Hill Man

by Janice Holt Giles

  He turned around to go … but he stopped. A woman stood in the door. She had come there as quiet as a mouse, and stood there like a statue on a gravestone, still and carved. Her face was white and smooth, like it had been rubbed out of white clay, rounded and slicked, no wrinkles left, no thought or look stamped on it. Just white and smooth. And her hair was as black as the night. It hung all around her face and curled up just a little bit where it touched her shoulders. She just stood there in the door looking at Mister Rowe. It was like Rady wasn’t even there. Her arms hung quiet by her side, and she made no motion of any kind except that while she looked at Mister Rowe the pupils of the eyes got bigger. That was all. The rest of her was motionless, like a fall of water caught by ice. Then she came into the room and the stillness of her was broken.

  Mister Rowe turned towards her, quick-like. “Oh.” He made a move as if to push the whiskey and glasses out of sight, but he

  caught himself. It was too late. “Cordelia,” he said, “this is our neighbor, Rady Cromwell.”

  She bent her head a little and the black hair swung forward. She spoke to Rady. “How do you do, Mr. Cromwell?” Her voice came out of her throat deeper than most women’s, but it had no meaning in it. Just flat… even … polite.

  She looked at him when she spoke, and then she slid her eyes back to Mister Rowe. From him they went to the empty glasses, and they turned hard. Then she laughed. Not a real laugh. Not soft or pretty or careless. Not a laugh that had joy in it at all. A laugh that was as flat and hard as her eyes and her voice, and that never even got past the corners of her mouth, leaving it straight and white and unmoved. It was a laugh like a cold wind blowing, and in its passing Mister Rowe’s shoulders quivered and the glass tinkled when he moved his hand against it.

  Without saying another word the woman turned and left, the black hair swinging with the speed of her turning, and her shoes on the bare floor made a sharp, crackling sound, like dry limbs being trod in the woods.

  Mister Rowe looked at Rady. “Cromwell… ?”

  As if he’d been told Rady knew. Mister Rowe was sick. Sick inside, and drinking too much to cover it over. The way the woman had acted had said it as plain as day. Mister Rowe stood there and pulled at his twitchy mouth. “Cromwell?”

  “I’ll see Pringle, Mister Rowe,” Rady told him, and he went out through the door himself.

  Chapter Six

  Rady was as good as his word and the next morning he saddled his mule and rode down to the Pringle place. Old Man Pringle was a beefy, red-faced man, stout as an ox and about as stupid, but he could work twelve and fourteen hours a day without turning a hair. And like Annie’d said, he had a bunch of young’uns to help him. His woman was a toothless old hag, but she was still stout to get around. One eye was crossed, and it used to give me the creeps to be around her, for when she looked at you and talked, it was like she was looking over your shoulder at something standing behind you. They’d always lived either down in the bottoms or over on Bruton’s Ridge, so that none of us in our settlement had ever known them too well. Just by hearsay. But a man couldn’t be choosey with the season coming up.

  Rady rode up to the front gate and hallooed. Old Man Pringle came out, “Howdy,” he said.

  Rady said the same and talked on a minute or two about the weather, the chances of a good crop this year, the price of cream and eggs and such before he came to the point. A ridge man don’t state his business right off. He kind of sidles up to it. But after he’d gone all around Robin Hood’s barn, Rady named what he’d come for. “You contracted fer this season?”

  Old Man Pringle spit his tobacco juice out and told him no, he’d not made no contract yet.

  “Would you keer to make a change?”

  “Depends.”

  “I reckon you’ve heared they’s a new feller on the Hall place up on New Ridge.”

  “Zat so?”

  “Yeah. City feller. Don’t know nothin’ about farmin’. Made me a proposition to run the place fer him.”

  Old Man Pringle waited for Rady to go on.

  “I’m studyin’ on makin’ a deal with him, but I’d need some help.”

  “That’s a purty big place, ain’t it?”

  “Sizable. That’s why I’d need some help. I got my own place to tend, too.”

  “What’s yer deal?”

  “The usual.”

  Old Man Pringle studied a while. “Rent from you, or from him?”

  “From me.”

  “Work the Hall place or yore’n?”

  “Both.”

  “Where’d I live?”

  “They’s a good house on the Hall place. Better’n common.” The old man spit again. “Well, much obleeged to you. I’ll study on it.”

  And Rady rode off, knowing the deal was as good as made.

  He let Mister Rowe sweat a day or two, then he went over to have a talk with him. “Pringle ain’t very interested in makin’ a change, Mister Rowe,” he told him.

  “You made him a good proposition?”

  “Yessir. Jist the usual kind. He don’t know about workin’ fer a city feller. Figgers he’d lose out in the long run.”

  Mister Rowe looked white and tired out. Like things were getting the best of him, and he leaned against the gate, drooped and slack. He looked out across those wide fields that to a farming man were the sweetest sight in the world like he wished he’d never seen them before.

  “Mebbe you’d ort to of went yerself, Mister Rowe,” Rady said, after a time. “I was afeared I’d mess it up fer you.”

  “No,” Mister Rowe said, straightening up. “No. If you couldn’t make a deal with him, I’m sure I couldn’t have. It’s just about what I expected. But I don’t know what to do next. I’ve got to have somebody.”

  Rady waited a minute more, then kind of gentle-like he made his proposition. He went slow and easy, like he’d just had the notion, kind of letting time slip in between the words. “Mister Rowe, hit jist might be I could help you out myself. Way I git it, you’d ruther have somebody would take over an’ kind of run things fer you. Hit might be I could figger out to do it.”

  Mister Rowe looked at him with a disbelieving look, and then his face come alive with his anxiousness to believe what he was hearing. “You would! My God, Cromwell, that would be the best thing that could possibly happen I’d not worry a minute if you were in charge!”

  “No, sir. That’s what I figgered.”

  “But you’ve got your own place to farm. How would you manage to run this place and yours too?”

  “Well, I’d have to have some help. But I kin pick me up a man by the day I reckon. I’ll figger it out. Only thing is, Mister Rowe…” and he hesitated like he was might near ashamed to go on.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, not needin’ the rent house an’ mebbe using5 some of my own stuff, a third don’t seem quite …”

  Mister Rowe picked it up fast. “No, of course not. Would half suit you?”

  Rady let his breath out soft. That had been the tricky spot. “I kind of hate to take that much. But I’ll farm the place good fer you an’ make it pay so’s you come out with more fer yore half than you would with two-thirds with ary other feller rentin’.”

  “I believe that! Do we draw up a contract?”

  “No, sir. Not less’n you want one. Yore word’s good enough fer me.”

  “And yours is good enough fer me. But let’s have a drink on it!” So they went in the house and had their drink, then Rady said they’d ought to ride over the place and make some plans. They went out to the barn lot and saddled a couple of horses and rode off. Rady pointed out where old man Hall had had corn the year before. “We’d best grass that this year,” he said. And then they looked at the tobacco field. “Needs lime,” Rady told him. “Old Man Hall raised good tobaccer, but I figger we kin raise better. We’ll not scant none on the manure. That’s what makes good tobaccer, an’ with the stock you got we’ll not need to scant none. An’ if I was you I’d quit foolin
’ with them milk cows. Put ’em to pasture, raise the calves. More money in beef.”

  Mister Rowe was listening in a way, but in another way he wasn’t. “You do it your way, Cromwell. I don’t know … and the trouble is,” he leaned forward in the saddle, his hands folded across the pommel, “the trouble is, I just don’t give a damn.”

  Rady looked at him. He couldn’t understand a man feeling like that, but in the back of his mind he knew it was fine for him. It couldn’t be better. It would leave him free to run the place his own way. He kind of sucked in his breath.

  Mister Rowe pulled at his mouth and laughed. And they turned around and rode back down the fence line.

  “Was you raised in the city, Mister Rowe?” Rady asked after a time.

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of work was it you done back there?”

  “I was a lawyer … of sorts.” And then his mouth crimped like he’d chewed down on bitter alum. “The only thing I ever wanted to do in my life was to play the piano. I wanted to be a concert pianist.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “My father. Wanted me in his office. Long line of Rowe lawyers. He didn’t think pianists amount to much. Wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “An’ you done what yer pa wanted.”

  Mister Rowe looked at Rady. “Wasn’t much else I could do, was there?”

  Rady shrugged. He wouldn’t of. In a million years he wouldn’t of. But then Rady wasn’t Mister Rowe.

  Mister Rowe straightened up all at once. “How about going fox hunting tonight?”

  “All right by me,” Rady said. “You want to kill, or you jist want to take the dogs out fer a run?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Why?”

  “Well, it’s pretty hard to kill of a night. Best time’s real early of a mornin’.”

  “Let’s run the dogs then. But we can take the guns. Might get a shot.”

  Rady come got me to go with them, on account of me having three good hounds, and we picked Mister Rowe up right after good dark. I took along a jug for good measure. We all sampled it on the way and Mister Rowe allowed he was going to get plumb fond of moonshine before long.

  We went over back of Sawtooth down Croaker Branch and turned the dogs loose. Then we built a fire and set down to wait. The jug passed right frequent and we got to examining one another’s guns and telling tall tales. Mister Rowe had a .30 caliber rifle with him that was a beauty and me and Rady handled it and sighted it and would of give our eye teeth for one like it. Rady had an old double-barreled shotgun, twelve gauge, and it even had double hammers on it. Mister Rowe said he hadn’t never seen one like it before.

  “You’d ort to see his old muzzle-loadin’ rifle,” I said.

  “An old muzzle-loader, huh? I’d sure like to see that one.”

  So then I told him how Rady come by it, and how he won a turkey shoot with his touch-off.

  “You mean you actually made a gun yourself and it would shoot?” he said to Rady, looking like he didn’t hardly believe it.

  “Hell, that wasn’t nothin’,” Rady said. “Anybody kin make a touch-off. Nearly all the kids raised around here knows how. Mine was a little fancier, mebbe. Shot a little truer. But I don’t reckon they ever was a boy in these hills didn’t make hisself a touch-off one time or another.”

  Mister Rowe swigged on the jug and shook his head. “Country kids sure learn to do a lot of things for themselves, don’t they? First gun I ever had was a .22 caliber Harrington-Richards. Dad gave it to me on my fifteenth birthday. But I wasn’t allowed to hunt with it unless my tutor was along.” “Yore what?” Rady said.

  “The man who taught me. I didn’t go to public school.”

  We’d never heard of such, so there wasn’t much we could say. Mister Rowe told us then where all he’d been hunting. New Mexico and Arizona for deer and elk, Wyoming for mountain goats, Alaska for bears. He’d sure been all over. “That,” he said, “was before … before I was ill.”

  There was a kind of embarrassed quiet then, like Mister Rowe had pulled a cover from in front of something hid. We didn’t know whether to ask how he’d been sick and if he was still sick or what. So we just kept quiet. But the hounds made a distraction just then by giving tongue, and we all sprung up to listen.

  “That’s yore Queenie,” Rady said, “she’s found a trail!”

  My Queenie has got a high, yipping voice when she’s running, and you can’t never mistake her. Directly, though, we could hear Drum’s big old bass right alongside of her, and the other dogs closing in and laying down. They had it, no doubts about it. Mister Rowe was so excited the firelight glistened off his eyes, and he grabbed his gun. “Not yit,” Rady said, “they’ll run a while. Jist listen.”

  They were still way off, so we set down again and passed the jug. But we all had our ears cocked towards the hounds. Never was any music in this world sweet as a pack of hounds running. That’s the best part of fox hunting … running the dogs. Myself, I don’t care nothing about killing. But I’d rather listen to my hounds run than eat fried chicken on Sunday!

  We stayed by the fire and listened while the old fox took them up the ridge, down the holler, across the branch and back again. And little by little they came closer. Rady put the jug down and stood up. He looked at me. “The head of the holler, you think?”

  “There, or jist back of Simpson’s place.”

  So we lit out. Mister Rowe as anxious as a kid on his first hunt. “You think we can see him in this light?” he asked.

  “Dunno,” Rady told him. “Hit’s pretty dark. But you might git a shot.”

  We hid in the bushes and waited at the head of the holler, the dogs driving closer every minute. “God, I’ve got buck fever,” Mister Rowe said. “I’m shaking till I couldn’t hit the side of a barn!”

  Rady laughed. “Don’t weary about it. There’ll be other foxes if you don’t git this un.”

  And as it turned out we didn’t even get the sight of the fox. Just as we thought he was nearing the crossing the dogs circled again and their voices grew fainter. “What happened?” Mister Rowe said.

  Both Rady and me were listening and from the sound of the dogs we knew they weren’t running now. They were milling and circling. “He’s denned,” Rady said. “I’m sorry, Mister Rowe.”

  “You mean it’s over?”

  “Yessir. With that fox, leastways.”

  Mister Rowe shifted his gun. “Oh, well. Another time, maybe.”

  He was a good sport about it.

  We made our way back to the fire and settled down to do some good solid drinking while we were waiting for the dogs to raise another fox. The moonshine had made us mellow and the fire was making us warm and we were all feeling like kings. Laughing, talking and joking. You know how it is. Specially if you’re married. A night to yourself again. A night to be yourself, free and unhampered. Just to be your own man, not the one, for a little while, that sleeps double in a sagging, thin-mattressed bed with a woman, the newest kid whiney and muzzling on the other side of her. Not the one that has to get up at first light the next morning and haul on his overhalls and hitch up his old Beck mule and stumble along behind her down a furrow full of stones and sprout roots. Not the one the kids hang on and call papa. A free man, for a time, a free and new-young and sapling-strong man. With a fire burning bright and you squatted in front of it, and a jug to tilt, the likker hot and good inside you, the dogs yipping off somewheres in the dark, the stars so close the tops of the trees are brushed against them. Man, it’s good!

  I took a notion to hear Rady sing.

  “Naw,” he said, put out a little in front of Mister Rowe. “I ain’t got my gittar.”

  “That don’t matter.” I told him. “You kin sing all right without it.”

  “Naw.”

  Mister Rowe got to his feet and swayed a little. “I’ll sing.” he says, “I’ll start us off.” And he commenced singing some kind of song in some foreign tongue we couldn’t make sense of. Something about a t
oreador. He had a grand, booming voice to sing with. I’ll say that for him, and he sure shouted it out. The sides of the holler fair rung with the echoes. He stood there with his legs spraddled and beat the time with his hand and had himself a fine time. Then he fell over a rock trying to sit down and cussed a blue streak over his barked shin. “Now it’s your turn,” he told Rady.

  So Rady, he sung too. He sung the Turtle Dove, the one I’d always admired. Rady never to say had a voice to brag about, but it was true and he could say the words to a song just like they were a story. In your mind’s eye you could see what was happening, just as plain. Sometimes he’d make his voice go down so low it was like a whisper, when the song was sad, that is. And you’d feel like it was your own self grieving so. “’The hills shall fly my little turtle dove,’” he sung, “’before I’m false to the maid that I love.’” Me and Mister Rowe both got to crying.

  And the fire died down to red, red coals that hissed like rain falling in the dust. And the likker was heavy inside us, and we thought on all the sadness in the world. Then first thing we knew false dawn was in the sky and I decided I’d better get on home. My eyes were having trouble staying open. “Let’s go,” I said.

  We got to our feet all right, but it took the three of us to prop one another up doing it. Then we took off up the holler and down the road, weaving from one side to the other. “Sing!” said Mister Rowe, and he lined out a song. Me and Rady tried to follow, but the best we could do was burp a little. Then Mister Rowe decided to shoot off all the cartridges in his gun. Just aimed it at the sky and pulled loose! Rady and me followed suit and the night was blasted plumb wide open!