by Chris Offutt
The woman was breathing fast and heavy. Her arms hung at her sides, legs splayed wide. The rabbit lay in a crushed heap, bits of bone splitting the reddened fur. It was flat as a mitten.
“Take and wash that good,” she said to Ospie. “Then skin it out. Ain’t nothing wrong with the meat.”
He picked up the dead rabbit casually, as though it was something misplaced, and walked around the house.
“I purely do like rabbit,” she said. “Ospie, he ain’t safe with a gun and I can’t see good to shoot except up close. Could use a man to hunt if they was one wanted to.”
The blacksnake slithered to the edge of the porch and dropped to the ground. Virgil drank from the bottle, letting the quick burn quell the nausea that churned his guts. Many people kept a blacksnake to hold down rats in a barn, but he’d never heard of one that provided meat.
“Your brother brought me game,” the woman said. “Fetched Ospie some boots once, too.”
She motioned for Virgil to come close to the porch. She leaned over the bowed rail and lowered her voice. A gray film covered her eyes, thicker on one than the other.
“I never told the sheriff nothing,” she said. “He came sniffing around after Boyd got killed. Wanted to know if he bought off me, who he come with, and whatnot. I know who killed Boyd, but I never said a word. Ain’t aiming to get in your way.”
Virgil turned away, wanting the safety of the woods.
“Hey, Little Boyd,” the woman called. “You’re doing the right thing by laying back. Let that boy think he’s safe, then pick your time. I never liked a Rodale, their family tree don’t fork,”
He left the road for a faint game trail into the woods. The liquor made his throat ache. The foliage in the hollow was thick and green, marking water, and he moved down the slope to a creek that swarmed with gnats. Toadstools broke to white chunks like cake beneath his boots. The hills lost their tight slant, opening into softwood glades glowing from the horizontal light of afternoon.
Virgil sat and drank. The creek ran wide and slow. He thought about leaving but didn’t know where to go. So many people from the hills had headed north for work that a Pittsburgh neighborhood was called “Pennsyl-tucky.” He had cousins there. He drank some whisky. He’d never been a big drinker, and he suddenly knew why people liked it. Liquor made you feel better, but first you had to feel pretty bad and Virgil never really had. He’d liked himself and the world he lived in. He wondered what Boyd had felt so bad about to drink as much as he did.
He took another drink and stood and nearly fell. Half the whisky was gone. He felt as if it were sloshing in his head. He capped the bottle and walked. The hills cast a heavy shadow, and he wanted out of the hollow by dusk. If he didn’t make the road, he needed to be on a ridge at least, where enough spare light still burned in the sky. Memory trickled through his mind like an underground stream against a limestone bed, finding its way through tiny cracks—Boyd asking if Virgil wanted a Hertz doughnut, then hitting him in the arm and saying, “Hurts, don’t it”; Boyd reading the Bible for the good parts in Ezekiel where Aholibah was condemned for harlotry she’d learned from the Egyptians; Boyd teaching him to play poker with a greasy deck of cards.
Virgil stopped for another drink and dropped the lid to the whisky. When he stooped for it, he lost his balance and fell to the damp earth. He rolled on his back and stared at the section of sky visible between the hills. Treetops swayed as if clawing at the stars.
He closed his eyes and felt dizzy and opened them. The dark had come fast, like floodwater that flowed over the land. He stood and began moving with the precise steps of a drunk. Lightning bugs flicked yellow spots through the trees. Dead leaves clung to the mud on his clothes. He was near a road. He heard the rattle of an engine not hitting all its cylinders and recognized it as a car driven by a man from work and knew he could have gotten a ride. The moon’s light moved through the night.
He slipped to his knees as he climbed the bank and wondered why blacktop looked pale at night. He didn’t care which way a car came, he’d go with whoever stopped and get out where they were going. Boyd had done that twenty years ago. Virgil was getting a late start at everything. He wished a helicopter would pick him up and drop him somewhere.
Virgil leaned against a sycamore. The desert was too hot, the North was too cold, cities were too big, and the Midwest was too flat. He chuckled. He couldn’t even decide which way to go on The Road, let alone the whole country. It didn’t matter. Nothing did. He felt fine. He finished the bottle and opened another. He should have gotten drunk and thought about things sooner. It occurred to him that if he was going to leave, he might as well go ahead and kill Rodale first.
5
* * *
Car lights came around the curve and Virgil stuck his thumb out, squinting against the harsh flare of light, A pickup braked to a stop, and the driver leaned his head out the window.
“Can you drink a cold one?” he said.
“Yeah,” Virgil said.
“Get in, then.”
Virgil climbed inside the cab. A bedsheet covered the seat, the comers tucked beneath the springs. The driver wasn’t wearing a shirt. He handed Virgil a can of beer.
“You’re the first damn hitchhiker ever I did see.”
“First time I done it,” Virgil said.
“By God, my brother-in-law hitched four miles to the store, and like to never heard the end of it from the family.”
“How come?”
“They took it as him putting a stranger ahead of kin.”
“Well.”
“Hatingest folks in all creation. Ain’t two good ones to the whole bunch. That’s why I’m celebrating.”
He mashed the accelerator and left twin streaks of rubber on the road. The rear fishtailed before slowing at Pig Berry curve. Beer spilled on Virgil’s clothes.
“You best watch,” Virgil said. “The law sets up here a lot.”
“A man wants to drive fast, it’s his business. What’s your name anyhow.”
“Virgil Caudill.”
“They’s gobs of you all, ain’t they.”
“Around here there is.”
“I’m Arlow Atkins. From Pick County. Ain’t got a smoke, do you?”
“Not on me,” Virgil said. “What are we celebrating?”
“I quit my wife tonight.”
“For good?”
“I hope to God for good. Know what she done this time?”
“No.”
“Cut the fingertips out of my gloves. Left them laying in a pile like deer sign by the couch.”
“What over?”
“Porch steps.”
“Were you supposed to fix them?”
“No,” Arlow said. “I gave them away.”
“Gave away the porch steps?”
“They was concrete block, stacked. First my brother needed one, then my cousin, and my nephew. Didn’t take too long before they was gone.”
“A man can always get block.”
“That’s what I told my wife. She said yes, but did everybody have to get them off us.”
They crossed the creek and entered a hard curve. Car parts lay scattered down the creek from previous wrecks. The truck tires skipped but held to the blacktop, and they were out of the curve and hurtling down a straight stretch. Arlow tossed his empty can out the window.
“Reach me another,” he said to Virgil. “And take one for your ownself.”
“Where you headed anyhow?”
“Just running the roads. You got anywhere to be?” Virgil shook his head. He pulled an unopened half-pint from his pocket.
“You don’t care to take a drink of whisky, do you?”
“By God,” Arlow said. “I knowed they was a reason I stopped for you, I guess you’ll light up one of them, left-handed cigarettes next.”
“I don’t reckon.”
Virgil drank the neck and shoulders out of the bottle and passed it to Arlow, The outside air was black. Boyd had lived like this all
his life and for the first time Virgil understood how a man could get in the habit. It was fun and there was a sense of freedom and risk, the anticipation of an unknown outcome.
Arlow swerved to avoid a raccoon crossing the road. “Ever think how a coon is close to human?” he said. “They got hands and they wash everything they eat first.”
“It ain’t something I ever worried much over.”
“You think a coon or possum eats more?”
“A coon my opinion.”
“Possum.”
“A coon’s belly is bigger,” Virgil said. “You can tell by looking.”
“Ever see in a possum’s mouth?”
“I’m proud to say I ain’t.”
“Well, you ort to. They got about a hundred teeth.”
“They don’t done it,”
“Damn straight,” Arlow said. “One was to bite you, you’d know it. A possum will fiat pour the teeth to you.”
“That don’t mean its belly holds more. They’s many a coon the size of a dog.”
“Any more of that whisky left?”
Virgil handed him the bottle. Arlow took a drink while simultaneously downshifting for a curve, flicking a cigarette out the window, and adjusting the beer between his thighs. Virgil drank some beer and felt like spitting. They were past the turnoff to his house, near the county line.
“How do you know so much on possum teeth?” he said.
“Took me a good long gander at one stuffed.”
“A trophy possum. There’s something I’d like to see.”
Arlow stomped the brake pedal and the tires squealed. Virgil lost his beer. His forearms hit the dashboard and he could feel debris from under the seat bounce against his boots. The truck stopped sideways in the road. Arlow was standing on the brake pedal, his body arched over the steering wheel.
“That makes my pecker hard,” Arlow said. “Don’t it you?”
He spun the car around and headed the way they’d come.
“We ain’t going to town, are we,” Virgil said.
“I thought you wanted to see a stuffed possum.”
“Where’s it at?”
“Third hollow past the next wide place. We’ll go see old man Morgan. You know him?”
“I’ve heard tell.”
They turned onto a dirt road that forked several times and narrowed to one lane with weeds growing in the middle. Tree limbs laced overhead, blotting stars and moon. There was no ditch. The wooded hills slanted into the sky on both sides of the road. Arlow pumped the clutch for traction.
“Got to keep her in Granny gear,” he said.
The hollow tightened until the road became a path and the rear tires spun. Arlow cut the engine and honked the horn twice, the sound hanging in the darkness. They left the truck and walked the path. Branches snagged their clothes. The hum of locust filled the air, rising and falling at different intervals, surrounding them but always at a distance. The path opened into a clearing where the dark shape of a house sat among white oaks. A glow of light came from a window.
“Hey, Morgan,” Arlow yelled. “It’s Catfish Atkins’ boy, Arlow. I got a buddy here, but I’m coming up by myself.” He turned to Virgil and spoke in a normal voice. “Stay here a minute. He’s bad to be squirrelly.”
He crossed the glade and yelled again before stepping on the porch and into the house. Virgil didn’t feel drunk but knew he was. The whisky kept him awake and gave his mind a clarity that he enjoyed.
Arlow yelled through the night and Virgil walked up the slope. The back of the house was tucked tight to the hillside while the front porch was supported by stacked rock. Virgil climbed uneven steps to the porch. The door hung at a tilt from a broken hinge. An old man sat by a cold woodstove. He held a knife in one hand and a small piece of wood in the other. Crescents of shaved wood covered his lap.
“Hidy, by God,” he said. “Whose boy are you?”
“Darly Caudill’s second boy, Virgil.”
“Best tell me your papaw, then. They’s more Caudills than dogs in these parts.”
“Zale.”
“Did he marry Augselle Sparks from up on Clay Creek?”
“Yup.”
“Shoot, I know your whole line. Set yourself down. I been low in my gears and can’t get up. I heard you’uns coming a mile away. Sound moves up here like a tunnel. This holler’s so narrow I got to break day with a hammer.”
Virgil sat on an ancient crate turned black from handling. Arlow turned a metal kitchen chair backwards so that his forearms rested on its laddered back. The man’s knife blade flashed like a bird’s beak in a corn crib. His face was brown and there were bugs in his hair.
When he finished working, he stropped his knife on a boot heel and put it away. He held a piece of wood that was two inches long and a half inch wide, the long end tapered like the bill of a duck. The other end was fat and blunt, with a notch to one side. It resembled the triggering device to a homemade rabbit trap. He passed it to Virgil.
“I’ll give you it if you can call it true.” Morgan said.
“Some kind of hook.”
“No.”
“Whistle.”
“Ain’t got no blower to her.”
No matter how Virgil turned the wood, it looked like a piece of scrap that somebody had whittled to pass the time.
“It ain’t nothing,” he said.
“Sure it is. Let me see your belt a minute.”
Virgil removed his belt and passed it to Morgan, who slipped the belt’s edge into the notch on the piece of wood. He placed the flat end of the wood on the tip of his forefinger. He didn’t hold the wood, but let it extend from his hand like a claw. It should have fallen to the earth, yet it remained in space, the leather curling like a locust seed-pod. He lifted the belt from the notch and the little piece of wood dropped to the ground.
“What is it?” Virgil said.
“Belt balancer.”
“What’s it do?”
“Balances belts.”
“How’s it work?”
“Just like that. You keep it.”
Virgil slipped the piece of wood in his pocket and ran his belt through the loops. His mouth was dry.
“Tell me something that ain’t true,” Morgan said. “I’d whole lot rather a man lie to me than tell the truth. Know why?”
Virgil shook his head.
“Makes a man feel good to lie.”
“Well,” Virgil said.
“Ain’t everybody who can help a man feel good about hisself. So let me hear a lie.”
“I ain’t drunk,” Virgil said.
The old man leaned back and laughed. Virgil offered the half-pint.
“Ain’t much of a drinker, are ye. Still yet got the lid.”
He unscrewed the lid and tossed it on the floor.
“Never did like brown. Ain’t got the kick of white. Old boy I used to know ran liquor that you’d better be standing on level ground to drink.”
He tipped his head and trickled the liquor in his mouth. His eyes were closed. He didn’t swallow for nearly a minute. His Adam’s apple worked and he opened his eyes.
“Boys,” he said. “I used to have blue eyes and a red dick. Now I got red eyes and a blue dick.”
Morgan passed the bottle to Virgil and placed his hands on the chair arms as if they were tools stored on a shelf. His ears and nose were long. Behind him, a plank bookshelf held several tiny pieces of carved wood.
“How come you never went to bigger whittling?” Virgil said.
“Ain’t got the learning. I know a half-inch and a quarter, but not no more. Got to eyeball it after that.”
“Nothing to it,” Virgil said. “Just keep cutting each measure in half. Split a quarter and you got eighths. Half that is sixteenths.”
Morgan’s shoulders rose and fell.
“Can’t get her,” he said. “Just can’t.”
“Where’s old Duke at?” Arlow said.
“Got murdered,” Morgan said.
“Why
that dog wouldn’t bite a biscuit. Who’d kill it?”
“Red Stumper done it.”
“You aim to do anything?”
“Kill his dog back, I reckon.”
“He ain’t got one,” Arlow said.
“What kind of man don’t keep a dog?”
“Kind that shoots them, I guess.”
“What’s he got? Rooster? Billy goat?”
“Nothing. He lives alone.”
Virgil drank from the bottle. He wasn’t afraid to Mil Rodale, he was afraid of where it might lead. The trouble might run for years and would cease to be specific. The meanest men in both families would continue shooting simply out of habit.
Morgan and Arlow were talking about what kind of winter was ahead and how to read the signs. Boyd never predicted, but accepted each day’s fate. If it rained a week straight, he’d say the water made all the colors brighter. If there was no sun, he’d talk about how much further you could see without the glare. Winter was a good time to learn how the land was made. Virgil wondered what his brother would say about being dead.
“Well,” Boyd might say, “a man ain’t got to worry with warm clothes, eating meals, or getting sleep. Being dead’s freer than when I was living.”
“It ain’t doing me any goddam good,” Virgil said.
“What,” Arlow said.
Virgil blinked at Arlow and Morgan, who were looking at him as if waiting. The room seemed to close in on him.
“Nothing,” Virgil said. “Just talking to myself.”
“Makes good sense to me,” Morgan said.
Virgil stood, swaying slightly.
“We ort to let Morgan go to bed.”
“No need to rush off,” Morgan said.
“Where’s that possum at?” Arlow said. “Me and him’s got a bet on its teeth. You didn’t eat that, did you,”
“I’ve ate my share, boys. Time was, these hills was hunted so bad folks raised possum for meat. I’ve eat owl once and grateful for it.”
“Owl?”
“Ain’t supposed to, you know.”