Cole woke up to the pink-washed sunset sky. He was cold, he thought. Then he remembered the bite and figured he was having chills. He’d have to work his way back to the jeep. A bat’s wings whispered through the darkening sky. He tried to stand but fell back down. He scooted down some of the rocks on his butt. He smelled the thin fragrance of burning mesquite. He stood on one leg and hobbled across the rocks. There was the fire. There was the boy. He really needed the boy now. There was no way he could sneak down without spooking the kid. So he rolled himself down the rocks toward the fire.
He rolled through the flames, scattering burning twigs, and onto the boy’s rifle. He slapped the flame out with his trouser leg as he raised the rifle and leveled it at the boy, who was now on his feet.
“No se mueva,” Cole said.
The boy froze.
“Esteban Hireles?”
The boy said nothing, but did respond to his name.
“No se preocupe. I’m here to help.” He laughed at himself. That puzzled the boy and he leaned to move away. “Stay!” Cole said firmly. “Habla usted inglés?”
The boy nodded.
“Esteban, listen to me. A snake bit me on my hand.” He held his hand up for the boy to see. “I need a doctor. Sit down.”
Esteban sat.
“Where is your brother? Dónde…”
“Dead. They killed him.” Esteban’s voice was thin and he was trying to keep it under control. His chest rose and fell with his breathing.
“Lo siento. White men?”
“Si.”
“Look at me, Esteban. Am I a white man?”
He shook his head.
“You can trust me. I want to get the men who killed your brother.” A pain ran through his leg and he grabbed at it.
“Dónde le duele?” Esteban asked where it hurt.
“My leg. No puedo over el pierna., I need a doctor. Listen, kid, I’m about to slip under any second now. Puedo usted un médico?”
Esteban nodded slowly.
A cool wind blew through the camp. It was darker now.
“Hayviento,” Cole said, shivering, holding his arm tight to his body and clutching his shirt.
Esteban tossed him a blanket.
“Me llamo, Cole.” He passed the rifle butt-first to the boy. “My jeep is near the water hole. Just press the button and talk. Please.”
The boy held the rifle and said nothing.
Cole closed his eyes, felt consciousness slipping away.
“Lo siento,” he heard the whispered words of the boy.
Turtle
The boards of the house were gray like those of so many old barns. The overhang of the front porch was supported in part, if not whole by two four-by-fours which stood out because of their light brown freshness. The house sat off the ground on pillars of chipped brick. Chickens walked around under there.
A dark man sat on the porch, his complexion highlighted by his white tractor cap. The cap was crisp and new. His name was Bubba Johnson. He scratched at his cheek while he watched me approach.
“How’s it going, Bubba?” I asked.
“Okay, Dan. How you doin’?”
“Just fine.”
He started to pull himself from his rocker. “Let me get you a chair.”
“Stay there,” I said. “I’ll just sit right here.” I sat on the porch with my feet riding down the steps. “Your corn is looking real good.”
“Yeah, but it got cockaburrs in it. Been out there most of the day. On my knees.”
“Is that your soybeans back that way?”
“No, that’s Theodore Cheesboro’s.”
“I didn’t think your property went that far.”
“Well, that ain’t his property neither,” he laughed. “I don’t know whose it is. Probably belong to some white fella in Rock Hill. But it ain’t Theodore’s.”
I pulled a pack of cigarettes from my shirt pocket and shook one high. I pulled it out with my mouth, tilted the pack toward Bubba.
He shook his head.
“Smart,” I said. I struck a match on the cinderblock step and lit up. “I read where they closed one of the mills. The one where you work?”
“‘Fraid so.” He was momentarily silent. “I might go work at Industrial. I been there already for a physical.” He looked out over the corn. “They closed her up, all right.”
“You like turtle?” I asked.
“Turtle meat?”
“I killed one last week. Cut him up and froze him. I was thinking I’d fry some up tonight.”
“I love turtle.”
“Come on over.”
“I will.”
He wiped perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand. “It’s a hot one, ain’t it?”
“Sure is,” I said, “but it seems to be cooling off a bit.”
“Yeah, it’s gonna rain. We need it, too.”
I tossed my half-smoked cigarette out into the yard.
“Wanna see some babies?” he asked.
I looked at him.
“Pigs. Wanna see some baby pigs?”
“Sure.”
Bubba was shoeless. He started down the steps past me.
“You want your boots?” I asked.
“Don’t need’ em.”
We walked around the house. We passed his tractor parked out back.
“I hear you got yourself a tractor?’ he said.
“Yep. It’s a ‘49. Needs some work.”
“A Ford?”
“Right.”
“I believe I know the model. Good machine if you get her running.”
The pigs began to squeal loudly.
“I wonder what all that’s about,” he said and we walked faster down the hill toward the pens.
Closer, I could see the little pigs bunching up against their outstretched mother and just outside the pen a lone little pig trying to get back in.
“So, that’s what the commotion is,” Bubba said. “Why don’t you grab him, Dan, and stick him back in there. I’m barefoot.”
I walked around the pen and chased the little guy until I cornered him against the side of the feed shed. I grabbed him by his back legs and tossed him over the wire.
“There you go,” said Bubba.
“How many you got?” I slapped my hands clean on my jeans.
“Ten. You think you might wanna try some pigs?”
“Raising ’em?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll try anything. Maybe.”
He laughed.
He turned and headed back to the house. I followed. We walked past a large uprooted tree. I stopped to look.
“Storm did that,” he said.
“Damn. When was that?”
“That big one, about a month or so ago.”
“Hunh.”
“Well, that tree didn’t have real deep roots, no way. See.” He pointed.
“Still, it’s a big tree. Must have been some wind. You’re lucky it fell that way.”
“You heard the story about the slave woman and the bad storm?”
“No.”
“They say there was this slave woman who was real scared of thunder and lightning and every time a storm would brew up she’d run up to the white people’s house. Well, this real bad storm come up and she went running up there. She had to stay in the kitchen and back then, you know, the kitchen was sometimes sorta off the house, just sorta attached. Well, this big wind come up and picked up the kitchen and carried it down the road and the slave woman got kilt.”
“Some wind,” I said.
“Yeah. If she had stayed home and not gone runnin’ to them white folks, she’d have been all right.”
A flash of lightning turned both our heads south.
“Bad-looking cloud,” I said.
“It don’t look real friendly.”
We walked on down the dirt drive to my car. A skyrocket split the darkening sky.
“You’d think people would stop selling those damn things,” I said.
<
br /> “People ain’t got good sense. Fella told me, this fella works at the fireworks place, he told me that people come in there and spend thirty, forty dollars.”
“Phew.”
“I saw a burnt spot in the field cross the highway down that way.” He pointed. “I bet it was some fireworks which done it. Dangerous.”
“I hear you.” I opened my car door. “See you tonight.”
“Probably after the storm.”
The storm was short-lived. I dropped some shortening into the skillet and watched it slide around and melt. Bubba’s truck came roaring up. He needed a muffler.
“Come on in!” I shouted. “Back here in the kitchen. Where the big wind can get us.”
He laughed, hung his cap on a nail. He had a bottle with him. He set it on the table, then pulled a chair around and sat in it backwards, straddling it.
“That ain’t Scotch,” I said, pointing to his bottle.
“Sure ain’t. This here is white liquor. The last batch I ever made.”
“When was that?”
“Fifteen years ago.” He rubbed his face. “Got some glasses?”
I pulled a couple of glasses down and put them on the table.
“You can’t even taste this stuff till it goes down,” he said.
“Where was this still?” I asked, dropping the first pieces of turtle into the pan.
“I used to keep ’em near runnin’ water.”
“Like the branch near the old canal?” I asked. “Down below Old Tuck’s place?”
“Yeah.” He gave me a baffled look.
“I found one of your stills once. Well, the vat. I pissed in it.”
“Good for it,” he said and laughed.
“If you say so.”
“I’ll tell you when I stopped drinkin’ that stuff.”
“When was that?”
“One time it snowed and I went to check on things. I used to keep the vat low to the ground. Course, you know that.”
I laughed.
“Well, I went down there and found rats digging round it. Got rid of the rats and went back two days later and found an ol’ pilot in there.”
“One of those gray snakes?”
“Yeah. Drunk and dead.” He frowned. “That son of a bitch. They tell me that was the best batch I ever made.” He rubbed his jaw. “Drunk and dead. I held that son of a bitch up and let it drip off of him. I wasn’t wastin’ a drop.”
I turned the meat. “Think you might be able to drop by and feed my dogs tomorrow and the next day?”
“No problem. Where are you goin’?”
“Atlanta.”
“Long drive,” he said.
“I suppose.”
“You ought take some workin’ medicine before you go.”
“Excuse me?”
“You ought a take something that’ll work you.”
“Are you talking about a laxative?”
“A long trip like that’ll throw your system off. Best to clean yourself out before you go.”
“I’ll pass.”
Bubba poured the shine and handed me a glass.
“Whoa,” I said and blew out a breath. “That’s something right there.”
“Good, ain’t it?”
“You didn’t tell me why you stopped making this stuff?” My eyes were tearing.
“I was scared of getting caught.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“For a while I had Ol’ Tuck’s boy helpin’ me. Making it for me.”
“Which one?” I asked.
“The real big one, Leroy.”
“I don’t remember him.”
“He was jimmy-jawed. He jumped the broom with Sarah Willis. That Sarah was a pretty thing, like a speckled pup, but she let herself go.”
“So, he gave you a hand.”
“Yeah, but I let him go. He was trying to stretch the bucks.”
“What?”
“The bucks is the last of a batch, real weak. If you mix it with the first jugs you can use it, but Leroy was keeping the first and mixin’ the bucks with the middle. Weak stuff.”
I pulled the first pieces of turtle out and dropped them on some paper towels.
“You wanna help me slaughter a hog?”
“When?” I asked.
“Saturday.”
“I’ll help you.”
“Good, we’ll hang him up then.”
“I kind of like pigs,” I said. “They seem real smart. Not like sheep. Sheep are stupid.”
“Well, maybe not stupid,” he said. “What they used to say about sheep was that they’re humble. Back in Bible times.”
I attended to the turtle frying.
“My papa killed a sheep once. He said once was enough. He said he cut its throat and it screamed and didn’t take its eyes off him. He said that sheep just looked at him till he died. Liked to made him cry.”
“They do have sweet faces.”
“Humble,” he said.
“Humble.”
We sat at the table and took our first bites. He looked up at me.
“Damn good turtle,” he said.
The Bear as Symbol
Dust settled around the pickup which had just skidded to a halt in front of Judd Carlton’s garage. Old Mitch Biter looked up from his perch, fanned at the settling particles, coughed a bit, and spat. Darnell Aimes climbed out of the cab and limped toward the men at the open garage door. He pointed west at the yellow-orange sky and said, “See that?”
Mitch Biter spat again and mumbled, “Sun sets every day.”
Darnell turned to observe his truck. “Can’t that baby move,” he said.
“Sure does move,” said Mitch.
Judd nodded, scratched at his mop of gray hair.
“Got me a 351 Cleveland V-8 in that boy.”
The men had heard it all before.
“Jamie put it in there,” Darnell said and he fell silent.
“Shame about Jamie,” mumbled Mitch.
Darnell nodded. His son Jamie had died years earlier when the brakes of his semi failed on a stretch of mountain freeway in Idaho. He shook it off and turned to Judd. “You got a headlight switch for me?”
“Came in today.” Judd stepped away into the garage and returned with the part. “Three bucks.”
Darnell paid him and left, drove toward the colors in the sky which he liked so much. He whipped up the hill to his tiny house and spun the truck in tight circles, making doughnuts. “I’m strip-mining,” he shouted, then went into the house. He found his sister Clomer sitting in front of the television in the front room. He didn’t say anything to her, he just grabbed his .357 Magnum from the mantel and stepped out onto the porch where he sat on his rocker. The rocker was worn and squeaked a little when he moved it with a steady rhythm back and forth. His pistol was in his lap. Dusk turned slowly dark. He spent most of his hours in this position. On occasion he would fire at people who wandered into his vision. Then a sheriff’s deputy would reluctantly come to call.
“They want to take my land from me,” Darnell would tell the deputy.
“And who’s they?” the deputy would ask.
Darnell would look at him like he was stupid and reply, “Why, the homosexuals.”
The deputy would hold out his hand and ask for the gun which would lead Darnell to leveling the barrel at him and pulling back the hammer. The deputy would then leave.
Darnell had never seen what he called a homosexual. Old man Wooster down the hill fancied boys all his life, but he “weren’t no homosexual, he were just funny. Harmless.” But homosexuals were not harmless. “They’re out to ruin this country. They’re after my land.” Jamie had on several occasions tried to explain to his father that old man Wooster was indeed a homosexual, but Darnell wouldn’t hear it. Jamie told him what Wooster did with certain other men. Darnell said, “Hell, Jamie, I know that. What fool don’t know that? But that don’t make old Wooster no homosexual.”
His sister Clomer lived with him. Clomer had bee
n married to Ricky Tellsy who had been more or less the town drunk of Coy, Arkansas. Ricky had been, up to the time of his death, the most educated person in town, having obtained a master’s and gone halfway through a doctoral program in sociology. “Just attempting to isolate and define a few parameters,” he would say and stagger on past people in the street. “Ain’t he just about the smartest drunk you’d ever want to meet?” folks would say. They encouraged their children to spend time with him.
Ricky died and Clomer was forced to retire from her job at the county utility company. That’s when she went to live with Darnell on his six acres just west of town. Most nights she’d watch television while Darnell rocked and watched the sun sink behind the hills.
Morning came and Darnell pulled his legs out of bed. He sat facing the window and the trees outside. He put on his trousers and boots and went to the kitchen. He sat down to a breakfast of Clomer’s doing.
“I can’t eat these sausages,” Darnell said, pushing a link across his plate with his fork.
“Why not?” asked Clomer.
“Look at ’em.”
Clomer leaned forward and examined the meat. She was damn near blind, legally she was, but Darnell wouldn’t understand this. If she wasn’t walking into walls, she wasn’t blind.
“Squintin’ up like that won’t help you see nothing,” he said. “This meat ain’t cooked thoroughly.”
“I cooked it for a good long time, Darnell.”
“High heat or low heat?”
Clomer fell back into her chair and sipped her coffee. “There was a flame. That’s all I know.”
He pushed his plate to the center of the table.
“Ricky wouldn’t eat pig neither,” Clomer said. “Said it wasn’t healthy. Used to say—I can hear him—’Religious restrictions on the diets of middle eastern peoples were founded in legitimate considerations of health.’ Damn, that man could talk.”
Darnell frowned. “Often, I thought Ricky was one of them homosexuals. But when he married you I knew he was only stupid.” He stood and started away.
“Where are you going?” Clomer asked.
“I’m going to sit guard for awhile.” He stopped and turned to her. “When you’ve a mind to, cast an eye out back.”
The Weather and Women Treat Me Fair Page 7
