There Was a Time

by Taylor Caldwell

  “I didn’t—come to learn,” Frank could not help saying bitterly. “I came to make money.”

  “I see,” said Wade thoughtfully. He pulled a pipe from his pocket, filled it with tobacco. He lit the pipe. He did all this without taking his eyes from Frank. Then he went on: “I hear that Tim Cunningham is making a lot of money, considering everything. Hope you make it, too.”

  The smith cackled nearby. “Cain’t help it, seems like,” he contributed.

  “Staying with Tim?” asked Wade.

  “I suppose so.” Frank’s depression thickened his voice lifelessly. “Though perhaps I can get room and board—in some small hotel?”

  Wade smiled. “There aren’t any hotels,” he said. “There isn’t even a rooming house.” He paused. “Perhaps you’d better go home, Frank. I’m afraid you don’t know just where you’re going.”

  There was a rumbling on the cobbles outside, and a flat wagon filled with straw, and drawn by four dusty mules, drew up at the door.

  “There’s your—conveyance,” said Wade. He turned to the smith. “Holes filled in yet, Little Les?”

  The smith chuckled and shook his head. “No-account sonsabitches,” he said jovially. “Ain’t done a lick of work since the spring rains. Feller blew up last week, with his truck, carryin’ the ‘soup’ in to Benton. Just made a bigger hole in the road.” He laughed uproariously, slapped his leathery thighs.

  Wade explained to Frank: “The ‘soup’ is the nitroglycerin they use to blow the wells. I’ve expected an accident for a long time over these roads. No place for automobiles. The poor man ought to have known better. I’ve been telling them not to try to make it with trucks, but to use the wagons all the time. But it’s twenty-five miles away, and it takes at least twelve hours by wagon.”

  “Two miles an hour!” exclaimed Frank, in incredulous dismay.

  Wade nodded. He examined the saddle and straps on his mule “You’ll see for yourself. Well, are we all ready?”

  He picked up a thick square black bag from the floor, expertly fastened it to his saddle. He led his mule outside, and engaged in conversation with the bearded man who sat in the bottom of the straw-filled wagon. Frank followed slowly, blinking in the hot and blinding sunlight. Sweat burst out all over him in great huge drops, instantaneously, and he saw the sky, white now, incandescent as pure flame. The cobbles danced before his swimming eyes; a shimmering wave hung over the bleak street. Voices, muted, overpowered with heat, came like faint hollow echoes from doorways. The mules twitched their tails, turned their malicious and intelligent eyes upon Frank, shook the dust from their flanks. Beyond the town, the mountains were coiled like the dark backs of great serpents.

  He was introduced to Ben Calloway, the bearded driver of the mule teams, who studied him solemnly, spat out a mighty cud of tobacco, and offered him a dirty and calloused hand. “Name of Frank Clair?” he repeated, after Wade O’Leary had mentioned the name. “Bin expectin’ you. Got yore victuals?”

  Farnk was silent, bewildered. Dr. O’Leary, who had sprung into his saddle, patted his black bag. “I’ve got enough for the two of us, Ben, and maybe I can spare you a chicken leg or so, for yourself. And Little Les gave me a big bottle of applejack. We shan’t starve.”

  Gingerly, miserably, Frank climbed with awkwardness into the wagon, after first boosting his black cardboard suitcase onto the straw. He wondered why there were no planks to sit upon, but he found out very shortly that a seat of any kind would have been most impractical.

  He removed his coat, tie, and hat, and laid them apprehensively on the yellow straw. He rolled up his shirt sleeves, and felt the play of the burning sun on his pale flesh. Well, that wasn’t too bad, if he didn’t get sunstroke. Little Les waved cheerily from his smithy, shouted a profane warning about the holes, hoped they wouldn’t meet a feller with any “soup,” and retired into the hot dark cave of the shop. Ben slapped the reins on the mules’ backs, struck them smartly with a cowhide whip, and the wagon lurched on over the cobbles. Dr. O’Leary cantered beside the wagon, smiled down at Frank, and offered him a cigarette.

  Apathetic women on the streets and on the high verandahs of the old houses stared at them as they rumbled by. The straw pierced Frank’s socks, above his boots; it gave off a dusty cloud of chaff which made him sneeze. The sun struck him like hammers on a flaming anvil. The mountains coiled closer, and then the wagon rolled out of the town onto a dusty ragged road the color of new copper. Trees, covered with a fine patina also the color of copper, hung spindly and lifeless over the road, casting impotent thin shadows. The narrow land at the foot of the hills was overgrown with tall brown grass and patches of red and yellow wild flowers. Over it all blazed the murderous sun, which burned the earth and filled the lungs with hot air.

  Now the town was behind them, hidden in a fold of the hills, and there was nothing to be seen but the occasional dried bed of a “branch” between the mountains, a clump of half-dead firs, and the sick straggling of second-growth timber. Frank was forced to replace his hat, to protect his head. He pulled up the legs of his trousers, partly to protect them from the straw, and partly because he believed such a sun ought to have curative powers. Sweat rolled down from his forehead, along the arch of his nose, settled in driblets at the corners of his mouth. He felt his shirt sticking to his back. Wade O’Leary cantered easily nearby, and Frank was grateful. He knew that the doctor could outdistance the lurching wagon without any difficulty, yet he remained with his new acquaintance.

  A mile from Paintsville, Frank began to concede the wisdom of the straw on the floor of the wagon, for, at every twenty or thirty feet, the wooden wheels encountered huge holes, half the depth of a grave. Ben Calloway crouched on the straw, wielding his whip over the backs of the struggling mules. He negotiated most of the holes successfully, skirting the edges so that the wagon tilted at a thirty degree angle only, and Frank was able to hold his seat on the straw by merely gripping the shallow edge of the vehicle. But sometimes two holes appeared only three feet apart, the deep bottoms still caked with a half-dried mud, and the wagon stood up on end or dived unexpectedly, while the lead mules appeared to totter overhead or to disappear into a pit. Then Frank had all he could do to remain in the wagon, apparently standing on his head one moment or gazing down the steep slant of his legs the next. He finally decided that a halfsupine position imposed less wear and tear on his body than did an attempt to sit upright. The chaff of the straw began to cling to his wet flesh, where it gave off a musty smell.

  Only the blazing silence of dark hill and bleached gravelly earth lay about them, broken occasionally by Ben’s masterful oaths directed at the mules, the panting of the lathered animals, or the singing of hungry insects which gathered in clouds over their backs or swooped down to drink the sweat of the men. Sometimes Wade reached down to grasp the bridles of the lead mules, and, with words of low encouragement and the strength of his hand, helped them to struggle out of a pit. The mules were not docile creatures, like horses, and had none of the horse’s bewildered acceptance of fate. Frank felt their disgust and resentment, and he was quite convinced that they swore to one another as they commented on the journey. He could see their tall dusty ears, their distended nostrils, their bared teeth. In spite of his own misery, he was amused, and interested. These were persons, cynical and corrupt, leathery and wry, who had a very poor opinion of the man-creatures they pulled, and a low prejudice against the sleeker mule which Dr. O’Leary rode. Apparently they insulted the latter animal copiously, for he would prick up his ears contemptuously, toss his head, and ignore his companions in an elaborate manner which it was impossible not to detect.

  “Orn’ry cusses,” commented Ben. “I hate mules. Goddam critters, anyway. But got more brains than hosses. They thinks. Yessir, they do. Got to hold ’em steady; allus up to tricks, mean tricks. Hey, Wade, break out that applejack, will you?”

  “In this heat?” asked Wade. But he “broke out” the applejack, and handed the thick bottle to Ben, who
drank of it deeply. Frank shook his head when it was offered to him. He had a dull headache from the sun and the applejack he had drunk in the smithy. Now the whole barren and deserted countryside began to swim before his eyes. Wade tried to talk to him, but his wretchedness made it too much of an effort to answer. He lay in the straw and suffered, while his suitcase bounded against his legs and his wet clothing clung to the straw.

  He must have slept, in his misery, for after a while he became aware that the motion of the wagon had stopped. He sat up, dizzily, with an enormous effort. He was nauseated and violently thirsty. He saw his bare arms, burned to a bright and painful red. His legs, between his rolled-up trousers and his dusty socks, were also scarlet, and itched and smarted.

  The wagon had been pulled under a clump of trees off the broken and pitted road. Here the shade was a thick and inky black, a patch of grateful shelter in a stricken and fuming land. Nearby, Frank heard the trickle of water, ineffably delightful to the ear. Ben had alighted; he was tying up the mules, whose hides were flecked with foam. Their animal panting was loud in the bright and steaming silence. Dr. O’Leary had tied up his own mule, a careful distance from its mates, and he had produced a small white cloth upon which he was laying out his “victuals.”

  Frank, whose head was swimming ominously, climbed over the side of the wagon. The ground swayed under his feet. He half-staggered under the trees, and sat down abruptly. Wade glanced at him with a smile. “We’re going to eat now,” he said. His dark “city” clothing was still neat and elegant, and his smooth narrow head was unruffled. “Here,” he said, with concern, “you’re burned up. We’ll have to do something about that.” He opened his bag, and brought out a jar of white ointment. “Put this on that sunburn, or you’ll be sick.”

  Frank, speechless with suffering, accepted the jar, but did not have the strength to open it. Wade, giving him a quick glance, knelt beside him and lavishly anointed the smarting areas of sunburn. Frank watched him, too spent even to express gratitude. But the ointment had a cool and soothing effect. Frank watched the doctor, and then, in spite of his misery, he felt a slow and gathering warmth in his heart, a kind of strong devotion, at the sight of those lean brown hands ministering to him. Ben, having filled a pail with spring water, watched with interest. “City folks,” he said with kind scorn. And spat.

  Wade produced a tin cup, filled it with the icy water, and offered it to Frank, now well buttered with the oily ointment. He poured a good half-teaspoonful of salt into Frank’s hand, and directed him to swallow it with the water. “You’ll feel better soon,” he said encouragingly, rising and brushing dead grass from his knees. He put away his ointment, proceeded to lay out cold fried chicken, slices of cornbread and chunks of fried “sow-belly,” half of a pie, cut in wedges, and a half dozen oranges. Frank closed his eyes in a spasm of nausea, and leaned against the hard trunk of a tree. He could not endure the brilliant light on the empty earth and the burning hills.

  But very shortly he began to feel revived; the sunburn’s throbbing subsided. He accepted the leg of a very good chicken, and even a “swig” of applejack. But he could not stand the cornbread or the sow-belly. The pie, however, was good, though he realized incredulously that it, too, was fried. The orange juice was fresh and grateful in his mouth. He ate slowly, only half listening to the affectionate banter between Ben and Wade O’Leary, who ate with frank hunger. Now he could look, with careful squinting, at the incandescent countryside.

  So, this was Kentucky, this raw and blighted land, this brassy and simmering earth, these somber mountains. Far up on a hill he saw his first log cabin, and now he heard the echo of fowl and the acid bark of a dog. A dry breeze rattled the dusty leaves of the trees. Gulfs of silence fumed everywhere.

  CHAPTER 46

  Ben and Wade sprawled out on the thick dead grass and dozed. But Frank leaned against his tree and gave himself up to his wretched thoughts and to the silence. The shade of the trees became narrower. He looked at his watch. It was past one o’clock. He had no idea how many miles had been covered since morning, but he suspected they were few. He heard the mules switching their tails as they drowsed, their heads bent. Now even the distant chickens and the dogs were silent. The sky was unbearably bright and bleached.

  How was he going to endure the rest of the journey, through all that heat and sun? Where was he going, and why? He wiped his face with his damp soiled handkerchief. His body ached with exhaustion; his flesh felt bruised. He looked at his companions, who slept with their hats over their faces. He saw Ben’s great and massive body, his muscular brown arms folded under his head. But Dr. O’Leary had managed to retain his neatness and elegance. Even his black leggings were only a little dusty. Suddenly Frank was reminded of his father’s pathetic black leggings, and he was sick with his depression.

  Kentucky and mules and heat and brazen silence; Kentucky and a Mormon minister and a mountaineer. Frank became dazedly disoriented. He could not believe he was actually in this place, huddled in a narrowing shade, a refugee from heat and strangeness. He allowed his ever-growing homesickness to flow over him. Bison, in retrospect, was a green pool of shadow, civilization. Now Frank cursed himself for coming. He knew, completely, that he would gain nothing, that he had condemned himself to exile and imprisonment in these mountains. He had already given Ben ten of his hoarded ninety dollars. Another ten would take him back to Paintsville tomorrow. Thirty-five dollars, or more, to get him back to Bison. Forty-five dollars left, if he were lucky, to begin again in Bison. It was not enough. Somehow, he must remain here until he had at least one hundred dollars, clear. How long would that be?

  Dr. O’Leary was stirring, stretching himself with satisfaction. He sat up, yawned, and smiled at Frank. “You didn’t sleep? Well, you napped in the wagon. Feel better now?”

  Frank was silent, twisting long sheaves of grass between his trembling fingers.

  He muttered dully: “I shouldn’t have come. I was a fool.”

  Dr. O’Leary still smiled, but his eyes rested on Frank meditatively. “You know,” he said at last, “I have a theory. I don’t think any of us have much choice about where we’ll go or what we’ll do. The choice rests only in our individual reactions to where we find ourselves. Perhaps you couldn’t have helped coming here. But you can help how you manage your environment, and how you control your own thoughts, and how you will act. A man, I believe, either gains or loses by his experiences, and the choice rests with himself.”

  Frank did not answer. He pulled at the grass.

  “How old are you, Frank?” asked Wade gently.

  “Almost twenty.”

  “Twenty,” repeated Wade, with reflection. “Well, you’re a man, now. What did you do at home, in Bison?”

  “I—I was a stenographer.” Frank’s reply was curt and clipped, and he turned away.

  “A stenographer. I didn’t mean that, exactly. I meant, what did you really do?”

  Frank looked at him. Wade’s brown eyes were steadfast and very kind, and so Frank answered him quickly and involuntarily, and with unconscious bitterness: “I—I thought I was—a writer! I used to write—I’ve written all my life, since I first learned to put words down on paper.”

  “And now you don’t write?”

  Frank’s pale mouth tightened with such an expression that Wade’s brows drew together in concern. “No, I don’t write. I never could, really. It was just a stupid idea I had when I was a kid. It wasn’t anything at all; I just dreamt it was.”

  “How do you know?” asked Wade softly.

  Frank opened his mouth, then shut it again. Then, after Wade had waited for quite a while, Frank began to speak in a dull slow voice: “I know. I have no education. Everything I know—I got from books I borrowed from the library. What can a man do without an education? I went to night school, after my day’s work. I saw how hopeless it was. I found it impossible to learn anything, except English and composition. I had a mass of irrelevant knowledge. The more I learned, the more I knew how
ignorant I was. I had read hundreds of history books, and I—I thought I had the—feeling—of history, but when it came to actual application—I mean, I couldn’t remember dates and events, in sequence, and so I failed my examinations. Then, any kind of mathematics was beyond me. I was a failure, all around.”

  He paused. Wade waited, then said: “And then?”

  Frank glanced at him with bitter surprise. “‘And then’ what?” He was already ashamed of having spoken.

  “I mean,” said Wade, with great gentleness, “what made you think you were a ‘failure’?”

  “I knew,” replied Frank sullenly. He exclaimed: “You’re laughing at me, because you think I am presumptuous! Because I know nothing!”

  Wade lit his pipe, blew out his match, threw the match from him and watched its spirals in the shining air before it fell into the grass.

  He said meditatively: “I am thinking of what Machiavelli said: ‘Let no one fear not to be able to accomplish what others have done, for all men are born and live and die in the same way, and therefore resemble each other.’”

  Frank stared at him, then in a grim voice he said: “Machiavelli.” He laughed shortly. Then he was silent, his face tight and closed. After a while, he said: “If Machiavelli said that, he was a fool, too. I can’t accomplish anything. My parents were right, from the start. I’m a failure. I hate them, but they were right.”

  “Why were they right? Why do you believe them?”

  Frank turned on him with unexpected vehemence and anger: “I didn’t believe they were right until just recently! Then I knew. I had to waste all those years before I knew.”

  Wade scratched his ankle, slowly, and gazed off at a coil of mountain. He said: “A man isn’t lost until he begins to accept what others think of him as the truth about himself, whether what they think is worse or better than his real self. If he is better, then he is forever defeated. If he is worse, then he will die struggling to live up to their exalted opinion. I don’t know which is more evil for the man. At any rate, when he completely accepts the opinion of others about himself, then he is no longer an individual. He is only a projection of the minds of others, and has no real existence of his own.” Frank listened and his thoughts, newly released, leapt along Wade’s words as a man leaps along stones. “I see what you mean. But it isn’t true about me. I—I reached my conclusion about myself from finally knowing about myself.”