The Wettest County in the World

by Matt Bondurant

  Hey there, son.

  An unfamiliar voice. A man, wearing a dark three-piece suit. A watch chain dangling from his waist pocket. A tall, hooked form. Jack moved his lips but could not speak, his throat like sawdust. In his gut he felt the seizing, knotting sensation of terror. Where is my father? The man bent from the waist, down over Jack’s face. The long fleshy horse face, stubbled chin and dirty collar.

  Lookin’ good, Floyd Carter said.

  Several other men materialized, standing around his bed, men in long coats and wearing hats, their arms folded. One of the men shifted and Jack caught a glimpse of a window; darkness, the glass streaked with rain. What day is it? Floyd Carter bent closer to Jack’s ear.

  I figured, Carter said, you could use a little visit from the Midnight Coal Company, after all the money we made together, eh?

  He grinned, a mouth of yellow horse teeth, then bent to Jack’s ear again.

  I got a little somethin’ for ya, he whispered.

  Carter held up a small piece of folded paper in front of Jack’s face, waving it back and forth. Then he picked up a book from the bedside table, opened it, contemplated the contents for a moment. Carter chuckled and showed the other men the cover of the book, then held it open and inserted the piece of paper inside.

  Your girl brought this in earlier, Carter said, left this here.

  He closed the book and showed Jack the cover: Holy Bible.

  Bertha was here?

  Carter patted the book thoughtfully and rubbed the spine, then placed it back on the table.

  Seems like a nice girl, Jack, he said. You oughta marry her once you get up and out of here.

  Forrest, Jack croaked.

  He’s gonna make it, Carter said. Your daddy was here. Him and Mister Lee. Seems they came to an arrangement. Commonwealth attorney’s office gonna pay your medical bills, no charges filed. Figured you boys can settle up with Rakes later, eh?

  Carter bent close to Jack’s ear again.

  Listen, he whispered, on that piece of paper is the names of two men. The two men who cut your brother. You give it to ’im yourself, if you like.

  Carter straightened up and the men shuffled, arranging themselves.

  Take more than a bullet to kill Forrest, you oughta know that by now. You take care now, Jack. Come see us sometime.

  The assembled men flowed out of the room and Jack craned his neck, his shoulders swathed in bandages, to look at the bedside table, the Bible lying there, a tip of paper protruding like a bookmark.

  LUCY WAS IN the kitchen, stirring a pot of sugared damson berries. Her cotton shift hung on her shoulders, the bones of her hips visible. She seemed so small, so fragile to Howard that he was afraid she wasill. But she turned to him as he came through the door, a smile of relief on her face, the glow of health on her forehead and neck, and she flung herself into his arms.

  Oh, Lord, she said, I’m so glad you’re here!

  Howard straightened up, leaning back slightly and Lucy’s feet came off the floor and she hung there on his broad bulk, her arms around his neck, resting on his chest.

  Where’s the baby? Howard said into her hair.

  Sleeping, Lucy said. Sleeping good. Oh, Howard the last few days she’s sleeping good and eatin’. You oughta see her. Everybody all right?

  Jack will be good in a few weeks, he said. Forrest was hurt real bad, but he’s gonna pull through.

  Howard could feel the bones of her back and ribs but the weight was solid, a comfortable density and firmness of bone. He shifted and swung her slightly from side to side, her feet swaying.

  I almost lost them, he said. I almost lost them both.

  Oh, Howard, it’s all gonna be okay.

  I went into the ditch down the hill, had to push out. If I hadda been there earlier—

  Oh God Howard don’t say it. Please don’t say it.

  His throat knotted and he gasped for air.

  You’re a good man, Howard, you’re a good man.

  He knew that he could stand and hold her like this throughout the night if he wished to, such was his strength. Was that enough? Lucy buried her face into his neck.

  Don’t let me go, Howard said.

  I couldn’t, Lucy said. You got me.

  He gave her a slight squeeze, tempering his strength, and heard the breath come whistling out of her lungs. She nuzzled in his neck, murmuring.

  Don’t let go, Howard said.

  THAT NIGHT Howard lay in the bed in the cabin with Lucy wound around him. The baby lay next to them in her crib, and the dark room was softly patterned with their breathing. Howard fell asleep almost instantly, not having slept in more than two days. He dreamed of a vast, long white road stretching to the horizon. As he adjusted to the light he could see it wasn’t a road, rather a river that wound slightly into the dull glow of the sun, everything blinding white and cold. His hands ached and when he held them up they were battered and deeply cut and scabbed on the knuckles. In the distance a figure separated itself from the white, someone standing on the frozen river. Howard walked toward the figure, his footing unsure on the slick ice. The figure began to convulse, bending rapidly. It was Forrest, jerking his body toward the ice. He was attacking the frozen surface with an ax, striking it repeatedly, sending up a shower of ice and spray. Howard tried to yell out to his brother but his voice was lost in some kind of white noise, a solid wave of sound. Forrest brought the ax over his head with two hands, his feet planted wide, hacking away at a spot, moving too rapidly, like he was animated by some strange force. Forrest, he called out again, and he could hear the name in his mind but he knew there was no sound. He could see the thin hair on his brother’s head, the hawklike nose, Forrest dressed in his wool shirt and pants, bare-handed, chopping at the ice again and again. No scar, no meandering line under his chin. There was some other movement and looking down Howard could see a dark ripple under the ice, a shadow moving under them, an enormous shape more than fifty feet long. Forrest! Stop! he shouted. But his brother only chopped faster.

  MAGGIE SHUTTERED the windows and the Blackwater station remained closed for the four weeks Forrest was in the hospital. Everett Dillon came by after a few days and found the door locked. It was morning, the snowfall of the week before now a mottled crust, a border of stained brown along the road. The snow in the lot was still crisp and even, untouched. Everett knocked a few times. The curtain moved upstairs, and he could see her looking out. He looked up to her and pointed to the door, rattled the handle, but Maggie only let the curtain fall and moved away from the window. Standing there quietly in the lot he could hear the faint sound of music coming through the window.

  WHEN JACK WOKE one day Bertha was sitting beside his bed, holding the slip of paper with the names on it. She asked, and he told her.

  Jack, you can’t give this to him. You can’t.

  Why?

  Bertha tucked the paper back into the Bible on her lap, placing both hands over it. She pursed her lips, breathing quickly through her nose.

  You know what he’ll do, she said.

  Jack’s rib cage ached so hard it made him squint. It seemed to be dusk, or perhaps morning. The light was uncertain.

  Jack? Promise me.

  He let his head roll on the pillow toward her. Her face was white and her eyes hard upon him. The window was dark but he could hear the wind buffeting the side of the building. What time is it? he wondered.

  You gotta promise me, Bertha said, or so help me you’ll never see me again.

  AS HE SLEPT FITFULLY over the next few weeks in the hospital Jack had extended vivid dreams of his grandfather. The old man was continually exhorting him on, his beard whipped by wind, eyes flashing, leading him into a deep wood, a shape in the doorway of a barn, waving him across a field of snow.

  His grandfather was an industrious man, always working and trying to scrape together a few dollars, but in the end it never amounted to much. Most Bondurant men, including Jack and his brothers, had that strange obsession of the terminal
ly poor; the dreams of wadded sums of cash, of heavy lumps of change in your pocket, the small stacks that speak of little dreams. They banked on the salvation of a few dollars. It meant nothing in the end because it would take far more to ever break out of the tunnel each was tumbled into at birth.

  In his crudely lettered last will and testament Jack’s grandfather left his son Granville three acres, a pair of worn-out mules, and a black boy named Julius, who had grown and left many years before.

  Jack remembered the old man sitting on his bed, whittling away at his figures. The feral look on Forrest’s face as he played with them by the creek, hiding them in the woods. After a few months the weather began to work on the pieces, hidden as they were in a hollow log, swelling and distorting the carved features. The wood grew discolored with molds, and fungus split the grains, making the men look as if they were erupting from within. Forrest continued to play with them until they were unrecognizable lumps of rotted wood, having memorized by then who each character was and what role he played. Finally he buried the moldy bits as they came apart in his hands, depleting the ranks over time.

  One winter afternoon Jack watched his brother chisel a hole with a stick into the icy ground by Snow Creek. Jack hid among a small bunch of catalpa trees along the creek, his knees damp on the frosty ground, the afternoon chores finished and nearly supper time. When Forrest finished and left, loping back across the field to the house, Jack crept forward and carefully dug up the figure. The final remaining character was an ambitious piece, a man on horseback. Warped and swollen with frost, the man on horseback held out his broad-brimmed hat in his hand as if waving on his men. The other hand held his sword, raised high and straight, ready to strike. His chest was thrown back and he held his head at an unnatural angle, cocked to one side and looking up, as if he were asking for a favor from someone above, the instruments of encouragement and punishment in each hand at the ready.

  Jack knelt there in the cold mud for only a few minutes, studying the figure carefully, turning it over in his numb fingers. His body shook violently with the cold and he placed the figure back in the hole and carefully buried him. When he stood he saw Forrest standing at the crest of the hill, several hundred feet away, a slanted silhouette against the indigo sky, watching him. Forrest stood there for several minutes, motionless. Then he turned and walked over the hill into the darkness.

  Jack waited a full hour by the creek, teeth chattering, before venturing back to the house. At the supper table Forrest was an impassive specter, and that night Jack begged his mother in tears to be allowed to sleep in their room on the floor so he wouldn’t have to sleep in his normal bed with Forrest.

  What on earth is wrong with you, son? said Granville.

  But his mother finally agreed and wrapped him in blankets on the floor next to their bed.

  In the morning Jack woke with a fever and he spent the next week sweating and tearful and his mother fretted over him with hot broth and alcohol rubs. When he was well again he went back to the bed with Forrest. Forrest never spoke of the figures to Jack or anyone, and no one in the family ever mentioned them again.

  Chapter 30

  1933

  A FEW YEARS LATER Forrest was at his sawmill camp in a section of deep wood near Smith Mountain overseeing the loading of a long trailer. The camp sat in a depression among a circular set of ridges, the road a steep switchback. The camp was being run by a man whom Forrest had hired, but Forrest still came by the camp regular, particularly on loading and transport days, although he was withdrawn from the operation in a way that made him a somewhat shadowy presence. A hand would be working a crosscut saw or planing boards and turn to see his angular form standing in the sunlight grove, the stippled scar running across his neck.

  A stand of twenty-foot mature oak trunks was cleaned and stacked and strapped for transit, to be pulled out of the hollow with a donkey-engine tractor with track wheels. On the first switchback he walked beside the trailer with some other men to monitor the pitch and roll as the tractor lurched up the hill. The elevation rocked the trailer and on the second turn a sound tore through the air like a herd of wind animals and there was a pause, the logs seeming to vibrate, then they tumbled in that awful slow way off the low side of the trailer.

  MEN WHO saw it said he didn’t even make an attempt to get out of the way; rather Forrest flipped his hat aside with a cursory movement and turned to face the rolling tons of wood that came for him.

  BUT FORREST was not done. They arrested Whit Boitnott, the same man Forrest had cast out years before from his camp. He was hired the day before by the unknowing manager. Whit cut the main straps along the high side, in full view of some other men, and when taken in he refused to say a thing other than it was an accident. While Forrest lay in the Rocky Mount Hospital for three months encased in plaster the charges against Whit Boitnott were dropped to reckless endangerment and he was sentenced to just three weeks with good behavior, all on the orders of the commonwealth’s attorney, Carter Lee.

  FORREST LAY like a totem in the hospital bed, wound in plaster from head to toe, eyeholes and two straws in his nose for breathing, iron rods strapped to his limbs, lashed down to prevent shifting or struggling. For the first few weeks Forrest wouldn’t say a thing, wouldn’t respond to anyone. Maggie was there most often in the evenings, smoking and gazing out the window, blowing long plumes against the glass. During the day she ran the station, with Everett Dillon working the fuel pumps. Forrest was unconscious much of the time, and when awake he lay silent, his gray eyes merely staring at the ceiling, blinking.

  One afternoon Bertha and Jack sat quietly in his room, looking out the window at the tall wooded rise of Grassy Hill, Forrest sleeping soundly behind them. Jack’s hand was cupped loosely over hers, and he gave her fingers a squeeze occasionally.

  It wasn’t for nothing, Bertha said. Like the hymns of the next world.

  She looked back at Forrest, lying straight out like a dead man, then fixed Jack with her eyes.

  In heaven, she said, the afterlife, they’ll be singing about this world. That’s what my grandfather says. All the stories, all of our lives, will be sung like hymns. That’s how we’ll remember them. That’s why it all means something. The problem is that we have to live in this world first, we have to bear it.

  She took up his hand, smiling slightly to herself. At that moment it seemed to Jack that some uncomprehending part of the world had broken open, and his love for her, somehow amplified and deepened by the chain of events, came shining into the room.

  ONE EVENING during the second month, Jack was at the hospital just as Maggie was preparing to leave. As he stood in the doorway he saw her run her hands over Forrest’s plaster shell of a head, tracing over the lump of his nose, his chin, and down around his neck. She seemed to track the line of his scar with her fingers, moving back and forth as she gazed into his eyes. Jack could see his brother staring back at her, blinking hard. On the bedside table Maggie had placed a picture of the two of them, standing in front of the Blackwater station, Forrest with his hands on his hips, Maggie’s face impassive, her mouth a grim line. Next to the picture lay a small lump of moldy wood, a knotted swirl that faintly resembled a figure.

  LOOK HERE, Forrest said to Jack one day at the hospital. Something you oughta know.

  After two months he was still swathed from head to toe in plaster. The fractures in his skull were healing and soon he would have his face free, but for now he still peered out from the worn eyeholes, rimmed with caked dirt and sweat, his mouth hole a ragged orifice stained with food, drink, and spittle.

  Jack was sitting on a chair reading softly from the Bible, something Bertha introduced and Forrest seemed to enjoy, and the two of them had spent hours like this, Jack droning on through the long days and into the night, Forrest staring hard-eyed at the ceiling, the faint rustle of his shifting skin under the plaster. Maggie stayed with him through most nights, running the station during the day with Everett and Jack’s help.

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p; Jack set the Bible down in his lap, blinking his eyes from the strain. The bedside lamp was weak and the sky darkening quickly through the windows.

  Before Maggie gets here, Forrest said.

  His voice was thickened and he worked his cracked lips. Jack bent slightly toward him as he often struggled to speak clearly. He could see some kind of alarming intensity in his brother’s eyes.

  Should I get someone, Jack said. Are you hurtin’?

  Forrest’s chapped lips bent ever so slightly at the corners. The squeak of shoes in the hall, and Forrest cut his eyes to the open door, a slot of flat light.

  That night at the County Line, Forrest said, it was Maggie that pulled me out.

  She was there?

  Forrest closed his eyes and squeezed them with some effort and to Jack it seemed like his body was vibrating in the husk of plaster, like some kind of molting insect spinning a new skin.

  After they got me down, Forrest said, she was in there, inside the restaurant. I heard her screaming. While I was lying in the lot. I couldn’t understand what it was. It didn’t make any sense to me.

  Forrest opened his eyes and gazed at Jack, his eyes warm and round. A burning clot began to form in Jack’s chest. He couldn’t imagine the sound. Maggie was not a creature who would scream.

  She wouldn’t ever tell me, Forrest said, what happened in there while I was lying in the lot, bleeding.