In the morning I waited awhile and then went over to see how he were. I figured he would be kept in bed, and he had, and Mrs. Blankhard took me back and let me see him. He was laying on a sheet and big round blisters was lifting up all over his back like biscuit batter swelling on a tin, and when he turned his head where I could see it, his nose looked like something just hanging in the air and hurting by itself. Even the whites of his eyes was red, though I suppose this was not from the sun but from the pain.
“How bad does it hurt?” I said.
“Terrible,” Rodney said, and I stayed with him awhile and then left.
I went over again in the afternoon and it had only got worse. He lay on his bed, on his stomach, not moving; and when I got close he just turned his head around enough to look up at me, and I swear his eyes had a kind of look as though he knowed he was drowning and had give up and was just looking up at me to say good-by from way down under the water somewhere. There was nothing I could say to him or him to me, so I left again. They got a doctor for him. He wasn’t just hurting, he was sick.
The next day the pain was less, it seemed like, though Rodney looked even worse, if that was possible. Jimmy and Andy Bay come down and we all went in together and looked at him and said hello and then come out again. We walked over to my place, Jimmy shaking his head like he does when he likes something, and when we got up on our porch and sat down Jimmy said, “That is the most blisters I have ever seen at one time.”
Like Rodney had went and got blistered like that just so Jimmy could see it. “Jimmy,” I said, “you are the only one I have ever knowed who could get bit by a mad dog and not be in no danger. It just wouldn’t take.”
Jimmy never answered. It were even possible that it made him proud.
Then little Andy asked could he look at the wagon again. We all went and looked but in the end we give up. Couldn’t find it nowhere. For all I knowed he had took it down to the bridge and flung it in the creek.
6
Rodney was down for better than a week; that is how bad a sunburn can be. I went over to see him now and then, but he was not much company. I knowed that in time his pain would be gone, so for a while I pretty much let Rodney go his way by his self while I went mine by myself, too.
We had got on into July, with one or two good thunderstorms to cool things off and wet them down a little, but mostly the days was one like the other, hot, and with nothing to do. Sometimes a whole afternoon would get by with me just sitting on the porch, and later when it come time to go to bed I would wonder where the day had went anyhow. It was like I not only did not care but could hardly remember. That is what hot days can do to you sometimes. On the Hill, anyhow.
In fact the nights was the only times I felt much alive now. It had come around to a full moon, and it is my feeling that moonlight is not just nice itself, it also gives a coolness to things. Not actually, maybe, but when you stop to think about it, the moon’s light is a cold light. The moon itself don’t burn. It is reflected. There is not as much heat in it as in one small light bulb. When you consider it, how many things are they which only give light and not heat? It is part of the strangeness of the moon, I guess, which almost everybody knows even if they never think about it none.
So at night sometimes I would go down by the creek or over to look at our crops or just go a ways in the woods.
Mosquitoes are worse at night, but you can even get used to them after a while. I can go along swatting at mosquitoes sometimes and not even know I am doing it. You can not be too particular, ever, and get along well in the country. It is not a place that has been built by man, and if you try and live in it like it was you are making a mistake every time. This is the place I believe where Mr. Blankhard is confused, or else he could never continue to be so bad a farmer. It is like he has come here all dressed up, and will not change his clothes, but will wait instead for the country to change. He has too great a faith, Pa says, for he has no feeling for the truth of anything but the things he particularly believes. He might just as well be living in a desert, or a box. I have seen Mrs. Blankhard out sometimes at night now, coming to the fence to talk with Ma or Ellen and noticing the moon, but I have never seen Mr. Blankhard out of doors one time at night that I can remember. And not to run him down all the way, but generally even dogs will stir around some when the moon comes full.
Pa likes to go fishing then, even though he knows it is not the time for catching fish. I just like to go out.
And if Rodney had been up and around we might have found some things to do ourselves, but as it was I finally decided one night to go over and see Les Holmes again, or at least go by and see what would happen.
It is surprising how you can follow a path through the woods by moonlight. Part of it, I suppose, is knowing the path some in the first place, but it is more than that. Even in the dark places where the moonlight can not actually get to at all there is still a kind of light gets in. You can look back and see where the moonlight stops, like a line had been drawed, and you know that the place which you are in is dark. And yet some of the light has come in there with you, and you do not feel the same at all as you would if there had been no moon to start with. I can go through the branch on a moonlit night when the branch is darker than a cave and still not have no trouble. While on another night I would not even try it.
And then you come out of the branch, and it’s like being in daylight, you have no trouble seeing the trees or the path or anything, except everything seems more quiet than in the daytime and a little blurred, and you go along like everything was smoothed and rounded off somewhat, so that even going slow it seems you are taking only long and easy steps and are going on through the woods like you was half being swung on through them on a swing. Anyhow, there is a pleasure in it that you can not hold down, even knowing it is strange.
For that matter I did not try, for if Les was still mad about our fight I knew I could just go on past their place along the road and go all the way into town. I could get a Coke or something and maybe see some people, and there are girls in town as well as Jenny in the country, and I had time enough, I figured, to do almost anything.
I guess I got to the little hill above their place by no later than quarter past eight. There was lights on all through their house, looking weak in the moonlight, and except for the lights, the house looked small and left empty. All around the sheds and barn there was nothing moving, just a wagon in one place and a plow in another and a harrow somewhere else and some boxes and stuff, just standing there, and up by the house by itself was the windmill, facing toward me and being lit up by the moon on each of its separate blades and none of it moving now or looking like it ever could. I listened, and couldn’t hear a thing.
Then I cut north along the ridge until I figured I could cut over and come out on the road that went by their house and still be a ways above it. It worked about right. I come out a little nearer to the house than I had figured, but it done no harm. The road goes right past their gate, and they would see me plain enough anyhow if they was on the porch, so I thought maybe I would go along chucking stones at stumps like I was only out for the walk, but instead I thought better of it, and just walked up to their gate and turned and looked up at the porch and stopped.
They was there. Not only Jenny, sitting in a chair a little off by herself, but Les and Mr. and Mrs. Holmes as well, sort of scattered around. I had hardly expected so many. Well, I thought, they can either call me in or send me on, but here I am.
“It’s me,” I said, “Jack Haywood.” From under the house a dog barked back at my voice a few times and then quit.
Then Mrs. Holmes taken pity for me, I guess, though I had no need to be felt sorry for. “I thought that was you, Jack,” she said. “Why don’t you just come on in?”
“Thank you, ma’am,” I said, and I opened the gate and just went on in and up on the porch and sat down on a railing near to where Les was sitting. I wanted them to see I had no hard feelings. I said hello to Les and he said
hello back, and we was quiet again.
“I trust you have not come to fight no more, have you, Jack?” Mrs. Holmes said.
“No, ma’am,” I said. “I am sorry about that.”
“Well, I guess you and Les can be good friends if both of you wants to,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I like Les fine and always have.” They didn’t answer and Les himself did not argue this. Then I said, “To tell the truth, I have come to see Jenny.”
This seemed to have gave them all some surprise, though I could not see why it should have. Mr. Holmes kind of grunted and sat up and looked at me. The porch was mostly in shadow. Then he sat back down. Mrs. Holmes twisted around so she could get a better look at Jenny, and Les went and laughed in that sly way he has, but I said nothing.
“It looks like you might have thought to mention this to me before you come,” Jenny said.
I looked at her. “There weren’t no way I could,” I said. “You had told me to leave.”
She could see this was true, but I had taken her somewhat off guard, I believe, for she rocked the chair she was sitting in kind of fast, and said nothing with just her chair going click, click on the boards and the rest of us sitting there looking out at the moonlight and waiting. They was leaving it up to me and Jenny, it seemed, and it must have made a strain for her. After all, Les was sitting right up there next to me all the time. Then the chair slowed down and stopped and Jenny looked back at me and laughed. “So I had,” she said.
Run me off, she meant. She had been thinking all that time about what I said, and there wasn’t no way around it. “You sure did,” I said.
“Well,” she said, “I guess it did not have to be for forever at that.”
I was glad to hear this, but I said no more. I stayed where I was and looked down now and then at Jenny, having already said it was her I had come to see, and for the rest just listened to what the others was saying or when they was not saying anything just sat there swatting at mosquitoes with them. It was nice.
Then Mr. Holmes said, “How are things on the Hill now, Jack?”
“The same as always,” I said. “Except that Mr. Blankhard has somehow got himself a decent stand of corn this year for a change.” They laughed at this, knowing Mr. Blankhard. “And I guess you have heard about his nephew, Rodney,” I said.
“Nothing special,” Mrs. Holmes said. “Just that he was there.”
“Yes,” I said, trying to be polite as long as they was interested, “he come down from the North some time ago, but he has more or less come to grief.”
“You don’t say,” said Mrs. Holmes. “I hope it is nothing serious.”
One thing I have trouble with is getting out of conversations with people when they are being polite. So I went on. “If he keeps in the shade,” I said, “I believe he will survive.”
This brung quite a laugh, and I could see it was funny myself. “He is not a bad sort,” I said, “but he has got too much against him.”
“How is that?” Jenny said.
“To begin with,” I said, “he looks like for bones he was give bicycle spokes. And as yet he has not worked up no muscles at all. And on top of that he has got long yellow curls. But except for being drug around the lot on his face by Mr. Blankhard’s prize bull calf which he lassoed, he has done all right, up until the other day.”
“I suppose you and him got into some trouble,” Jenny said. I did not think she was serious so I did not explain how it happened.
“What he did,” I said, “was take off his shirt and go out in the sun for two days in a row. He got the worst sunburn I ever seen. He like to went up in smoke.”
They all give this quite a laugh, too, and I seen that I had made it look like a pretty funny thing at that. Being fair to Rodney, though, I said, “He has been sick as a dog ever since.”
“You say he is from the North?” Mrs. Holmes said.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “White Plains, New York. And it sure shows up.”
“You must not be too scornful, Jack,” Mrs. Holmes said, so I said no more for a while. Women will catch you up quick, even if you have made them laugh.
So we all sat around, mostly swatting mosquitoes, and then Mr. and Mrs. Holmes got up and went in, first telling Jenny and Les that they had better come in the house soon themselves. I figured Les would leave, too, but he seemed to have went asleep sitting there leaning up against a post, so I waited and then got down and went over and sat down in an empty chair next to Jenny.
For a while we just rocked, the two chairs making quite a noise, but in a little while we slowed them down and the quiet come back again and we talked.
“I see you haven’t changed none, Jack,” she said.
I supposed she was right. I looked over at her and she was looking at me. I looked back. “No,” I said, “and you haven’t growed none either that I can see.”
Jenny is a very short girl, even for a girl, though she has naturally not got all her growth yet. Yet she is no kid, either. Not at all.
“Is that all you think of?” she said.
“All I think of what?” I said. I was uncertain just what she was hinting at in my mind.
“Growing,” she said. “How strong you are.”
“Oh,” I said. I seen what she meant. But I had not meant nothing against her. “No, I don’t give it much thought at all. I guess I’m just naturally strong.” To me this seemed the truth of it.
“Why brag?” Jenny said.
I had not meant to brag. We rocked for a while. Then Jenny give me another try. “It has certainly been hot,” she said.
“It certainly has,” I said. I looked over at her again but she was kind of lifting her hair up with one hand off the back of her neck and fanning it a little the way a girl does and not looking at me. I looked out at the moonlight. They have a big pecan tree right next to their gate, and past the darkness under the tree the sandy road out front looked white as a river with mist on it. It would have been nice on such a night if we could have went swimming.
“Yes,” I said. “It was sure hot sitting out here in Pa’s truck the other day, too. I seen you.”
“You did?” she said. “I remember it was sure hot that day.”
We was quiet, remembering it.
“It sure was,” I said. “You looked cool, though. Drinking that water.”
I looked at her and noticed how cool she looked now, and then she looked at me and smiled and said, “I’m sorry you was so hot out there.”
She was wearing pretty much the same thing now as then, except that her blouse ends was tucked back down in her shorts. I figured I better not mention this. “Well,” I said, “at least it was nice to see how cool you was, Jenny.”
She looked back out at the moonlight and I done the same and we rocked a little. “Yes,” she said, “that water was good all right.”
I had just about forgot that Les was even around but he came down off the porch rail then with a thump and stood up and stretched and said, “It is none of my business, but I have never heard such a conversation before in all my life,” and then he went on into the house.
After he was gone I said, “He is right, Jenny. It is none of his business.”
“He is just being smart,” Jenny said.
Then she got up. “Well, good night, Jack,” she said.
I got up, too. “Maybe I can see you some time when Les is not around,” I said.
“He’s always around,” Jenny said.
“Maybe he will find something else to do,” I said.
“Maybe,” Jenny said.
I let it go at that. We stood there a while and I was surprised at how much taller I was than Jenny, standing close, and then she said good night again and I said good night and she went in.
I went quiet down the steps in case her folks had went to sleep and went out the gate and back up the road the way I had come. It was later than I’d thought. The moon had swung up high and got smaller and I looked up and down the road,
where there are other houses, but except for one light at the Holmeses’ place the moon was the only light there was. I cut off the road and got into the woods and when I got back on the path again I noticed there was hardly no sound in the woods at all, even of my walking, and everything seemed cooler and the grass and the pine trees and things had got back some smell to them, probably from the dew, and for the first time that day or in a long time I noticed I was finally all the way cool. The mosquitoes had even went away.
And for a while on Jenny’s porch they had been bad. I was glad I had went, though. It looked like Jenny and me had got things settled better again.
7
I sure caught hell when I got home, though. It was right on midnight. I must have walked home real slow. Anyhow, Ma was up waiting and Pa was out looking and Ma didn’t know which way to send now for Pa, and Ellen said he would come home by his self and she and Ma like to had an argument, and it was a mess. Knowing about my fight with Les, they figured that the Holmeses’ was the last place to look for me, and never did. I had not thought of it, of course, but I am hardly ever away from the house any time at all at night without that Ma and Pa know where. For all Ma knew, she said, I had had a hunting accident or fell in the creek and drowneded or had fell from a tree somewhere in the woods and was lying there helpless with broken bones, though what she thought I would be doing up a tree for no reason at all was something I asked her.
I shouldn’t have said nothing. Ma said I was about enough hard-headed and hard-hearted and just plain foolish so it would not have surprised her none if I had just simply forgot I had a home at all; and as for climbing a tree, she could not see where I usually had to have some reason for doing something and I might just as well have climbed a tree and fell out as not. Then she said she supposed I had gone back to fight some more with that little Holmes boy, or had I behaved. I told her I had went to see Jenny.
The Rain and the Fire and the Will of God Page 5
