Used to be the site of a ranch owned by a man named Foster, he said. First man to drink with me. You can imagine I liked him pretty good. He cut out of here some five years ago. Went to bookkeep for a livery stable in West Virginia. Said he was glad to go back East. Nobody claimed it since this little lake got sucked dry. No fish here no more neither. No water worth a damn but to wet your face with, and even then I believe it’d be a hazard. I just like it on account of it’s quiet and I like the look of them junipers yonder.
The boy looked out and crossed his arms over his chest. After a few moments he sat down next to Frank.
Horse rider and nature lover in one day, he said. I never would’ve guessed it.
John Frank dropped his head between his knees and grinned.
Testament to the human spirit, he said.
They sat a long time. They sat crosslegged on the hardened firmament and picked at the weeds beside them. The clouds rimmed over the sky. They watched the heat of their breath rise and fade into the clay bowl of the lake and finally John Frank spoke with a slow heave. I guess you really do love her then, he said.
The boy did not move but kept looking straight ahead at the desolate water.
And I guess you plan to see it through, one way or the other.
One way or the other, the boy repeated quietly.
Beneath the sounds of the wind he told John Frank about the lawyer and the mountains. He told him what the lawyer had done and what he was now doing.
He dumped the baby in the river? Good lord. And all she done was steal a rake to fetch it with? Jesus and the twelve disciples.
You can see how it comes out, the boy said. No way he’ll let her stay around with all he’s got goin with the mayor.
Why the hell did he bring her here in the first place?
I don’t know. I reckon to have something to abuse. Lots of nights travelin alone, he probably figured. I don’t want to even imagine what he done to her. Couldn’t even imagine it.
But the boy could imagine it and he squinted his eyes and rubbed his shaven head to ward off the vision.
So what is there to do about it now?
The boy glanced over the slope of his shoulder at Frank. I think you know, he said.
John Frank shook his head severely. Now you know that’s impossible, he said. Mayor’s got himself guarded good as the president, and he regrets lettin you walk already. I bet he knows we’re here right now.
John Frank paused and glanced around, then spoke in a hushed tone.
Not to mention that piece-of-work newsman Trewitt been followin him around like a dog for the past month. Says he’s goin to write a big story about the mayor and the town and send it off to his Washington boys. The Cultivation of the West, he’s goin to call it. I heard him say it with my own ears. It won’t work for you, bud. I mean, I suppose none of this makes a damn to you, but I’m tellin you, you got a better chance in outstrippin a train.
He looked pleadingly at the boy. The boy pursed his lips and held up his hands. Alright then, he said. I guess I’ll have to outstrip it.
John Frank paused considerably. He gazed out at the trees across the rim of the lake.
One last thing I guess I ought to tell you then, he sighed. There’s a chance you can still see her. She’s to go to the old church to see the priest. He’s comin down from San Suelo to hear her confessions and give her penance and all. She’s to go there at noon on Friday. Nobody’s really there no more since they started work on the new church and I imagine you could sneak yourself in before they come. That is if they don’t find you out before then. You still got today and tomorrow to stay on the lam and I hope you’ll at least honor that.
The boy stayed looking out at the junipers in the distance. The wind grew colder with each sweep across the plainland and they each huddled in their jackets and stuffed their hands into their pockets.
I wish I could do more, you know? Frank said. Bring the jail keys to you or tie up the mayor or some shit like that. But it ain’t no picture show, Trude. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Wouldn’t even know how to tie a good knot. Shit.
Don’t think of it, the boy said. You done more for me than anyone I can recall.
They watched the arms of the trees shiver and roll upon themselves for a long time and at length the boy stood and put out his hand to John Frank and John Frank took it and the boy dragged him to his feet. Come on, he said. I’ll ride you back.
What about the lawyer? Frank asked.
The boy pulled on his gloves and righted his hat. We’ll meet yet, he said.
I don’t think so. Way I understand it is even he’s got himself guarded by the Ralstons now. And he ain’t never been easy to find in the first place, has he?
No. But we’ll meet yet.
You think he’ll give down his milk about it all?
The boy almost laughed. No, he said. I don’t.
So what do you aim to do?
The boy held his laced hands for John Frank to step into and hefted him into the saddle. I aim to make him soft where he’d been hard.
They rode the back country and came upon the outskirts of town, whereupon John Frank said he should walk the rest of the way and that he’d rather anyway. My ass is killin me, he said. The boy got down with him.
It was late now though no trace of sun or moon could be found, and all the day had seemed to pass as if it were the same hour which itself was untraceable. The wind was very cold and the mountains appeared to be pulsing in the distance and the world itself seemed gray and black and even the trees leaned heavy with age and decay.
The boy and the Italian stood before each other as if not knowing what it was they wanted to say or how to say it or if it would be worth saying at all. John Frank said again that he was damn sorry and the boy took him by the shoulders and they embraced for a moment in that cold and empty place. Perhaps they both knew that it might very well be the last time they saw each other for a long time and if not for a long time then forever.
The boy watched John Frank go down the road, making exaggerated bowlegged strides and looking back at the boy with a sad grin on his face. When he was all but out of sight the boy mounted his mare again and took up the reins and said, Best get on, and they did, riding the country that went deeper and colder than he could remember from all days before.
* * *
FIVE HOURS OF solitude by the old man’s river found the boy wrapped in his bedroll and sitting on the banks of the water. The old man was inside sick and yellow since he put the bottle away. The boy could hear him hacking and once he heard a long desperate oath muttered through the cabin walls. Birds called out thinly, their songs falling brittle and bare from the sparse trees. He rubbed his shaven head and under the bedroll he held his ribs which had started to ache with the darkening weather.
The boy sat alone hour into hour as he had grown to do and he knew the ways of solitude and that in solitude it was fruitless to try to speed the passage of time or worry about its passing but rather that it was better to sit and watch. Sit and watch and let it go by and not think of what things were being lost in that time because things would always be lost and whether they were lost in solitude or in a great shudder of the masses it mattered very little.
In the distance where the mountains stood formidably against the steel sky he thought he could see snow falling. In the gaunt light that lilted from those mountains he thought of her alone in her cell, her soft head resting on the flimsy pillow and her dark eyes turned down. He tried to imagine his mother’s face before him, some of her words of comfort carried through the winds of his mind, but he could not. She had become lost to him among all new and other days, and what still remained to be done.
By and by he stood up, flicking the butt of his cigarette into the brush and going back inside the cabin. The old man sat sprawled and wrecked at the table. The boy went by his side and slapped him sharply on the back.
How you holdin up, old man.
Fuckin killin me, boy.
The old man held the cup to his trembling jaw and drank at it. Tastes like mud, he said.
The boy sat in the opposite chair and polished his pistol and shucked the old shells from the rifle and reloaded it and cleaned the barrels with a piece of chicken wire while the old man talked himself to sleep. When he had finished with the guns he sat with his hands folded on the table. After a long time he fingered his neck and lifted up the silver chain and grasped the silver amulet. For a while he just looked at it. For a while longer he ran his fingers over his mother’s name. Then he polished it as well as he could and lowered it very carefully into his back pocket. He took up his guns and refilled the cup of water and set it on the table where the old man was mindlessly working his arms with his fingers while he slept, and went out the door.
He packed the rifle in the saddlebag and pushed his pistol into his belt and patted the mule’s head and climbed onto the mare. They rode high on the mesa with the blue light of the mountains pouring down across the horse’s chest. When he hit Old 17 he pulled up the reins and walked the horse down the road, holding his hand to his brow to shield his eyes from the sudden break of sun.
By the time the boy had adjusted his eyes to the glare and saw them standing in the road, it was too late to turn around. The guns they held aimed at him were long and familiar and they each rose in succession from a card table that had been situated in the road ditch. There were four this time, the waxed mustaches like dark blades upon their mouths. They stepped away from the table and the buckets of beer and ice. One of them held his cards up to the boy as if to call his bluff.
He was thirty yards away when he tried to make a turnaround and remount his horse. When he was up in the saddle he shot a glance back and saw the Ralstons piling into a car parked by the card table. He came down from the mare and dropped the reins and turned back and started walking down the road toward them.
The driver saw him coming. He called to the others and they all stepped out of the car. They met the boy in the middle of the road. One stepped forward with a grin and shucked the boy’s pistol from his belt and slid the rifle loose from the saddlebag with the mare stepping nervously away. We meet again, he said.
It was the leader who had taken him to the river.
What’d ya think? You’d just mosey on out here and we’d lay down the red carpet for ya? He laughed heartily and looked around at his brothers. Who’s this kid think he is? Jesse fuckin James? He came forward and took the boy under the arm. Someone’d like to talk to you.
He led him to the car. The boy made no protest at all. Get in, the leader said. Tie up that horse, he called to another.
One of the men got in front with the leader and another slid in the back with the boy and held his own pistol to the boy’s cheek.
Why you wastin your time like this, boy? You must be dumb as dirt to waste your time on a girl. And some kind of nigger girl, no doubt. Somebody must’ve filled your head with rocks. You got rocks in your head, boy? He shook the boy’s head with his free hand. I think I hear em bangin around in there. You hear em boys?
The men chuckled coldly and watched the road. When they reached the gate the boy saw the Englishman standing in the front yard throwing a horseshoe at an iron post driven into the ground across the brown lawn. When the car came into the drive the lawyer looked up and saw the boy in the backseat. He started across the lawn. His walk was slightly plagued by a slump in his shoulder where the boy had cut him. He came to the car and the car stopped next to him and he opened the door. Please, he said. I’ve been expecting you.
The Englishman stepped back and let the boy out and leaned into the car and thanked the men and told them to stand by. They nodded with prideful faces and set their guns in their laps.
You got it, the leader said.
The Englishman led the boy across the lawn to where a pair of wicker rockers sat in the grass. Sit, he said.
The boy stayed standing, looking around at the horseshoe posts and the chairs and the car, unbelieving it was the same empty place he had so long visited.
Yes, the lawyer said, watching the boy’s eyes, I have been a long time in waiting for this matter to clear up. And you have been very persistent indeed. But after Saturday all will be well. Now sit, he said, drawing from his vest a small revolver and pointing it at the boy’s chest.
The boy sat. The Englishman leaned daintily into the other chair and leveled the pistol at him and began rocking. He rocked with a steady push from his foot and waved the pistol around thoughtlessly. I should have killed you in the mountains, he said. And I could have. Very easily. Perhaps all this would not have gone so far. He paused the rocker and settled the pistol on the boy again. But it has.
You son of a bitch, the boy said.
Oh, the Englishman said, easing back in the rocker. It is not wise to take such a tone. Didn’t your father ever tell you that it’s not wise to insult a man who is holding a gun to your face?
If he did I don’t recall nor do I care.
My, my, the Englishman said. The youthful spirit.
The boy made to stand and hit him but the Englishman spun and locked the pistol down on the boy’s eyes. The boy slumped back into the chair again. He put his hand over his face. Then he looked up at the man again.
Why? he said.
The Englishman pressed the boy with a stare. Necessity, he said. That is why. Necessity. The Englishman sat and leaned out of the chair and put the pistol into the boy’s chest. If it wasn’t my doing, it would have been someone else’s. I could have killed her before as well, you must know. But I spared her. I thought perhaps she’d let it pass and I would locate some job for her and she could try and have a go at it for herself. Very generous of me, you must agree. But she did not let it pass. He paused and withdrew the pistol and began again to rock. She had to go and steal that rake. Had to go and try to discredit my name before I even got settled in. Now how is a man to make a good name for himself with such fanfare surrounding him? Quite impossible, I assure you. This, at the very least, your simple mind understands.
She stole a rake, the boy said with the same lack of animation that stared out at him from the Englishman’s eyes.
A rake, a car, a lock of hair. What is the difference among those things? I think you should be able to see it. It is not the object, it is the intent. The Englishman went on rocking. I am an indispensable figure for the mayor, he said. He needs me. He needs my reasoning. He is sometimes swayed by sentiment. In a business such as ours there is no room for sentiment. You, for example.
He waved the gun at the boy again, as if in offer of some trivial council.
The mayor should not have let you go. He knows this now, but here you are. Prepared to kill me, I’m sure. No, he should not have let you go but as I said, sometimes he is swayed by sentiment. He likes you, I believe. To a certain degree at least. He thinks you are foolish but he does not condemn you for it. Perhaps because in many ways, as in this case, he is foolish too. But you see, there must be some amount of condemnation for those who are foolish, just as there must be for those who aspire beyond their place or those who don’t seem to have any sense about them at all. People like this are reckless and certainly dangerous and they have no regard for the way things are set up around them.
The boy sat very still. The Englishman kept rocking steadily as if he meant to torture the boy with the monotony of it. Now and again he glanced over at the car where the Ralstons were hipped up against the open doors of the car and watching them blankly.
See them, he said. Those men are not smart. But those men know it and know their place. I’m sure you have been made to understand such a thing. They do not try to leap from their confines.
The Englishman paused and put up a finger in retraction.
Not confines, he said. Boundaries. They know their boundaries. That, in turn, makes them smart. Not smart in an intellectual way, for such a cause i
s lost on them. But smart in the ways of the world. You don’t seem to share that with them. And no matter how smart you may be otherwise, on the whole you are very stupid.
Which makes you the smartest man in the world, I imagine.
In this world, perhaps. Yes. The world of here. The world of this town.
The boy put his hands over his face. When he let them down the Englishman was still rocking, his eyes studying the boy.
I’d give you my word we’d never come back here again.
Your word? The Englishman raised his eyebrows. And what word would that be? he said. How young you are indeed.
Then you could watch us leave, the boy said. Have us followed all the way to the Yukon if it pleased you.
The Englishman shook his head and smiled. You truly do not understand, he said. I have been crossed by Delilah. I have been crossed by you. Do you think I did not notice the scratches on the lock of my docket you so long delivered to me? Shall I throw flowers at your departure for that, bid you a fond farewell into the setting sun? That would not be smart of me. That would make me a very stupid man.
He leaned forward and studied the boy’s face with a false tenderness.
However, I have decided to let you go. Call it sentiment. Or call it the fact that I think to watch Delilah hang would be a fine lesson for you. Something to realign your thinking. Something that will show you at last that in this matter there is no choice for you. That in this matter you are relegated by your boundaries. The Englishman took a long breath and stopped rocking. So, he said. It is decided. Of course we will hold your guns here for safekeeping. And we will watch closely for you on Saturday. He turned away to the mountains again and smiled at them. Yes, he said. A reckoning for all.
The Englishman got up from the rocker. He raised his collar against the winds and looked around the yard. I believe the cold will put off my horseshoe game, he said. Unless you’d like to stay and play awhile.
He smiled into the empty stare of the boy, then sighed and waved the pistol about and called for the Ralstons who came trotting out into the yard.
The Sound of the Trees Page 25