by Tony Earley
“You saw me doing what?”
“I saw you playing with that Indian girl’s hair.”
Jim felt his cheeks go hot. “She’s not an Indian,” he said.
“She’s half an Indian,” Norma said.
“You don’t know what she is.”
“I know, among other things, that she’s got hair like an Indian.”
“So what? A lot of people have black hair. Mama has black hair.”
“I know people call her daddy Injun Joe Steppe.”
“Big deal,” Jim said. “Uncle Zeno calls me Doc, but that doesn’t mean I’m a doctor. Besides, so what if she is an Indian, or half an Indian, or whatever you said.”
“Maybe she’s not somebody you should get tangled up with, that’s what.”
“And you are, I suppose.”
“Well,” she said, “I was.”
“Why are we even having this discussion? Chrissie Steppe is not my girlfriend. She’s Bucky Bucklaw’s girlfriend. Everybody knows that. I’ve never said ten words to her in my whole life. I don’t even know her daggum middle name, or anything else about her. So, why don’t you just mind your own business?”
Norma stopped in her tracks. “Look at me,” she said.
Jim looked instead at his shoes. They were dusty from the path through the field.
“Jim Glass, you look at me right this minute.”
He looked up and watched Norma study his face as if she were about to spit on her finger and rub off a streak of dirt.
“Good Lord,” she said.
“What?”
“You’re in love with her.”
“I am not.”
“You are, too.”
“I am not. I don’t even know her. How could I be in love with her?”
“Then why is your face red?”
“I don’t know, Norma. Because you’re staring at me. Because you’re bothering me. Leave a boy alone, for gosh sakes, why don’t you?”
Norma’s eyes briefly clouded over. “I can’t believe this,” she said. “You break up with me and now you’re in love with that . . .”
Jim almost smiled. He knew that Norma wanted to use a curse word, and also that she wouldn’t.
“. . . that Cherokee.”
Jim shook his head in disgust and turned toward home.
Norma grabbed his arm. “Jim,” she said. “Listen to me. I know you won’t believe this, but I’m telling you this for your own good. You should stay away from Chrissie Steppe.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve heard things.”
“What things?”
“Things I can’t tell you.”
“You don’t know any more about her than I do.”
“I know that a nice girl wouldn’t let her hair fall all over some boy’s desk, and then sit there while he plays with it. Especially when she’s got a boyfriend in the navy.”
“It’s just hair,” Jim said. “It landed on my desk by accident and she didn’t know it. I was moving it so I could read about Wilmington.”
The shadow of a smile passed across Norma’s face. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard,” she said.
“Just leave me alone, Norma.”
Uncle Zeno’s house had never seemed farther away. Jim stopped when he reached the front steps. Norma brushed past him and climbed onto the porch.
“Tell Mama I’m going out to the mill to see Uncle Zeno,” Jim said.
Norma opened the screen door, paused for a moment, and turned around. “Marie,” she said.
“What?”
“Marie. That’s Chrissie Steppe’s middle name.”
What Strange Country
JIM BACKED his Ford out of the shed behind Uncle Coran’s store and eased it around the side of the building. He knew that Mama was more than likely listening at the screen door to the manner in which he drove away. Early on he had made the mistake of bragging about the power of the car’s V8 engine, and since then, Mama regularly threatened to take away his key. She religiously complained to anyone who would listen, especially the uncles, that a Ford V8 was just too much car for a teenage boy to handle. After all, she said, John Dillinger had driven Ford V8s, and look what happened to him. Jim was sure Mama talked about the gangster just to make him nuts. Dillinger had been shot down coming out of a movie; he hadn’t been anywhere near a Ford V8. And besides, whatever it had been that made John Dillinger go bad, it had certainly not been his car. Still, Jim drove with the decorum of an undertaker within earshot of Mama.
The dirt lot in front of the store was empty, and the closed sign hung from its wire on the doorknob. Uncle Coran occasionally closed early on slow afternoons, and Jim was glad he didn’t have to talk to anyone just yet. He stopped at the edge of the state highway and made a show of looking both ways. He pulled delicately onto the road and shifted peacefully up through the gears until he reached the ridiculous Mama-mandated speed limit of thirty-five miles per hour. The car, a 1935 coupe the uncles had given Jim on his sixteenth birthday, was a dull, lusterless green, but Jim liked the color because he thought it gave the Ford something of a military look. He had dubbed the car “The Major,” a nickname Uncle Al had eventually painted in white cursive letters just beneath the driver’s-side window.
The intersection of the railroad tracks and the state highway marked for Jim the point beyond which he figured he was safe from Mama’s nosiness. He kept the speedometer steadily on thirty-five as he approached the crossing sign and hit the railroad bed without slowing down. Jim bounced out of his seat toward the ceiling and savored the brief airborne sensation he felt in his stomach. Once across the tracks, he downshifted into second gear and pushed the accelerator all the way to the floor. When he popped the clutch, the resulting roar from the Major made him smile for the first time since fifth period. Soon Jim was traveling at sixty miles per hour, a mile a minute, pretty much the Major’s top speed on level ground. He leaned forward to let the wind whistling through the windows cool the sweat pasting his shirt to his back. On both sides of the road, cotton rows clicked past kaleidoscopically, each revealing for a fraction of a moment the full secret of its carefully hoed length. The Major’s tires hummed on the smooth concrete.
Although Jim liked driving the Major fast more than just about anything, he soon felt his anger at Norma gaining ground on his attempt to flee it. “Jim,” he said, mimicking Norma’s voice, “I know you won’t believe this, but I’m telling you this for your own good. You should stay away from Chrissie Steppe.” He pushed the accelerator harder against the floorboard, but the Major refused to go any faster. He slapped the steering wheel in frustration.
“Daggummit, Norma!” he shouted. “Leave me alone!
“I can’t believe this,” he whimpered. “You’re in love with that, that Cherokee.
“So what if I am?” he answered. “It’s none of your damn business who I’m in love with.”
Jim paused in his argument with the imaginary Norma. The Major slowed involuntarily. I’m in love with Chrissie Steppe, he thought, allowing himself to fully consider the possibility for the first time. He realized that the idea had been a shadow inside his head for so long that it had become familiar. Now, by attaching itself to words, it had taken on solid form and stepped into the light. “Hello,” it seemed to be saying, “you know who I am.”
Something warm inflated and rose inside his chest, replacing in a single moment his ill temper with a growing elation. “I love Chrissie Steppe,” he said out loud, realizing as he did so that the words were carrying him over some momentous boundary he had never known existed. Jim didn’t know in what strange country this unexpected crossing landed him, or what dangers faced him, only that he found the vistas glorious to consider. He didn’t know how it was possible that he loved Chrissie Steppe, only that he did. He didn’t wonder whether Chrissie would, or even could, ever love him back. Nor did he think for more than a fleeting second about Bucky Bucklaw, floating on his lunkhead boat somewhere in the Pacific Oc
ean. For now, all that lay far below him. He leaned over so that he could see out the passenger window all the way to the top of Lynn’s Mountain, which rose to the north and west of the highway. Chrissie lived up there somewhere, and for a moment he imagined her waiting for him, watching his tiny car inch along the road in the valley far below. He blew the horn as if she could hear it. Then he blew it again. He wanted to yell something to her, but couldn’t bring himself to direct the words I love you toward the mountain. Not yet, anyway. Instead he yelled, “Conquistador!” which was the first word that came into his mind.
When Jim reached the Lynn’s Mountain turnoff, he jerked the wheel sharply to the right and felt the Major’s tires leave the pavement and scramble uncertainly onto the dirt road. He again downshifted into second and popped the clutch, but this time he winced, when the Major’s engine bellowed in complaint. He had been going too fast to downshift and could have blown the motor. He let off the gas, cocked an ear toward the engine, and listened carefully. Once satisfied that the motor had not come unraveled, he stomped again on the accelerator and whipped the wheel to the left and to the right, joyously sliding through a short series of fishtails. Like most boys who did the majority of their driving on dirt roads, Jim liked to think that he could drive as well sideways as he could in a straight line. He slowed only when he approached the turnoff to Uncle Zeno’s mill. Uncle Zeno understood that Jim, like most boys, was occasionally going to drive too fast, but he had also made it clear that he never wanted to catch Jim doing it. Jim looked wistfully in the rearview mirror at the thick cloud of red dust drifting in the Major’s wake. He responsibly stuck his arm out the window, signaled a left turn, and pulled sedately off the road and into the yard of the mill, where, surprisingly, all three of the uncles’ trucks were parked.
The mill was a wide, whitewashed building made of rough lumber, roofed with moss-covered oak shingles the uncles had split themselves years before. Across the front of the mill, mcbride was painted in large, fading black letters. When Jim walked inside, he found the uncles sitting on straight chairs at the edge of the loft with their .22 rifles on their laps. A thin cloud of gun smoke nosed through the dust particles rising steadily toward the sunlit windows; the sharp smell of the burned powder blended oddly with the warm, sweet smell of ground corn.
“Halt!” Uncle Coran called out. “Who goes there?”
“John Dillinger,” Jim said.
“Well,” Uncle Coran said. “You know what happened to him.”
“He got in trouble for driving his car like a knothead,” said Uncle Zeno.
“You heard me coming?” Jim asked.
“People in Virginia heard you coming,” said Uncle Al. “Did you blow the motor?”
“The Major’s fine,” Jim said. “It’s going to take more than a little downshift to kill the Major.”
“We ain’t going to put a new motor in that car,” Uncle Zeno said. “You remember that. Your mama would have all our hides.”
“You won’t have to.”
“So make yourself useful,” Uncle Coran said. “Go get your gun.”
Uncle Zeno’s gristmill, despite the best efforts of a sizable contingent of half-wild cats, was beset with rats. Jim had learned to hunt by shooting rats from the mill loft, and he had no idea how many he had killed over the years. He returned to the Major and pulled his .22 from behind the seat. He removed the magazine tube from the rifle, emptied the shells into his free hand, and put them in his pocket. Back inside the mill, he took another chair from around the stove, handed it up to Uncle Zeno, then climbed the steep, open stairs to the loft, carrying his rifle. Jim sat down beside Uncle Zeno, who passed him five rat-shot cartridges. Jim loaded the cartridges into the magazine, levered a round into the chamber, and set the hammer on half cock. He squinted down into the dimly lit machinery of the grinding room.
“Who’s winning?” he asked.
“I think Zeno is,” said Uncle Coran. “By my count, he’s got four. Al’s got two and I’ve got two.”
Uncle Al snorted.
Uncle Coran pointed at a dead rat lying along the far wall. “That one’s under protest,” he said. “Al says they shot him at the same time.”
“Tie goes to the runner,” Uncle Al said.
“But I’m pretty sure Zeno shot him first,” said Uncle Coran.
Uncle Zeno winked at Jim. “One more, Doc, and I’ll be an ace.”
“The score’s three and a half to two and a half to two, and you know it,” Uncle Al said. “One more and I’m tied for first.”
Uncle Coran turned and stared at Uncle Al. “Allie, do you honestly think it’s possible to kill half a rat?”
“You never could count,” mumbled Uncle Al.
Uncle Zeno winked again at Jim. “Is Norma at the house?” he asked.
“Afraid so.”
“Figured that’s why you were here.”
Jim leaned forward as his eyes became accustomed to the shadowy room. The sun drew soft yellow pictures of the streaked windows on the floor. Gradually, he was able to locate the rest of the rat corpses scattered around. The immobile humps had obviously once been alive and were now just as obviously dead. He quickly scanned the holes in the floor and along the baseboards where he knew the rats came into the mill but saw nothing moving. Outside he could hear the lazy groan of metal and the rhythmic splash-splash-splash of water falling as the great iron wheel turned.
“Norma and Mama are about to drive me crazy,” he said.
“You stepped in that pile all by yourself,” Uncle Zeno said.
“Daggummit,” Jim said. “I didn’t step in anything. I don’t have to date Norma Harris if I don’t want to date Norma Harris.”
“Shh,” said Uncle Al.
“Don’t raise your voice,” said Uncle Zeno. “And I’m not saying you do. I’m just saying a lot of people got their feelings hurt when you broke up with Norma, your mama included.”
“Well, I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“The big deal is,” Uncle Zeno went on, “that Norma chose you. You understand what I’m saying? She picked you out. She decided you were the only boy in the world for her, although I don’t quite understand that.”
“There’s no accounting for taste,” said Uncle Coran.
“But we were just dating.”
“You were just dating, Jim. Norma was picking. And when she picked you, your mama picked her. Norma was going to be the daughter she never had. That’s what that quilt was about.”
“It’s just a quilt,” said Jim.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Doc,” Uncle Zeno said. “You’re wrong as you can be about that. I told Coran and Al when your mama and Norma started in on that thing, I said, ‘Boys, that quilt’s gonna bring a world of trouble. You mark my word.’”
“I still don’t see what the big deal is,” Jim said.
Uncle Zeno swallowed. “Norma was making that quilt for your bed, Jim, and your mama was helping her.”
Jim frowned. “I already got a quilt,” he said. “I got three or four quilts.”
Uncle Al shook his head. “He ain’t too bright, is he?” he said.
“Hush, Allie,” Uncle Coran said. “Here comes the good part.”
“Jim, you’re not listening to me. For your bed, you big knothead. For after you and Norma got married.”
“Married?” Jim said. “Who said anything about married?”
“Daggummit, hold it down,” said Uncle Al. “You’re gonna scare every rat in this country off.”
“Who said anything about married?”
“Did you tell Norma you loved her?” Uncle Zeno asked.
Jim blushed and looked away.
“Did you?”
Uncle Al shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t need to hear this,” he said.
“I guess so,” said Jim.
“Well, Doc, that’s all she needed to hear,” Uncle Zeno said. “Norma’s a serious girl. Some girls run around with boys for fun, but Norma’s not one of th
ose girls. You tell a girl like Norma you love her, you better be ready to marry her because she’s gonna piece you a quilt.”
“I didn’t ask nobody to make me no daggum quilt.”
Uncle Coran suddenly raised his rifle. The contested rat was trying to drag itself along the far wall. When Uncle Coran pulled the trigger, Jim saw the orange muzzle blast lick out into the dim light. The percussive, splitting report was surprisingly loud inside the enclosed room. It always was.
“Ha!” Uncle Coran shouted. “That rat wasn’t dead. I killed it. That makes the score three to three to two. Now I’m tied for the lead.”
“Ain’t no doggone way,” Uncle Al said. “Ain’t no doggone way you’re counting that.”
Uncle Coran stared at Uncle Al in disbelief. “Now you’re going to tell me you killed a third of a rat?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Well, a minute ago you said it was half a rat. Seems to me you’re losing rat by the minute.”
“Cheater,” Uncle Al said.
“Cheater?” said Uncle Coran. “How do you figure I’m a cheater? That rat was alive and I killed it.”
“Boys,” said Uncle Zeno.
Uncle Al levered three shells out of his rifle onto the loft floor. “If that’s how it’s going to be, I quit,” he said. “I ain’t going to play in no rigged game.” He laid his rifle in his lap and crossed his arms. The uncles sat and stared silently into space. After a while Uncle Al leaned over, picked up the shells, and loaded them back into his rifle.
Jim wanted to smile but knew better. “Why are y’all killing rats, anyway?” he asked.
Uncle Zeno turned toward him. “Did you see that troop train this morning?”
“Yeah. Me and Dennis Deane and them were standing on the steps.”
Uncle Al shook his head. “Here we go again. Daggummit.”
“I don’t see why y’all are killing rats over a troop train,” Jim said. “We’re not fighting anybody.”
“No, but we’re getting ready to,” said Uncle Zeno. “You just wait. If Hitler invades England, we’ll be knee-deep in that mess.”
“And don’t forget the Japs are getting bowed up, too,” added Uncle Al.
