Collected Stories of Reynolds Price

by Reynolds Price

  I said “Son, if that’s warm water bring it on.”

  Not looking at the girl, he said “It is” and brought it towards me, three feet from the bed. Then still watching me, he called her on—“Ruth, step here and help me show this man we saved his hide.”

  She said “I told him.”

  But he said “Step here.”

  As Ruth moved forward I thought better of it and said “Son, maybe I’m too weak for this.”

  Then he smiled too; his teeth were strong and white as a bear’s. “If I’m your son, like you keep saying, then I’m the one you got to trust. Do what I tell you.”

  What could I do in painful joy but let those two afflicted souls wash my new body in clean hot snow?

  That was in December—I’d crazed around and rested that long. And I stayed feeble the better part of three weeks, mostly up and dressed in my old clothes (that Autry surrendered without my asking). But I stayed low beside the fire, thinking of what time planned for me next. Or I’d lie hours across the bed, hoping to see some sign of a life to live in whatever world I joined if I left here. I already knew the war still lasted; the sky would light up most every night with phosphorus bombs from ten miles off and the burning spirits of men hurt worse than me or dead like mist down near the ground. I knew I was spending too much time alone for the good of my mind. My strength was coming back enough to start me thinking of things my fingers hadn’t touched or my lips brushed for way too long (any number of which were in reach anytime Ruth was near me). I fought the hungers but they kept rising, and many times I begged young Autry to move himself and the girl back with me—I’d sleep on the hearth.

  They’d nod and refuse and go on bringing me nourishment—dove, rabbit, squirrel and various colors of rank hot tea they’d brew from roots. Sparse as the fare was, Ruth cooked it tasty; it filled my shrunk belly day by day till slowly I got back faith enough in both my legs to offer to work. I’d once been a hunter, so I offered to hunt the table meat. Autry could spend more time cutting firewood for my room and theirs as winter bore down.

  They lived in a shed at the edge of the clearing. I’d never gone in, never been asked (the whole place, Autry claimed one evening, had stood here empty the day they came, worn from fleeing their own burned home—mother killed, father lost somewhere at war: I doubted his word after what Ruth had said). From the hour I got here, I’d never so much as shared a meal with them nor had any human conversation beyond the barest needs of life. And while I was bad off, the silence sufficed. But once I was stronger and played a useful part by luring and trapping the game (we had no rifles)—I figured I’d try to feed my hunger for simple company as the nights still came down early and freezing.

  On what I’d almost surely figured was New Year’s Eve, I went to Autry where he was chopping and said I thought it might be the New Year—did he know for sure, and couldn’t we cook whatever I’d caught and mark the evening with food at least?

  He shook his head—“That’s some days from now”—but he stopped his work.

  I said “In that case let’s say it is—New Year’s Eve—in case our luck runs out and they find us between now and then.”

  Autry looked like he’d never heard years could start or that luck was invented.

  So I said “My family cooked a big spread for New Year’s Eve—ham, chicken and duck.”

  He barely faced me. “You got any people left down there?” When he gave a point behind to the valley, I recalled he’d never yet asked one fact about me or what I’d been before I was shot.

  And what I told him was less than the truth. “My mother passed on some months back; my only brother’s working the farm—he lacks one eye and can’t fight a flea.”

  “You think I’m a coward?” It came out of Autry so low and fast, it tore his face. He might have been watching a wolf in the woods, blood on its teeth, not pale weak me.

  I had to say “No and I didn’t say you were.”

  He nodded. “I am.”

  So I said “Son, you rescued me when I was dead. And however dazed and childish I’ve been, I understand it was you that cured me.” I’d told myself I understood it, which God knew I didn’t—and don’t today—but deep as my heart went, I knew this lanky boy had saved me by whatever means of skin or prayer, body or soul. And in my eyes that made him stronger than any six generals.

  He leaned his axe against the block and finally met my face straight on. “I loved you,” he said. “You were all we had.”

  If, that instant, killing light had poured from his eyes and blinded me, I couldn’t have been any more amazed or scared any colder. I’d never leaned on the word love till now, not to stand for devotion of his size and kind. So I’d barely said it to my own kin, though I’d whispered it some to very-near strangers; and I hadn’t heard the word used in the war, not in a decent way you could honor. I felt my tight chest wanting to laugh, in pure surprise and maybe true pleasure of a brand I’d lacked since my boyhood alone in trees with eagles at hand. But Autry’s eyes were solemn still, waiting for me to take or turn back whatever offer he thought he’d made.

  I said “I love you,” having no real idea what I meant but someway knowing it ought to be true. Then I said the word Thanks—“I can thank you both.” And when he nodded a calm acceptance—he knew what I owed, and he saw I’d paid—I rushed on further than I planned to go. “I can stay and help you two dig in. There’s deep winter yet to come up here.” I was thinking how much I’d need clean time and a big lost place to heal my mind and choose the path I’d take downhill.

  He said “I mean you to stay for good.”

  I heard no threatful edge in his voice, and more than ever he looked like a son I’d have changed my life for. But now I knew not to make a binding promise. I just said what felt true again—they’d saved my life, especially him in his wild way, a way I still wasn’t sure I’d fathom this side of the grave.

  Autry took up his axe and said “You’re welcome the rest of your life.”

  Four other people had offered as much to me in my time—my mother, my wife and both my daughters whenever they laughed—and I’d refused them, needing more of the world than they could give (or so I believed). Now I stood my ground in the cold and said “All right.” Since he’d called me Captain more than once, I saluted him fully; I could feel I was smiling.

  And Autry joined me the nearest he could; I’d never seen his lips grin wider. And as I stepped on towards the woods to check my rabbit gum, he said “You trust me now with your name?” His grin spread wider—he knew I’d lied to Ruth awhile back.

  I gave a dry laugh and asked if I could hold off a week. I told myself I was waiting in secret for time’s new plan (I craved a plan). I thought it was nonsense, to cover my shame.

  Autry said “Take the time you want. But it’s Trump something, ain’t it?”

  That not only stunned me like his claim of love; it proved he had the magic of that contending angel I’d dreamt he was and may have been.

  But he said “You kept calling Trump in your fever. I figured it was pity for yourself or your son.”

  I nodded. “It’s me—Trump Ferrell. I lied to Ruth.”

  “How come?”

  “I was scared.”

  “What of?”

  “Both of you—I was crazy with fever.”

  He said “From all you raved about, I estimate you were crazy for years.” It seemed plain fact; he was sober-eyed.

  I said “I had too much to give,” then bit my tongue.

  He nodded. “You were strong.”

  “Strong and bad.”

  “We tried to be good to you,” he said.

  It sounded pure as a child’s first speech, but it felt as true as the Ten Commandments, and it broke the last weak dam in my heart. I said “I’m in a whole new life, son. Whether you meant to or not, you caused it. I can’t go back and live where I did. I burnt that down with nothing but greed.”

  He waited, then looked to the ground between us. “We’ll
call you any name you want, long as you stay.”

  I’d meant to check my traps before dark, so I said “Call me Trap.” It seemed like a name from Pilgrim’s Progress or some boy’s book, but I let it stand.

  Autry said “Yes, Captain” and turned back to work. He could split heartwood the width of my waist with a single stroke like the firmest apple.

  My lures turned out to be empty that evening; and though we had enough laid by to feed us for two days yet, Autry was nowhere in sight when I got back. A little baffled I went to my own place. It felt different now—soon I knew I was waiting for company, not hands necessarily on my hide but open faces that didn’t need words or permanent pledges. No word came from Autry or Ruth though, not even the usual light at their window; so I ate cold squirrel and slept on the floor to brace myself for what I understood I must do. They’d welcomed me here but left me alone, a healed stranger they’d never take in to their hid core, whatever it was. My course was set then; it opened before me straight as rails when I offered my presence and met just silence and a black windowpane that shut me off from the last two humans I’d knowingly trusted with my bare skin and the quick of my life. Time spoke it out in the frozen room above my head, Strike out of here. You’ve paid your due. It was something I’d never paid elsewhere, so that much anyhow was new ground gained.

  And new ground was what lay all before me, though surely the war still straddled most paths I’d take out of here. I couldn’t risk seeing another dead boy, the mouth of a gun or a mad-eyed horse (not to speak of how they’d treat a deserter with two fit legs). I’d doze a few hours on the hard floor then and strike on inward—higher and deeper—before first day.

  But whatever hand was moving me, sank me in a sleep so thick and dreamless that I didn’t crack my eyelids once till warm sun slatted across my hands and took my face. It was well into morning; I’d missed one chance. All right, catch Autry and Ruth some game and leave tonight. It’s part of your plan. I rose and broke the ice in my bowl to wash myself, then entered the clearing.

  The usual thin smoke came from the stovepipe in their roof, and I walked on round the shed past the woodpile to check my traps. No sign of Autry chopping kindling, which he did most mornings—no fresh foot track. In a war most men lose half their hearing; mine someway improved. I stood in place in the empty clearing in full sunshine and listened hard—that way I could generally catch Ruth clinking a pan indoors or Autry yawning. Silence deep as any gorge. To my knowledge I’d never heard pure silence from them. If one of them went to the woods for something, the other one stayed in sight at least. Something hard in me said They’re gone; they’ve run again and it’s from you, Trump.

  It actually shocked me and I felt a loss I’d never have guessed. All right. It’s yours. Leave clean or stay. I stood a long moment, listening still. There was nothing for a while and then a high breath like the end of a laugh or a pitiful sigh. I went to the door and knocked one time. No answer. I tried it, a rusty latch but it opened.

  It was one cold room that felt as low and round as a bowl tipped over and dark with just the square shaft of light from the window on a handsized piece of the swept dirt floor. A table made from the sawedoff stump of a sizable oak, a single white plate, two battered cups; then back in the shadows, a narrow pallet made out of croker sacks, a bolster stuffed with clean wood chips that spilled at one end—could it sleep two people? By now my eyes had widened to the dimness. Pegs on the walls bore a set and a half of faded clothes—two dresses, a man’s shirt, a pair of trousers bigger than Autry and me together, remnants they’d snatched on their run or found here.

  On the east wall alone hung one small picture, a tintype boxed in a walnut frame carved by hand with flat round roses. Before I got to it, the face burned towards me as strong as a thrust—a beautiful woman not twenty years old with dark hair glossy as horsetail pinned down tight at her ears and topped with a comb. Her eyes were plainly kin to Autry’s and maybe Ruth’s. Someway I knew I should make peace with her, the whole still presence of a woman clearly long-since dead; I took the last steps and kissed the glass lightly at her forehead.

  Then the high breath sounded again from behind me, the sigh I’d heard in the clearing through walls. It froze me where I stood in midair bent towards the picture. I didn’t look round but my empty hands rose up beside me to show I was harmless.

  Nobody spoke though, no other noise.

  And slowly my fright thawed sufficiently to turn me. At first my eyes saw nothing new. But just in the minutes I’d been indoors, the patch of light had moved towards the west wall another two inches and set up an odd white glow in that corner, a gentle shine like the memory of your best deed or dusk on the summer river, floating slow. Another pallet lay there, narrow; another pile of sacks for cover and one old quilt. Had they kept a dog or a pet wild creature that I’d never seen and was gone with them now? Or was it some secret final protection they’d kept and abandoned? For no sane cause I thought of great snakes I’d seen in books, Tasmanian Devils and wolverines, and I actually laughed.

  A child sat up from under the quilt. No nightmare jackal would have shied me worse. I lurched well back, both hands at my face, before my mind could recognize the gold brown hair and gray-green eyes, the skin so young you could read the blood that ran beneath like a confident promise of life to come with fair rewards. A girl all but surely, startled from sleep and unafraid. Maybe six years old with a tall clear forehead, the sign of calm.

  I said “I’m Trump’you heard of me?” Something about her had kept me from lying.

  Her lips stayed shut but she nearly nodded.

  “I work for your folks’I catch the game.”

  She was in a tan nightshirt square as a box, and she didn’t look cold.

  “Let me build you a better fire.” The low tin stove was barely warm though wood lay beside it.

  All the child did was take both hands and work at her hair, laying it straight. The more she smoothed it, the grander she looked. Then while I worked she stayed there kneeling but looked round the room as slowly as if for the world’s last crumb.

  It made me think They’ve left this child someway for good. She’s mine to tend. With my history of shirking plain duties, any such fact should have scared me worse than leaving for the world and its various wars; but for all the next long minutes we spent in silence together, it made me feel entirely in place for the first time in years—maybe since that snowy morning far back, my first day’s love. And once the stove was cracking with heat, I rummaged in the corners further and turned up more things than I’d have dreamed after our recent fare. A big tin box with two pounds of raisins dry as stones but sweet to suck, a small keg of meal that the mice hadn’t breeched, three jars of honey and a glass quart of figs in clear syrup.

  The child by now, when I looked again, seemed older still—maybe seven or eight. Surely she couldn’t be Ruth and Autry’s—weren’t they too young? But with that hair like the tintype lady’s, she could be their sister—their cousin or something they snatched from the house fire and brought here to leave. They’ve gone and she’s mine. Now it made me happy to think so or warm at least. I said it out loud, “It may just be you and me here, darling. So tell me your name.”

  Her lips moved open and she raised a finger into the light, but where I expected words it was singing—some old-time tune I’d heard as a boy, too sad to carry onward through life. Just the first ten notes; then her hand came down. Silent again her eyes stayed on me.

  So I went towards her.

  And she never flinched. Whoever she was, wherever she belonged, you could tell nobody had treated her bad. Her spirit was in one close strong piece.

  I stopped a yard this side of her pallet and went to my knees. I wanted her to see my face and eyes—the best parts of me, on the old Earth anyhow, that people thought they could trust right off.

  She studied my eyes; then rummaged behind her deep in the sacks and held out her hand. A fancy comb carved in amber with mother of pearl
inlay at the edge. It had been on the crown of the tintype lady’s abundant hair, and now this child had clung to it through whatever she’d suffered. When I didn’t move, she held it farther towards me.

  One long moment later I was combing her hair, and she was accepting me naturally as kin or a friend. By the time I had it parted straight and was sorting the tangles, I felt the weight of this plain occasion. I’d touched no female creature in care for more than a year, and my hands trembled some at the pleasure. Whole tracts of my skin that hadn’t known they were famished till now were all but weeping in silent thanks. I told myself Trump, here’s your chance—hell, you’re in the midst of recompensing every woman you’ve harmed. Go gentle and use everything you’ve learned in waste and shame. So when my temples threatened to split, I spoke again. I leaned back on my haunches to see her. “If you don’t have a name you remember, let me call you Joyce.” It had been the name of the bravest girl I ever knew, that I’d seen once in my early manhood and then she’d died with her eyes full on me (one girl at least I’d honored and spared).

  I thought the child was on the verge of gladly agreeing—her mouth came open—but from well behind me, a voice said “No, she’s Margaret Jane.”

  It stalled me again but when I looked, it was Autry filling the whole door frame. From his right hand the axe hung ready.

  Ruth was behind him with an armload of holly, long thick branches of spiky leaves and plentiful berries.

  I said “I heard somebody, see—breathing through the walls—and I knew you were gone; so I came in thinking it might be a stranger.“

  Autry stood on silent.

  But Ruth said “We’ve known her long years.”

  Then Autry reached back and, out of Ruth’s hands, took a whole branch of holly which he held towards the child. He said “Look, Margaret. This here’s your New Year.”

  The child didn’t speak but nobody’s eyes—no bride’s or mother’s— were ever so bright.

  It made me nearly that glad to see her, knowing well I hadn’t scared or harmed her. It also let me know again, and in far harder terms than before, that my path surely led out of here—soon, soon—and might never end.