by Farris, John
"Arn did himself proud in the war, hear tell."
"He's a good man. Nobody I trusted more."
The man nodded, but cautiously. "Well, there's not too many would call harm agin' him. On the other hand, not so many claim him as a friend. Men have a way of changing, I suppose."
"Why do you say that?"
"Been a while since the war. Must have changed some yourself."
"That I have."
"You come across ol' Arn, give him my kind regards. Name's Ripley. Believe it or not." The man doubled up slowly, convulsed, then let out a whoop of laughter.
Whit said with a smile, "The boy and I are thirsty." He had noticed a soft-drink box around by the side door of the building. "We'd like to get a couple of sodas from your box."
"Yesterday's ice is mostly gone, but them drinks'll be cold enough, I reckon. They's dime apiece."
Whit paid him. Terry slid the corroded top of the drink box back, felt around in the numbing six inches of water until he fished up a Grapette and an RC Cola from the murky bottom.
"Want to try to find some breakfast, or go on up to Arn's store?" Whit asked.
"I guess I'm hungry now."
Three blocks away, at the corner where the blinking yellow traffic light was suspended over a deserted intersection, they found Fulcrum's Cafe. A dozen cars and trucks were parked diagonally in front. A trio of Walker hounds in a dog box in the back of a stake-sided pickup truck raised a ruckus as they went by, up two high steps to a sidewalk and the roof jutting out over the cafe entrance and steamed-up windows.
Inside there was a crowd, men in fedoras and denim and heavyweight, triple-stitched brown duck overalls doing some serious eating beneath the heavy blue float of griddle smoke, waitresses busy and chatty at the same time. Two stools left at the counter, with an unfriendly looking black-jowled man seated between them. But he moved over with a nod to Whit so Whit and Terry could be together.
"Momin' to you," one of the waitresses said, placing laminated menus in front of them. She had straggly red hair pinned up, and freckles everywhere, even on her gums. Teeth going every which way in her mouth but a good-humored smile for all that.
They ordered mountain flapjacks with sorghum molasses, which the waitress referred to as "short sweetenin'," big ovals of grilled ham, a double ice-cream scoop helping of grits covered with red-eye gravy, two eggs over easy. The food was better than any they'd eaten thus far on the road; it was, in fact, superb. Terry cleaned his plate and let the waitress talk him into having a second glass of rich buttermilk.
"Where y'all from?" she asked, when she had a few moments to catch her breath.
"New York."
"Paris," Terry said.
"That be Paris, Tennessee, or Paris, Kentucky? My second cousin Hallie Norton's married to a ole boy from Paris, Kentucky. Maybe you've heard of—"
"No, uh, I live in France."
"You don't say! Why, you are a long way from home, darlin'. Come all this way to visit the park? It just may be the prettiest season there is for wildflowers, but gets right cold at night; see that you dress warm if you're pitchin' camp."
The man who earlier had moved over one stool wiped up egg yolk from his plate with a piece of biscuit and turned his unkempt bearish head to stare at Terry. Because of the close set of his blue eyes his scrutiny could be taken either as menacing or moronic. He filled out his unpressed wool shirt in great heaps and bulges. The rye and acid odor Terry had put up with through the course of his meal seemed to take on added sharpness as the man focused his full attention on him. Apart from his size, which was considerable, there was something disturbing about him: edgy, secret, outlaw.
"Where do you live in Paris?" he asked.
Terry blinked at hearing faultless French, and was a few moments in replying. "On the Quai d'Orldans, near the St. Louis bridge."
The man nodded. "With a splendid view of Notre Dame, I should imagine."
"From my bedroom windows"
"I was three years studying at the Sorbonne. Have a good day."
He got up abruptly, laid down a quarter for the waitress, who had scooted away momentarily to refill a coffee mug, and departed without another word.
Whit, whose French was only fair, asked Terry to translate the brief conversation.
"He wanted to know where I lived in Paris. He said he studied at the Sorbonne."
"Studied what?"
"I don't know."
Whit watched curiously as the big man paid his bill, helped himself to toothpicks from the dispenser beside the cash register, and walked out. He said to the freckled waitress, who was back within earshot, "Do you know who that man was?" He pointed at the stool next to Terry.
She deftly picked up the quarter and dropped it into her apron pocket.
"I believe his name's Jacob. Somebody did tell me that."
"You don't know him? He's not from around here?"
"Surely weren't born here. He started comin' in, could be two, even three years ago. I'll see him ever' meal for a couple days, then I won't see him the longest time. Ain't never spoke ten words to me, 'cept to order. Not much for conversation." She wrinkled her nose; his odor had stayed behind like a homeless ghost. "Baths nuther."
"He speaks French," Terry said.
"Do tell. Now that's somethin' else I know about him. Speaks French and rides a ole Harley motorcycle and lives way off up in the woods. Just wants to be left alone, I reckon." She beamed at Terry. "What else can I get you?"
"I'm full," he groaned.
"Hon, what're you talkin' about? Call that breakfast? Won't be ten o'clock you'll be hungry again and snackin' pie.
Chapter Four
They got back into the DeSoto and turned left at the one-eyed signal; within a couple of blocks the town of Tyree was mostly behind them. They saw, pulled off on the apron of a station that sold an unknown brand of gas, a muddy black motorcycle. The French-speaking man was hunkered down beside it, one hand on the throttle as he revved the engine and listened to it misfire. They passed the lumberyard and the road climbed gradually past small mean houses with chicken yards and beanpole gardens freshly hoed, into a thickening of graceful cove hardwoods: yellow poplar, buckeye and sugar maple with new dill-green leaves woven like lace eighty feet above the ground. Beside the two-lane blacktop road where the sun was unobstructed, smaller trees and shrubs had reached a peak of radiance a blind man could have distinguished through his skin. The streaming air had a sweet-sour tang to it, subtly narcotic. Speeding through this byway of nature in its surge of renewal Whit Bowers felt perversely melancholy, humbled, and barren. He drove faster than he knew he should in an unexplainable pique, tires squealing on a deceptive curve, and Terry shot him a look.
When the road straightened out a large sign appeared, framed in split knotty pine that had been stained and varnished to stand up to the weather. The sign was neatly lettered. ICE*GROCERIES* BAIT 500 FEET, it said. And LAST GAS BEFORE THE PARK. And TOURIST CABINS/HEAT.
The store was set back from the road about thirty yards, with a big graveled parking area in front that showed a few sprigs of dandelion. Otherwise the area was neat and well-policed, as Whit would have expected of Arn's establishment. He dispensed Good Gulf gasoline from two pumps. The store had the customary sheet-metal roof to shade a concrete porch slab, but the roof was in good repair and only slightly stained by rusting nailheads. Both the frame building, painted a pale yellow, and the slab porch rested on concrete block pillars. There was a Double Cola logo painted on the screen door. A Kern's bread truck was parked near the steps and the route man had stacked some cartons of bread and rolls on the porch.
The young man in faded jeans and undershirt who had been watching this operation took his hands out of his back pockets and accepted an invoice from the route man. He concentrated on signing his name to the invoice, putting as much energy into it as if he were wrestling a bear.
He had to be Jewell, Arn's nephew, Whit thought. He certainly fit the brief description provided by the John Deere de
aler in town. Jewell looked just savvy enough to get out from under a falling tree. His eyes were pale and vague, too insubstantial for the depths of their bony sockets. His mouth was a little agape from the weight of an uncouth lantern jaw. He was slat-thin but had a girlish tummy, not a manly beer-drinker's mound over his belt.
"There you be," Jewell said, handing down the clipboard. He smiled expectantly at the route man and fidgeted. The route man turned away whistling to his truck and shut the double doors in back. Jewell's expression changed from dull amiability to pained concern. He opened his mouth but didn't speak, then slumped as if heartbroken against a vine-covered post.
The route man paused, still whistling, gazing a little dreamily at the clipboard. Then he suddenly snapped the fingers of his free hand and looked up at the porch.
"I forget somethin', Jewell?"
Jewell nodded eagerly, hopefully.
"Yeah, sure 'nuff did." He opened the doors again, rummaged inside for another, smaller carton, tossed it to Jewell but making him reach. Jewell fumbled and dropped his prize, then went down on all fours after it.
"Almost forgot your cupcakes," the route man said. He locked the doors. "Now listen careful, Jewell. Won't be no more free cupcakes, less'n—"
That got Jewell's attention. He looked up in the act of tearing the lid off the white carton.
"Unless you tell Arn in no uncertain terms he's got to cut out lettin' his account run so long. Tell him that comes straight from the boss man. He don't pay up soon, I got to drop him from the route. Now what'd I just say?"
Jewell's hands trembled. He breathed deeply, staring into space.
"Tell Arn—"
"In no uncertain terms—"
"Uncertain terms, he's got to cut out lettin' his account run so long."
"That's the boss man talkin', not me. Sure you got the message?"
Jewell nodded.
"Okay. So long. Why don't you try to make them cakes last this time?"
The bread truck drove away. Jewell sat back against the wall of the store next to the screen door. He tore at a cellophane package with his teeth and extracted a devil's food cupcake with a squiggle of white icing on it. He had paid no attention to the arrival of the DeSoto and didn't look up from his treat until Terry and Whit reached the bottom of the steps.
"Hello, Jewell," Whit said.
Jewell pinched a couple of dark crumbs from his gray undershirt and carefully popped them into his mouth. "You need gas?"
"No, I don't need anything. I'm looking for Arn."
A hint of wariness wrinkled the fair brow. "Don't know that I seen him yet this week."
"Do you know where he is? Where I can find him?"
Jewell licked a grimy finger. "I like these Hostess cupcakes the best, they got the cream fillin' in the middle, you know? Ain't supposed to eat nothin' sweet because of my sugarbetes condition, but just get to cravin'?" His voice had a way of ending on a questioning high note, as if he doubted the wisdom of what he was saying, or had been told, too often, to keep his mouth shut.
"Jewell."
"Huh? Oh, you want Arn?" He pondered his uncle's absence. "When Arn goes, he just goes. Don't tell nobody first. You could ask Faren? Maybe Faren knows when he'll be back."
"Who's Faren?"
"That's Arn's wife. Now, she's not here nuther. She's down at the reservation? But Faren told me she'd be back before noon. I don't recollect what time it was she left."
"Mind if we wait around?"
"Heck, no. Why should I mind? Come up and set a spell." He looked around the porch. There was nothing to sit on except some upended yellow Coke boxes against the wall.
"Give you a hand with that bread," Whit suggested. He and Terry picked up a couple of boxes each. Jewell scrambled to open the screen door.
"That's nice of you," he said, as if he were amazed to have someone go to any trouble on his account. "That's real nice."
Inside the one-room store there was a scarred counter on one side half taken up by big glass storage jars each partially filled with cookies and soda crackers. There was a cash register at one end. The metal bread rack was in front of the counter and they put the boxes down there. A coil-top refrigerator hummed noisily in one corner next to a butcher's refrigerated case. Whit noticed a scarcity of canned goods on the shelves. The deep sill of the window that faced the gas pumps and the road had a long strip of sticky paper with a line of extinguished but otherwise intact flies adhering in a row, looking like quaint aircraft from a Lilliputian war.
Whit got around to introducing Terry and himself. Jewell waved a hand at some wooden chairs surrounding a black Franklin stove.
"You could set over there, you got a mind to wait? But Arn—he took the dogs with him."
"Has he gone hunting?"
Jewell opened the door of a refrigerator and took out a bottle of milk that was half empty.
"Mainly he just goes a-lookin'," Jewell muttered. Then he glanced around at them, lowering the bottle before it touched his lips. "Offer you a drink of this?"
Whit and Terry declined. Jewell tilted his head back and swallowed most of the milk that was left in the bottle, dribbling some of it on his gray undershirt. He put the bottle back into the refrigerator.
"What's Arn looking for?" Whit asked idly.
Jewell looked for a place to stash the opened carton of cupcakes behind the counter, disappearing for a few moments. They heard him laugh, deep in his chest: huh, huh, huh. Then he popped up partway, head and shoulders above the countertop, his face woodenly serious, like a character in a puppet show that sooner or later all the other characters were going to take a whack at.
"Oh, we don't talk about it none. He lamed me right upside the head one time for sayin' it out loud, couldn't hear so good out of this ear for the longest time." He put a thin arm up on the counter, and pointed at the assaulted ear. Then he got to his feet, leaned out, and looked at the rack in front of the counter.
"Reckon I'll just put that bread up. Won't sell half of it nohow."
"I think I'll go outside," Terry said. Being around people like Jewell made him edgy after a time.
Whit, looking around, had seen a pay phone in the corner where the stove was.
"Go ahead. I need to call the office."
Terry walked outside on the porch, screen door slapping shut behind him. A young tabby with a stylized face like one of the lions in a Rousseau painting gazed at him from a corner of the porch, then swatted at an insect buzzing around its head. Terry wasn't a cat person and didn't try to get acquainted. Hands in the pockets of his suede jacket, he went down the steps and looked behind the store. Undershirts like Jewell wore were drying on a carousel clothesline; presumably he lived in a room behind the grocery—there was a back door and a single window with a cheap yellow shade pulled halfway down. Terry walked past a pile of bald tires stored in a scrap lumber bin, a rusted barrel reeking of partly burned, compacted trash. A little farther on he came to an outhouse. He had never seen one before, and had to open the door and glance inside to be sure of what it was. Like a pissoir, but fetid and spider-webby under the roof. Kudzu vine had been halfway cleared from a hillside and left in piles to rot and a few trees were logged off, leaving stumps around which new shoots of kudzu were winding. There were two beehives on the hill, and dozens of redbud trees in blush shades of a color between pink and purple, dazzling where the sun touched the boughs. The gravel road went back a hundred and fifty feet and looped around a big shagbark hickory that looked as if it had been clawed by lightning more than once. There was a string of modest tourist cabins beneath the hill. Opposite them, a one-story clapboard house with a stone chimney and a deep screened porch distinguished by filigreed woodwork. Jonquils and daffodils and a few tulips had been planted where they would have sun for the longest part of the day. Behind the house stood a cluster of peach and sassafras trees, fronting a long grassy slope to a stream with a tile springhouse on the bank. Half a dozen large brown birds with topknots were strutting in the s
hade beneath the trees; they had loud and irritating voices like geese, and seemed to be upset by his presence. Downwind there was a henhouse and dirt yard populated by fat pullets having chicken-brained disputes about nothing much. A dog kennel that appeared deserted. A garden plot enclosed by more chicken wire reinforced with palings to keep rabbits and other vegetarian nibblers out. Little clumps of wildflowers everywhere, like drippings from an artist's palette. Hepaticas thriving in the rotted hollow of a stump, violets splashed up against one side of a corrugated metal building with an air-conditioning unit that took up most of the window space on one side.
He heard tires on gravel and turned to see a '55 Pontiac station wagon. He stepped off the rutted road to let it go by. The dark green wagon, with simulated wood siding, stopped in front of the house. The woman who got out had a dark russet face and short black hair, Italian-cut, high, slanting cheekbones. Her widely spaced eyes were of a darkness somewhere between the tone of her skin and the raven sheen of her hair. Her expression was neutral as she looked him over, but sunlight on her lips suggested a willingness to smile. A strand of hair loosened by the breeze came down over one strong eyebrow. She flipped it back with a little toss of her head.
"Hi," she said. "I'm Faren. Are you looking for me?"
"No. We were—we came to see Mr. Rutledge."
"Arn's my husband," she said. "He isn't around today, I don't think. Who's we?"
"My dad and me. My name's Terry Bowers."
"Ohhhh." She was wearing a V-neck black sweater over a white Ivy League shirt, a tan culotte, and sturdy-looking harness-leather sandals. She appeared tall to Terry, but it may have been an illusion because of her slenderness, the length of her throat, the short haircut that covered all but the lobes of her ears and left the nape of her neck bare. "Your father's not Colonel Whit Bowers from the 82nd Airborne, is he?"
Terry nodded. Her smile came and went so quickly, he had only an impression of perfect teeth, a whiteness that startled and left him with a momentary sensation of having been tapped smartly at the base of the neck with a pointed rubber hammer. He seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. But the smile was gone; she put the backs of her wrists on her hips in a way that was feminine and aggravated, and looked around.
