A Century of Noir

by Max Allan Collins

  “Sure, Orville. You don’t need to worry none about me.”

  Cephus’ voice sounded again. “Where’s he at now?”

  “Cain’t you see for yourself, Paw?”

  “The sun gits in my eyes. How nigh is he?”

  Toll said real quiet, “Not more’n six or seven paces.”

  I’d been watching my kin for a time, not the road, so I’d missed him approaching that night. Now I looked down at him, a nice clean-appearing man, older’n Toll, not so old as Orville. He was wearing jeans and a blue shirt, too, but they wasn’t all begaumed, the shirt had been clean afore he sweated it out clumbing up the hill. A woman can tell these things. He stopped there out in the road, keeping his distance until he was invited in, like was the custom. When he commenced talking, he talked somewhat like he was a native. Young as I was then, I figgered out he was Ozark born but had been gone long enough to be a furriner.

  “Howdy,” he said.

  None of the menfolks said anything for what seemed an awful long time. Finally Toll spoke up. “Howdy.”

  “Mighty hot day.”

  “Yeh.” Toll took his time responding. “Hotter’n the cinders of hell.” He gave a sidelong look at the stranger. “You come far?”

  “From Middle Piney.”

  “A far piece,” Toll allowed. “Mighty hot day to clumb all the way up here.” Middle Piney was about seven mile uphill to Tall Piney.

  “I found that out,” the man said rueful-like.

  Toll throwed away his whittling stick. “Light down and set a spell,” he said like he was natural neighborly. “You must be plumb tuckered out.”

  “Thanks.” The man walked over towards the stoop. “Could I trouble you first for a drink of water?”

  “Help yourself.” Toll pointed with his knife. “Bucket’s around yander.”

  I didn’t dast move a muscle when the man walked under the tree to the water bucket. First he drunk a full dipper of water, then he took off his hat and poured a little water onto his head. I didn’t blame him none. No place in the world hotter’n Missouri in August. He shook off the water and took another drink from the dipper afore going back to the stoop. He set hisself down at the far end of the second step. This way he could be looking at all three menfolks while he visited, and them at him.

  Orville said, “You must of had some extry special purpose to clumb all the way up here today.”

  The stranger seemed to think about it. Before he had a chanct to answer, Toll cut him off like as if he was suddenly reckanizing him.

  “Ain’t you the Perfessor been stopping down to Little Piney?”

  You could tell by the Perfessor’s face that he’d knowed all along the three of them knowed who he was. But he feigned he didn’t know. He said, “That’s right. I’m Professor James. From the University up at Columbia.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Perfessor.” Toll put out his hand and shook the Perfessor’s. If I hadn’t seed how they was waiting for him, I’d of thought Toll was right friendly. “I’m Tolliver Sorkin, mostly known as Toll. This here’s my cousin, Orville. That’s old Cephus up there on the gallery. He’s my cousin also.” That’s the way the kinship was. Toll wasn’t a close cousin to us, he was removed.

  The Perfessor reared up and shook hands with Orville. He stretched for to shake old Cephus’ hand, but Cephus wa’nt letting go of Old Betsey. That meant plain that the Perfessor was no friend so far as Cephus was concerned. Cephus wasn’t no sly one like Toll nor a bully like Orville. He was straight out what he was.

  “Pleased to meet you all,” the Perfessor said, setting again.

  Toll took up another stick to whittle. He went on talking, reasonable, if you hadn’t knowed he was up to something. “I thought I reckanized you. You’re the ballut man.”

  “That’s what folks call me down at Little Piney.” Little Piney was ten mile downhill from Middle Piney. It was the County Seat.

  “This is the second summer I’ve been around, looking for old ballads.”

  “We’n got no ballut singers at Tall Piney,” Orville said, real hostile.

  “Down at Little Piney I heard different.”

  “Like to hear anything down Little Piney.” Orville spat through the railing slats.

  Toll said, sort of cautious, “What might they been telling you down there?”

  “They said if I was to go up to Tall Piney, I might get some real good ballads off the Granny Woman.”

  “Reckon you won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Orville said it blunt. “She’s dead.”

  “She’s dead?” He was just pretending to be surprised. I knowed it and I’m sure the menfolks knowed it, too. But they went on feigning they didn’t.

  “Deader’n a doornail,” Toll said.

  “Been dead nigh on two weeks now,” Orville went on. “Kind of peculiar they wouldn’t know bout that down to Little Piney. Who all you been visiting with there?”

  “I’ve been stopping with the Preacher,” the Perfessor said. “He didn’t say he’d done any preaching over the Granny Woman.”

  “She didn’t hold with preaching.” Orville spat again.

  And Toll asked, “Didn’t the Reverint tell you that?”

  When the Perfessor answered, it was almost like hearing preaching about her. It was like he’d been fond of her the same as I, although he hadn’t ever knowed her. “He told me if anyone would know the old, old ballads, she would. He told me she was the oldest woman in the Pineys. She could remember coming by wagon from Virginny when she was a young maid, before the war. Folks say she might be a hundred years old.”

  Suddenly Cephus shouted out in his loud old voice, “She’s dead!”

  Orville acted like nobody had heerd his paw. “We give her a proper burial.”

  Toll elaborated, “We didn’t have no preachment because she didn’t hold with preaching, but we buried her proper.”

  “That her cabin up yonder?” the Perfessor asked, looking up to where it stood on the tiptop of the hill.

  “Now, how’d you know that?” Toll asked him.

  “The Preacher told me she lived on top of Tall Piney. Is that hers?”

  “It’s hern,” Orville admitted.

  “Might be her ballad book is still there.”

  “There ain’t no ballut books there,” Orville said flatly.

  “What did you do about her belongings?”

  Toll was quick to defend himself just in case. “We didn’t touch nothing of hern.”

  “There wa’nt no ballut book,” Orville repeated ugly. “There never was none.”

  Toll of a sudden looked right up into the tree I was in. I was so still I twinged but even so I was scairt he might of seen me. Sometimes it ’pears he has eyes like a chicken hawk. He didn’t say nothing, he just turned hisself round to the Perfessor.

  “Orville’s right, Perfessor.” He snapped his knife shut and put it in his pocket. “Now, if it’s a ballut you’re hankering for, reckon I can give you one myself.” He began to sing in that scrawny voice of his:

  “There onct was a mountain girl, Bonnie Bluebell,

  She lived on Tall Piney or so I’ve heerd tell,

  She didn’t know naught cause she’d never been taught,

  Oh, hark to my story . . .”

  I didn’t let him finish his silly old song. I didn’t care that I was discovered. I yelled at him, “You stop that, Tolliver,” and I jumped down out of that tree and run over to him.

  He grinned, singing up high like a woman, “Oh, hark to my story of Bonnie Bluebell.”

  He was twict as tall as I, and though he looked skinny enough for the wind to blow away, he was strong. I didn’t care. I pounded on him. “You stop that right this minute. If’n you don’t, I’ll fix you so’s you . . .”

  He held me off. “You’ll do what?” He begun louder.

  “She run with the hounds and she run with the hare . . .”

  All at onct I realized what I must appear like to
the stranger man, my face and hands all gaumed from climbing the tree, and my feet even dirtier, and my old house dress ripped in the arms. I pushed Toll away and said dignified, “That ain’t no ballut-song. You’re just making that up.”

  Orville yelled at me, “Git home, Bluebell.”

  “You make him stop that fool singing.”

  “Git home.” Orville got on his feet and started down the step towards me.

  I didn’t move far, I just backed up a bit. “I come over to fetch Grampaw. When I seed you had company—”

  “Git home and git the supper.”

  “Supper’s ready.” The stew pot had been on all afternoon and I’d mixed the johnnycake afore I sneaked over to see what they was up to.

  “Dish it up,” Orville said. “I’ll fetch Paw. Git now.”

  From the look in his eyes I decided might be I’d better git afore he whaled at me. But I knew I wasn’t going to have a chanct to warn the perfessor man about them unless I made sure right now that he’d be invited to sup. Orville was too mean and stingy to invite anyone in on his own. “You ast the stranger to supper, Paw?” I said real innocent like. I was still calling him Paw then.

  He scowled at me, but he had to make the invitation being as I’d brought it up. “You kin sup with us,” he told the Perfessor.

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “I’m a-coming, too, Bluebell,” Toll said.

  I’d knowed he’d invite hisself. “Won’t your Maw and Paw feed you no more?” I put my head up high and walked away.

  He hollered after me, “You know dern well Maw and Paw are down to Middle Piney—”

  I didn’t linger to hear no more from him. Onct I was across the road I scatted down to our cabin. I wanted time to wash up and comb out the tangles of my hair and put on a fresh dress afore the Perfessor arrived. We didn’t have company often. First I slammed the johnnycake into the oven and I opened a big jar of my best plum sass. I washed quick, but I used soap and I went behind the curtain to pull off that old dress and put on my sprigged blue, the one I wore to wedding frolics and buryings. When Orville and Cephus come in, I was trying to get a comb through my hair, standing out in front of the looking glass I’d hung over the wash bench. The Perfessor wasn’t with them.

  For a moment I was anxious. “Ain’t he a-coming?”

  Orville said, “He’s follering after us. He’s washing up at Toll’s.” He went over to the wash bench and splattered a little bit of water on his hands. “City fellers are allus hankering after soap and water. I remember when I was in the War.” He wasn’t talking about the real War but about when they’d fit the Kaiser four years back. “Should think they’d have the skin clean washed off afore they’re old enough to spit.”

  “It don’t seem to hurt them none,” I told him.

  Cephus had walked to the hearth to place Old Betsey up over the fireplace where he kept her. She was a beautiful long rifle with her silver mountings. He took better care of her than he did of himself. After he’d put her up, he set down in his rocking chair.

  Orville went over to him, wiping dirt on the towel.

  “What’s he want to come up here for?” Cephus asked him. “What’s he want anyhow?”

  “It ain’t no ballut book, Paw.”

  Cephus shook his head from side to side, trying to figger things. Finally he burst out, “The Granny Woman’s dead. Ain’t no call for him to come up here trying to rise the dead.”

  Orville said real calm, “Ain’t no one’s going to riz her up, Pappy. Not till the Last Judgment.” He walked back with the towel and hung it on the drying rack. Like he didn’t know that nobody but a pig would want to use it again until it was washed and biled. “Be careful what you say, Paw. Don’t say nothing the Perfessor can carry tales about.” He didn’t pay no heed to what I was hearing. “One thing’s for sartin, Paw. He was lying when he said he hadn’t knowed the Granny Woman was dead. He knowed it all right.”

  I wouldn’t of thought Orville was that smart. He must of been doing a deal of thinking today. Or Toll had been filling his mind up with what-for.

  “How’d you figger that, Orvy?”

  “Figger it yourself. When Toll was down to Middle Piney last week, he told that the Granny Woman was dead. What you tell in Middle Piney runs downhill to Little Piney afore you can blink an eye. And who gits the first word in Little Piney about deaths and so forth? The preacher man, that’s who. The preacher man what the Perfessor’s been a-visiting with. So he knowed.”

  Cephus nodded over it. “Reckon you’re right, Orvy. What you aim to do about it?”

  “We’ll give him his vittles and after that—” He thumped his fist and rattled the table. “After that we’ll see if he wants to go peaceful back down to Little Piney. If’n he don’t . . .”

  He didn’t finish what he had to say because right then we heard Toll tittering to the Perfessor out on the path. My hair was combed out tolerably well. I was tying it back, with an old piece of blue ribbon the Granny Woman had give me, when Orville come over and put his hand on my arm.

  “Don’t you let me catch you talking to that there Perfessor man,” he said.

  “I won’t.”

  “You keep your mouth shet, hear me?”

  His hand squeezed until I couldn’t help crying out. “You’re hurting me!”

  “I’ll hurt you worse’n that if you don’t keep your mouth shet.”

  The Perfessor and Toll was at the door by then so Orville let go of me. He went to table, set hisself down, and commenced dishing up his plate. “Fetch me some johnnycake, Bluebell,” he hollered at me.

  My arm hurt worse’n it had been hit by a stick, but I went right ahead tying my ribbon until I made a bow. Toll set down at the table with Orville and begun dishing his plate also. The Perfessor stood waiting.

  Orville hollered again. “You hear me, fetch the johnnycake.”

  I opened the oven door. “Some folks wait for the company to set before they commence eating.”

  It was Toll who took care of the inviting. “Come on, Perfessor, set down and dig in. Bluebell ain’t the best cook in the Ozarks, but there’ allus a-plenty on Old Cephus’ table. Come on, Cephus, you’re getting left.”

  The Perfessor waited to set until Cephus come to the table. He must of seen by then that Ozark ladies don’t eat with the gentlemen. He took the only chair left.

  I dished up a big platter of johnnycake and I toted it right over to the Perfessor to make sure he got the best piece. Then I passed him the other dishes real polite, like I’d been larned by the Granny Woman. “Try this rabbitmeat stew, Perfessor. It’s real fresh.” It was, too. Cephus had skun the rabbit only this morning. “Some wild sallet?” The greens had stewed just long enough, not too long to be bitter. “Have some plum sass, too, it goes good with johnnycake.”

  “Plum sass!” Toll exclaimed greedy-like. “You must of knowed there was company coming.”

  I ignored him, bringing the pitcher of milk and inquiring, “Can I help you to milk, Perfessor? Or maybe you’d prefer sweet milk?”

  Orville grunted with his mouth full, “Leave the Perfessor eat his vittles, Bluebell. Stop urging him.” He took another piece of johnnycake and pushed half of it into his mouth. He should have et with the pigs.

  The Perfessor give me a big smile. He had the nicest smile you ever did see and he give it right at me, like I was a lady. He held up his glass. “This is just fine, Bluebell. Everything’s fine. I’ll bet you are the best cook in the Ozarks.”

  I retired to the stove, sort of flustered. I knew Toll would be mocking me and the Perfessor later on, but I just didn’t care. It was worth it being treated like a lady for onct. There wasn’t any talk while they was eating, Orville didn’t hold with talk at table. But when he’d stuffed hisself to the busting point, he pushed back his chair and come right out with it.

  “Seems a mite peculiar the preacher’d be sending you up here now the old woman’s gone.”

  “Seems like he didn’t kno
w she was gone,” the Perfessor said, filling up his pipe.

  “Mighty peculiar he wouldn’t know.”

  “Had she been ill?”

  “No, sir!” Toll spoke up. “She was right as rain one day and the next she was dead.” He dropped his voice. “Could have been that old screech owl what she heerd outside her door round about that time.”

  The Perfessor looked up, real interested. “It scared her?”

  Toll peered over his shoulder. “Nobody’s going to feel easy if he hears a screech owl on his doorstep. It’s a sign of death for sure.”

  “At her age, a fright like that could cause a heart attack.” The Perfessor puffed on his pipe.

  “Not the Granny Woman! She come out with her old sweeping broom and shooed that owl off in a hurry.” Real quick Toll added, “I just happened to be passing by when she done it. Might be she give that old owl a heart attack.” He snickered behind his hand.

  “I’m sorry I came too late to meet her,” the Perfessor said.

  “Wouldn’t of done you no good,” Toll told him. “She couldn’t of sung you no balluts. She was crazy as a wild mule.”

  I wanted to shout out that she was not, but I was afeared if I said anything Orville might tell me to git.

  “She was crazy all right,” Orville yawned out loud. “Reckon you’ll want to be gitting back to Middle Piney. It’s a far walk. Even going downhill.”

  “I don’t think I’ll go back tonight,” the Perfessor said. “As long as I’m here I might as well have a look at her cabin.”

  Orville started to rise up, but Toll had a hold of his arm. “Seems like you won’t take our word there ain’t no ballut books there,” Toll said.

  “I’d sort of like to look around for myself.” The Perfessor got up from the table then, moving slow, like the menfolks was strange dogs what might spring at him if he moved rapid. He wasn’t no more than a step away when Toll was aside him.

  “If’n I was you, I’d consider it real careful afore going inside her cabin. It mightn’t be safe.”

  The Perfessor wasn’t afeared. He looked straight at Toll. “Why not?”