Provinces of Night: A Novel

by William Gay

  Neal assumed an expression of businesslike sobriety. Twelve dollars, he said.

  Early lowered the trunklid. I can’t use it, he said. I sell it for seventy-five cents a half, you know that.

  I might go down to ten. Sell it to them for a dollar, tell them it’s bonded, they won’t know the difference.

  They settled at ten and even helped Early carry the jugs to the edge of the slope. I’ll take it from here, Early said. I’d ask you in but I don’t never want you in my house again. I wasn’t speakin about you, young feller, he said to Fleming. You perfectly welcome to come in and visit a while.

  Fleming didn’t know what to say to this so he said nothing at all. When they were halfway to the car Early called to Neal, you watch them chickens. You run over a duck when you hauled out from here the other night. People ain’t got no respect. People do a onelegged man’s chickens anyway.

  COMING INTO the county from the west you drop off a long hill that slopes toward the river, where lush black bottomland leads you down to the swift yellow waters of Buffalo. You cross on a high steel span of bridge rusted to a warm orangebrown, and almost immediately the blacktop begins to ascend again into steep broken hills. Sometimes there will be a boat on the river or kids fishing from the banks with cane poles.

  The day E. E Bloodworth returned an old man had oared a skiff into the calm water away from the current and was casting near a bed of cattails. Old man in a straw hat, light off his glasses when he looked up at the cattle truck and raised a friendly hand. Bloodworth waved back, and the old man was gone somewhere beneath the beams and girders, but Bloodworth took the wave as an omen and felt in some obscure way that he’d been welcomed back from exile.

  They were climbing now, Coble gearing down for a road that not only climbed steeply but curved hard to the right. They were climbing the highest spot in the county, and Bloodworth turned in his seat to study the countryside out the back glass: it fell gracefully away in soft green folded hills, the river wending its way through it, and looking west the horizon diminished into other horizons layered behind it as far as the eye could see.

  Bloodworth was almost home and he was touched by exhilaration so sharp it was almost pain. For the last fifty miles the country had had a familiar look to it that gave him a calm feeling of comfort that almost succeeded in allowing him to forget that in the next thirty minutes or so he was going to have to come up with a herd of Black Angus cattle.

  He looked back at the road, glanced at Coble beside him. He was sorry he had not simply ridden the bus. For hundreds of miles he had listened to Coble’s autobiography until he felt he knew Coble and his genealogy better than Coble did himself. Coble loved to talk and no subject suited him better than Coble. He had come up from nothing and made a small fortune by using his head and keeping his eye on the ball. Nobody ever got up early enough in the morning to put one over on him. He was well thought of in his hometown. Without actually saying so he left the impression that everywhere he went in town he was carried on the shoulders of cheering compatriots. That when he left town things shut down and stores did not even bother to open until his return. Women found him wellnigh irresistible. Women began flinging off their clothing at the faintest rumor that he was even within screwing distance, and would not settle for second best. Had the old man possessed so much as a jackhandle he would have leapt upon Coble sometime during the night and beaten him into unconsciousness, let the truck go where it might.

  Up here on the left is a place I need to stop a minute, Bloodworth said, thinking: up here on the left twenty years ago is a place I need to stop. It may be blackened ruins, ground scraped by a bulldozer, a Baptist church.

  Stop why? We need to roll, oldtimer. I need to get them cattle loaded and get gone.

  There’s a beerjoint right up here got the coldest beer in the county. I been nursin a thirst for the last fifty miles.

  We’ll pick up a sixpack when we get to town and drink it on the way to your farm.

  I got to take a leak anyhow, Bloodworth said. Less you want to float the rest of the way into town.

  The high wood gallery of Goblin’s Knob rolled into view through a stand of loblolly pines, and the old man felt almost dizzy with relief.

  Hellfire, Coble said. He pulled the truck onto the cherted parking lot. There were no other vehicles on the lot and the old man was trying to see was the place open. Or even in business anymore. The gray clapboard building looked in a poor state of repair but it had looked that way twenty years ago when the old man rolled past it outward bound.

  He fumbled up his stick and climbed out, looking about to see was there anything he was forgetting. There was not. Travel light, travel fast.

  Bring me one of them beers you was braggin about, Coble called.

  Bloodworth nodded and struck out toward the Knob. It may not even be Sharp anymore, he cautioned himself. But inside he knew it was Sharp. He could always tell when he was on a roll.

  Sharp looked up from the worn Outdoor Life magazine he was reading when the door opened. He glanced back at the magazine then at Bloodworth in a doubletake of amazed recognition. Son of a bitch, he said. Where’d you come from?

  Off the porch, Bloodworth said. He laid a five-dollar bill atop the bar. Gimme two bottles of beer.

  What kind? Sharp asked, turning to slide back the lid of the cooler.

  Cold, Bloodworth said. Listen. I don’t have time to explain all this right now, I’ll tell you later. But you ain’t seen me. I never come in the front and I ain’t goin out the back. All right?

  Sharp set two brown longnecked bottles on the bar. I guess you’re back all right, he said. It don’t take long for things to get back to normal.

  Bloodworth took up the beer and crossed the room and went down a narrow hall to the back door. He went out the door and down the steps and was immediately in the woods themselves, a thick growth of pine that had over the years carpeted the ground with two or three inches of coppery needles. He did not tarry, hurrying on into the trees, bemusedly remembering other times when the patrons of the Knob had emptied out the back as the law came in the front, men and women alike fleeing madly into the dark maze of trees where they’d not track you down unless they’d brought along a bloodhound in the back seat. Though once, he remembered, grinning to himself, they’d stationed a deputy at the back door to head off these fleeing miscreants and he fell to handcuffing or blackjacking at his discretion.

  He went carefully over a debris of bottles, cans, rotting condoms, to where the woods were clean and denser still, picked his way down a hillside where a spring branch ran and following it away into summer greenery, filling his lungs with the smells: the hot crisp smell of the pines, the delicate odor of mimosa that had gone wild and taken the hillside.

  He paused to rest, breathing hard. Sweat had broken out over him, he could feel it beneath his shirt but it did not bother him. It felt good. He seated himself against the trunk of a pine and worked out his pocketknife and pried off the bottlecaps.

  Sharp was halfway through an article about a man being mauled by a polar bear when the door opened again. He’d been glancing up occasionally and eyeing the truck through the window and he’d thought whoever was out there must be the most patient of men or else he’d fallen asleep.

  Hey, good buddy, where’s that old man at?

  Sharp looked around. Nobody in here but me, he said. Not countin you. What old man?

  He said he was a Rutgers.

  I don’t recall ever knowin anybody by that name.

  You don’t have to know him. Where’d he go?

  Who go?

  That old man that come in here. Coble was peering all about the room. Old man with a walkin stick carved like a snake and wearin a gray Stetson hat.

  I ain’t seen him, Sharp said. He went back to his story.

  It was silent for a long time. Coble seemed to be thinking all this over. Sharp finished the page he was reading and turned to another. Finally Coble said, Let me get this straight. I watc
hed him open that green door there and go through it and shut it behind him. You was on this side of the door and you never saw him. Well what the hell happened to him? Did he step through a hole in the fuckin world? He was a goodsized man, way over six feet tall. I don’t believe you could of missed him.

  Sharp closed the magazine, slid it behind the bar. Look, he said. I don’t have time to argue with you. Maybe it was some other green door, in some other beerjoint. Why don’t you go see?

  Beneath the brim of the white straw hat Coble’s face had gone a deep brickred. Why don’t I just haul your skinny baldheaded ass over that bar and mop the floor up with you?

  Because that’s just quarterinch paneling on the front of that bar, Sharp said. And because on this side of it I’m holdin a sawedoff loaded with doubleought buckshot. You might want to give some thought to where you are. You’re in my place of business, and as far as the law’s concerned you just tried to rob me and I wouldn’t agree to be robbed.

  Coble dropped his arms back to his side and retreated from the bar a step or two. I don’t know what kind of number you people are trying to run on me, he said. But I want you to know you fucked with the wrong man. If you think I drove over four hundred miles out of my way just to deliver an old man to a honkytonk you’re badly mistaken. I aim to get to the bottom of this.

  Sharp brought the shotgun up from the bar and laid it on the counter. I’m all for that, he said. But I’m tired of hearin about it.

  Coble wiped a hand across his mouth. You tell that old man he’s goin to regret this the rest of his days, he said. He turned and went out. The door creaked to behind him.

  Sharp shook his head. What is that old man up to now, he asked himself.

  ALBRIGHT HAD BEEN WORKING at the stave mill for three days when the boss came down to the shed where he was stacking bundles of handlelength staves and called him off to the side.

  That Woodall fellow is trying to attach your paycheck, the foreman said. He’s got some kind of legal paper where he can garnishee you. I thought I’d tell you so you’d know what was coming Friday when we pay off.

  Albright filled a paper cup from a cooler of ice water. How much is comin? he asked.

  Very damn little, the foreman said.

  Albright left in the middle of the day without even looking back. This was the second job in as many weeks he’d lost because of Woodall’s sheaf of legal papers. He felt that Woodall had taken to following him around, sleeping only when he slept, up at a moment’s notice to follow him again. He caught himself glancing constantly over his shoulder, setting an extra plate for Woodall at the supper table.

  At the hardware store he bought a gallon of yellow paint and a pint of red and he bought a brush. He drove home and parked in the shade of the chinaberry tree in his front yard. After he’d taken a bath and made a pot of coffee he came back out and opened the gallon bucket of paint and found a stick to stir it with. He dipped the brush into the paint and began to paint the car yellow.

  When the nighflourescent yellow was dry to the touch he took up a roll of tape and masked off the word TAXI on each of the front doors carefully then stepped back to look at it. Satisfied he cleaned the brush and uncapped the pint and painted in the letters in red.

  The car was still tacky at nightfall and he was forced to wait until the next day to go into business. Even then nothing much happened, but Saturday was another story. Few of the sawmill hands and sharecroppers around the county owned their own car and he was kept busy hauling families and their week’s supply of groceries from Long’s store out to the various hills and hollows where they lived. He hauled drunks to Goblin’s Knob, picked up other drunks there and drove them wherever they were inclined to be. At the end of the day he had a fistsize chunk of quarters and halfdollars and wadded ones in the toe of his pocket. Garnishee this, motherfucker, he said aloud.

  Weekdays he’d lounge around the front of the Snowwhite Cafe for the occasional fare. He knew a waitress who worked there and sometimes she’d take phone calls for him or refer customers his way. He was sitting out front on Tuesday reading a funny book when she came out the door with an agey-looking fellow wearing a gray hat and a black suitcoat in all this heat. The waitress’s foot was malformed in some way and she went with a limp and they looked like a matched set of cripples coming down the sidewalk.

  Junior, this is Mr. Bloodworth. He was wantin to talk to you.

  Albright wondered why she hadn’t just sent the old man out to the car without limping out with him. A bright yellow car with red lettering on the side was not what you’d call inconspicuous. Then he looked again and saw that Doris seemed taken with the old gentleman. She was normally foulmouthed and sharptongued but she seemed to be deferring to him as if he was the president or something or other.

  The old man was looking the cab up and down. I reckon you’re the proprietor of the yellow cab company, he said. He’d swapped hands with his walking stick and was holding his right out stiffly for Albright to shake. Albright grasped it and pumped it a time or two briskly as you might a hand pump.

  I believe I knowed your daddy, the old man said. Ain’t you Tut Albright’s boy?

  That’s me, Albright said. I don’t see him much anymore since he run me off. Daddy’s a little crazy.

  We’re all a little crazy to various degrees, Bloodworth nodded. What I need don’t require a great deal of sanity. I just need to go down to the freight office and pick some stuff up and then I want took out to where my people live. The Bloodworths.

  You any kin to Fleming and them?

  I couldn’t say. What’s his daddy’s name?

  He’s Boyd Bloodworth’s boy.

  I reckon that’d make him a pretty close relative then since Boyd’s a son of mine.

  He had taken out two one-dollar bills and turned and handed them to the gimplegged waitress. I thank you for your help, young lady, he said, tipping the brim of his hat. You buy yourself somethin pretty with this.

  She protested but the old man waved her protests away and after a moment she limped reluctantly away toward the restaurant.

  I thought for a minute she was goin with us, Albright said. You wantin to go out to where Brady’s set up that housetrailer?

  For starters I do, the old man said. We’ll ride out and look it over. The old man had opened the rear door of the Dodge and was climbing in. He had trouble getting his left leg in and finally he just picked it up bothhanded and set it inside. I’m about wore out, he said. I’ve walked a little more than I meant to today. Cattle farmin’s hard on a man my age.

  Albright drove slowly down toward the railroad where the freight depot was. He kept stealing covert looks at the old man in the rearview mirror. All his life he’d heard people talk about E. F. Bloodworth. Bloodworth would kill you if he had to, Bloodworth would kick your ass even faster than that. He could make a banjo talk, he had served time in the Brushy Mountain state pen, he had once shot a deputy while the deputy was using Bloodworth’s wife as a shield when the laws had come to arrest him. His reflection in the rearview mirror did not look like any of this. Bloodworth had taken off the Stetson and closed his eyes and leaned his head back. He just looked like an old man who’d finally found a soft spot to rest his head.

  Fleming had not seen Albright’s Dodge since its transformation into a taxicab and he was somewhat surprised to see a bright yellow car pull into the yard and Albright alight and go around and open the door for an old man. The old man got out with no more luggage than a walking stick and approached a step or two favoring his left leg and halted and pushed a gray fedora back from his forehead and stood regarding the boy.

  Fleming had been sitting on the doorstep to the trailer reading a book and now he closed it and arose and approached the car. Albright had unlocked the trunk and was at unloading what appeared to be a trunkload of musical instruments.

  Steadying himself with the stick, Bloodworth turned about in the yard, as if he’d get his bearings, a fix on where he was. Then he told the boy, the
house’d be about a quartermile up that road then across that long field where the cedar row is.

  Fleming nodded. The old man was bigger than he had expected, and less of a cripple. In the back of his mind he had pictured a wizened little man twisted by a stroke of paralysis, but Bloodworth struck him as something of an imposing presence. He had fierce black eyes that looked right at you, or through you to whatever you were standing in front of, and the hair that lay on the collar of the white shirt was as black as a crow’s wing. He wondered if Bloodworth dyed it, decided after a moment that he did not. Somehow the old man just didn’t look like a man who dyed his hair.

  The old man had jabbed a big weathered hand out and seemed to expect it to be shaken. He took the hand and shook it. The old man had a hard grip for a cripple.

  My name’s E. F. Bloodworth. From the looks of you I take you to be a grandson of mine.

  How’d you know that?

  I ain’t always looked like this. You favor some the way I looked when I was a young man. You’d be Boyd’s boy.

  Fleming nodded. Albright had come around with the guitar case in one hand and the banjo in the other and seemed to be awaiting instructions.

  Just put them in the trailer there, Bloodworth said. Let’s just all go in and get acquainted. The old man halted and stood regarding the trailer, his face showing the first intimation of misgivings. It’s not real big, is it?

  No, the boy said. And it’s hot in there. Brady left a key and I went in there this mornin and brought some water. But it’s about too hot to stay in there until the day cools down some.

  Along about October, the old man nodded, and fell silent, studying the silver trailer with the sun hammering off its roof, the absence of any sort of electrical wires running to it. Brought some water, he mused, as if the implications of this phrase had just sunken in. Well, we can’t stand here in the yard all day. Let’s go in, I ain’t put off by hardship. I could live in a brush arbor if I had to. And have, once or twice. I can have it real homey in a week or so.