The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 2
Page 181
The dogs were barking and even the cats were meowing, and soon the door leading onto the breezeway from one of the cabins opened, and an old woman stepped out. Robin’s eyesight couldn’t clearly perceive her, but she must have been eighty at least, with snow-white hair.
“Xenophon, what in tarnation is all this commotion?” the woman said, and Robin realized she was addressing Yowrfrowr. The dog continued repeating his name. Robin savored the moment of having heard a human voice for the first time in years, and although the woman was speaking sternly to her dog it was a very kind voice. Then the woman caught sight of her, and spent a long moment just studying her. Finally she said, “Why, howdy, there.”
“Hello, ma’am,” Robin said.
“You’re a gal,” the woman said. “For a minute I thought you were a man, dressed like that. Come on up here where I can get a good look at you.”
Robin approached the breezeway, and up close could see the woman clearly. Despite being very old she still seemed to Robin to be one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen although of course Robin hadn’t seen any women at all for nine years. “Is this Stay More?” Robin asked.
The woman laughed a young laugh. “Not this,” she said, sweeping her hand over her home. “The village is on down the road a ways. You must’ve just passed it and not noticed it, there’s so little left of it.”
“I didn’t come that way,” Robin said. “I came from that way.”
“On foot?” said the woman, and looked down at Robin’s bare feet. “You must’ve got lost at Parthenon and took the wrong turn. I can’t imagine anybody coming to Stay More from that way, which used to be called Right Prong. But here now, I’m being chatty and rude. Pull you up a chair and rest your feet and I’ll get you a tall glass of lemonade.”
Robin couldn’t believe it, but soon she was holding in her hand a glass with ice in it and filled with lemonade, which she hadn’t tasted in so long she’d forgotten there was such a thing. The old woman had a glass too and raised it and said, “To your health,” then added, “You sure look pretty healthy, I’d say. How old are you?”
“Sixteen,” she said. “And I feel very healthy.”
“And tan,” the woman said. “Do you spend all your time out hiking the back roads?”
“No ma’am, today’s the first time I’ve ever been on a back road on foot.”
“Really? Where are you from?”
Robin started to say “Harrison” but realized that was totally false. “Madewell Mountain,” she said.
The woman looked at her. “That’s just up yonder a ways, not too awfully far at all. But here I’m being chatty and rude again and haven’t even told you my name. I’m Latha Dill.”
“Oh. You used to be the postmaster of Stay More.”
“Long ago, before you were born, when there was still a post office.”
“And you used to run the general store, where Adam got his flour and stuff.”
“Adam?”
“Adam Madewell.”
The woman was looking at Robin very intensely. “The Madewells went to California, oh, maybe thirty year or more ago. It’s still called Madewell Mountain, and you say that’s where you’re from, but how did you happen to know Ad Madewell? Are you some kin to the Madewells?”
“No, I’m just a good friend of Adam’s.”
“Oh, so you’re really from California, then?”
Robin realized that she was going to have some trouble explaining it all to this nice old lady. She doubted the woman had ever heard of an in-habit, or would even believe her if she tried to explain what an in-habit was. So she decided not to try. “No,” she said, “actually I’ve never really met Adam. Could you tell me what he looked like?”
“I think you’ve been out in the sun too long, young lady, and you need more ice than what’s in that lemonade.” She went into the cabin and returned shortly with a dishtowel in which she had wrapped a bunch of ice cubes. “Here. Hold this to your forehead.”
Robin obligingly held the bundle of ice to her head. It felt wonderful, although she had nothing wrong with her head that needed cooling off. “Where do you get ice cubes?” she asked.
“From the fridge, of course,” the woman said.
“Oh. You have electricity?”
“Sure. Don’t you?”
“No. I haven’t seen an ice cube for about nine years.”
The woman was smiling. “Whereabouts on Madewell Mountain do you live?”
“The top.”
“Oh, then you live in the Madewell place, I reckon.”
“That’s right. Have you been there?”
“Not since I was about your age. I was born and grew up on the east side of Ledbetter Mountain, out Left Prong yonder, at the old Bourne place, where Brax Madewell’s trail comes down off the mountain. That was the way your Ad used to get to school. Did you know that?”
“Yes, the trail goes up through a glen with a high waterfall.”
“That’s right. Have you been in that holler?”
“I’ve seen it.”
“Well, Brax Madewell built his house up there about the time I was born. Him and my daddy were friends, and Daddy took me with him once to visit up there. It sure is shut off and out of the world, isn’t it?”
“It sure is,” Robin agreed. “But I’ve got many friends, including my dog Hreapha, who’s sitting there with your dog Yowrfrowr.”
“Yowrfrowr? Is that what you call Funny? His name is Xenophon, or Fun for short. Yowrfrowr! The woman laughed, and the dog jumped up at the sound of his real name and came to her. She scratched him behind the ears. “Yowrfrowr, huh? Is that your real name, boy? It’s certainly what you say all the time.”
“And ‘Hreapha’ is what my dog says.”
As if to confirm it, Yowrfrowr said “YOWRFROWR” and Hreapha said “HREAPHA.” Not to be left out, Hruschka said “HRUSCHKA” and each of her offspring announced their names too.
The woman went on laughing, and eventually she stopped laughing and asked, “What are the names of your other friends?”
“Oh, there are so many of them, but their names aren’t always the sounds they make. There’s Robert the bobcat, and another one of Hreapha’s pups named Hroberta, who is Robert’s girlfriend, believe it or not.” The woman started laughing again, and Robin laughed with her, realizing that she had almost forgotten how to laugh. She went on, “Then there’s Hroberta’s brother, Hrolf, who thinks he’s the lord of the place, and Ralgrub the raccoon and her three children, and Sheba the king snake, or queen snake, and Dewey the buck deer, and Paddington the bear, and Bess the cow, and Sparkle the pet rock, and a pair of mourning doves named Sigh and Sue, and most recently we were honored with the presence of a clever opossum named Pogo.”
The woman was really laughing now, and could barely stop to say, “I remember Pogo in the funny papers.”
“He’s not still in the funny papers?” Robin asked.
“No, the artist who drew him, Walt Kelly, died seven or eight years ago.”
“That’s too bad. Well, my Pogo is just like the Pogo that used to be in the funny papers.”
The woman named Latha laughed some more, then stopped and said, “My stars alive, that’s quite a crowd of friends you have. But isn’t one of them named Sog?”
Robin’s skin prickled, and she thought she might be shivering, not from the bundle of ice cubes. “Do you mean Sugrue Alan?” she said. “Did you know him?”
“I knew him quite well. Too well. Until he disappeared, he was one of my few remaining neighbors. Not a near neighbor. He lived on the other side of Stay More. But I knew him all his misbegotten life, until he disappeared. How’s he doing these days?”
“He’s dead,” Robin said.
“Oh. I wish I could say that’s too bad, but I can’t. Did you kill him?”
“Yes.”
“Good for you. Good for you, Robin Kerr. Did this happen recently?”
Robin was almost certain she hadn’t mentioned her n
ame to the woman. “No, I shot him when I was eight. But he asked me to. He was pretty bad sick.”
“Sick in the head primarily,” Latha said. “You must stay all night with me and tell me the whole story. But the first thing I want to know is: how badly did he hurt you?”
Robin thought about that. “Physically he never hurt me. Not much. He slapped me once, that’s all.”
Latha waited, then asked, “How often did he…did he molest you?”
Robin took time wording her reply. “I know that’s what he probably wanted me for, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. Something was wrong with his, his, his dick is all I know to call it. It wouldn’t get hard.”
Latha’s laugh was gentle, not mocking. “My,” she said, “you’ll really have a story to tell me. But let’s go start supper. Is there anything in particular you’d like to eat?”
Robin needed just a moment. “Could you make spaghetti?”
“Sure. With meat sauce?”
And for dessert they had real ice cream. And they talked and talked and talked, late into the night, Robin telling the whole story of the kidnapping, captivity and the killing of Sugrue, as well as life on Madewell Mountain (although she still couldn’t bring herself to include the in-habit). The inside of Latha’s cabin was very neat, and the woman had a telephone and a television and a bookcase, and the kitchen was really up-to-date, with appliances she had never seen before, including something called a microwave. Robin slept on a wonderful bed and in the morning Latha gave her some real woman’s clothes to put on, after her bath in a real shower: blue jeans that fit and a knit cotton top, and even a new pair of sneakers. After a breakfast with a real banana and some blueberries to put on her cereal (and Robin was almost sorry to discover how much she liked coffee), during which they talked and talked through the third cup of coffee, Robin asked, “How did you know it was Sugrue who did it?”
Latha explained, “I read the newspapers and watch television. I saw your mother on TV twice. I just had a hunch it was Sugrue because he disappeared at the same time, and because I knew him well. But I had no idea he’d taken you to Madewell Mountain. Now then. Let’s go look at the Stay More you have imagined so much.”
Chapter forty-two
Yowrfrowr really wanted to go with them, but he explained to her, My rheumatism, if that’s what it is, makes it increasingly wearying for me to get around. So I’ll just sit here and lick the place where my balls used to be until you get back. Have fun.
She debated with herself whether to stay with him or follow Robin and Yowrfrowr’s mistress. Since her first loyalty, despite her great love for Yowrfrowr, was to Robin, she chose to amble along behind them as they hiked down into the remains of the village. She enjoyed listening to their conversation, as the woman named Latha would pause to point to a building or house and relate its history, and since Hreapha was so good at minding Robin, she could absorb all of Robin’s feelings and reactions to the sights and sites of Stay More. “We probably won’t encounter a soul,” the woman said, “but if we do I’ll just say your name is Sally Smith and you’re a high school student from Jasper doing some research on the history of Stay More. Okay?”
They detoured over a low-water bridge across the creek, which was nearly dry this time of midsummer (“That’s Swains Creek or what’s left of it,” the woman said), and reached the schoolhouse, a modest white clapboard building with a well in the yard and a single outhouse. The woman, who said she’d attended school here herself long ago, explained that the single outhouse had been only for girls; the boys, including Adam, had simply “used the bushes”. They went inside the schoolhouse, which still had all its furniture in place although it hadn’t been used for a quarter of a century. “The first-graders sat down there,” the woman pointed, “and the eighth graders sat back here, with all the other grades in between. Right there’s where your Ad probably sat last, but he suffered a bad accident in the fourth grade and had to drop out of school.”
“I know,” Robin said. She sat down at the desk where Adam had probably sat, whose top was attached to the back of the desk seat in front of it. “He really loved this school, but I don’t think he missed anything after dropping out.”
“How do you know so much about Ad?” the woman asked, sitting down at one of the other desks. “The way you talk about him, I’d think you went to school with him. Did he leave a diary behind?”
“A diary? No, he left behind something a lot better than a diary. I don’t know how to tell you this, but…”
Hreapha sat too, on the splintery pine boards of the schoolhouse floor, and listened raptly as Robin attempted to explain to the kindly old woman the existence of, the nature of, and the habits of, an in-habit. Hreapha studied the woman’s face carefully to see what degree of disbelief she showed, but the woman, whom Hreapha was beginning to mind as well, had taken on the expression of a studious schoolgirl sitting at her desk listening to a teacher explain the most difficult of lessons, and while the expression contained elements of perplexity it was also filled with wonder and delight.
And Robin must have minded the woman too, because when she was finished she said, “You believe me.” It wasn’t a question.
For a while the woman did not say anything but stared at the room’s blackboard as if waiting for the teacher to diagram an in-habit. Finally she said, “Goodness gracious.” And a little while later she simply took a deep breath and said, “If that doesn’t beat all creation.” Then the two women got up from their desks and left the schoolhouse, and re-crossed the low water bridge.
That put them square in the middle of what had been the village, and there was really nothing left except the big two-story house, which, the woman explained to Robin, had been built by Jacob Ingledew, the founder of Stay More who had later been governor of Arkansas after the Civil War. The house had a porch with fancy balusters running the whole length of the front. “My grandson Vernon owns it,” the woman said, “as he owns most of everything around here, but he doesn’t live here. At the moment he’s renting it out to some college professor named Larry, who is probably sound asleep in there amongst the cockroaches. He has what they call a drinking problem.”
“Which Sugrue had,” Robin said. “And which I’m going to have if I don’t lay off all the whiskey he left behind.”
“I think you probably know when to stop,” the woman said. The woman pointed out where the big Ingledew general store had been, only its cement porch floor remaining, and where the big grist-mill had stood, and where Doc Swain’s house and office had been. “Did Sog tell you about Doc Swain?” the woman asked.
“Yes. He was my favorite paper doll,” Robin said.
“He was my favorite person,” the woman said. “Well, right there is where he patched up your Ad after he fell off the mountain.”
“You keep calling him my Ad,” Robin said.
“Well, isn’t he?”
They walked on up what had been the main street of the village and the woman pointed out where the bank had been, The Swains Creek Bank and Trust Company, the stone of its edifice now demolished and used to form a dike against the occasional rise of Swains Creek’s waters. Across from it was the only other remaining building in town, a three-part house also with a porch all along its front.
“Now that was my store and post office,” the woman said. “And also my house for many years before I moved out to the dogtrot, which was my husband’s home. After the post office closed and I moved out, it remained dusty and empty for many years, except for the old oak post office boxes, which are still in there. Recently my granddaughter Sharon moved in and fixed it up a bit. But let’s not talk too loudly, or she’ll hear us and come out.”
Robin asked, “Is she alone?”
“Yes. She had a very unhappy marriage which ended several years ago, thank heavens.”
“That’s interesting,” Robin said, “that she lives here and that man lives down there, and they’re the only people in town. Do they ever speak to each other?”
“If I still played with my paper dolls, I could make up a great story for them.”
“You certainly could. But you don’t have to do it with paper dolls. You could write it.”
“I don’t have any paper left.”
The woman put both hands on her hips. “Now that is inexcusable and I won’t allow you to leave without a supply a paper.” They resumed walking up the road, and Hreapha happily followed, with an inkling of where they might be going. “There’s only one other place to show you,” the woman said. “And it’s another half-mile or so up this road, the Parthenon Road, if you can walk that far.”
The old woman didn’t seem to mind walking. Probably she had a lot of practice, and had no infirmities like her Xenophon’s rheumatism. Hreapha reflected sadly that her lover Yowrfrowr might not live forever. For that matter, she herself was an old dog now, and she brooded that Yowrfrowr probably no longer considered her attractive. Well, certainly he no longer had any desire for her, not her fault or his.
They came to the man’s house, and a wave of nostalgia swept over Hreapha. “This was where Sog lived,” the woman said, “before he pretended to go off to California but instead kidnapped a seven-year-old girl and took her off to live on a mountaintop. Look, the note he left is still on the door: ‘GONE TO CALIFORNIA.’”
Hreapha was a little surprised to see how the house was falling apart now that it had been abandoned for so long. Time and the elements had removed all familiar scents and sights, and even the holes she’d dug all over the backyard had filled with silt. She could not detect any trace of her own in-habit at all, and decided conclusively that she must have taken it with her to Madewell Mountain.
“So this is where you grew up,” Robin said to Hreapha.
“Hreapha,” she said.