Buddy listened. All the sounds came to him like secrets, with little directions inside. He kept trying to hear; he felt quiet, like he was waiting. He knew Dad might have forgot about the rings. He might have forgot about everything.
"Where we going?" Buddy asked softly.
"We going to a place you know," Dad said. "Place you been to. We're gonna hole up awhile, till it gets good and dark and they're buildin their goddamn fire and you can skedaddle your ass in to get more of what you got this morning." He laughed a harsh, single squawk. "Chip off the ole block, except I ain't your ole block, am I." He peered into the forest, his eyes just clearing the dash.
The stranger had made the car safe. It was like Buddy steered in slow motion, easing over bumps and shapes, and the metal wheel hummed a soothing vibration through the little grooves where Buddy's fingers fit. There was a red smear on the inside of the windshield and Buddy fixed his gaze just below it, where the big trees seemed to mark a path of widest passage. Steering around one or the other wooden column, he glimpsed alligatored bark, ridged and mossy. Buddy wanted to stay here in the car, in the woods, where Dad wouldn't move much or look at him. He could hear Dad in the stillness.
"Uh-huh," Dad said to himself, "get to the river, outa them trees."
Buddy gripped the ridged black steering wheel. It was hard to talk, like his mouth was full of cotton air, and his heart hammered, muffled, a long ways off, in his ears. "You going to hurt me?" he asked softly.
"Hurt you?" Dad spit through his teeth and a glistened spray of saliva moved out through the open window. The spray seemed to move in one feathery arc, so slowly. "I ain't never hurt you," he said. He turned to look at Buddy and his face was lit in the gold light. Buddy saw the blond hairs of his brows and the glimmer of his red lashes and the deep-cut lines around his mouth. "What you know about hurt," he breathed.
Buddy was careful not to move, only whispered, "You getting set to leave with them rings, right?"
"I get me a stake. Damn right."
"And you won't be coming back here neither, I bet."
Dad's eyes looked wet. He leaned in closer, his head level with Buddy's shoulder, saying each word in a sharp hiss. "No, I ain't coming back. You going to have her all to yourself again." The gray of his irises looked faceted and shattered, like lit-up glass, and his pupils were tiny black spots. The spots seemed to pull at Buddy, suck him in.
"I'll help you get those rings," Buddy said. "You don't have to tie me up or nothing. I'll help you leave."
"Bet you will."
"You better off by yourself," Buddy said. "Then can't nobody keep up with you."
"That a fact." Dad laughed a long, syrupy growl in his throat and pulled his shoulders in tight, staying low. His eyes left Buddy's face and shifted side to side, raking the concave frame of the windshield. Beyond the glass the giant far-flung trees were giving way to smaller pines as the car made its way into brighter light. Suddenly Dad reached over and turned off the ignition. The car shook and they lurched to a stop.
Buddy breathed. The car sat like a beached boat in the green. They waited in the burnished sun of late afternoon, all the green color bright and still after the shade of the pines. Buddy heard the chatter of creatures and squirrels and, not far off, the hushing roll of the river.
Dad motioned him to keep still. He opened the glove box and took out a big flashlight and a pint bottle in a paper bag. "I got me a headache," he murmured, "hell of a headache." He took the bottle out of the bag and drank a long swallow, then jammed it into the rear pocket of his pants. The flashlight he went to put in his shirt pocket, but first he took out the ring. He held it up to Buddy, then put it on the second finger of his right hand. It fit just below the first knuckle, and the stone seemed to blink like a little star.
Suddenly the door was open and Dad was pushing him out, clambering after him with his long limbs unfolded. "We're downriver of the camp," he said quietly. "Ain't nobody gonna see us, and you're gonna keep your mouth shut." They walked fifty feet through trees and came out at the riverbank. Here the water was not so wide as up above. They walked down the bank a ways to where a big stand of oaks had fallen over into the river, their tangled roots flung up in a wall of earth. "We gonna cross here," Dad said. "Walk across these trees and swim the rest."
The oaks spread in a flung gash across the water, though their uppermost branches fell short of the opposite bank. "I can't climb over them trees tied up to you this way," Buddy said.
"You ain't gotta climb nothing," Dad said. "You get on my back. I'll do the climbing. That way I know you'll hang on."
Buddy stepped away but the rope tugged and Dad grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up over his back. Dad was walking on the tree and Buddy had to grasp him round the waist with his knees and hold on with his arms. Like being tied to the lurch of a bandied horse high in the air, the whole river to fall into. He shut his eyes to keep from struggling, not to upend them both. Buddy could swim the river, he'd done it before when the water was calm, but he wondered if Dad could even swim. He might go crazy if they hit the water, pull Buddy down like a flailing log, and the river would close like a flood around them. Dad tilted and lurched, leaving it to Buddy to hold on, and Buddy listened for the river, its hush and swoop, the warble of its deep spaces eddied around the bridge of trees. Once he opened his eyes and saw them surrounded by a throng of whale-gray branches, the uppermost spires half naked of leaves, and he thought he felt the beginning of a gargantuan give and roll, a little groan as the trees shifted, but he held on and Dad kept climbing, grabbing and lurching.
Then he stopped, and they were at the farthest point of the big trunk's spread. Buddy moved as if to slide down, plant his own feet on the broad curve of the bark. "Stay where you are," Dad called out. He nearly had to yell over the sound of the river, and he threw the flashlight the rest of the way over the water to the bank in one strong heave. Then, before Buddy could talk or move, Dad jumped. Buddy opened his mouth wide but no sound came, and they were dropping through the air. The river must have come up fast but Buddy saw it approach for a long moment, like a wet wall with all the colors swimming in its greeny slosh, and there was a loud bang, like a crash, as they went under.
But there was light around them, light in the heavy soup, like they'd dragged down splashes of daylight, and the darker, bluer deep of the water pulled at them, surging and cold. Buddy felt himself stretch free, as though the water had taken hold; he spread his limbs in a watery glide, floating off on the tether of rope. The rope tugged. Dimly, beneath him, he felt the surge of Dad's motion, colors and glints in the dark wet moving past him, and the lifted strands of Dad's light hair wavered up like a long weed. Buddy grasped its wafting length with both hands and Dad pulled him through the dark glitter like a fish. The river grew thicker and heavier, cut with swoops of light, and the water had begun to rumble in Buddy's ears like a fast-approaching train, squeezing him, when they surfaced in a sharp crack. Buddy gagged and choked. Dad tossed his head and the water flew off him in strings. He gained his footing and hauled Buddy along by the rope, and they were walking out of the river.
Dad didn't wait for him to get his breath, only heaved him over a high shoulder and carried him like a sack of feed up the soft bank. Buddy heard himself gasping, breathing long drafts of air, and he could make out an upside-down version of the woods above Turtle Hole. Finally he saw a glimpse of the oval water far to his right, and Dad had walked through the trees to stand behind the diving rock, the big boulder that overhung the water. He slung Buddy down to stand against the rock.
They were at the entrance to the cave, an elliptical hole not quite obvious behind brush and grass.
"I ain't going in there," Buddy said.
Dad leaned close, pushing Buddy to a near crouch, and pointed into the dark. "You tell me you ain't been in here?" he asked softly. "You ain't been in this cave?"
"I only been in a little ways. I don't like going in." Buddy set his foot against the wall of rock and tried
to brace himself.
"You say you don't know I had my stash in here?" Dad pretended to be surprised. "You didn't come here and find my stash while I was gone? Why, who took it, then?"
"I don't know. Anybody coulda—"
He grabbed Buddy up sideways and aimed him head first through the opening. He had to bend down over Buddy's face to clear the shallow entrance. "She sure as hell didn't," Dad said. "Never woulda told her what I had. Wasn't more'n three hundred bucks, but enough to get me outa here."
Buddy felt the moist dark yawn up around them like it was alive. Mouth of a wet animal, shaggy and cold. And the throat of the animal was deep in, blacker than any dark. Farther on there sounded the rattle of a stream.
"Don't need that stash anyways, do I now. Wish I could see her fuckin face when I told her you stole from that rich cow, all on your own, like." Dad giggled, drew his breath in sharp. Buddy heard him unscrew the metal cap of the pint, and he reared back full height and drank.
The cave must open up. The cave must get big. It wasn't always so small and tight. Buddy felt a wash of air pass by them, fast, like something big and billowy and cool had rolled over them.
"Ah," Dad said, like he hadn't felt it. He screwed the cap back on and Buddy heard the bottle slosh as Dad put it back in his pants pocket. "Guess all that goddamn prayin you two did, didn't do a lick. Did it, girls."
"I took it for a reason," Buddy said, soft.
"Did you now? Well, ain't we all got our reasons." And he dropped Buddy.
The floor of the cave was damp rock, and there was no dirt here. Whomph. The fat air flew past above Buddy, then he sat up quick, looking all around. There were streaks of deeper purple in the black when he moved his head, streaks from the corners of his eyes. Buddy sat on his haunches. Dad jerked the rope so he pulled Buddy's one arm up straight, like Buddy was putting up his hand at school.
"I see you," Dad said. And the flashlight went on bright in Buddy's face. Dad's voice was behind it, like the circle of light was talking. "I know what you think. You think I been drinking and you can get away if you wait your chance. You ain't so dumb. You ain't dumb at all." He jerked the rope. "You just a fuckin girl, is your problem."
Buddy blinked into the light, and listened for the air Dad couldn't feel.
"Say it, girl."
"Girl," Buddy said.
"Say it all."
"Goddamn girl," Buddy whispered. He heard skittles of delicate sound beyond the light and he listened hard. Airy rustles. Live things. Bats, must be. But they weren't the same as what he'd felt before, the rolling of air no one could hear. Felt it, not heard it. Like it took up all the room for an instant, rolling through the cave on a pulse, and Buddy heard it in his guts, inside himself, but Dad didn't seem to hear it at all.
"That's right, you a girl." Dad shone the light on his own face. His face hung in the black, talking. "Now you listen, girl. You might get away from me, but even you did have the light, and you don't, you couldn't get yourself outa here. I could leave you here right now, you tell me you ain't goin back in that bitch's room to get whatever else she's got." He waited. Purple dots ranged across his face. "You gonna tell me that?"
"No."
"No. You ain't. And after I get my ass outa here, you gonna keep your mouth shut."
"Mouth shut," Buddy whispered.
"You don't, I'll be back to talk to you about it. Open your mouth."
Buddy opened his mouth and the light trained down, a white flash. Fast, Dad's fingers were inside, clamped hard over Buddy's lower teeth, and his thumb held Buddy's chin. He jerked Buddy's head up and down. "You gonna do what I say? Say yes."
Buddy only breathed, his head vibrating.
"Got yourself a fat pink tongue there. Like yer Mam's tongue. Why my, my, my. Lookee there." Dad flashed the light back on his own face and waggled his long tongue in and out. "Know what a tongue's for?"
He shook Buddy's head side to side.
"Nah, you don't know. Maybe I show you, show you some things while we waiting."
Buddy shrank back but Dad pulled him to his feet. The beam of light was jumping and bouncing; they were walking on a sort of shelf, back toward the entrance a little way. The walls of the cave seemed shiny. Buddy stumbled, and the fan of yellow showed a rumpled sleeping bag shoved into a pile on the rock floor. Dad shone the light on a metal lunch bucket beside it. The metal looked dull and corroded, and when Dad opened the metal buckles Buddy saw crumpled bread bags inside. Dad pulled them out and trained the light across the words. Wonder Bread: Buddy knew what the letters said, he didn't have to read to know. Yellow and red and dark blue polka dots, and the letters.
"Had the bills inside them bags, one inside another, keep em dry. But when I got back and got in here, there wasn't nothing." The light flashed off. He spat, and Buddy heard the screw cap of the bottle turn, and Dad drank a good tug. Then he was on his knees beside Buddy. "Can you believe 'at? A man's hard-earned savings. Being a criminal yourself, you can appreciate."
"I ain't no criminal," Buddy whispered.
Dad lunged against him and Dad's breath was on his face and the smell of whiskey was strong, like a smoke, and Dad's hands were on him, turning his head. "No? Well, now what are you, then?" He shone the light up along the wall of the cave, and the wall curved up and bulged. "Maybe you a brain surgeon. Or a scientist. Lookee at this, mister scientist."
There were crosshatches on the wall, like a bird with forked feet had burned its sharp prints into the rock. The marks tracked upward, like overlaid arrows that pointed; the light bounced from one column to another, and there was color in the deep scratches, some lighter color that made the marks seem to float. It was writing, Buddy thought, some kind of writing, but it didn't have to make words. It was what writing should be. So old it looked to be grown in, older than letters or numbers.
"I ain't never lit it all up, but I figure this whole wall must be covered," Dad said. "What's it say, there, brain surgeon?" He plunked the big light into Buddy's hands and grabbed Buddy under both arms, lifted him straight up, like he could read the wall if he were a little higher.
Buddy's feet dangled, and he felt Dad's arms start to tremble. He held the light on the marks. They tracked clear up and he couldn't see where they ended.
"Well?" Dad said, and a wheezing moan was in his voice. "You better say what them marks are meaning. You better say and say—" He began to shake Buddy, and the light jumped big and small across the writing.
"It says," Buddy began, and squeezed his eyes tight shut, "stay here, and when the bats fly out from inside, you'll know it's dark. It says—" He opened his eyes, and when he looked at the wall again the marks seemed to glimmer, firing on and off across the rock. "Sleep here," Buddy said, "sleep here and lie still, and don't ever tell nobody."
One more shake. "Tell nobody what?" came Dad's voice in the dark.
"That you been here," Buddy finished.
Silence. And he did feel tired, so tired. Buddy felt his head nod once, and twice, and he let his arms fall, holding the heavy flashlight, and the beam of light traced downward. Dad lowered him to his feet onto the rumple of the sleeping bag. Buddy's legs wouldn't hold him and he crouched down, shivering.
"Well now," Dad said softly, "I don't plan to tell nobody nothing." He took the flashlight from Buddy and turned it off, and splayed one big palm across the top of Buddy's head, pressing.
"I got to tell you," Buddy said, and tried again. "There was someone there, when the car wrecked."
"What you saying?" Dad was swaying Buddy to and fro slowly, holding on so Buddy rocked from his heels to his toes and back again.
"A man followed me when I walked from the camp. And he knew you. You told him you seen him before, in the dark, when he wasn't real. But he was real. I seen him behind you."
Dad took his hand away. The flashlight went on, licked across the floor of the cave, and lingered on the lunch bucket near Buddy's feet. Dad's hand fumbled inside and brought out a pack of matches. The light wen
t off again and the black was deeper, more purple. There was a crackle, and the match flared out like a flower, the bright glow curling orange, black-edged. Buddy saw Dad's eye squint through the flame, and Dad's thumb was beside his eye, the mooned nail streaked with yellow. "A man," Dad said, and his voice was in the black. "And what was the look a this man?"
Buddy's eyelids fluttered. The orange light was pulling in and folding. "He was tall as you, and big like you, and he didn't wear no shirt."
"Maybe it was me you seen," Dad said. "Maybe you seen me twice."
The little flame dipped and guttered out. "He had black hair," Buddy whispered, "not yellow hair like yours, and he said—"
"He said what?"
"I'm too cold," Buddy said. "I'm mighty cold in here." He had begun to hiccup and there were tears on his face. He hunkered down on his knees and pulled the sleeping bag up around his shoulders, and the quilted material was colder still, full of the breath of the cave and the old smell of the marks on the walls. Buddy let himself fall over and crawl deeper, until he was under the damp fabric, pulling it closer and tighter, and he could taste the dust on his lips. He felt the pull of the rope but he unclenched his hand and thought he could pull free, falling away, deeper. He didn't have to be here anymore, he was gone, he fell far away in a density that churned, darkest green and lovely. A furred wing grazed his face as he fell and the layered trees gave way; the shadows of their limbs and their rooty hearts came up around him.
PARSON: HIS LEGION
He has some paper sacks he found among newspapers and magazines Mrs. T. sent to the dump; he will pack what he needs to take. When he shakes open the paper bag it sits on the floor of the shack in an empty rectangle. He takes off his work boots and settles them in the bottom. He puts his Bible into one of the big boots, and his socks that were prison issue, and he folds his khaki prison trousers on top. The trousers are stenciled inside, but he can still wear them. No one will see in his clothes; no one will see inside him. The prison shirt he has long ago thrown into the crawl space under the shack, but he folds the khaki shirt given him by the pipe-crew foreman and puts the twenty dollars left from his pay in the front pocket. He puts the shirt in the bag.
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