The Run for the Elbertas

by James Still

  In the evening, while I was cudgeling my mind to decide what to do Monday, Argus brought a message. He reported: “Old Mace announces he’ll clear the package at the post office tomorrow, and he’s inviting the doubters to come witness it. Says he wants the schoolteacher there in particular.”

  I replied bitterly, “He’s setting the stage for a hoax.”

  Argus chuckled, “That fox would saw off a toe for a laugh. He’s the cat’s beard.”

  “In my opinion,” I blurted, “he’s the downfall of the Keg Branch School.”

  Argus jerked his chin, surprised at my accusation, and he defended Crownover. “Had it not been for him, you’d be teaching in a shack,” he said. “Squirrels used to steal the lunches through the cracks. Come a high wind, shingles scattered like leaves. Walk the floor, you made a noise like a nest of crickets.”

  To argue would serve no purpose, I decided. I smothered my rancor and said, “The package doesn’t concern me.”

  “A trick, naturally,” Argus said, “and he may pull it on you. Nevertheless, be on hand and show you’re not bluffed out. Remember that courage goes a long way in this community.”

  Though tempted, I said, “I’ve borne enough misdoings for one week.”

  “Humor the old gent,” Argus advised. “I’ll go along and start him talking so he won’t rack you too heavy. Go, and count it a part of your education.”

  The post office occupied a corner of the general store just above the schoolhouse. Saturday morning early, when Argus and I arrived, the counters and feed bags and barrels were covered with men, and the crowd overflowed onto the porch. Argus found a seat on a sack of salt, and Zack Tate, postmaster and merchant, furnished a crate for me to sit on. A stool stood bare, awaiting Mace.

  Argus proposed to Zack, “Let’s try loosening Mace’s tongue. Before he locks his lips absolutely, we ought to hear him relate one more tale.”

  Zack agreed. “Say we do. We’ll try, though it seems nowadays his wife has him twisted down tighter’n a nut on a bolt.”

  The crowd smiled expectantly.

  “You believe he’ll have money enough to free the package?” someone asked.

  Zack said, “He’s just wagging you fellers. Haven’t you learned that?”

  “I know him well enough not to read him off too quick,” came the reply.

  A man inquired, “Anybody made a reasonable guess what’s in the bundle?”

  “Maybe the devil’s eyeteeth,” a joker said.

  Time passed. Eight o’clock came without a glimpse of Mace. At eight-thirty, the mail rider reported he’d seen nobody along the creek road. By nine, the men had become restless.

  To hold them, Argus said, “Mace is giving the crowd a while to swarm and will appear right shortly.”

  Right as a rabbit’s foot! It wasn’t long before a cry arose outside. “Yonder comes Old Scratch!” And presently Mace was standing in the doorway. The walk had winded him, and he was panting. He was about sixty-five years of age, widefaced and bushy-browed. His eyes were as blue as a marsh wren’s eggs in a ball of grass.

  Argus shoved the post office stool forward, greeting, “You’re late, Old Buddy. Sit and rest and give an account of yourself.”

  “I promised my wife I’d do my duty and hurry home,” Mace answered. He scanned the crowd, his gaze settling on me.

  “What antic delayed you?” Argus baited. “Confess up.”

  “Why, I’m a changed character,” Mace snorted. He accepted the offered seat, still looking in my direction. When he’d regained his breath he addressed me, “I figure you’re the new teacher.”

  I nodded coldly.

  “I’m hoping to thresh out and settle a matter today,” he spoke gravely.

  Zack Tate broke in, “The package is ready any time you are, Mace.”

  “It’ll preserve an extra minute,” Mace replied.

  Argus caught his chance. “Tell us a big one while you rest. Tell of the occasion you turned the tables on the town barber after he’d short-shaved you.”

  Mace jerked his head as if slapped. “Never in life has a razor touched my jaws.”

  “You singe them off, aye?”

  “Now, no,” Mace said. “I climb a tree, tie my whiskers to a limb, and jump out.” While the crowd guffawed, he pinned me with a stern glare and said, “The word comes the scholars are running you bowlegged. Still, their behavior has improved mightily over last session. Not a window broken, not a desk whittled, not a peephole drilled through the walls.”

  Argus spoke quickly to draw Mace’s attention. “Come on and relate some rusty you’ve pulled and we’ll not bother you more. You be the chooser. Anything.”

  Mace’s eyes sparkled despite himself. “Let me name the word ’rusty’ and my woman will wring my neck. And remember, I’m trying to conquer my trifling.”

  The men batted eyes at each other. Mace was a slick hand at double talk.

  “Ah, quit stalling,” Argus begged. “Tell of the foot logs you doctored to snap in two under people, the gallus straps cut during election rallies, the ’dumb-bulls’ you fashioned to stampede cattle. Or tell of you dying—playing stone dead purely to hear your kin hallo and bawl.”

  But Mace would not. He went on talking to me. “I decided last spring, if matters rode unhindered, the Keg Branch children would grow into bad citizens.”

  “Hark! Hark!” Zack Tate cried.

  “Somebody had to take hold of the problem,” Mace said, “and I did. I took to spying on other schools to learn why ours didn’t prosper. It boiled down to a couple of needs: a new schoolhouse, and a collection of stuff. The schoolhouse is built. Lastly, the stuff’s here.”

  The crowd smirked.

  Mace rose, hat in hand. “You know me, my friends, and surely you don’t want your young’uns marching in my tracks. You have a chance to straighten them out, so unknot your money sacks and give till it pinches.” He held his hat brim up, dug a half-dollar from his pocket, and dropped it in. At sight of the coin, both Zack and Argus gasped.

  “What’s in the bundle?” a complaint sounded. “We’re buying a pig in a poke.”

  “Don’t you trust me?” asked Mace.

  “Gee-o, no!” was the reply.

  “Well, my wife doesn’t either,” Mace sighed. “The reason I’ve got to hurry.” He passed the hat, cajoling and pleading. “Cough up, you tightwads, you eagle chokers. Forty dollars will buy peace. And recollect it’s in your children’s behalf.”

  None took Mace seriously, though most were willing to help the prank along. They flung money into the hat and laughed.

  But to Argus, who shucked loose a dollar bill, Mace said, “We’ll not accept a penny from you.”

  Argus was puzzled. “My money will spend the same as the next person’s,” he said.

  “Hold your ’tater,” Mace said, “and directly I’ll tell what you’re assessed. You’re to give the most.”

  “Huh!” grunted Argus in bafflement.

  When it appeared the last dime had been bled out of the crowd, the money was counted. It lacked ninety cents of reaching the full amount.

  Argus offered, “I’ll finish the pot.”

  Mace shook his head.

  Zack volunteered, “Mace, I’ll throw in the remainder if you’ll agree to one simple thing.”

  “Say on,” bade Mace.

  “Confess how you came by your half-dollar.”

  “You wouldn’t believe the truth, did you hear it.”

  “Speak it, and I’ll try.”

  Mace squirmed on the stool. He moaned, “I oughten to throw away a precious secret. After you know, you’ll all follow the practice, and money will get too common. It won’t buy dirt.”

  “Tell and be done.”

  “I hate to.”

  “We’re listening.”

  Mace yielded grudgingly. “Fetching that fifty-cent piece was the cause of my tardiness,” he said. “I had to travel clear to the breaks of the mountains to upturn a rock I’d spit under six mont
hs ago. A pity I couldn’t have waited a year. By then it would have grown to a dollar.”

  The package was brought. The crowd moved warily aside as Mace unclasped his knife, thrust the handle toward Zack, and said, “Cut the twine and open it.”

  “Aye, no,” Zack refused. “Someone else can play the goat.”

  “Upon my word and deed and honor!” Mace blared. “Do you think it’s full of snakes?”

  “It’s untelling,” Zack said.

  Mace appealed to Argus. “Open it quick. I’m bound to hustle.”

  “Scared to,” Argus replied honestly.

  Mace lifted his hands in sorrow. He groaned, “I’ve come on a bitter day. I’ve totally lost the confidence of my fellowman.” As he spoke, he moved toward me, proffering the knife. “Here,” he said, “prove I’m not a false speaker.”

  I shrugged. I’d as lief as not. Hadn’t Argus said courage was honored on Keg Branch? I accepted the knife, and mouths in the crowd stretched to laugh. I cut the twine and broke the wrappings, and out rolled a volley ball, a basketball, baseballs, nets, and bats.

  As we blinked Mace told Argus, “You’re to donate the playground—a piece of the land you own across from the schoolhouse. The scholars need elbow room to burn up their surplus energy.”

  All stared in wonder, but mine was the only face that bore a fool’s look.

  Mace clapped on his hat and strode toward the door. At the threshold he glanced round, his eyes shining. “I’m going home and tell my wife to skin me alive for mixing in sorry company.”

  It turned out that I taught through the entire session on Keg Branch—and two more besides.

  The Run for the Elbertas

  AS Riar Thomas approached the Snag Fork bridge, the truck lights picked up the two boys sitting on the head wall. Glancing at his watch, he saw it was nearly one o’clock. He halted, pulled the cardboard out of the broken window, and called, “I’ll open the door from the inside, it’s cranky.” The boys sat unmoving. “Let’s go,” he said, “if you’re traveling with me. A body can’t fiddle in the peach business.”

  Godey Spurlock began honing his knife on the concrete, and Mal Dowe got his out too. “Pay us before we start,” Godey said. “We hain’t going to be slicked.”

  “What I say,” said Mal.

  “My grabbies!” Riar chuffed. “You ever know me hiring anybody and failing to settle?”

  “They tell you trade out of paying,” Godey said. “People didn’t name you ’Tightwad’ for nothing.” Yet it wasn’t the money that made Godey stall. He was angling to help drive.

  Mal said, “Doss and Wint Colley claim you skinned them the last trip.”

  Riar snapped the clutch in irritation. “Nowadays,” he snorted, “you can hear everything but the truth and the meat a-frying.” And he said, “Why do you think I take my own help? To see I get the fruit I buy. Doss and Wint let the loaders short me a dozen bushels. Still I paid off.”

  “Yeah,” said Godey, “in rotten peaches.”

  “I’ve tried several fellers,” Riar explained, “and the shed crews stole them blind. I need fellers sharp to the thieves. They can trick you and you looking at them.”

  “Not us they can’t,” Godey said. “We hain’t lived sixteen years for nothing.” He slid from the head wall, and Mal followed. “Settle now and we’ll guarantee you full measure.”

  “You know us,” said Mal.

  “Never in life have I paid for work before it was done,” Riar declared, “and I don’t aim to begin.” He waited. “Are you going or not? Make up your heads.”

  Edging toward the truck, Godey said, “Promise to let me drive a dab, and we’ll risk you.”

  “Risk me,” Riar hooted, slapping the wheel. “If there’s another person who’d undertake hauling you jaspers from Kentucky to South Carolina and back I haven’t met the witty.”

  Godey insisted, “Do I get to steer after a while?”

  Riar raced the engine impatiently, and the cattle rack clattered behind. “Crawl in,” he said, “I can’t fool. To deal in ripe peaches and come out you’ve got to run for them. It’s a five-hundred-mile round trip, and I’ll have to get there in plenty of time to make arrangements and load by sundown. We’ve got a splinter of Virginia to cross, a corner of Tennessee, and North Carolina top to bottom.”

  “I’ll give you my knife to drive a speck. It has four blades and all kinds of tricks and things.”

  Riar shook his head. “I’m gone.”

  Godey saw Riar meant it and they got in. He warned Riar, “Anybody who beats us will be a-hurting.” And he said, “If you want to keep me acting pretty you’d better give me the wheel along the way.”

  “Now, yes,” echoed Mal.

  Though it was July the night was chilly. Riar said, “Stuff the board in the window or you’ll get aired.”

  “I’ll not ride blind,” Godey said.

  “When you begin freezing,” said Riar, “don’t halloo to me.”

  Mal said, “Let me sit on the board. They’s a spring sticking me through the cushion.”

  Godey laughed. “That makes it mean,” he said, and he sat upon the cardboard himself. The truck sputtered in starting, and he teased Riar, “What about a feller who’d hang on to a wreck?”

  “She’ll run like a sewing machine in a minute,” Riar said.

  “Too stingy to buy a new, aye? Can’t say farewell to a dollar.”

  Riar said, “You knotheads know the cost of a truck? They’ll bankrupt you.”

  “The fashion you scrimp, you ought to be rich as Jay Goo.”

  Riar grunted. “Boys don’t understand beans,” he said, and in his truck’s defense, “I’ve had her repaired for the trip, though I couldn’t afford it: brakes relined, spark plugs changed, retreads all round.”

  “Yeah,” Godey ridiculed. “Fenders flopping, windows cracked out. A bunch of screaks and rattles.”

  “We heard your old gee-haw four miles away,” added Mal.

  Riar said, “Doubt you not, she’ll carry us there and fetch us back—with two hundred bushels of peaches.” And he mused, “I used to mule in goods from Jackson. Occasionally my wagon would break down and I couldn’t fix it. I’d walk up the road and ’gin to whistle. Fairly soon it would come to me what to do.”

  “My opinion,” said Godey, “the most you calculate on is how to dodge spending money.”

  “Listen,” Riar said gravely, “I’ve barely my neck above water. Bought the tires on credit, went into debt for repairs. I’ll have to make a killing this run to breathe. And if I am a grain thrifty it’s on behalf of my family.”

  “They say,” plagued Mal, “you’re married to the woman on the silver dollar.”

  “Let me give you some gospel facts,” said Riar.

  “We can bear it if you can spare it,” sang Godey.

  “I try to keep bread on the table and shoes on my young’uns’ feet. And I treat the other feller square. I’m straight as an icicle.”

  “What about the rotten peaches you put off on Doss and Wint Colley?” reminded Godey. “Preach a sermon on that.”

  “The fruit at the bottom of the load was mashed shapeless and beginning to spoil,” said Riar, “yet the Colleys asked for them instead of pay. Claimed they wanted to plant the seeds and commence an orchard.”

  “Idjits might swallow that tale,” said Godey, “but not us. You believe yourself they actually wanted the seeds?”

  “I’ve come on different knowledge since.”

  “For what? Tell me.”

  “You won’t hear it from me.”

  Mal saw light suddenly. “Just one thing they could of done—made peach brandy.”

  “You reckon?” blurted Godey, his ire rising. “Lied to skip giving us a taste?”

  “It’s plain as yore nose,” said Mal.

  “By jacks,” Godey huffed, “we’ll work on their dog hides.”

  “What’s the profit in revenge?” Riar chided. “Swapping ill with your fellow man?”

&nb
sp; “You don’t know?” asked Godey in mock surprise.

  “No,” said Riar.

  “Then I’ll tell you. It makes you feel a whole heap better.”

  Mal asked Riar, “Don’t you ever get mad and fly off the hinges?”

  “I try to control myself,” said Riar. And he advised, “You two ought to get some sleep. We’ll have no pull-offs for naps along the road.”

  Mal twisted on the cushion. “Upon my honor,” he grumbled, “this seat is eating my breeches up.”

  Morning found them in the Holston Valley of Tennessee, and the sun got busy early. The moment the ground mist melted, it was hot. The truck was standing at a gasoline pump, the attendant hose in hand and inquiring, “How many?” when Godey woke. Godey’s eyes flew open. He said, “Fill her up to the wormholes.”

  “Five gallons,” said Riar.

  Godey yawned, bestirring Mal. He said, “I never slept me nary a wink last night.”

  “Me neither,” fibbed Mal.

  “You snore just to make the music, aye?” said Riar. “It was hookety-hook between you.”

  Godey said, “Why don’t you fill the tank and not have to stop at every pig track?”

  “Ever hear of evaporation?” asked Riar. “A lot goes away before you can burn it.”

  Godey wagged his head. “Tight as Dick’s hatband,” he informed the attendant.

  Mal said, “Saving as a squirrel.”

  Directly they were on the road, Godey announced, “I’m hungry, Big Buddy, and what are you going to do about it?”

  “We’re carrying food the wife prepared,” Riar said. “We’ll halt at the next black spot.”

  “You expect to feed us stale victuals?” Godey complained. “Give us a quarter apiece to buy hamburgers.”

  Riar said, “During my boy days a quarter looked big as a churn lid. Did a body have one he stored it. Now all the young understand is to pitch and throw.”

  “The truth,” mocked Godey. “Saturday I was in town, and I hadn’t been there ten minutes when bang went a dime.”

  “We have food in plenty, I tell you,” Riar insisted, “and any we don’t use will be wasted.”

  “So that’s the hitch,” scoffed Godey. “Before I’d live like you I’d whittle me a bill and peck amongst the chickens.”