Hardcastle (15 page)

“I heard the guards didn’t do a hundred-percent job either way,” Regus said, and then all at once he stopped talking and went down on one knee. He seemed to study the ground in front of him for a moment before, with great dignity, he took off his miner’s cap, rid his mouth of the quid of tobacco, and vomited. “I believe,” he said, sitting on his heels, his hands propped on his knees, “I’ve had more of that shine than I can keep surrounded.” He sat very still for a few moments. “I surely do apologize,” he said, “but I’m a little dizzy, not bein a drinkin man.”

All at once Music felt dizzy himself, as though Regus’s honesty had made him aware of it. The mountain seemed to turn on its base, counterclockwise against the spread of stars, and he had to hold on to a branch of laurel and bend his knees for better balance.

“Ahh,” Regus said, “this ain’t no kind of world for a thinkin man.” He seemed to ponder that a moment and then vomited again before he nodded his head as though in firm agreement with himself. He picked up his cap with the carbide lamp on it and handed it to Music. “You lead, Bill Music, and I’ll follow. The light don’t do me no good noway if I can’t walk where I’m lookin.”

For a long time they climbed the mountain behind Mink Slide. Once or twice Fetlock doubled back to check on them and then went on ahead, having slowed down considerably, as they had. Music felt guilty and somewhat chastened for having gotten Regus drunk and for having had so much to drink himself. In spite of the cold, the liquor had put a fine mist of sweat across Music’s forehead, as though he were ill and in a fever, although he felt all right. Still, when they crossed a spring branch, Music knelt and drank from his cupped hands, and icy as the water was, washed his face and the back of his neck. Regus drank too, and they sat for a while and rested and talked a little. The talk was easy, quiet, without the least bantering. Music told about a night when he and his brothers were coon hunting along the Mill River in Virginia, and a young dog, about eight months old and brave if not smart, had caught a coon in the middle of the river and been drowned by it and damned near caused the drowning of Music’s younger brother and himself. The coon had simply climbed up on the dog’s head and held him under. Music told how his younger brother had jumped in trying to save the dog, for it was his and he prized it, there being almost nothing else in the world that belonged to him alone. So Music had had to jump in to get his brother out, although he could not swim a stroke. He had pushed his brother and shoved him and even kicked him into the bank before he swallowed so much water he could do nothing more. He had thought he was dying. He had heard, in the water or in his blood, the deep tolling of a bell going
BONG
…
BONG
…
BONG
. But then the current had taken him into shore, and his two brothers had dragged him out, more dead than alive. They had worked on him, trying to mash the water out of his lungs while he puked and wheezed. They had never spoken a word about it to their father or mother, for Music hadn’t wanted it known how little sense they had exhibited. They had only told about the silly young dog catching the coon in the middle of the river and getting drowned for his trouble.

All the while Music talked, Regus listened intently, his mild face strangely without a trace of its usual humor. It would have been a good thing to have brothers or sisters, he said, but Ella hadn’t had any luck with her babes, having lost two of them to thrush before they were a year old and another to the epidemic flu. She had almost lost him as well, which would have been an awful shame for her, he said, as though counting himself for nothing and taking her perspective in the matter entirely. He’d had the dysentery and the camp doctor had given him up, but an old granny woman had begun to doctor him with some sort of medicine, and he pulled out of it. Ella had thought the medicine miraculous and had copied down the name of it so that she could name him after it and, therefore, honor whoever had invented the potion which had saved her son. They had not learned until Regus was in school that Ella had not copied down the name of the medicine at all, but only the abbreviations stamped on the bottle: “Reg. U.S. Pat.Off.”

Although something about Regus’s face changed a bit in that moment, so that Music felt it would have been all right to laugh if he wanted to, Music did not feel like laughing. Regus brought out his plug of tobacco and offered it to Music, who raised the palm of his hand and shook his head. After Regus had cut himself a chew, he said, “I’d be obliged though, Bill Music, if you didn’t let on to Momma ye know how I got my name. Hit’s caused her a right smart of embarrassment.” Regus swapped his quid from one corner of his mouth to the other, tucked it in his cheek, and spat. “She’s right sensitive about it,” he said, and his eyes crinkled at the corner, “though I don’t see why. It’s a good enough name. I think I’d favor it over Castor Oil, say.”

They both laughed then, and after a moment Regus fished out his pocket watch and read it in the light of Music’s carbide lamp. “Eleven-thirty,” he said. “I reckon if we’re to get any sleep a’tall, we ort to pack it in.”

“Yes,” Music said, “but we could let the dog take a cast or two and catch him up when he doubles back.” He took the mason jar out of his pocket. There was two inches of whiskey left in the bottom. He set the jar in the spring branch and propped a heavy, flat stone on it to hold it down. “Who knows,” he said, “we might come back this way some night, and it would be good to have a taste waiting on us.” He dried his hands on his britches and rubbed them together. “What say I build us a fire till Fetlock shows?” he said.

“Sure,” Regus said.

But Music had barely gathered a little squaw wood and lit it when Fetlock came loping by to check on them. He was so tired his shoulders and rump were bouncing like a child’s rocking horse, and when Regus clucked to him, he came willingly. Music kicked out the fire and gathered up the little falling-block .22 rifle and the burlap sack with the opossum in it. Regus put Fetlock on the leash he’d made of his belt. And the three of them began the long walk home.

Registered United States Patent Office Bone, Music thought; surely that wouldn’t make a woman carry her head so humbly or keep her from looking another human being in the eye. Naming Regus in such a manner was a grand gesture, no matter how it had turned out. To think of it, to be hunting, to be mellowed with corn liquor beyond even the reach of fatigue, put him in a wonderful mood. It seemed to him he hadn’t been so content since he’d left home, since, indeed, the last time he’d been hunting back in Virginia. He hadn’t been out for coon then, but for turkey—his secret weapon a turkey call he’d made from a piece of cow horn with a nail driven into the tip. No call ever imitated the yelp of a hen so faithfully as his did when a small stone was grated against that nail. At the top of Howard’s Knob he had hidden himself and made one single yelp; and way off, a gobbler had answered: “
Chobalobalob, chobalobalob
.” And he had set the barrel of his father’s hog rifle in the crotch of a tree, pointing it toward the sound; for if the gobbler came at all, he would come straight as an arrow. Without calling again, he waited half an hour while daylight climbed the dome of the sky. It was late spring, and redbud and dogwood were in bloom together and the first green-gold of leaves had begun to show. There was mist in all the low places hiding the valley, and mountains rose out of the mist like islands in a sea. Nor did he move until the gobbler appeared, running fifteen or twenty feet, and then stopping to puff himself up and strut with his wing tips dragging the ground, and then running again. With infinite slowness, so that the turkey would not see him move, he inclined his eye to the rifle sights, and the third time the gobbler paused to puff himself up and drag his wing tips, he shot. The gobbler hopped into the air—perhaps startled, perhaps he meant to fly—but he was atumble and askew, and his wing beating was to no purpose. And, at last, when he had come down off the mountain with the torn turkey flouncing, warm and heavy against his back, he had known he was going to leave home. It was not a thing he had gone up there to decide. He had not caught himself making the decision. He had merely been aware that he had made it. Ambition had little to do with it. His fascination with electricity had little to do with it. It was another matter entirely. It seemed to him now, walking athwart the dark mountain with Regus and Fetlock at his back, that he understood it; and far more in earnest than in whimsy, he thought to himself that a man could live in the Garden of Eden only so long as he didn’t know where he was.

9

CHANGES

ALL OF THE material was a little faded and dusty on the outside, but if the bolts were flopped over a few times, the colors turned bright and handsome. One piece of cloth seemed very beautiful to him—wine it was, with small grey and blue flowers—and he waited with his hand upon it as though the commissary were bustling with customers and someone might buy it out from under his nose. His stomach felt raw and his head hurt, but the two of them had just drawn wages for a four-day workweek, which, for him, meant nine dollars and thirty-six cents above and beyond what he had charged, and his sudden inspiration to buy her material for a dress gave him comfort. After all, even though twice he had been able to beat Regus out and buy the victuals and supplies that Ella had sent them for, he still had five dollars tucked away back in his room, and there was no reason not to buy the cloth if it pleased him. He had accumulated quite a lot of money for so little work, and he could spend some if he wished to. Never mind that Miss Merlee Taylor had not so much as smiled upon him. Mrs. Merlee Taylor, it was. But never mind that either. He wished he had shaved though, as Regus had done. He rubbed the stubble on his chin and waited for Regus and Cecil to quit trying to top each other with hunting stories so he could ask about the material.

Regus leaned against the counter, talking in his slow, humorous voice and drinking from time to time from an orange soda pop. Cecil had gotten the best of the coon-hunting stories, and Regus appeared to have gone on to bigger game. He looked fresh and pink as a baby, doubtless, Music thought, because he’d had the good fortune to throw up most of the corn liquor he’d drunk; no amount of shaving could account for his clarity of eye and high spirits.

“It was a smallish bear, wouldn’t weigh more than a hundred pound,” Regus was saying, “but there it was, setting right tip-top of an old black gum snag, when there wadn’t nobody, includin me, thought there was a single bear left in Perry County.”

“When was this, you say?” Cecil asked, both interest and the shadow of doubt upon his face.

“Bout ten year ago,” Regus said, “when I was a young pup full of piss and vinegar.” Regus took a pull of his orange soda. “I admit to bein right excited,” he said. “Had to pin the rifle barrel agin a tree to take a steady bead, but I cored him. The only thing was, I hope to die if that sucker didn’t fall right backards down inside that damned ole snag. I waited and a-waited, hopin he’d climb out, but he never. Didn’t know what to do. Thought of trampin on back down the mountain to fetch a bucksaw and some hep, but someway, didn’t want to do that. It would sort of spoil it, ye know, to hafta fetch someone to hep out. I thought I’d give a try to climb up there and get him out myself.”

“Shoot,” Cecil said, “you wouldn’t catch me climbin down inside no tree with a bear that moughten be dead.”

“Yessiree, that’s about what I was thinkin,” Regus said, “but the whole time I was scrabblin up the outside of that ole snag, I never heard nuthin out of him; and after I got up on top, I chucked a bunch of bark and crap down in there and didn’t hear nuthin either. Couldn’t see much though, for toward the bottom of the snag it was pretty dark. Turned out he was dead as a hammer. Wadn’t no trouble to get down to him, but I couldn’t get that sucker outta there to save my life. I’d grab aholt of his tail and get him up maybe two or three feet and then lose my purchase again the inside of that black gum and go right to the bottom, or I’d lose my grip on his ole knob of a tail and drop him.” Regus’s head twitched to one side and he sucked his teeth. He ran his finger back and forth under his nose and looked at Music, who couldn’t decide if he’d imagined it or if Regus had given him the merest hint of a wink. “They tails is kinda slick, ya know,” he said, “like as if ye’d taken and sorta oiled the fur a little. Well, I tell ye, it wadn’t long till I had wore myself out. I mean I had just about give up.” He took another swallow of his orange soda and shook his head in wonder. “It was right then that I got my real surprise. I was settin on that bear, sweatin and a-thinkin and a-scratchin my head, when, I’ll be damned, if somethin didn’t darkey the hole.”

“Say what?” Cecil asked.

“Yessir,” Regus said, “I mean plumb shut out the light. Scared me nearly to death when I figured out it was a second goddamned bear a-backin down on top of me.”

“Get outta here,” Cecil said and looked away over his shoulder as though to call upon a third party to witness the nonsense he was having to endure. “I ain’t so big a fool as that,” he said; “get outta here with that stuff.”

“Yessir,” Regus said, “ole momma bear herself, backin right down to see how her youngin was a-doin, I reckon.”

“Sure, sure,” Cecil said and shook hands with himself after his fashion. “I reckon you shot her too,” he said and laughed.

“Well, I probably would have,” Regus said, “if I hadn’t a left my rifle out on the ground. I surely don’t think hit would have been smart, though. I don’t know as I would have cared to be shut up in a hollow snag with a wounded momma bear and a dead cub. Course I might have been able to shoot her enough to kill her, but then she would have fell on me, and there bein no way around her and all, I expect I’da smothered betwixt the two of them. No,” he said and straightened up from the counter, “I reckon I done the proper thing, all right.” He drained the last of his orange soda, set the bottle down, and fished a nickel out of his pocket which he placed deliberately in Cecil’s palm.