by Unknown
lope, high backed and very black against the winter's landscape. The hounds' voices in that vast and pale blue void echoed like the cries of demon yodellers. The boar did not want to cross the river. When he did so it was too late. He came all sleek and steaming out of the willows on the near side and started across the plain. Behind him the dogs were falling down the mountainside hysterically, the snow exploding about them. When they struck the water they smoked like hot stones and when they came out of the brush and onto the plain they came in clouds of pale vapor. The boar did not turn until the first hound reached him. He spun and cut at the dog and went on. The dogs swarmed over his hindquarters and he turned and hooked with his razorous tushes and reared back on his haunches but there was nothing for shelter. He kept turning, enmeshed in a wheel of snarling hounds until he caught one and drove upon it and pinned and disemboweled it. When he went to turn again to save his flanks he could not. Ballard watched this ballet tilt and swirl and churn mud up through the snow and watched the lovely blood welter there in its holograph of battle, spray burst from a ruptured lung, the dark heart's blood, pinwheel and pirouette, until shots rang and all was done. A young hound worried the boar's ears and one lay dead with his bright ropy innards folded upon the snow and another whined and dragged himself about. Ballard took his hands from his pockets and took up the rifle from where he had leaned it against a tree. Two small armed and upright figures were moving down along the river, hurrying against the fading light. IN THE SMITH'S SHOP DIM and near lightless save for the faint glow at the far end where the forge fire smoldered and the smith in silhouette hulked above some work. Ballard in the door with a rusty axe head he'd found. Mornin, said the smith. Mornin. What can I do for ye? I got a axe needs sharpenin. He crossed the dirt floor to where the smith stood above his anvil. The walls of the building were hung with all manner of implements. Pieces of farm machinery and motorcars lay strewn everywhere. The smith thrust his chin forward and looked at the axe head. That it? he said. That's it. The smith turned the axe head in his hand. Won't do ye no good to grind this thing, he said. Won't? What ye aim to use for a handle? Get one, I reckon. He held the axe head up. You cain't just grind a axe and grind it, he said. See how stobby it's got? Ballard saw. You want to wait a minute I'll show ye how to dress a axe that'1I cut two to one against any piece of shit you can buy down here at the hardware store brand new. What'lI it cost me? You mean with a new handle and all. Yeah, with a new handle. Cost ye two dollars. Two dollars. That's right. Handles is a dollar and a quarter.
I allowed I'd just get it sharpened for a quarter or somethin. You never would be satisfied with it, said the smith. I can get a new one for four dollars. I'd better to have thisn and it right than two new ones. Well. Tell me somethin. All right. The smith stuck the axe in the fire and gave the crank a few turns. Yellow flames spat out from under the blade. They watched. You want to keep your fire high, said the smith. Three or four inches above the tuyer iron. You want to lay a clean fire with good coal that's not laid out in the sun. He turned the axe head with his tongs. You want to take your first heat at a good yeller and work down. That there ain't hot enough. He had raised his voice to make these observations although the forge made no sound. He cranked the lever again and they watched the fire spit. Not too fast, said the smith. Slow. That's how ye heat. Watch ye colors. If she chance to get white she's ruint. There she comes now. He drew the axe head from the fire and swung it all quivering with heat and glowing a translucent yellow and laid it on the anvil. Now mind how ye work only the flats, he said, taking up his hammer. And start on the bit. He swung the hammer and the soft steel gave under the blow with an odd dull ring. He hammered out the bit on both sides and put the blade back in the fire. We take another heat on her only not so high this time. A high red color will do it. He laid the tongs on the anvil and passed both palms down hard over his apron, his eyes on the fire. Watch her well, he said. Never leave steel in the fire for longer than it takes to heat. Some people will poke around at somethin else and leave the tool they're heatin to perdition but the proper thing is to fetch her out the minute she shows the color of grace. Now we want a high red. Want a high red. Now she comes. He tonged the axe head to the anvil again, the bit a deep orange color with pins of bright heat breaking on it. See now do ye hammer her back from the bit on the second heat. The hammer striking with that sound not quite metallic. About a inch back. See how she flares. Let her get wide as a shovel if it takes it but never lay your hammer to the edges or you'll take out the muscle you put in on the flats. He hammered steady and effortless, the bit cooling until the light of it faded to a faintly pulsing blood color. Ballard glanced about the shop. The smith laid the bit on the hardy and with a sledge clipped off the flared edges. That's how we take the width down, he said. Now one more heat to make her tough. He placed the blade in the fire and cranked the handle. We take a low heat this time, he said. Just for a minute. Just so ye can see her shine will do. There she is. Now hammer her down both sides real good. He beat with short strokes. He turned the head and worked the other side. See how black she gets, he said. Black and shiny like a nigger's ass. That packs the steel and makes it tough. Now she's ready to harden. They waited while the axe heated. The smith took a splayed cigar stub from his apron pocket and lit it with a coal from the forge. We just want to heat the part we've worked, he said. And the lower a heat ye can harden at the better she'll be. Just a low cherry red is about right. Some people want to quench in oil but water tempers at
a lower heat. A little salt to soften the water. Soft water, hard steel. Now she comes and mind how when ye take her up and dip, dip north. Bit straight down, thisaway. He lowered the quaking blade into the quench bucket and a ball of steam rose. The metal hissed for an instant and was quiet. The smith dunked it up and down. Cool it slow and it won't crack, he said. Now. We polish it and draw the temper. He brightened the bit with a stick wrapped in emery cloth. Holding the head in the tongs he began to move it slowly back and forth over the fire. Keep her out of the fire and keep her movin. That way she'll draw down even. Now she's gettin yeller. That's fine for some tools but we goin to take a blue temper on her. Now she gets brown. Watch it now. See it there? He took the axe head from the fire and laid it on the anvil. You got to watch her close and not let the temper run out on the corners first. Shape ye fire for the job always. Is that it? said Ballard. That's it. We'll just fit ye a handle now and sharpen her and you'll be on your way. Ballard nodded. It's like a lot of things, said the smith. Do the least part of it wrong and ye'd just as well to do it all wrong. He was sorting through handles standing in a barrel. Reckon you could do it now from watchin? he said. Do what, said Ballard. HE LAUNCHED HIMSELF down the slope, slewed up in snow to his thighs, wallowing in the drifts with the rifle held overhead in one hand. He caught himself on a grapevine and swung about and came to a stop. A shower of dead leaves and twigs fell over th~ smooth mantle of snow. He fetched debris from out of his shirt collar and looked down the slope to find another stopping place. When he reached the flats at the foot of the mountain he found himself in scrub cedar and pines. He followed rabbit paths through these woods. The snow had thawed and frozen over again and there was a light crust on top now and the day was very cold. He entered a glade and a robin flew. Another. They held their wings aloft and went skittering over the snow. Ballard looked more closely. A group of them were huddled under a cedar tree. At his approach they set forth in pairs and threes and went hopping and hobbling over the crust, dragging their wings. Ballard ran after them. They ducked and fluttered. He fell and rose and ran laughing. He caught and held one warm and feathered in his palm with the heart of it beating there just so. HE CAME UP A RUTTED drive and past the roof of a car sliced off and propped on the ground with cinderblocks. A light cord ran across the mud and underneath the car roof a bulb burned and a group of depressed looking chickens huddled and clucked. Ballard rapped on the porch floor. It was a cold gray day. Thick gouts of brownish smoke swirled over the roof and the rags of
snow in the yard lay gray and lacy and flecked with coal soot. He peeped down at the bird against his breast. The door opened. Get in here, said a woman in a thin cotton housedress. He went on up the porch steps and entered the house. He spoke with the woman but his eye was on the daughter. She moved ill at ease about the house, all tits and plump young haunch and naked legs. Cold enough for ye? said Ballard. What about this weather, said the woman. I brung him a playpretty, Ballard said, nodding to the thing in the floor. The woman turned her shallow dish-shaped face upon him. Done what? she said. Brung him a playpretty. Looky here.
He hauled forth the half froze robin from his shirt and held it out. It turned its head. Its eye flicked. Looky here, Billy, said the woman. It didn't look. A huge headed bald and slobbering primate that inhabited the lower reaches of the house, familiar of the warped floorboards and the holes tacked up with food tins hammered flat, a consort of roaches and great hairy spiders in their season, perennially benastied and afflicted with a nameless crud. Here's ye a playpretty. The robin started across the floor, its wings awobble like lateen sails. It spied the ... what? child? child, and veered off toward a corner. The child's dull eyes followed. It stirred into sluggish motion. Ballard caught the bird and handed it down. The child took it in fat gray hands. He'll kill it, the girl said. Ballard grinned at her. It's hisn to kill if he wants to, he said. The girl pouted her mouth at him. Shoot, she ·said. I got somethin I'm agoin to bring you, Ballard told her. You ain't got nothin I want, she said. Ballard grinned. I got some coffee hot on the stove, said the woman from the kitchen. Did you want a cup? I wouldn't care to drink maybe just a cup, said Ballard, rubbing his hands together to say how cold it was. At the kitchen table, a huge white porcelain cup before him, the steam white in the cold of the room by the one window where he sat and the moisture condensing on the flower faded oilcloth. He tilted canned milk in and stirred. What time do you reckon Ralph will be in? He ain't said. Well. Just wait on him if ye want. Well. I'll wait on him a minute. If he don't come I got to get on. He heard the back door shut. He saw her go along the muddied rut of a path to the outhouse. He looked at the woman. She was rolling out biscuits at the sideboard. He looked quickly back out the window. The girl opened the outhouse door and closed it behind her. Ballard lowered his face into the steam from his cup. Ralph didn't come and didn't come. Ballard finished the coffee and said that it was good and no thanks he didn't want no more and said it again and said that he'd better get on. I wish you'd looky here Mama, the girl said from the other room. What is it? said the woman. Ballard had stood up and was stretching uneasily. I better get on, he said. Just wait on him if ye want. Mama. Ballard looked toward the front room. The bird crouched in the floor. The girl appeared in the doorway. I wisht you'd look in here, she said. What is it? said the woman. She was pointing toward the child. It sat as before, a gross tottertoy in a gray small shirt. Its mouth was stained with blood and it was chewing. Ballard went on through the door into the room and reached down to get the bird. It fluttered on the floor and fell over. He picked it up. Small red nubs worked in the soft down. Ballard set the bird down quickly. I told ye not to let him have it, the girl said. The bird floundered on the floor.
The woman had come to the door. She was wiping her hands on her apron. They were all looking at the bird. The woman said: What's he done to it? He's-done chewed its legs off; the girl said. Ballard grinned uneasily. He wanted it to where it couldn't run off, he said. If I didn't have no better sense than that I'd quit, said the girl. Hush now, said the woman. Get that mess out of his mouth fore he gets sick on it. THEY WASN'T NONE OF EM any account that I ever heard of. I remember his granddaddy, name was Leland, he was gettin a war pension as a old man. Died back in the late twenties. Was supposed to of been in the Union Army. It was a known fact he didn't do nothin the whole war but scout the bushes. They come lookin for him two or three times. Hell, he never did go to war. Old man Cameron tells this and I don't know what cause he'd have to lie. Said they come out there to get Leland Ballard and while they was huntin him in the barn and smokehouse and all he slipped down out of the bushes to where their horses was at and cut the leather off the sergeant's saddle to half sole his shoes with. No, I don't know how he got that pension. Lied to em, I reckon. Sevier County put more men in the Union Army than it had registered voters but he wasn't one of em. He was just the only one had brass enough to ast for a pension. I'll tell you one thing he was if he wasn't no soldier. He was a by god White Cap. O yes. He was that. Had a younger brother was one too that run off from here about that time. It's a known fact he was hanged in Hattiesburg Mississippi. Goes to show it ain't just the place. He'd of been hanged no matter where he lived. I'll say one thing about Lester though. You can trace em back to Adam if you w ant and goddamn if he didn't outstrip em all. That's the god's truth. Talkin about Lester ... You all talk about him. I got supper waitin on me at the house. BALLARD STAMPED THE snow from his shoes and leaned his rifle against the side of the house and tapped at the door. He glanced about. The sofa lay mantled in snow and over the snow lay a fine stippling of coal soot and cat tracks. Behind the house stood the remains of several cars and from the rear glass of one of them a turkey watched him. The door fell open and the dump keeper stood there in his shirtsleeves and suspenders. Come in, Lester, he said. Ballard entered, his eyes wheeling about, his face stretched in a china smile. But there was no one to see. A young girl was sitting on a car seat holding a baby and when Ballard came in she got up and went into the other room. Get over here and warm fore ye take your death, said the dump keeper, making for the stove. Where's everbody at? said Ballard. Shoot, said the dump keeper, they've all left out of here. The mizzes ain't left is she? Aw naw. She's a visitin her sister and them. Ever one of the girls is left savin the least'n though. We still got two of the babies here. How come em to all leave of a sudden like that? I don't know, said the dump keeper. Young people these days, you cain't tell em nothin. You ort to be proud, Lester, that
you ain't never married. It is a grief and a heartache and they ain't no reward in it at all. You just raise enemies in ye own house to grow up and cuss ye. Ballard turned his backside to the stove. Well, he said. I never could see it. That's where you're smart, said the dump keeper. Ballard agreed mutely, shaking his head. I heard you got burned out over at your place, the dump keeper said. Plumb to the ground, said Ballard. You never seen such a fire. What caused it? I don't know. It started in the attic. I believe it must of been sparks from the chimney. Was you asleep? Yeah. I just did get out of there. What did Waldrop say? I don't know. I ain't seen him. I ain't lookin for him. Be proud you wasn't like old man Parton up here got burned down in his bed that time. Ballard turned around and warmed his hands at the stove. Did they ever find any of him? he said. WHEN HE GOT TO THE HEAD OF the hollow he rested, watching behind him the while. The tracks he followed had water standing in them and they went up the mountain but they did not come back down. He lost them later and found some different ones and he spent the afternoon in the woods stalking about like any hunter but when he returned to the cave just short of nightfall with his feet numb in the leaky shoes he had not found any of the whiskey and he had not seen Kirby. He ran into Greer the next morning. It had begun to rain, a small cold winter rain that Ballard cursed. He lowered his head and tucked the rifle under his arm and stepped to one side to pass but the other would not have it so. Howdy, he said. Howdy, said Ballard. You're Ballard ain't ye? Ballard did not raise his head. He was watching the man's shoes there in the wet leaves of the overgrown logging road. He said: No, I ain't him, and went on. LORD THEY CAUGHT' ME, LESTER, said Kirby. Caught ye? I'm on three year probation. Ballard stared around the little room with its linoleum floor and cheap furniture. Well kiss my ass, he said. Ain't it a bitch? I never thought about them bein niggers. Niggers? They sent niggers. That's who I sold to. Sold to em three times. One of em set right there in that chair and drunk a pint. Drunk it and got up and walked out and got in the car. I don't see how he done it. He might of
drove for all I know. They caught everbody. Got old lady Bright up in Cocke County even and she's been sellin whiskey non stop since fore I was born. Ballard leaned and spat into a can sitting in the floor. Well fuck it, he said. I sure would of never thought about them sendin niggers, said Kirby. BALLARD STOOD AT THE door. There was no car in the driveway. A pale yellow trapezoid of light lay in the mud beneath the window. Within, the idiot child crawled in
the floor and the girl was curled on the sofa reading a magazine. He raised his hand and tapped. When the door opened he was standing there already wearing his sickish smile, his lips dry and tight over his teeth. Hidy, he said. He ain't here, said the girl. She stood hip loose in the doorframe and regarded him with frank indifference. What time you expect him? I don't know. He's took Mama to church. They won't be back fore ten thirty or eleven. Well, said Ballard. She said nothing. Turned off cool, ain't it? It is standin here with the door open. Well ain't you goin to ast me in for a minute. She thought about it before she swung the door back. You could see it in her eyes. But she let him in, more's the fool. He entered shuffling, beating his hands together. How's that big boy? he said. He's crazy as ever, she said, headed for the sofa and her magazine. Ballard squatted before the stained and drooling cretin and tousled its near bald head. Why that boy's got good sense, he said. Ain't ye? Shoot, said the girl. Ballard eyed her. She was wearing pink slacks of cheap cotton and she sat in the sofa with her legs crossed under her and a pillow in her lap. He rose and went to the stove and stood with his back to it. The stove was enclosed waist high in a chicken wire fence. The posts were toe nailed to the floor and the fencing was nailed down as well. I bet he could push this over if he wanted to, said Ballard. I'd smack the fire out of him too, said the girl. Ballard was watching her. He narrowed his eyes cunningly and smiled. He's yourn, ain't he? he said. The girl's face snapped up. You're crazy as shit, she said. Ballard leered. Steam sifted up from his dark trouser legs. You cain't fool me, he said. You're a liar, the girl said. You wisht I was. You better hush. Ballard turned to warm his front side. A car passed in the road. They both craned their necks to follow the lights along. She turned back and saw him and made a chicken necked grimace to mock him. The child in the floor sat drooling nor had it moved. Wouldn't be that old crazy Thomas boy, would it? said Ballard. The girl glared at him. Her face was flushed and her eyes red. You ain't slipped off in the bushes with that old crazy thing have ye? You better shut your mouth, Lester Ballard. I'll tell Daddy on you. I'll tell Daddy on you, whined Ballard. You just wait and see if I don't. Shoot, said Ballard. I was just teasin ye. Why don't you go on. I guess you too young to know when a man's teasin ye. You ain't even a man. You're just a crazy thing. I might be more than you think, said Ballard. How come you wear them britches? What's it to you? Ballard's mouth was dry. You cain't see nothin, he said.