A Feast of Snakes (17 page)

“I think we ought to stand here and see if we cain’t talk it to death,” said Willard Miller.

“Gender can talk anything to death,” Duffy Deeter said, directing his thousand-yard stare at the near wall.

A girl of about eleven with hair the color of corn and a running nose had come to stay with the babies. She sat quietly in the corner, sucking at her nose.

“For Christ’s sake let’s get out of here,” said Joe Lon, “before they burn the snake without us.”

“I’ll goddam drink to that,” said Susan Gender. They’d called the twirl-off a draw and she wasn’t happy with it. Both she and Hard Candy had promptly forgotten they had gone out there to start with to get Elfie out of the house. As soon as they got to twirling they forgot all about Joe Lon ventilating Hard Candy’s sister and would have gotten into a fight with the batons if Duffy and Willard had not separated them, which Duffy had to convince Willard to help him do because Willard wanted to see them fight.

They all followed Joe Lon out into the yard, where it was already dark enough so they could see the light of an enormous fire on the school ground..

“Shit,” said Willard, “they already burning the snake.”

“That’s a bonfire,” said Hard Candy. “That’s not the snake.”

Saying she had to find Shep before she did anything else, Berenice got in her car and roared out of the yard, the rear end fishtailing and sending clay and gravel back in a steady arching line.

“What the hell ails her?” said Willard.

“She do seem a little edgy, don’t she,” said Hard Candy.

“She oughta calm down now some,” said Joe Lon.

“I magine,” said Susan Gender.

Elfie took Joe Lon’s arm. “Let’s go, honey.”

She and Joe Lon got in the pickup. Willard left Hard Candy’s car in the yard and drove over with Duffy and Susan Gender in the Winnebago. The Winnebago followed the pickup and they went slow because cars and campers and trucks were parked everywhere, on the sides of the road, in the ditches, and people—many of them children lost off from their parents—wandered in and among the parked vehicles.

“I wisht you wouldn’t treat me like a fool, Joe Lon, honey,” said Elfie.

“What?” said Joe Lon, narrowly missing a man carrying a snake.

“I ain’t a fool,” she said. “It’s some might think I am, but I ain’t a fool. You oughten to treat me like I was. Particular in front of strangers.”

“I never said you was a fool.”

“You sometimes got to act like I am.”

“I do the best I can. I cain’t do but one thing at the time.” 

“I know that.”

“You don’t know nothing.”

“I might know more’n you think I know.”

“This don’t get us nowheres,” said Joe Lon. “I don’t want nothing nasty with you.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to be nasty,” he said.

“All right, Joe Lon, honey.”

They had to walk the last quarter mile because the road was choked full of parked cars and campers and pickups parked in every possible attitude, on the shoulder of the road and even in the ditches. They moved slowly, sometimes having to climb on bumpers and over hoods, Duffy Deeter cursing more or less steadily and threatening to make Susan carry him.

“Goddammit, Gender, you liable to have to care me the rest of the way.”

“I’d known it was gone be like this,” said Elfie, “I’d stayed with the youngans, what I’d done.”

They finally stopped in the dark shadow of the oak trees. There was a band up on the stage where the Queen would be crowned. A wide piece of cloth tilted through the space over their heads saying they were called SLICK, SLIMEY AND THE SNAKES
.
Slick and Slimey were the stage names of twin boys who lived four miles out of town on a peanut farm. They both played guitar and all of the members of the Snakes were also members of the Mystic Rattlers Marching High School Band. They wore skin-tight jumpsuits with little sequins sewn into them.

Men and women were packed in under the oak trees and around the stage. As far as Joe Lon could see, heads—close together and seemingly solid as the ground—bobbed and pulsed in an undulating wave to the rhythm of the music. On the little rise of ground where the papier mache snake was built, a circling line of dancers had formed.

“It ain’t no room to do nothing,” said Elfie. “What we gone do with all these people?”

Duffy Deeter had already said something in the way of answering that, but only a word or two when a deep guttural sound came out of the shadows behind them and an enormous form moved solidly out of the darkness and stopped in a three-point stance shouting:
“dowwwn!”
Both Willard and Joe Lon spun and dropped in a crouch.
“Seeetttt!”
They took a three-point stance, head up, back flat, the rear foot digging in. “On twwwoooo!” Then: “Hut
one!
Hut
two!”
And they both fired out and were caught, one on each shoulder, and straightened up. The man who caught them was growling and slobbering and they were growling and slobbering and Duffy and the rest of them jumped out of the way because they thought Joe Lon and Willard were about to be driven back but they dug in after they had been straightened up and fought off the man by giving him several shots to the short ribs with their elbows and a few butts with their heads so that finally they had him all the way back and falling, with them on top. They rolled about in the dirt under the oak tree, growling no longer but all three of them laughing.

“You boys git up!” said the snarling voice in the dark of the oak tree where they were rolling around. “By damn, two on one and me a old man!”

Willard and Joe Lon came out of the shadows followed by the man who had caught them as they fired out of their three-point stance and straightened them up. He was a half inch taller than either of the boys and maybe sixty pounds heavier, with a great swinging gut under his shirt. He walked bowlegged and slightly pigeon-toed, rolling on the balls of his feet. His face was very red and he was chewing tobacco.

He looked at Elf, then at Susan. “Ladies,” he said, touching the bill of his baseball cap. The smell of sweat and whiskey came off him in a palpable mist. But he moved on his massive legs as steadily and smoothly as a ballet dancer.

Duffy again felt he had to introduce himself, since it looked like nobody else was going to. He held out his hand. “Sir,” he said. And when the big man swung his huge bony head to look at him: “My name’s Duffy Deeter. This is Susan Gender. We here for the hunt. Come up from Florida.”

“You in good company, Duffy Deeter.” He took his hand. “Miss Susan, my pleasure.” He put his arms around Willard and Joe Lon. “These’er my boys here. Finest damn boys I ever coached. Good men on and off the field. Coach Tump Walker’s my name. I got boys all over this country. Playing on six pro teams, coaching two. You met Buddy Matlow since you been here?”

“No, I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

“Damn right,” said Coach Tump. “Well, he’s one of mine too. All I got’s my boys. I don’t like to brag. I
don’t
brag.” His face got redder as he talked. “Ever goddam one of’m eat bullets. One of my boys is George ‘Big Freight’ Lester!”

“Who?” said Duffy Deeter.

Coach Tump lifted one of his heavy legs and hustled his balls. “You don’t know who Big Freight Lester is?”

“Don’t believe I do,” said Duffy. He did, of course, know who he was but he didn’t want to sound as though he followed football. Besides, he was jetting a tight feeling, claustrophobic, standing walled in on three sides by Willard and Joe Lon and their coach, and it was making him nervous. He always got mean when he got nervous.

“Big Freight ain’t been nothing but all-pro ever year since he left Alabama is all he’s been. He was one of mine too. Mean as a snake.” He leaned down in Duffy’s face, who didn’t give an inch but pushed back and up with his own hard little face until their noses were practically touching. “Where’d you say you was from?”

“Florida,” said Duffy.

“Went to Florida once,” said Coach Tump. “Coaching clinic. Never went back, never expect to. Cain’t trust any country where ever tree’s got a light in it and a stick propping it up.”

Willard put his hand on Duffy’s shoulder. “He’s all right, Coach. This’n right here is all right.”

Coach Tump Walker hacked up a lunger, spit, and hustled his balls again. “He all right?”

“He
is
all right, Coach,” said Willard.

He looked at Willard. “Boy, I want you to stay out of the bottle tonight.” Then to the ladies: “You don’t mind if a old man has a drink, do you? Chill’s coming up now that good dark’s here.” He didn’t wait for an answer, but reached a bottle from his baggy hip pocket and raised it. In the flashing light from the beauty contest stand where the musicians were sweating and screaming his thick throat pulsed in four quick, heavy spasms. He held the bottle out and looked at it. “It’s one last drink in here, if anybody’s …”

“Go on, Coach,” said Joe Lon, “I got another one ain’t been cracked in the pickup.”

“It do help on a chilly night,” said Coach Tump, finishing it.

Luther Peacock, Buddy Matlow’s deputy, burst suddenly through the people packed together near the right side of the stage and came toward them. Even though the temperature had dropped ten degrees in the last few hours, Luther was sweating. His khaki shirt was sticking to the center of his chest.

“You got to do something,” he said to nobody in particular, although he was looking at Susan Gender.

“What?” said Joe Lon.

“Where’s the Sheriff?” Luther said. “Nobody seen Buddy?”

Willard belched and said, “I ain’t been looking for him.”

“Well, I have. I looked everwhere and he ain’t nowhere.” Luther stopped and looked into the crowd surrounding them on all sides as though he might see Buddy Matlow. “Sumpin’s wrong,” he said. “Sumpin bad’s wrong.”

“Buddy’ll turn up,” said Coach Tump.

“It’s gone be trouble,” said Luther Peacock. “I cain’t handle it by myself.”

“Handle what?” said Hard Candy.

“You ain’t heard they turned two over?” said Luther.

“Turned two
what
over?” said Willard.

“Campers. It’s just too many of’m here and it ain’t enough water and it ain’t enough room. They more fights this year than I ever seen before and now on top of it, Buddy Matlow’s disappeared.”

“Buddy ain’t disappeared,” said Joe Lon. “Most likely layin off in the bushes with somebody he’s trapped.”

Coach Tump said: “Don’t talk like that about a teammate.”

Just then there was a scream, a loud squealing scream over by the papier mache snake that cut right through the music. They could see a tight little knot of people flying about over there, almost as if dancing, so rhythmic did the knot move. But they all knew they weren’t dancing.

“Better go see what that is, Luther.”

For the first time Luther seemed to calm down. Joe Lon was one of the organizers of the Rattlesnake Roundup and Coach Tump was Honorary Chairman. If they were going to take all of it so lightly, Luther decided he would too. “I know what it is over there,” he said, sucking his teeth reflectively, “and I ain’t going near it.”

Joe Lon took Elfie’s arm and guided her a step or two away. He put the keys of the pickup in her hand. “Take these keys and git back to the trailer.” She started to speak, but he shook his head. “I don’t like all this. I never seen’m so rank.”

Just as Elfie was leaving a tall, very thin man squeezed out of the crowd near the tree. He nearly cried he was so happy to see Coach Tump. He actually threw his skinny arms around Coach Tump’s enormous shoulders and pressed himself against the straining mobile belly swinging under the coach’s shirt. “Jesus, Jesus,” he was saying.

Coach Tump turned his head off to the side and looked at Joe Lon. “This one’s the one,” said Coach Tump. “Tainted.” Then he mouthed the word again:
tainted.

The thin man seemed to see Luther Peacock for the first time. He turned loose Coach Tump, who had conspicuously kept his hands off him, enduring his embrace, and rushed over to Luther. He had to bend down to put his face in Luther’s. “Sheriff, am I glad to see … am I…”

“Not the Sheriff,” said Luther. “Deputy.”

“They going nuts over by my camper. They …”

“Going nuts everwhere,” said Luther, turning his hands up to examine his palms. Then he looked out over the crowd surging toward the stage where the band was beginning to falter. “I ain’t responsible.”

“They break open my camper, it’s enough snakes in there to kill half of Georgia.”

“I seen’m,” said Coach Tump. “Sumbitch’s got five hundred penned …”

“Cobras,” the man said, “Russell’s Viper, Mambas, Spotted rattlers, Mohave rattles, red diamonds, westerns …”

“Name Tommy Hugh,” said Coach Tump. “He brought five hundred snakes
to
the Roundup.”

“Tommy Hugh,” said Tommy Hugh, shouting to make himself heard above the crowd. “I got pygmys and corals, an anaconda even. You got to do something.”

“I believe, Gender,” said Duffy Deeter, “Mystic, Georgia, has done tore its ass this time.”

Willard Miller, his voice flat, laconic said: “It’s blood in the air. I can smell it. I can
smell
the goddam blood in the air.”

The band had quit now and the principal of the school was up on the stage trying to start the beauty contest. He was shouting into the microphone but every time he shouted the crowd roared back at him. He finally stopped, staring red-faced down into the surging men and women as he might have stared down at a crowd of unruly children in his auditorium. Except that his face was very red and he’d gone past just being scared. What showed in his eyes and on his trembling mouth looked like terror.

“What the hell we gone do?” said Joe Lon.

“We best go up there and git this straightened out,” said Coach Tump, pulling his pants high onto his belly and then turning them loose and letting them slip again to the place where they rode low on his hips. Without waiting for an answer he charged toward the stage, his tackle-busting belly leading the way, knocking men, women, and children off their feet. When they got to the stage, he and Willard Miller and Duffy Deeter turned to face the crowd, while Joe Lon vaulted lightly up beside the principal and took the microphone. The principal smiled but he looked on the verge of tears. He shouted, “Joe Lon, you … you …”