Nathan Coulter

by Wendell Berry

  “And what did you do then?” Beriah would ask. And when Uncle Burley told him, he’d let his hands drop onto his knees and say, “Well, I’ll swear.”

  When Uncle Burley began to tell how we’d fought the fish out in the dark and the rain his voice got tight and excited in spite of all he could do. He sounded like somebody was tickling his feet.

  Before he got it all told Gander Loyd came in.

  “Gander, go look there in the cooler,” Beriah said.

  “What for?”

  “Just go look in it.”

  Uncle Burley straightened up and Beriah rubbed his hands together and patted his feet while Gander opened the lid and looked in.

  “Nice fish,” Gander said. “Who caught him?”

  “Burley and Nathan here.”

  I was glad Beriah included me, but he was about to turn the fish and Uncle Burley and me into some sort of freak show. He’d got to be as proud of the fish as we were and I was sorry we’d let it get out of our hands.

  “How’d you catch him, Burley?” Gander asked.

  “Caught him last night in the dark,” Beriah said. “Ain’t that right, Burley?”

  Uncle Burley nodded, and Beriah began asking him the same questions he’d asked before, making him tell the story again from the beginning.

  He got it all told that time, and after he finished everybody was quiet for a while. Beriah and Uncle Burley had used up all of their talk, and Gander wouldn’t help them any. Now and then Beriah slapped his knees and said, “Uhhhhhhh-uh!”

  After a while Big Ellis’s car pulled up in front of the store and stopped.

  Beriah yawned and stretched. “Customers,” he said. He went behind the counter and set his elbow on the top of the cash register.

  Annie May came in and began ordering groceries. Big Ellis and two other men followed her through the door and walked on back where we were.

  “This is J.D.,” Big Ellis told us, pointing to one of the men. “He’s my brother-in-law. And this other one is William.”

  J.D. and William stepped up and shook hands with Uncle Burley and Gander and me.

  “They work at the same place in Louisville,” Big Ellis said. “This is their vacation.”

  “Well, I’ll declare,” Uncle Burley said.

  Big Ellis sat down on the bench between Uncle Burley and Gander; J.D. and William stood in front of them, shifting their feet and looking around the store.

  Finally Big Ellis said, “J.D. hasn’t been here for thirty years.”

  “I grew up around here,” J.D. said.

  Everybody kept quiet. Uncle Burley was studying J.D.’s face, but I saw that he couldn’t recognize him. Gander had turned his blind side to them and was looking at the toe of his shoe.

  “Yep, this is where I was raised,” J.D. said. He looked at Gander and then at Uncle Burley. “I expect you all remember me.”

  Uncle Burley got embarrassed then and looked away, and so did Big Ellis. I began to feel sorry for J.D. He stood there waiting for somebody to remember him and be glad to see him now that he’d come back home after thirty years. But he was a stranger to us. I knew Big Ellis had relatives who’d moved away, but he never talked about them.

  J.D. looked at Uncle Burley. “You’re Burley Coulter, aren’t you?”

  Uncle Burley nodded.

  “And I remember you had a brother.”

  “That’s his boy there.”

  J.D. turned to me and said, “Is that so? Well, I’ll declare. How’re your folks, son?”

  “Fine,” I said.

  Uncle Burley looked down at his hands for a minute, and then he said, “Why, I believe I remember you.”

  J.D. nodded. He looked grateful enough to have paid money for that. I knew Uncle Burley was lying, but I was glad for J.D.’s sake.

  “You married Big Ellis’s sister,” Uncle Burley said.

  J.D. nodded again. “That’s right.”

  Uncle Burley laced his fingers around his knees and leaned back. “I was just a boy when you left here.”

  “That’s right, Burley.”

  After that all Uncle Burley had to do was listen. J.D. talked about his boyhood; and told why he’d left home and how he’d got to be a foreman where he worked and was doing well for an old country boy. He told it all to Uncle Burley, looking at him while he talked. Uncle Burley had said he remembered who J.D. was, and J.D. was Uncle Burley’s friend.

  “Burley,” J.D. said, “it don’t seem like more than a few days since I was a boy here, and it’s been half a lifetime. I tell you, time goes in a hurry.”

  “That’s right,” Uncle Burley said.

  Beriah hustled around, waiting on Annie May. He filled a box with groceries and pushed it across the counter, and then we heard him say, “Right there in the cooler, Annie May. Just help yourself.”

  He looked at us and winked. And we watched her walk to the cooler and open it.

  “Ouch!” she said, and slammed the lid down.

  Beriah’s belly shook with laughter, but he kept his face straight.

  “What’s the matter, mam?”

  Annie May backed out into the middle of the floor. “A stinking catfish!” she said.

  As soon as they heard her say catfish, Big Ellis and J.D. and William went to the cooler and looked in. Uncle Burley and Gander and I got up and followed them. And then Beriah came, forgetting all about Annie May.

  “Who caught that one?” Big Ellis asked.

  “Burley and Nathan,” Beriah said.

  “You might know it would be Burley’s,” Annie May said. But when she saw that nobody was going to pay any more attention to her she picked up her box of groceries and started to the door. “I’m going home,” she said. “If you all don’t want to come now, you can walk.”

  “Well,” Big Ellis said. He never looked up when she slammed the door.

  “That’s a pretty good fish,” William said, “for a river fish.”

  “That’s about as good a fish as you’ll ever see caught,” Beriah said.

  William ignored him. “Of course now, you can catch them plenty bigger than that in the ocean.” And he began telling us that he’d lived near the ocean once and used to go fishing clear out of sight of land. I figured he was going to tell how he’d caught a bigger fish than we had, and I didn’t want to hear it; but he finally noticed that nobody had turned away from the cooler to listen to him. He slowed down then; and Beriah horned in and started telling how Uncle Burley and I had caught our fish.

  Beriah stretched the truth in some places and added to it in others. Every time he got beyond the facts he’d say, “Ain’t that right, Burley? Ain’t I telling them just what you told me?”

  Uncle Burley only nodded his head, without looking at anybody. It seemed to me that if he talked much longer Beriah would believe he’d caught the fish himself. William walked around the store, looking at the merchandise, being as uninterested in our story as we’d been in his.

  The door opened and shut quietly; when we turned around there was Mushmouth Montgomery wandering up to the counter. Looking as much like Chicken Little as he did, and so lonesome-faced and grieved, it was as if a corpse or a ghost had come in. All of us stood still for a minute, and then Beriah closed the cooler and hurried behind the counter.

  “What can I do for you, Mushmouth?”

  Uncle Burley went back to the bench, and Big Ellis and Gander and I went with him. Mushmouth’s coming made the fish seem unimportant—as out of place there as it would have been at a funeral. We kept quiet, each one dreading the chance that one of the others might mention it.

  Mushmouth bought smoking tobacco and a candy bar. We watched him walk toward the door, hoping he’d leave. But he sat down by himself in the front of the store and began to eat the candy. J.D. and William leaned against the cooler, waiting for one of us to say something.

  Beriah stayed at the counter, shuffling through a handful of bills. Once in a while he’d thumb one out and look at it, then shake his head and la
y it on top of the cash register.

  Finally J.D. lost his patience and walked up to Mushmouth. “Say,” he said, “you ought to see what a fish Burley’s caught. I imagine it’s as fine a fish as was ever caught in this river.” He said it proudly, as if he and Uncle Burley had been friends all their lives.

  Uncle Burley got up and headed for the door. “Well, I reckon we’ll get on back.”

  I went with him, trying not to seem in a hurry, past Mushmouth and out to the road. It was the middle of the morning and the sun had turned warm.

  “Boy, we’ve let it all turn into talk,” Uncle Burley said.

  Big Ellis called to us; and we stopped and waited while he and J.D. and William caught up with us.

  “It’s too solemn to stay at the store,” Big Ellis said, “as long as Mushmouth’s there.”

  “That Mushmouth’s a one-man funeral procession,” Uncle Burley said.

  We walked to the shack and sat on the porch in the shade.

  Big Ellis got Uncle Burley to tell him where we’d caught the fish; and then he wanted to know what size hooks we’d used and what kind of bait. William started in again to tell how he’d fished in the ocean. But Big Ellis had catfish on his mind, and William didn’t get any farther than he had before.

  Big Ellis said he knew where there was a fish nearly as big as the one we’d caught, and he and J.D. started planning how Uncle Burley could catch that one. William walked over to the edge of the porch and sat down by himself. It looked like he’d never get a chance to tell his story, and I could see that it was beginning to sour on him. He and J.D. had both been strangers when they’d come to the store, but now that J.D. thought Uncle Burley remembered him he’d changed sides. William had been left out. I wished Uncle Burley would pay some attention to him, but he was fed up with all the talk about fish. Big Ellis and J.D. spoke to him and he listened, staring past them at the river.

  Jig Pendleton came in sight, rowing his boat down toward the store, and Big Ellis called, “Come up, Jig.”

  Jig waved and pulled in to the bank. When he came up on the porch he nodded his head to us and sat down.

  “We haven’t seen much of you, Jig,” Uncle Burley said.

  “I haven’t been getting out much, Burley. But I’ve noticed you and the boy fishing.”

  Big Ellis introduced J.D. and William. William only looked at Jig and said hello, but J.D. got up and shook hands.

  “I used to live here once,” he said. “I expect you remember me.”

  “Not a single sparrow falls without He knows about it,” Jig said. “No sir, I don’t remember you. But that don’t make any difference.”

  J.D. looked puzzled, but then he said, “Yes sir,” and sat down again.

  William stared at Jig for a minute and began laughing.

  “What’s funny?” Uncle Burley asked him.

  William looked at Uncle Burley and then down at the ground. “Nothing,” he said.

  “You all had any luck fishing?” Jig asked.

  “Burley caught one as long as from here to the door,” Big Ellis said.

  It was about ten feet from where Big Ellis was sitting to the door. Uncle Burley winked at me, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Burley, if you caught one that big I’m glad you caught it,” Jig said.

  William got up all of a sudden and started off the porch. “Hell,” he said, “I’ll show you all how to catch fish.”

  We watched him go up the path toward the road.

  “He’s kind of odd,” Big Ellis said, “ain’t he, J.D.?”

  “Kind of odd,” J.D. said.

  Before long William came back, carrying a paper sack in his hand.

  “Where you been?” J.D. asked him.

  “To the store,” William said.

  He put the sack on the porch and took out a half stick of dynamite with a piece of fuse already set in it. He started down the bank, carrying the dynamite by the fuse, holding it away from him as if he were carrying a live wildcat by the tail. Before anybody could say anything to stop him he lit the fuse and flung the dynamite into the river.

  After the explosion we sat there, watching the dead fish float up to the surface.

  William turned toward us and grinned, without looking at any of us as if he grinned at the empty house. He was already ashamed of what he’d done, but he wasn’t going to back down.

  “How’s that for fish?” he asked.

  Big Ellis said, “Burley, do you want some of them fish?”

  “No,” Uncle Burley said. “Help yourselves.”

  Big Ellis asked to borrow our boat, and he and J.D. and William rowed out to pick up the fish.

  “Jig,” Uncle Burley said, “they’ve got enough fishes to feed a multitude.”

  Jig shook his head. “It’s unblessed, Burley, and no loaves.”

  “Maybe they’ll blow up a bakery,” Uncle Burley said.

  When they’d gathered the fish and strung them they came up the bank again. Big Ellis went by the porch without stopping; J.D. and William followed him, neither of them looking at us.

  “Thanks, Burley,” Big Ellis called back.

  Uncle Burley raised his hand. “Don’t mention it.”

  After they’d gone Jig said, “That kind of doings is what ruins fishing, Burley.”

  “It don’t help any.”

  I looked in the sack that William had left on the porch and there was another half stick of dynamite and a fuse. I held it up for Uncle Burley to see.

  “Well,” he said, “it’s good bait.”

  Jig left then, and Uncle Burley and I went inside and fixed dinner.

  In the afternoon we were sitting on the porch again, talking and letting our dinner settle, when we heard a car stop out on the road and the door open and slam. We went around the house to see if somebody else was coming to visit us. Before long we saw a tall, heavy-set man walking down the path through the trees. Uncle Burley touched my arm and whispered that he was the game warden.

  “Do you know him?” I asked.

  “I know him all right. But he don’t know me.” Uncle Burley watched the game warden for a minute, and then he said, “He thinks we did that dynamiting.”

  The game warden came on down the path. “Howdy,” he said.

  Uncle Burley told him good evening.

  The game warden said he was from out of the county, just driving through, and had heard we might have some fish for sale.

  “We don’t sell fish,” Uncle Burley said.

  But the game warden wouldn’t stop at that. He’d laid his trap for us, and he had to try to catch us in it. “I’m sure this is the right place,” he said. “The fellow at the store directed me here. He said you’d been catching a lot of fish.”

  Uncle Burley frowned when he heard that, and I began to get scared. If the game warden had been to the store there was no telling what Beriah had said to him. And Big Ellis had borrowed our boat to bring in the fish William killed. I was afraid we were half caught already.

  “We do all our fishing for fun,” Uncle Burley said.

  “Well,” the game warden said, “if you’ve got more fish than you can use, I’d like to buy a few pounds.”

  Uncle Burley looked down at the boat, scratching his cheek. “How many fish do you need?”

  “About fifteen pounds.”

  Uncle Burley thought a minute and said, “Well, we’ll have to go get some then.”

  The game warden turned his head and coughed. “Do you mind if I go along?” he asked.

  “Help yourself,” Uncle Burley said. He went to the porch and picked up the other half stick of William’s dynamite.

  The three of us got into the boat and rowed out to the middle of the river.

  Uncle Burley looked at the game warden. “About fifteen pounds, you say?”

  The game warden said yes, that would be plenty.

  Uncle Burley lit the fuse and watched it splutter for a second or two, then he dropped it under the game warden’s feet.

&
nbsp; The game warden jerked back and stared at Uncle Burley. He couldn’t believe it. But Uncle Burley didn’t give him any help. He just smiled, as if we had all the time in the world. The game warden snatched the dynamite and threw it down the river. He shut his eyes until the blast went off.

  We picked up the fish we’d killed and rowed to the bank.

  Uncle Burley said he judged we had at least fifty pounds of fish, and he offered them all to the game warden for ten cents a pound.

  The game warden didn’t say anything. We strung the fish and he helped us carry them to the road and put them in the trunk of his car.

  When we got the fish loaded he took out his billfold and handed Uncle Burley three dollar bills. He said that was all the money he had with him, and he wondered if we’d trust him to pay the rest of it when he came through that way again. Uncle Burley told him that would be fine.

  We stood in the road and watched him drive away.

  “It’s a shame we had to mistreat him,” Uncle Burley said.

  I knew how he felt. There was no reason for what we’d done, except that we’d all wound up together in the same mess. We’d been having a good time, and now we’d ruined it. “It takes the pleasure out of fishing,” I said.

  “It sure does.” He folded the money and put it in his pocket. “Well, let’s go home. We’ve stayed a day too long already.”

  “What about the fish fry?” I asked.

  “It’s called off,” he said. “I’m tired of fish.”

  We put things in order at the house and took the lines up and pulled the boat out of the river. It was getting late. We strung what fish we had left and started home.

  When we came to the store we saw that Beriah had hung our fish outside the door so everybody could see it. Flies were swarming over it, and several men were standing there looking and talking.

  As we passed one of them called, “Is this your fish, Burley?”

  “It’s Beriah’s fish,” Uncle Burley said.

  4

  There were six of us in the tobacco harvest—Grandpa and Daddy and Uncle Burley and Gander Loyd and Brother and I—swapping back and forth from Grandpa’s crop to Daddy’s to Gander’s, taking tobacco from each as it got ripe from one day to the next; hurrying, because it was a late season and everybody was anxious and on the lookout for frost or rain.