I was took by surprise and asked Hank to come in and set by the fire.
“Ain’t got but a minute,” he said. He had broad shoulders and a handsome face and forehead.
“How are you doing?” I said.
“Same old sixes and sevens,” he said and laughed. “Feel too old to work and too young to retire.” Hank looked into the fire and he looked at me. He held his hat on his knee and fingered the brim with his big strong hands. He said what he had come for was to talk about Muir.
I hoped he hadn’t come to complain about Muir paying attention to Annie. I told him Muir was somewhere off in the mountains.
Hank said he was awful sorry to hear what had happened to Muir’s church.
“I wanted to ask if it was all right for me to help him on the church,” Hank said. That took me by surprise too, for I didn’t think anybody was interested in building the new church except Muir and me. I told him he didn’t need to ask me.
“Preacher Liner said you disapproved,” Hank said.
I told him I didn’t disapprove. I was just worried about Muir taking on such a big project, and him so young and flat broke. Hank spit tobacco juice into the fire and said he thought Muir had a good idea, and that he wanted to help him.
“You don’t need my permission,” I said. It made me mad that the preacher would tell others I disapproved of the new church. “I mean to help Muir myself,” I said. Hank’s words thrilled me. It meant a lot that somebody else seen the worth of what Muir was trying to do. I didn’t know Hank all that well, but I seen there was more to him than I had recognized before.
“When I was young I had big plans,” Hank said. “But nothing come of them. It’s a wonderful thing when somebody can see beyond the bare needs to what might be.”
I told him that Muir had always been a dreamer and a builder. He had always lived through his imaginings.
“This valley could stand a new church,” Hank said. “I’ve always wanted to build a church, and I’ve never had a chance before. I’ve worked on cotton mills and even built a schoolhouse or two.”
Especially after others had destroyed his work, it made all the difference in the world if just one other person shared Muir’s vision of what could be built. And if one person could understand what he was doing, then others could too and would in time.
I could have kissed Hank I was so grateful and pleased. I could have took his hand and kissed it. But that would have just embarrassed him. I was older than Hank, with gray in my hair. I knowed better than to make a show of my gratitude.
“I won’t be able to help for a few days,” Hank said. “Building is slow in the middle of winter, but I have a little job in Saluda still to finish up.”
IT WAS THREE days later and almost dark when I heard somebody on the porch. I thought it must be Muir come back from his hike into the mountains. I figured he would be cold and hungry, and I was frying up some shoulder meat and had grits boiling in the saucepan. Nothing will warm you up like hog meat and hot grits.
But when the door opened I seen it was Moody. He looked pale and gaunt, like he had been tired and scared for a long time.
“Where have you been?” I said.
“Been around,” Moody said.
“That don’t tell me much,” I said.
Moody stepped to the fire and held out his hands. He looked like he had been shrunk by the cold and by walking a long way. He looked thinner than ever.
“What did you find out?” I said.
Moody turned to me, and his eyes burned with a black soberness I hadn’t seen before. “I’m going to have to leave home for a while,” he said.
“What have you done?” I said. An icicle of dread drove down my spine.
“Found out who busted up Muir’s foundation,” Moody said.
“Who?” I said.
“They done it to get back at me,” Moody said.
“Why would they get back at you?” I said with dread in my voice.
“Long story,” Moody said.
“Supper’s almost ready,” I said. “You can tell me while we eat.” I thought if we could just go ahead and eat, things might turn out all right.
“I’ve got to run,” Moody said.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I think I may have killed one of them,” Moody said.
“One of who?” I said.
“One of the Willards that done the busting up,” Moody said.
“You didn’t kill nobody?” I said.
“I didn’t mean to,” Moody said. But he wouldn’t say any more. He asked me and Fay to fix him some biscuits and side meat, some corn bread. He filled a sack with pans and cups and stuff.
“Boil some eggs,” I said to Fay. I fried some sausage to go with the eggs.
“The law will be after me,” Moody said. “They will ask you where I went.”
“Just tell them the truth,” I said.
“They will put me in jail,” Moody said.
“Not if you was in the right,” I said.
“I ain’t waiting around to find out,” Moody said.
LORD, DON’T LET it be a fact, I said under my breath after Moody left. Let it all be a mistake.
It was a cold clear night, and when I stepped out on the back porch I seen how bright the stars was. The moon hadn’t come up yet, and the stars was so fired up they sparkled in the river and on the branch. Because the air was so still the cold didn’t sink in at first. Cicero Mountain loomed black as a sleeping bear across the river.
Just then I seen lights shoot onto the sides of the hemlocks out by the springhouse, and I heard the rattle of a car. Tut-tut-tut-tut, a motor went, and a jolt of chill shocked through me. Nobody ever drove to the house after dark.
The car stopped at the gate and then come on down the hill. When the lights flooded against the shed I seen the car had a siren on top. The man that got out carried a flashlight. I went back in the house and put the dishpan on the table, then met him at the front door with a lamp.
“Sorry to bother you, ma’am,” the man said. He was wearing a uniform and a trooper’s hat. I did not invite him in.
“We are looking for Moody Powell,” he said.
“He ain’t here,” I said.
“But this is where he resides?” the officer said.
“Sometimes,” I said. “But he ain’t here now.”
“Moody has finally got hisself in real trouble,” the trooper said.
“What kind of trouble?”
“Can I come in, ma’am?” the officer said.
I stood back and let him step through the door, and then I led him to the fireplace.
“I’m Deputy Sheriff Otto Jenkins,” the man said and took off his hat.
“What kind of trouble is Moody in?” I said.
“Moody has killed Zack Willard,” the deputy said.
“How do you know it was Moody?” I said.
“Because Zack’s three brothers seen him,” Deputy Jenkins said.
What could I say that would help Moody? I figured the longer I talked to the officer the more time Moody would have to get away. It was so quiet in the house I could hear a creak and pop in the attic as the house shrunk with cold. The clock on the mantel tapped like time was dripping out of it.
“Moody wouldn’t go to kill nobody,” I said.
“Ma’am, a man is dead and Moody pulled the trigger. It won’t do him any good to run.”
Just then there was another knock at the door, and another deputy that must have been waiting in the car come in. He was a young man, but he was so fat his uniform looked stretched on him.
“This is Deputy Henry Thomas,” the first man said.
“Why would Moody kill one of the Willards?” I said. “It don’t make sense.”
“Might have something to do with liquor,” Deputy Thomas said.
“Why would the Willards bust up Muir’s new church?” I said.
“Don’t know about that,” Deputy Jenkins said.
“Moody said
he knowed who broke up Muir’s rockwork,” I said.
“All I know is, the Willards didn’t want nobody horning in on their bootlegging,” Deputy Jenkins said.
“Moody wasn’t trying to hurt nobody,” I said.
“Ma’am, is Moody here?” Deputy Thomas said. The fat deputy had scars on his face, so his cheeks looked bumpy as oatmeal. I tried not to look at him. His shoulders was too thick for his uniform, but he looked me hard in the eyes like he was an important man.
“He ain’t here,” I said.
“I hate to ask you this, but could we search the house?” Deputy Jenkins said.
I was going to say, Why don’t you take my word for it? or Do you have a search warrant? I felt myself get stiff, and anger washed through me. But getting mad wouldn’t do Moody any good.
“Go ahead, if you want to,” I said. “But you won’t find him here. Neither of my boys is here.”
“Much obliged to you, ma’am,” Deputy Jenkins said.
They took their flashlights and looked in the kitchen and on the back porch. They poked in the closets and in the bedrooms.
“They ain’t got no right,” Fay said to me.
I felt naked with them looking into our things. They found the ladder to the attic and Deputy Jenkins climbed up. I hated for him to see the books and magazines and old furniture scattered up there. The place was nothing but dust and cobwebs, and Pa’s old books and Muir’s drawings laying everywhere.
When Deputy Jenkins come back down there was cobwebs stuck to his hat. He took the hat off and brushed the spiderwebs away. “How many outbuildings do you have?” he said.
“Smokehouse and springhouse, corncrib and shed and chicken house,” I said. “And an old log barn.”
Fay and me stood at the window and watched their flashlights circle and lift as they opened the smokehouse and springhouse. After they searched the barn they come back to the house and asked where the cellar was.
“You won’t find nothing hiding in the cellar but taters,” I said. Taking a lamp from the mantel, I led them out the back door and down the steps to the basement. It was warm in the cellar, compared to the outside. Their flashlights played over the shelves of jars. Sprouts from the taters run like white snakes to the door. I half expected Moody to be hiding there. It was a relief to see nothing but buckets and old sacks and a toolbox against the moldy wall.
When we come back into the house the fire felt mighty good. I wished they would leave. I wished I could think clear about what had happened. Everything was going wrong and moving so fast I couldn’t think what to do.
Deputy Thomas asked me if I knowed where Moody went and I told him I had no idea. I reckon he didn’t believe me. His cheeks looked like they had raisins in the skin.
“It will go easier if he turns hisself in,” Deputy Jenkins said.
“What if he is innocent?” I said. I wanted them to leave. I wanted to find out what had really happened. I wanted to tell Muir what had happened.
“Ma’am, you will feel a whole lot better if you tell us where Moody is hiding,” Deputy Thomas said.
“You could be charged as an accessory if you’re hiding him,” Deputy Jenkins said.
“Are you accusing me of hiding him?” I said.
Deputy Thomas stepped closer and motioned for Deputy Jenkins to back away. “We’re not accusing you of nothing, ma’am,” he said. “All we saying is that it would go a lot easier on Moody if he turns hisself in.”
Twenty-three
Muir
I HAD WATCHED the ranger get killed without even trying to warn him, which was bad enough. But when Mama told me Moody had gone after the Willards and killed Zack by accident, I was dazed. I had been wrong about everything, blinded by my anger and surprise and vanity. And now Moody was wanted by the law.
Let this be a lesson to you, I said to myself, gritting my teeth. Be slow to anger, and even slower to judge. Oh, I am a fine person to build a church.
“I ought to go look for Moody,” I said.
“Wouldn’t do no good if he’s hiding,” Mama said.
“You might lead the law right to him,” Fay said.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I read a story in a magazine where that happens,” Fay said. “A man goes to help his brother and leads the law right to him.”
I knowed there was truth to what Fay said. But surely there must be a way to slip into the woods without the sheriff seeing me. I knowed every branch and sinkhole in the Flat Woods and the Long Holler beyond the Sal Raeburn Gap. But I was too dazed to think straight. When I tried to help I usually made things worse. I couldn’t go looking for Moody unless I knowed for sure nobody would follow me.
I didn’t know what I wanted to do about Moody. He had caused me so much trouble I sometimes wanted to just forget about him. And I felt guilty again for feeling that way. I would tell myself I had to go look for him, and then I would tell myself I couldn’t do that: it wouldn’t be fair to him. I didn’t know what was the right thing to do.
WHILE I WAS thinking about what to do to help Moody, I decided I might as well go back to work on the church. I was troubled in my mind, and there was no other way to pay for my pride and my anger. Things had gone so wrong and crazy, there was nothing to do but climb back up on the mountain and start again. I dreaded to go there. It was the hardest thing, just to look at the mess and start to pick up the pieces.
THE SCENE ON top of the mountain was as bad as I expected. There was nothing to do but look square at it. The rocks I’d laid for the foundation was mostly busted loose from each other. A lot of flat rocks had been broke. Rocks had been throwed off in the woods down the side of the mountain. It had took a lot of work to do all that damage. The mortar box had been chopped up with an axe, and the framework I had started was knocked loose. There’d been almost as much work of destruction as I’d put into making the foundation. I didn’t know where to start. There was so much work to do it staggered me just to think of starting all over again.
But I seen one corner had not been broke. Loose rocks had been piled against it, but the corner itself was intact. That was the place to start again. Beginning with that corner I would rebuild the walls. I cleared limbs and loose boards away from the corner. I brushed leaves away and dusted the cement. I will set these stones in order, I said under my breath. I will take the rocks the Willards broke and set them back in their rightful place.
I gathered the scattered rocks into piles and toted rocks from the edge of the woods and from the brush where they had been throwed. The rocks had to be sorted and aligned. The pieces had been tossed away by anger and ill will. Only patience and care would reassemble them into a church. As I worked I thought about Moody hiding in the woods, and I blamed myself. I knowed there was something I should do, but couldn’t decide what it was.
I walked down to the pasture and caught Old Fan and hitched her to the sled. And I got a water barrel from the barn and filled it at the spring. Water sloshed in the barrel as I drug it up the rough road and then up the side of the mountain. To start again I had to have mortar, and to make mortar I had to have water. I had only two bags of cement U. G. had give me on credit, so I’d have to be careful and not waste any. I nailed the mortar box roughly together.
Mixing cement can be one of the most satisfying jobs. You pour in sand and you pour in the powder of cement, and you pour water in the box, and then you start hoeing it to mix it up. You rake it back and forth and back and forth in the box until the sand is grayish green in the batter. If the mix is too dry it’ll be crumbly and mealy and won’t spread. If it’s too watery it won’t be firm enough to stick. And if the mud is too sandy it won’t set hard enough. But if there’s not enough sand, it won’t hold fast either and will crack and scale off.
As I worked I wondered if Moody was hiding in the Long Holler, or was he in South Carolina? Had he gone to one of the caves on the far side of Ann Mountain? Could I find him without being seen? Would it do any good if I did find him?
<
br /> I hoed the mortar like I was making bread. But the slime reminded me of dung also, and the bitter smell of the cement burned my nose. Gather the rocks and hold them with slime, I said under my breath. Gather the rocks and arrange the earth in an altar.
I cleaned off the rocks that had been busted loose, chipping off the cement with my light mason’s hammer. With the fresh mortar I fitted the rocks back in place again. I fitted them mostly where they’d been before, with a few small changes. It was like the rocks found their places again. I took my ruler and my level and took my try square, and I made the walls more plumb than they’d been before. Having done it once, I knowed better how to do it now. I tried to lay the foundation upright and square. I gathered rocks scattered in the woods and added new ones. To keep the mud soft in the repaired mortar box I added a splash of water and stirred it from time to time.
“So this is where you do your work,” somebody called out. I looked up and seen Mama standing beside the ruined wall. It was the first time she had climbed up the mountain to see my work.
“Don’t look like much now,” I said.
Mama was almost out of breath, and her hair had fell across her eyes. She brushed the hair out of the way and studied the piles of rocks and dirt. “You have made a start,” she said. “I will pay for whatever supplies you need.”
I was so surprised by what Mama said I was embarrassed. My face got hot, and I kept raking and smoothing the mortar in the box.
“With Moody off hiding from the law, and everything so crossed up, I want this family to be doing something,” Mama said, “something that counts.”
Mama handed me a twenty-dollar bill. She said when that run out she would find more.
I stuffed the bill in my pocket and laid the hoe down on the edge of the box. It was like going back to when I was a boy and she showed her enthusiasm for my ideas. When you have big plans all you need is the support of one person. If one can see what you’re doing, then others will follow.
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