by Edward Abbey
Paw smiled, having routed the enemy, and went on bragging about Will to Charlie Carci. I knew he’d been sucking on a bottle of Ginter’s moonshine, him and Carci both. They were pitching horseshoes after the shoot, and I could tell by the way Paw threw each shoe—hard and low and flat, one ringer after another. Whiskey did that for him.
IV
In late summer, in the stifling heat of September, when the goldenrod and sunflowers were in full bloom, Will came home for his two-week furlough before shipping overseas.
Big dark broad and stout as a bear, he showed up one day in his U.S. Army dress uniform, his Expert Rifleman’s medal on the left breast of his tunic, the Expert Infantryman’s blue and silver badge on the right and the little silver wings of a parachute above the Expert medal. On each sleeve he wore the handsome stripe of a Private First Class. An overseas cap with the blue piping of an infantryman was perched rakishly on his square, close-cropped head. On his feet he wore the blunt-toed, square-laced boots of a paratrooper, polished to the gleam of glass. The boots made a terrific racket when he walked across the floor; he clattered like a tank.
Will hugged Mother, who cried a lot as she kissed him. He shook hands with me and Paul, hugged Marcie, tossed Baby Jim in the air. He nodded to Paw, who nodded back and left the house, growling that somebody in this goddamn overgrown underdone family had to see after the animals. Will took the .22 rifle off the wall and showed us how to do the manual of arms. Paul was impressed. Will removed his tunic and let the kids feel the medals and badges, then clomped upstairs and into the boys’ bedroom. Will had to bend his head to get under the lintel of the doorway. He sat on one of the double-decker bunks that the old man had built for us about fifteen years earlier and took off the soldier suit—the plain light brown tie (tucked into the shirt), the olive drab shirt and trousers. He hung the uniform on hangers in the closet. Even his underwear was brown. He took off his dog tags: name, blood type, serial number. He put on a clean flannel shirt and the clean Osh-kosh overalls which Mother had put away for him in the drawer beneath his bunk. He pulled on his old leather hunting boots, laced them up and asked me about the car.
I was afraid of that. Reluctantly I told him about the uphill problem, the lack of power, the need for using reverse a lot. He nodded calmly, not surprised. “Camshaft again,” he said. “How many times you change the oil, Henry?”
“All the time, Will. We’re gettin’ about fifty miles to a quart.”
“Uh-huh…. What about the leak in the radiator?”
“Not bad. We just pour in some rolled oats now and then, like you said. Sawdust works good too.”
“And it still runs?”
“Sort of. Something wrong with the generator but we always park on a hill.”
Will put on his cap and walked around the boundaries of the farm. We followed—Paul, Jim and me; Marcie was helping Mother fix a big dinner. The old man stayed out of sight. First thing Will did was visit the spring on the hillside in the woods. “Soon as I get back I’m buildin’ a cabin here, Henry. Don’t let Paw log these oaks.”
Near the top of the hill he paused at the two graves, side by side, of our great-grandfather Doctor Jim and Grandmaw Ostrander—“Cornflower.” The graves were sunken now, after so many years, overgrown with creepers, ivy, briars, but the two thin slabs of chestnut were standing yet, though leaning a little. The names and dates were weathered but still readable. Will straightened them, tamped the sod with his bootheels and marched on. He stopped on the open ridge to inspect our sixty acres on the north side, our best hayfield. The hay rake and mower stood where Paw had left them in August, after the last cutting. Weeds were growing through the spokes of the wheels; the perforated steel seats were sprinkled with bird droppings; the wooden tongues lay half hidden in the timothy.
“Why ain’t those machines in the shed?” Will asked.
“Paw’s figuring on one more cut in October.”
“That’s no reason to let ’em get rusty.”
Paul and I looked at each other. I said, “What the hell, Will, that old iron junk’s obsolete anyhow. Paw says as soon as the war’s over he’s gonna plant this whole hill in Christmas trees. You know—Scotch pine. There’s gonna be good money in Christmas trees now, Paw says.”
“The stock can’t eat Christmas trees.”
“Paw says he’s getting rid of the stock. Paw says he’s getting sick and tired of feeding these goddamned animals that only work half the year but eat all year round. That’s what Paw says.”
Will scowled. He stared across the fields, across the Big Woods and Honey Hollow toward the farther hills, the Allegheny Mountains, the blue haze of distance. “Don’t sell the horses,” he said.
“What?”
“You heard me.” He marched on. We tramped after him, whispering to each other. What’d he say? He said don’t sell the horses. Why not? He didn’t say why not, you deaf or something?
Will didn’t like the looks of the field corn either. The stalks stood shoulder high, tall enough for the season, but the ears were small, Will said—too many nubbins. “You manure this field, Henry?” Who, me? “Did Paw?” No. “Why not?” Manure spreader’s broke down. “Fix it.” I’m no damn mechanic. “Why didn’t Paw fix it?” Said he didn’t have time. Said he’ll get a new one when the war’s over. Said he has better things to do. “Like what?” Well, I said, Paw says he can make more money now in the woods. “Doing what?” He’s cutting pit props mostly. “Pit props?” Locust posts—for the coal mines. Lots of money in locust posts right now with the mines going full time for the War Effort.
Will hurried ahead, making no comment but looking displeased. He stopped now and then to pick up the fence rails that lay on the ground, put them back in place. That Army’s sure done something to Will, I thought; he acts like he owns this place. Thinks he’s the boss. Thinks he’s a sergeant already. Next time he jumps out of an airplane I hope he breaks his neck. Talking to myself, of course, and I crossed my fingers when I said it.
We headed back toward the house. We crossed the run in the middle of the pasture, stepping from rock to rock, and angled up among the cow patties toward the barn. Will stopped off in the barn to argue some with Paw but the old man wasn’t there. Probably hiding down in the basement, oiling the traps, or maybe off with his ax and his wedges and his one-man crosscut saw. He never minded working in the woods alone, though he knew as good as anybody it was dangerous.
Will marched up to the Hudson Terraplane, where I’d parked it on the ramp of the barn. He lifted the hood, inspected the battery connections, checked the radiator, pulled the dipstick and looked at the oil level. He poured a bucket of water and added a quart of oil, closed the hood, got into the car and let it roll off the ramp and down the road. Paul and Jim ran along behind to see. When the car was moving pretty fast Will let out the clutch and got the motor started. Then he stopped, put her in neutral and got half out of the car, one foot on the road and one foot on the gas pedal, and he raced the engine and watched the black smoke pouring out of the tailpipe. He backed the car up the ramp again and shut her down. I went into the house and helped Marcie set the table.
Will came in and made some telephone calls, cranking hard on the handle. He didn’t look at me. Paw showed up just as supper was ready and we all sat down at the table.
Baby Jim said grace, as everybody bowed their heads, except Paw. (And me.) Jim said, “God is great God is good let us thank him for this food,” as Mother had taught him, more or less, except he made “food” rhyme with “good,” which was wrong according to the Holyoaks. As the dishes started to move Paul the wise guy added, “For this food we’re about to eat praise the Lord now pass the meat.” Mother did not bother to say anything about that either. She had mostly given up on us, I guess.
We ate Will’s favorite Sunday dinner though it wasn’t Sunday: baked chicken, dumplings, mashed potatoes, gravy, string beans, peas, sweet corn, and hot apple pie—all you could eat. Will drank two glasses of buttermilk sprin
kled with pepper. Everything but the sugar, salt and pepper came from the premises.
Right after supper Will took off. He let me go with him. We got the car started and drove into Stump Creek, taking a powerful race to mount the hill to Roy Stitler’s garage without having to turn around and back up. I had to admit to myself I probably couldn’t have done it. Will parked the car over the grease pit. Old Roy was waiting for us with a new used camshaft and the other parts Will figured he’d need. Roy hooked his electric worklight on the frame and Will crouched down in the pit and for the next two hours they worked on that Hudson motor from the bottom up. They talked about the Army and the war and women, with Roy doing most of the talking and Will doing most of the laughing. My job was to wash the greasy parts in a bucket of gasoline on the floor and to hand them the tools they needed when they hollered for them. I spent half the time leafing through the grease-smeared magazines on Stitler’s workbench: Outdoor Life, Field and Stream, Real Detective, Ace Detective—and a pulpy number called Snappy Stories with a colored illustration on the cover that gave me a hard-on I could’ve used for a pry bar if I had a good enough fulcrum.
“Hey Henry,” yells Roy, “let go of your pecker for a minute and hand me the cam stretcher.”
I poked around on the bench in the jumbled mess of socket wrenches, crescent wrenches, spark plugs, head gaskets, distributor caps, fanbelts, piston rings, hoses, battery cables, copper wire…“Bullshit,” I said, “there’s no such thing as a cam stretcher.” They laughed some more. “Go to hell,” I said.
“That there Henry,” says Roy, “he’s about as much help as tits on a motor.”
“Go to hell.”
“Just gimme that mallet, Henry,” says Will, gently enough. His hand and bare arm, stained with oil, was stretched out from beneath the car. His fingers wiggled. “The wooden hammer, Henry, the big one.” I placed the mallet in his hand; both disappeared. The sound of hearty banging came from the pit. Like country mechanics anywhere, both Will and Roy depended on hammers for the fine alignment of parts.
By nine o’clock everything was in place, including the new camshaft, a new used generator and battery, new points, new plugs, new secondhand starter assembly. The ring job and the basic overhaul would have to wait, for the duration. The motor ticked over like a Hamilton watch as Roy and Will listened carefully under the upraised hood. Roy accepted payment for the parts but refused to take anything for his labor or the use of his shop and tools. “Shit no Will you don’t owe me nothing for that you keep your soldier pay and no sir no sir I will not and you take this here piece of iron in to Shawnee tonight and you have a good goddamn time or I’ll never play poker with you and your old man again. Screw a couple of girls for me when you get ’em in the backseat. If I ever have to look at this sorry bucket of bolts again I want to see footprints on the dashboard—upside down.”
By nine-thirty we were back at the farm and Will was taking a bath in the washtub in the kitchen while the rest of us listened to Fibber McGee and Molly on the Philco radio. I went upstairs to put on a clean shirt and heard Marcie coaching Baby Jim at his prayers. “Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep if I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
“Wait a minute,” little Jimmy says, “I’m not gonna die tonight. Am I, Marcie?”
“How should I know?” says Marcie. “It’s what you’re supposed to say when you go to bed.” The kid started to cry. “Oh for heaven’s sake, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
Will came up wrapped in a towel. He put on his splendid uniform and the shining boots. As I combed my hair by the light of the lamp I asked where we were going. “We?” said Will. “It ain’t we, Henry, it’s me. You better stay home and squeeze your pimples.”
Very late that night Will returned. I heard the Terraplane grinding up the road, heard Will come in the front door and stumble against something in the entryway, heard him padding as softly as he could up the narrow stairs. Heard Paw meet him in the hall.
“It’s pretty late, Will.” “Yes sir.” “Around three o’clock.” “Yes sir.” “You been drinkin’, Will?” “Had a few beers, Paw.”
I imagined them staring at each other in the gloom, no light but that of the stars filtered through the curtains in the front window. Will was nearly as tall as the old man, a good ten pounds heavier and twenty-six years younger.
“Good night, Will.”
“Good night, Paw.”
The next evening after supper Will again scrubbed himself, shaved (“Never seen a boy of mine wash up every day without halfin’ to be told every time,” Paw mused in wonder; but Mother looked disappointed at seeing him leave so early) and buttoned on his glittering uniform. William G. Lightcap, Pfc. Meeting his buddies in town, he explained—for most of his teammates were home too—gonna shoot some pool, hit the bowling alleys, maybe go roller-skating, who knows. Paw smiled skeptically. Mother looked worried. And off he roared again into Shawnee (pop. 9,500), named, as the town limit signs explained, FOR THE FORMER PREVALENCE OF RED MEN IN THIS VALLEY.
Will came home late almost every night. He worked hard all day—patched fence, shoveled cowshit from the stalls, hoed the tomato patch, repaired and oiled the cultivator, the seed drill, the manure spreader, and even cleaned out the chicken coop one morning, which was supposed to be one of my chores—but off he went every night into Shawnee, leaving a plume of oily smoke behind.
Most of the time our old man stayed out of sight, off in the Big Woods cutting trees, but one night him and Will got into an argument about something. Will stayed away for three days and nights the second week of his furlough. Mother cried a lot, secretly, when she thought no one could see or hear. She took long walks in the evenings. Paul and Marcie and me had to clean up and wash the dishes. I looked forward to getting into the Army: no more washing goddamned dishes; no more Mom’s home cooking.
Two days before he was scheduled to leave for Norfolk, Virginia, there to board a troopship for MTO, Will brought a girl home to have supper with us. She was short, dark-haired, thick in the legs with a behind about one ax handle wide. She had a pretty face though, I guess, if you liked plucked eyebrows and bright red lipstick on the mouth. Marcie thought she was pretty and Marcie was an expert. This girl wore saddle shoes, bobby sox, a long full skirt and a pink sweater. She was quiet, very polite. Her name, Will said, was Marian—Marian Gresak. He spelled the name out slowly and carefully for Paw’s benefit. Paw looked doubtful. She wore a necklace with a little oval-shaped silver medal attached; pinned to her sweater were Will’s silver wings. We’re engaged, Will announced. Quietly but firmly. Mother and Marcie, delighted, hugged her and kissed her—like women would. I knew Marian all right. She was one of the cheerleaders at Shawnee High. She was not one of the pretty ones, not compared to Donna or Betsy or Lou Ann Risheberger. I had to corner Will on this question. “Why her?” I asked when I got him alone for a minute outside.
“Why who?”
“You know what I’m talking about. Why her?”
“Oh, you mean Marian. Well, you see, it’s like this, Henry: I like her.” He grabbed my shoulder and squeezed, hard. “You’ll like her too. Won’t you, Henry?”
I wriggled loose. “I suppose. But why her?”
Will thought for a minute. He grinned. “Because she likes animals. She wants to live on a farm.”
Our old man maintained a civil surface, on the surface, but I overheard him later mumbling about Polacks, Catholics, ring kissers, genuflectors, Pope lovers, mackerel snappers. But not where Will could hear him.
On the last day Will drove to the bus station in town. We saw him off, along with Homer Bishop, Ernie Houser, the Spivak brothers, Bill Gatlin and the rest of Will’s gang, except for Chuck Tait and Charlie Kromko who were already in different worlds—one an air cadet trainee, the other an officer candidate.
There was no band this time. The women hugged their sons and wept quietly, the fathers shook hands firmly, smiled grimly, made wh
at jokes they could. “Looky here, Will,” Paw says in farewell, “you take care of them sons of bitches Adolf and Benito and get yourself back here inside of six weeks or I’m going over there myself to finish it. Then we’ll go get them warmongers down in Washington, D.C., and them war profiteers up in Wall Street, New York. Don’t you forget.”
“I’ll be back, Paw. Don’t sell the horses. Don’t log off the oaks. Don’t plant Christmas trees and don’t sell any of the land.”
“You do your job, boy, I’ll do mine.”
“Don’t you forget.” Gratefully, Will turned to Marian, embraced and kissed her for a full minute right in front of the whole crowd. The other boys were getting into the bus. Quickly Will shook hands with me, hugged Marcie, little Paul, Baby Jim. Finally, the difficult part, he said goodbye as best he could to Mother. That was hard to watch.
October 1943. The Appalachian hills were aflame in 449 different colors of autumn. None of us would see Will again for nearly two years.
V
The letters from Will trickled home in V-mail by way of an APO address in New York through the winter of 1943-44, from Bizerte, Palermo, Napoli, Mignano. He and his little squad of West Virginia farmboys and high school football players, after weeks at a replacement depot in Naples, were funneled intact into a rifle company of the Thirty-sixth Infantry Division, General Fred L. Walker (an Ohio farmboy) commanding. By this time Will was an actual not acting squad leader, a real buck sergeant. He never rose above that rank—and never wanted to. Will and his squad of eight arrived too late for the landing at Salerno but well in time for the attempt to cross the Rapido River north of Naples and Mignano. Their first battle took place under the heights of a mountain of shattered rock and an ancient stone-walled monastery known as Monte Cassino.
The story, as Will eventually told it, sounded like this:
