if you come at me. I'll have reason to whip you worse than before."

  Ruby was strangling mad, whether at himself, or at Logan Dell, Mickey wasn't sure. Bart was almost close enough when he started swinging. He bored in like a bull, hauling each fist back before laying all his weight behind every roundhouse blow. They were murderous, sledging punches. Powerful enough to break a jaw or knock a man cold, each swing twisted Ruby half around and cocked him for the next.

  Logan didn't even get his hands up for the first few punches. He faded away, moving a little sideways, so Ruby had to turn to keep facing him. The mighty blows missed by a foot but they made the spectators' teeth ache.

  A man called, "Hey, break that up!" but no one even tried.

  Ruby paused to take stock and probably a quick breath. He had not landed in a half dozen tries, and missing punches was exhausting.

  Logan Dell, balanced like a dancer, punched Bart Ruby straight and stiffly in the face. Mickey winced, almost feeling the smack of it. Must be like getting poked with the end of a long two by four, he thought.

  Ruby came again, making Logan backpedal and dance halfway across Main Street. Men shouted and a rough circle formed. Mickey didn't like that because Logan needed room. A pair of Carson Long cadets began cheering for Logan.

  "Take him, Dell."

  "You've got him, Logan."

  Other voices rose, but Bart had again paused. He stood, chest heaving, his nose bleeding a little.

  "Come on, Dell, stand still and fight." Ruby's voice was already a wheeze.

  Logan did. He moved in and feinted punches. Bart Ruby settled onto his heels and swung like a gate. Logan still hadn't been touched but Bart was about used up. His breathing sawed and his chest heaved.

  Logan Dell poked at Ruby's face, as though testing how much the big man had left. Bart's hands rose, protecting his head, and Logan swung.

  It was a peculiar punch. Logan put his best into it. He sort of angled in on Ruby. His fist came in a'whistling, beneath Bart's elbows, and buried itself in Ruby's fat belly.

  Bart Ruby never really saw the blow coming. His lungs emptied in an explosive whoosh. His body folded forward and his knees sagged. Logan's fists were set, but he stepped back, watching Ruby settle onto his knees, sucking air, his face flattened into the filth of Main Street. Then Bart fell onto his side, his knees hunched, all the fight gone, the whiskey anger blown away, just struggling to get back enough wind to stay consc
ious.

  There was a lot of loud talk and a few whoops and hollers. Everybody crowded close with some yelling to "Give him air." Sis got through and knelt beside her stricken brother. She looked beseechingly and Mickey went over to help get Bart up. He heard Logan say, "Oh hell." Then he came along.

  The two of them got under Bart's shoulders and heaved him erect. They walked him wobbly-kneed into the alley and let him sit on Hen Miller's steps for a minute. The crowd dispersed and Bart sat hunched over, holding his gut, and gagging.

  When he could, Ruby got up and leaned heavily against the shoe repair shop. He glared sullenly at the ground. Sis asked, "Are you all right, Bart?"

  It was enough to get the man moving. He muttered, "Just leave me alone," and stumbled down the alley.

  Logan said, "Maybe he's going down and check himself into the county jail."

  Mickey laughed as much in relief as in amusement. Sis looked wounded and the boys were instantly contrite. It was a fact, they both recognized, Sis Ruby had them about where she wanted them.

  +++

  It was funny that it would be Sis Ruby. The no-account Rubys weren't the kind you wanted around. Everybody was gratified when bullying Bart Ruby quit school. Daniel didn't last much longer. Cal and Sis Ruby hung on. It looked as though they would be the first Rubys to graduate from high school. That part wasn't unusual. Logan and Mickey would be the first in their families.

  When they got into high school, Mickey and Logan began looking at girls differently. Of course, it was about then that girls themselves began looking quite different. Sis Ruby rounded a little, and she had quiet, friendly ways. Walking home from school, Sis became good company—instead of someone trying their good natures and overhearing their secret conversations.

  Mickey took Sis to most occasions, but Logan got her for some. Mickey became increasingly serious about Sis Ruby.

  With his eagerness to get out of farming and into the adventurous world of soldiering, Logan Dell had little place for girl-bothering. That suited Mickey. He thought Sis liked him special, but Logan would have been powerful competition.