by Jim Grimsley
He is uneasy and silent for a moment, as the rain throbs along the canvas and the wind continues its strong insistence, its pleading through the leaves. “I used to go camping with my dad when I was little. We don’t do much stuff like that anymore.”
“My dad and I never did stuff like this.” The sentence breaks a little. Roy draws him closer.
“I don’t like your dad much.” In the tent Roy’s face is hard to read. But there is a stillness to his voice. “He came out to the barn yesterday. To talk to me.” Shy suddenly. From distance. “He talked about you, some. He said he noticed we were getting to be good friends. He said he was glad you were getting out of the house these days. He said you were too quiet, you stay alone too much, you live in your head. He said you make up things that never happened.” Silence, rain. “I think he figured out I knew where you were sleeping.”
Roy is searching, that is clear. There is a question he wants to ask. Nathan becomes very still, his gaze fixed on a point of the tent. Shivering. The moment, the question, fade. Roy draws him closer. After a while, Nathan says, “I don’t want to go back.”
Rain. The fact of rain. In his mind Nathan can see the swollen creek rushing by in darkness. He and Roy lie still. Nathan unbuttons Roy’s shirt to find his body. Roy breathes from deep inside. At first he simply allows the touch, holding Nathan as if he is fragile. But Nathan touches insistently, and the need in him wells up through his hands.
It is awkward, even funny, to undress him and make love to him in the tent. Roy’s body has become a customary object, even the tastes are familiar. In the tent, in the dark, Nathan makes him laugh and cry out loud, a power of nighttime, and the look on Roy’s face at the end is like food, Nathan hovers over him.
The rain washes, the white sound cleanses, the woodland expands.
Later Roy asks, “Do you mind when I don’t do the same thing back to you?”
“No, I don’t mind.” But at that moment he begins to wonder if he does.
The earth makes a softer bed than Nathan expected. They lie against each other, loosely threaded together, and soon Roy’s breath changes, deepens. Nathan lies awake a little longer, his body’s rhythm gradually slowing to match Roy’s. A dark heaviness overtakes him at last, and his thinking washes away in the sound of rain. In his dreams he and Roy are buying horses, beautiful dark-coated animals, and riding across gardens of goldenrod, yarrow, chicory, and ironweed, with a view of mountains blue-veiled in the distance.
Chapter Ten
When he wakens, a soft darkness fills the interior of the tent, different from the hard shadow of night. Somewhere there is an eastern sky and it has begun to lighten. Roy’s face is nested in Nathan’s hair, the slackness of his mouth wetting Nathan’s throat. The smell of his breath, of his skin, pervades Nathan; odd, how sweet it is, to smell this boy from so close. They are bound together by the weight of Roy’s leg across Nathan’s thighs, by Roy’s arm across Nathan’s chest. They are, they have been, all night, one flesh. Joining them further is the heaviness of Roy’s erection in his white shorts, which he presses against Nathan’s thigh. Its presence has become almost another kind of protection.
Roy murmurs and stirs. The long leg stretches, flexes, pulls Nathan closer. The one sleeping bag in which they have wrapped themselves falls away. Nathan admires the detail of the boy that he can now see, the fine, dark hair along the legs, the line of arms and shoulders. For a moment another image intrudes into his peace, a memory of older, whiter, fallen flesh, of grizzled hair and oily skin, of a sour smell and the feeling of suffocation. But the edge of memory comes without panic this time, and Nathan, as he has learned to do, focuses on the next breath, the cool of the morning in which his heart is currently beating. The memory dissolves. He closes the door and locks it. Nothing more will escape.
Outside, Randy sings a country music love song while banging the frying pan on a rock.
After a few moments, Roy groans and stretches. He kisses Nathan sweetly, murmurs a good morning. Randy’s song continues, and Roy sings with him, in a clear voice, lighter than Nathan would have expected.
Again from outside comes Burke’s booming baritone calling all lazy good-for-nothings to climb out of their sleeping bags.
Dressing is a clumsy process in the tent, but Nathan is too shy to carry his clothes outdoors as Roy does. Nathan buttons his shirt, zips his pants. Outside the woodland shimmers with clear light and shaggy, vaulted green, branches hung with jagged banners of sweet autumn clematis. The air smells of bee balm, vaguely like mint and medicine, and carries the freshness of the morning after a storm. Even the creek now moves less brackishly, and some daylight penetrates a lining of moss and mud. Nathan walks along the creek bank, kneels and touches the chilly water.
Burke and Randy have made breakfast already, the bacon less burned than for supper. Roy has brought instant coffee, and Nathan drinks it from Roy’s tin cup, which becomes almost too hot to touch. The closeness in which they have rested through the night continues to surround them during the breakfast, a peace that fills the space between them, almost visible. There is a softness in Roy’s eyes when he watches Nathan, and for Nathan the feeling is perfected in some way; Roy anchors him in the present, strips away shadows of the past. Like breathing, in and out. Nathan basks in the beating of his own heart, in the descending calls of birds, in the fresh shadows of leaves on the backs of his hands. Life becomes a cool gentleness, a process of listening, a caressing presence. In the world that exists only through Roy.
Maybe the feeling is so palpable that even Randy and Burke are aware of it. Especially Burke. He sits across from Nathan at the campfire and watches with lowered eyes.
They strike camp quickly. Roy dismantles and packs the tent, and the memories of the night before are stowed away as quickly. Nathan helps Randy with the cooking equipment while Burke splashes water on the fire and buries the ashes.
Roy stands with his pack set over his shoulders, waiting.
Breezes lift the lower branches in the glade, stir the yellowing fronds of ferns, the wisteria, the bluehearts, moss, and tangles of honeysuckle, and sun strikes everything, and scents rise like waves of heat.
Without a word, Roy ascertains that all is ready and sets out walking. Taking a deep breath, Nathan follows.
Their path follows the creek through several turns to a place where a long, narrow island almost bisects it. Stones form a natural ford to the island. Roy warns Nathan to be careful on the slick backs; he himself steps nimbly to the mossy shore and picks a path to the other side. He moves with certainty, as if the landmarks here are well known to him. Nathan admires his graceful lancing through the underbrush. Nathan pauses in a stand of tall green ferns. Roy has already crossed to the opposite shore and waits in the grass beyond. “You can jump,” Roy calls, “it’s pretty narrow.”
Nathan takes a running start at a slant and flies over the dark water. Roy catches him by the elbow. There is intimacy in the moment, in the way Roy touches Nathan. “Now we go this way,” Roy says, and when Nathan turns, there is Burke, watching.
They leave the course of the creek, and tall pines open the roof of the forest to light and sky. Walking becomes easy, one has only to be mindful of cones and dry branches. The cool morning lends quickness to their steps. In the airy vaults Randy sings again, a hymn from the Broadman Hymnal, Up from the grave he arose, with a mighty triumph o’er his foes, and there is something clear in his voice, not echoing but rather expanding and dissolving into the trees. Roy, ahead, moves without weight. Burke, sometimes behind Nathan and sometimes beside him, scowls at the earth, tramping on pine cones and fallen leaves.
They move through a darker, denser part of the woods, where oak and maple claim territory from the pines and where the underbrush becomes more compact, a mass of vine, leaf, and wild blossom. The ground rises in rolling slopes, and the footing is sometimes treacherous, over dewy growth or thick moss. The forest is allengulfing, a vast canopy and airy castle of trees, splendid, unimaginable. Nathan’s heart p
ounds. The dim-lit terrain rolls by, more alien with each step. Dead trees twist toward the sky, hung with garlands of sweet autumn clematis studded with seed heads gossamer as spider’s egg sacs. The stillness affects all the boys, and Randy stops his singing. Roy continues to lead, his back sliding deftly through corridors of branches. Burke, meanwhile, walks closer to Nathan than before, and sometimes Nathan can almost feel his breath on his neck.
The path Roy promised soon appears. In fact it is not a path at all but the remnants of Poke’s Road, an extension long forgotten, that once bisected the Kennicutt Woods. Honeysuckle has filled the ditch on one side and the other is overgrown with cattail and fern. Its course can be followed, although the roadbed has been retaken by the growth of grass and wild roses, thorn-studded and heavy. They pick their way carefully forward, swinging the branches aside with arcs of their arms. Above, the glimmering sky lightens beyond the laces of leaves, shadows shifting like a kaleidoscope.
They walk forward. Nathan’s heart is pounding, and something like awe is rising in him, at the fact of the road and its destination but also at the eerie familiarity. Something prickles in the image, as if he already knows the place. The fall of light along a patch of broken fence strikes him as something he has seen before, there at the place where Roy is standing.
Further on, like a golden curtain, poplars stand in an airy thicket. Sunlight pours straight through the tender trunks.
Soon the road parallels another running stream. The boys follow them both till late morning, when Roy halts the march. The heat has begun to thicken under the broad shade.
“We ought to rest for a while,” Roy says, stripping off his backpack and sprawling on the ground, “there’s a ways further to go.”
Randy lounges beside Roy while Burke ranges along the creek bank, where a bed of fern brushes his jeans. He runs his hands through his hair and scratches his chest. He paces up and down the clearing. When he turns, he is behind Roy and Randy, watching Nathan.
“It’s hot as hell,” Burke says.
“Sure is.”
Randy hums, There is a place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God.
Burke scratches his chest under the shirt, then unbuttons the shirt and takes it off. His eyes are blank and flat, as if made of glass. But he still watches Nathan. He stands behind Roy and Randy, who do not see him.
His body is strong. He is bigger than he looks in the shirt. He has dense, square, ungraceful muscles, and a dark patch of hair in the cleft of his chest. His arms are thick and brawny, and he stretches them upward in the sunlight. His expression never changes. Nathan, embarrassed, looks away, then quickly back again. Burke is still watching, stretching his arms, shaking them, then finally turning away himself, kneeling at the side of the creek and splashing his face with water.
Nathan’s heart suddenly pounds, and he takes a seat near Roy, though not as near Roy as he might have.
Burke stands with the sun falling over his bare shoulders.
Randy says, “This place is a little spooky.” “People don’t come down here too much.” Roy chews a blade of grass. “My Uncle Heben brought me out here, when I was little.”
“Where?” Burke asked, idly twisting his forearms.
“There’s an old farm at the end. With a big house. Nobody lives there anymore.”
Something about the simple description causes them all to peer down the road. The promise of an abandoned house. “How far?” Nathan asks.
Their eyes do meet. The softness of Roy surrounds Nathan. “We still got a good ways to walk.”
Burke bends over the pack he has been carrying on his shoulders, and when he straightens he is holding the clear flat bottle, half-full of whiskey. He curls the bottle to his mouth.
The prickle in Nathan’s scalp makes him stand, suddenly, walking to another part of the clearing. Roy watches, puzzled.
Burke says, “I like a drink of liquor. You want one, Randy?”
“Not yet.”
“Roy?”
“Nope.”
Burke laughs. “Fine. More for me I guess.” And curls his arm again.
Nathan turns to Roy, who is standing. Roy says, “It’s time to walk,” and slings his pack over his shoulders. Nathan follows him to the remains of the road, as Randy scrambles to his feet.
Burke, eyeing Nathan, screws the top on the bottle, shoving it into his pocket. He clears his throat. He has tied the shirt around his waist. There is something about the display of his body, the arrogance of it, that troubles Nathan.
Burke, ambling forward, drapes an arm around Randy’s shoulder. His bulk engulfs even Randy’s pale plumpness. “You should have a drink, old buddy.”
“Later.”
Burke winks at Roy. “I’m ready, Cap’m Roy.”
Roy frowns.
“Wish I was in the land of cotton,” Burke sings.
Then they are all walking again, forward through the high grass along the bed of the old road, with the creek beside them and the wind in the old trees. The walk stretches through the rest of the morning and into early afternoon. At times Poke’s Road nearly disappears, so overgrown has it become. They walk forward in a hot October, with Roy leading in his white tee shirt, and Burke close by him, displaying his broad bare shoulders, like a challenge.
They reach a sharp curve and then, beyond, a twin row of oak trees flanking a broad lane. Sections of fence have tumbled along the ditch. At one point, the remains of a footbridge have partly collapsed into the running water of the creek. Some of the sentinel oaks are dying; Roy points them out. Last night’s storm has tossed one grandfather to its side across the road. A raw gash rips the earth beneath the upraised roots. Man-thick branches are splintered in the air, oozing orange. The ground has a startled look.
“Must have been some wind,” Randy says.
“It was some wind all right,” Roy answers.
Burke stares into the plate of earth and roots, the shadow of which falls across his slightly dull expression. He scratches his hairy navel with a finger, then ambles ahead swinging his arms. Roy waits for Nathan to step away from the fallen tree.
Burke, near the road, feints an attack on Randy, then grabs him from behind, gets him in a headlock and grinds his arm on Randy’s head, Burke gritting his teeth, sunlight cascading over his brown shoulders. He pulls Randy this way and that by the head. Randy, enraged, shoves Burke violently away and Burke staggers forward, laughing mildly.
Randy says, “You always try to hurt somebody.”
Burke laughs into his fist.
Handing Burke his pack, Roy steps between them. Randy is still breathing heavily, glaring at Burke. Roy says, “You all right?”
“Shit, yes, he’s all right, I ain’t done nothing to him.” Burke rips the pack from Roy’s hand and straps it over his shoulders. Adjusting the weight, settling it over his arms.
“I’m fine,” Randy says. “He just likes to be too rough all the time.”
Burke has stepped ahead again. Roy, for the first time, follows.
Ahead, as if posed, Burke in a pool of sunlight studies the two halves of an iron gate, a stone wall.
Chapter Eleven
Beyond the gate is a lane, now thick with weeds and undergrowth; Nathan recognizes a stand of blackberry bushes and a tangle of wild roses, out of bloom. At the end of the tangled lane, glimpsed beneath lowering branches, hangs a shadow, a broad sagging porch and slatted window shutters.
Roy flanks the vision now, and looks Nathan in the eye. “This is what I wanted to show you. I never brought anybody here before.”
“This is a plantation house,” Burke says. “My dad told me about this place. He saw it one time when he was hunting.”
Roy chews the end of broomstraw.
Randy says, “I didn’t know there was ever any plantation out here.”
“Some of the Kennicutts owned it,” Roy says. “Their graves are out yonder in the trees. They cleared out the woods around here a way long time ago. They were kin to the people who
had the place where our farm is, but that place burned down and the land got sold.”
“And they all just left this place.” Randy is gazing upward, at the vague outline of a roof beyond high treetops.
“It never did pass for much. That’s what my dad said.”
The first sight of the ruin, when they pass the oaks that obscure the mansion’s breadth, take Nathan aback. He has never seen a house as large as this, and it rivals, for bulk, the federal courthouse in Gibsonville and the elementary school in Potter’s Lake. Wooden columns support wide plank porches that surround both floors of the house. The wood has weathered uniformly gray, windows shuttered or broken, doors mutely closed. Dormer windows peer out from the attic. A tree has fallen across one of the side porches, shards of roof timber littering the overgrown yard beneath. The signs of damage are old; this did not happen last night.
They pick a path along the side of the house, beneath the shuttered windows and sagging porches. The stillness of the house lends an eerie sense of waiting to the walk, not as if the house is truly empty but as if its inhabitants are all hiding, or watching. Nathan remembers Roy mentioning a haunted house in the Kennicutt Woods and realizes, with a sense of wonder, that this must be the place.
They cross what had been the front lawn, leading down to a place where the creek widens over smooth rocks. By now the afternoon is waning.
“We should spend the night here,” Roy says.
“In the house?” Randy gazes at the huge bulk, perplexed.
“No. We can camp down by the creek.”
“Good. I know I don’t want to sleep in that house.”
Nathan is also disturbed by the prospect. The tent and open air seem more inviting.
“This place is supposed to be haunted,” Roy says, sounding wary. “My Uncle Heben says it was in a book about North Carolina ghosts. There was a picture of this house. The last full-blood Kennicutt who lived here got killed by one of his slaves, and they cut his head off. So he still walks around the place at night looking for his head.”