by Unknown
passed and stove his bare toes on its bony rump. He was hopping about on one foot shrieking when a final hound entered the room. He fell upon it and seized its hind leg. It set up a piteous howling. Ballard flailed blindly at it with his fist, great drum like thumps that echoed in the near empty room among the desperate oaths and wailings. GOING UP A TRACK OF A road through the quarry woods where all about lay enormous blocks and tablets of stone weathered gray and grown with deep green moss, toppled II!0noliths among the trees and vines like traces of an older race of man. This rainy summer day. He passed a dark lake of silent jade where the moss walls rose sheer and plumb and a small blue bird sat slant upon a guy wire in the void. Ballard leveled the rifle at the bird but something of an old foreboding made him hold. Mayhaps the bird felt it too. It flew. Small. Tiny. Gone. The woods were filled with silence. Ballard let the hammer down with the ball of his thumb and wearing the rifle on his neck like a yoke with his hands dangling over barrel and buttstock he went up the quarry road. The mud packed with tins trod flat, with broken glass. The bushes strewn with refuse. Yonder through the woods a roof and smoke from a chimney. He came into a clearing where two cars lay upturned at either side of the road like wrecked sentinels and he went past great levees of junk and garbage toward the shack at the edge of the dump. An assortment of cats taking the weak sun watched him go. Ballard pointed the rifle at a large mottled tom and said bang. The cat looked at him without interest. It seemed to think him not too bright. Ballard spat on it and it immediately wiped the spittle from its head with a heavy forepaw and set about washing the spot. Ballard went on up the path through the trash and car parts. The dump keeper had spawned nine daughters and named them out of an old medical dictionary gleaned from the rubbish he picked. These gangling progeny with black hair hanging from their armpits now sat idle and wide-eyed day after day in chairs and crates about the little yard cleared out of the tips while their harried dam called them one by one to help with chores and one by one they shrugged or blinked their sluggard lids. Urethra, Cerebella, Hernia, Sue. They moved like cats and like cats in heat attracted surrounding swains to their midden until the old man used to go out at night and fire a shotgun at random just to clear the air. He couldn't tell which was the oldest or what age and he didn't know whether they should go out with boys or not. Like cats they sensed his lack of resolution. They were coming and going all hours in all manner of degenerate cars, a dissolute carousel of rotting sedans and niggerized convertibles with blue dot tail lamps and chrome horns and foxtails and giant dice or dashboard demons of spurious fur. All patched up out of parts and low slung and bumping over the ruts. Filled with old lanky country boys with long cocks and big feet. They fell pregnant one by one. He beat them. The wife cried and cried. There were three births that summer. The house was filling up, both rooms, the trailer. People were sleeping everywhere. One brought home what she said was a husband but he only stayed a day or two and they never saw him again. The twelve year old began to swell. The air grew close. Grew rank and fetid. He found a pile of rags in a corner. Small lumps of yellow shit wrapped up and laid by. One day in the woods and kudzu jungles on the far side of the dump he came across two figures humping away. He watched from behind a tree until he recognized one of his girls. He tried to creep up on them but the boy was wary and leaped up and was away through the woods
hauling up his breeches as he went. The old man began to beat the girl with the stick he carried. She grabbed it. He overbalanced. They sprawled together in the leaves. Hot fishy reek of her freshened loins. Her peach drawers hung from a bush. The air about him grew electric. Next thing he knew his overalls were about his knees and he was mounting her. Daddy quit, she said. Daddy. Oooh. Did he dump a load in you? No. He pulled it out and gripped it and squirted his jissom on her thigh. Goddamn you, he said. He rose and heisted up his overalls and lumbered off toward the dump like a bear. Then there was Ballard. He'd come up the path with his narrow eyed and studied indifference and the rifle in his hand or on his shoulders or he'd sit with the old man in the bloated sofa in the yard drinking with him from a half gallon jar of popskull whiskey and passing a raw potato back and forth for a chaser while the younger girls peeped and giggled from the shack. He had eyes for a long blonde flat shanked daughter that used to sit with her legs propped so that you could see her drawers. She laughed all the time. He'd never seen her in a pair of shoes but she had a different colored pair of drawers for every day of the week and black ones on Saturday. When Ballard came past the trailer this very one was hanging up wash. There was a man with her sitting on a fifty gallon drum and he turned and squinted at Ballard and spoke to him. The girl pursed her lips at him and winked and then threw back her head and laughed wildly. Ballard grinned, tapping the rifle barrel against the side of his leg. What say, jellybean, she said. What you laughin at? What you lookin at? Why, he's lookin at them there nice titties for one thing, said the man on the drum. You want to see em. Sure, said Ballard. Gimme a quarter. I ain't got one. She laughed. He stood there grinning. How much you got? I got a dime. Well go borry two and a half cents and you can see one of em. Just let me owe ye, said Ballard. Say you want to blow me? the girl said. I said owe, said Ballard, flushing. The man on the drum slapped his knee. Watch out, he said. What you got that Lester can see for a dime? He's done looked a half dollar's worth now. Shoot. I ain't seen nothin. You don't need to see nothin, she said, bending and picking up a wet piece of cloth from the dishpan and shaking it out, Ballard trying to see down the neck of her dress. She raised up. Just make your peter hard, she said, turning her back and laughing again that sudden half crazy laugh.
Why a cat couldn't bite it now, could it, Lester? I ain't got time to mess with you all, the girl said, turning back with a grin and picking up the pan. She cocked her hip and set the pan on it and looked at them. Beyond the little trailer the old man walked against the sky rolling a tire and a ropy column of foul black smoke rose from a burning slagheap of old rubber. Shit, she said. If you'ns ever got any of this you never would be satisfied again. They watched her saunter up the hill toward the house. I'd like to chance it, the man said. Wouldn't you, Lester? Ballard said that he would. THE CONGREGATION AT Sixmile Church would turn all together like a cast of puppets at the opening of the door behind them any time after services had started. When Ballard came in with his hat in his hand and shut the door and sat alone on the rear bench they turned back more slowly. A windy riffle of whispers went among them. The preacher stopped. To justify the silence he poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher on the pulpit and drank and set the glass back and wiped his mouth. Brethren, he went on, a biblical babbling to Ballard who read the notices on the board at the back of the church. This week's offering. Last week's offering. Six dollars and seventy-four cents. The numbers in attendance. A woodpecker hammered at a drainpipe outside and those strung heads listed and turned to the bird for silence. Ballard had a cold and snuffled loudly through the service but nobody expected he would stop if God himself looked back askance so no one looked. IN LATE SUMMER THERE were bass in the creek. Ballard went from pool to pool on the down sun side peering through the bushes. He'd been on a diet of stolen field corn and summer garden stuff for weeks save for the few frogs he'd shot. He knelt in the high grass and spoke to the fish where they stood in the clear water on wimpling fins. Ain't you a fine fat son of a bitch, he said. He fairly loped toward the house. When he came back he had the rifle. He made his way along the creek and eased himself through the sedge and briers. He checked the sun to see it would not be in his eyes, making his way on all fours, the rifle cocked. He peered over the bank. Then he raised up on his knees. Then he stood up. Upstream below the ford Waldrop's cattle stood belly deep in the creek. You sons of bitches, croaked Ballard. The creek was thick red with mud. He brought the rifle up and leveled it and fired. The cattle veered and surged in the red water, their eyes white. One of them made its way toward the bank holding its head at an odd angle. At the bank it slipped and fell and rose a
gain. Ballard watched it with his jaw knotted. Oh shit, he said. I'LL TELL YE ANOTHER THING he done one time. He had this old cow to balk on him, couldn't get her to do nothin. He pushed and pulled and beat on her till she'd wore him out. He went and borry'd Squire Helton's tractor and went back over there and. thowed a rope over the old cow's head and took off on the tractor hard as he could go. When it took up the slack it like to of jerked her head plumb off. Broke her neck and killed her where she stood. Ast Floyd if he didn't. I don't know what he had on Waldrop that Waldrop never would run him off. Even after he burnt his old place down he never said nothin to him about it that I know of.
That reminds me of that Trantham boy had them oldtimey oxes over at the fair here a year or two back. They sulled up on him and wouldn't go till finally he took and built a fire in underneath of em. The old oxes looked down and seen it and took about five steps and quit again. Trantham boy looked and there set the fire directly in under his wagon. He hollered and crawled up under the wagon and commenced a beatin at the fire with his hat and about that time them old oxes took off again. Drug the wagon over him and like to broke both his legs. You never seen more contrary beasts than them was. COME UP, LESTER, SAID THE dump keeper. Ballard was coming, he didn't need asking. Howdy Reubel, he said. They sat in the sofa and looked at the ground, the old man tapping his stick up and down, Ballard holding the rifle upright between his knees. When we goin to shoot some more rats? said the old man. Ballard spat. Any time you want, he said. They about to carry us off out here. Ballard cut his eyes toward the house where he'd seen a half naked girl cross in the gloom. A baby was crying. I don't reckon you've seen em have ye? What's that? Hernie and that next to least'n. Where they at? I don't know, said the old man. They cut out, I reckon. Been gone three days. That fair headed one? Yeah. Her and Hernie. I reckon they've took off with some of these here jellybeans. Well, said Ballard. I don't know what makes them girls so wild. Their grandmother was the biggest woman for churchgoin you ever seen. Where you goin, Lester? I got to go. Best not rush off in the heat of the day. Yeah, said Ballard. I'm goin to walk out thisaway. You see any rats, why, just shoot em. If I see any. You'll see some. A dog followed him out the quarry road. Ballard gave a little dry whistle and snapped his fingers and the dog sniffed at his cuff. They went on up the road. Ballard descended by giant stone stairs to the dry floor of the quarry. The great rock walls with their cannelured faces and featherdrill holes composed about him an enormous amphitheatre. The ruins of an old truck lay rusting in the honeysuckle. He crossed the corrugated stone floor among chips and spalls of stone. The truck looked like it had been machine gunned. At the far end of the quarry was a rubble tip and Ballard stopped to search for artefacts, tilting old stoves and water heaters, inspecting bicycle parts and corroded buckets. He salvaged a worn kitchen knife with a chewed handle. He called the dog, his voice relaying from rock to rock and back again. When he came out to the road again a wind had come up. A door somewhere was banging, an eerie sound in the empty wood. Ballard walked up the road. He passed a rusted tin shed and beyond it a wooden tower. He looked up. High up on the tower a door creaked open and clapped shut. Ballard looked around. Sheets of roofing tin clattered and banged and a white dust was blowing off the barren yard by the quarry
shed. Ballard squinted in the dust going up the road. By the time he got to the county road it had begun to spit rain. He called the dog once more and he waited and then he went on. THE WEATHER TURNED overnight. With the fall the sky grew bluer than he'd ever known. Or could remember. He sat hour-long in the windy sedge with the sun on his back. As if he'd store the warmth of it against the oncoming winter. He watched a corn picker go snarling through the fields and in the evening he and the doves went husbanding among the chewed and broken stalks and he gathered several sackfuls and carried them to the cabin before dark. The hardwood trees on the mountain subsided into yellow and flame and to ultimate nakedness. An early winter fell, a cold wind sucked among the black and barren branches. Alone in the empty shell of a house the squatter watched through the moteblown glass a rimshard of bone colored moon come cradling up over the black balsams on the ridge, ink trees a facile hand had sketched against the paler dark of winter heavens. A man much for himself. Drinkers gone to Kirby's would see him on the road by night, slouched and solitary, the rifle hanging in his hand as if it were a thing he could not get shut of. He'd grown lean and bitter. Some said mad. A malign star kept him. He stood in the crossroads listening to other men's hounds on the mountain. A figure of wretched arrogance in the lights of the few cars passing. In their coiling dust he cursed or muttered or spat after them, the men tightly shouldered in the high old sedans with guns and jars of whiskey among them and lean tree dogs curled in the turtledeck. One cold morning on the Frog Mountain turnaround he found a lady sleeping under the trees in a white gown. He watched her for a while to see if she were dead. He threw a rock or two, one touched her leg. She stirred heavily, her hair all caught with leaves. He went closer. He could see her heavy breasts sprawled under the thin stuff of her nightdress and he could see the dark thatch of hair under her belly. He knelt and touched her. Her slack mouth twisted. Her eyes opened. They seemed to open downward by the underlids like a bird's and her eyeballs were gorged with blood. She sat up suddenly, a sweet ferment of whiskey and rot coming off her. Her lip drew back in a cat's snarl. What do you want, you son of a bitch? she said. Ain't you cold? What the hell is it to you? It ain't a damn thing to me. Ballard had risen and stood above her with the rifle. Where's your clothes at? She rose up and staggered backwards and sat down hard in the leaves. Then she got up again. She stood there weaving and glaring at him with her puffed and heavy lidded eyes. Son of a bitch, she said. Her eyes were casting about. Spying a rock, she lunged and scrabbled it up and stood him off with it. Ballard's eyes narrowed. You better put down that rock, he said. You make me. I said to put it down. She drew the rock back menacingly. He took a step forward. She heaved the rock and hit him in the chest with it and then covered her face with her hands. He slapped her so hard it spun her back around facing him. She said: I knowed you'd do me
thisaway. Ballard touched his hand to his chest and glanced down quickly to check for blood but there was none. She had her face buried in her hands. He took hold of the strap of her gown and gave it a good yank. The thin material parted to the waist. She turned loose of her face and grabbed at the gown. Her nipples were hard and blue looking with the cold. Quit, she said. Ballard seized a fistful of the wispy rayon and snatched it. Her feet came from under her and she sat in the trampled frozen weeds. He folded the garment under his arm and stepped back. Then he turned and went on down the road. She sat stark naked on the ground and watched him go, calling various names after him, none his. FATE'S ALL RIGHT. He's plainspoken but I like him. I've rode with him a lot of times. I remember one night up on the Frog Mountain at the turnaround there they was a car parked up there and Fate put the lights on em and walked on up there. The old boy in the car was all yessir and nosir. Had this girl with him. He ast the old boy for his license and the old boy scratched around for the longest time, couldn't find his pocketbook nor nothin. Fate finally told him, said: Step out here. Said the old girl settin there was white as a sheet. Well, the old boy opened the door and out he steps. Fate looked at him and then he hollered at me, said: John, come here and see this. I went on up there and the old boy is standin by the side of the car lookin down and the sheriff is lookin down, got the light on him. We're all standin there lookin down at this old boy and he's got his britches on inside out. Pockets hangin outside all around. Looked crazier'n hell. Sheriff just told him to go on. Ast him if he could drive like that. That's the kind of feller he is. WHEN BALLARD CAME OUT onto the porch there was a thin man with a collapsed jaw squatting in the yard waiting for him. What say Darfuzzle, said Ballard. What say Lester. He sounded like a man with a mouthful of marbles, articulating his goat bone under jaw laboriously, the original one having been shot away. Ballard squatted on his heels in th
e yard opposite the visitor. They looked like constipated gargoyles. Say you found that old gal up on the turnaround? Ballard sniffed. What gal? he said. That'n was left up yonder. Had on a nightgown. Ballard pulled at the loose sole of his shoe. I seen her, he said. She's went to the sheriff. She has? The other man turned and spat and looked back toward Ballard. They done arrested Pless. That's your all's lookout. I didn't have nothin to do with her. She says you did. She's a lyin sack of green shit. The visitor rose. I just thought I'd tell ye, he said. You do what you want. THE HIGH SHERIFF OF SEVIER County came out through the courthouse doors and stood on the portico surveying the gray lawn below with the benches and the Sevier County pocketknife society that convened there to whittle and mutter and spit.
He rolled a cigarette and replaced the package of tobacco in the breast pocket of his tailored shirt and lit the cigarette and descended the stairs, a proprietary squint to his eyes as he studied the morning aspect of this small upland county seat. A man opened the door and called down to him and the sheriff turned. Mr Gibson's huntin you, the man said. You don't know where I'm at. Okay. And where the hell is Cotton? He's went to get the car. He better get his ass on up here. Yonder he comes now, Sheriff. The sheriff turned and went on out to the street. Mornin Sheriff. Mornin. Mornin Sheriff. Hey. How you. He flipped the cigarette into the street and stepped into the car and pulled the door to. Mornin Sheriff, said the driver. Let's go get the little fucker, said the sheriff. Me and Bill Parsons was goin to go bird huntin this mornin but I don't reckon we will now. Bill Parsons eh? He's got a couple of good dogs. o yeah. He always has the best dogs. I remember a dog he had one time named Suzie he said was a hellatious bird dog. He let her out of the trunk and I looked at her and I said: I don't believe Suzie's feelin too good. He looked at her and felt her nose and all. Said she looked all right to him. I told him, said: I just don't believe she's real well today .. We set out and hunted all afternoon and killed one bird. Started walkin back to the car and he says to me, Bill says: You know, it's funny you noticin old Suzie was not feelin good today. The way you spotted it. I said: Well, Suzie was sick today. He said yes, she was. I said: Suzie was sick yesterday. Suzie has always been sick. Suzie will always be sick. Suzie is a sick dog. HE WATCHED THE SHERIFF stop out on the road a quarter mile away and he watched him ford the sheer wall of dried briers and weeds at the edge of the road and come on with arms and -elbows aloft, treading down the brush. When he got to the house his pressed and tailored chinos were dusty and wilted and he was covered with dead beggar lice and burrs and he was not happy. Ballard stood on the porch. Let's go, said the sheriff. Where to? You better get your ass down off that porch. Ballard spat and unleaned himself from the porch post. You got it all, he said. He came down the steps, his hands in the rear pockets of his jeans. Man of leisure like yourself, the sheriff said. You oughtn't to mind helpin us workers unscramble a little misunderstandin. This way, mister. This way, said Ballard. They's a path if you don't know it.