Losing Battles (66 page)

The melodious hoot of the diesel streamliner made itself heard in the distance. It warned Banner softly over the river hills, coming closer, sounding louder and sweeter, its pitch rising.

“Pour a bucket of water over his head right quick, girl!” said Mrs. Moody.

“This is
my
husband,” said Gloria.

A roar began to dip and wave on the air, and Gloria with her hand warded them off as the wrecker drew the truck around them and out of the store yard, on toward the railroad track.

A deep organlike note vibrated throughout Banner. Jack reached out a hand, feeling about in space, and as the train sprang as if out of the store onto the blind crossing, he got to his feet, staggering. Eyes focused ahead, he moved his lips. “Where went my truck?”

Gloria pointed for him, and by the time he turned right-about there was only the train to see. It was going at eighty miles an hour, all heat, with the sunflowers and the elderberry bushes bowing, sucked in as if by a storm running on its belly. For a moment or two the heads of strangers rode by at lighted windows, and when the road could be seen again on the other side, it was already empty, only a few live sparks dancing on it. The dogs that had raced the train to the other end of the school yard stood convulsed with barking until their voices became audible once more. Then the last, soft, lapping sounds of the train were gone too. Like the truck and the wrecker, it had vanished.

“The junk man got it!” Gloria cried.

“You’re dreaming!” cried Jack.

“Took it away while you didn’t know the difference.”

“But I hadn’t been at my wheel but a minute! Didn’t drive it a whole lot over thirty yards!” Jack cried.

“Now it’s going to Old Red in Foxtown. And Old Red is going to take it back to pieces,” said Gloria. “That’s what he wants with it.”

“He’s the renderer!” said Jack. “He’s who got my horse! My horse first and now my truck!”

“That’s how the world treats you, Jack, when you don’t know any better. Now do you see?”

“Curly!” Jack spun around. “What new bargain have you been striking behind my back?”

“Jack, what that truck was was my vote getter!” hollered Curly. “Old Red owns Foxtown! Like I own Banner. And he swore—”

“You traded this truck for the Foxtown votes.
I
see,” remarked Mrs. Moody. “There’s no abiding mystery to me about politics.”

“I thought I could trust him till tomorrow. But he’s pulled a triple double-cross,” cried Curly. “I sure wasn’t looking for nobody to come for the truck till after the votes was in and counted!”

“But it’s gone!” Jack cried again. “And in the twinkling of an eye!”

“Homer Champion is an everlasting unmitigated blooming skunk,” said Curly, grabbing him. “He’s the lowest thing that crawls.”

“And he must have a mind like chain-lightning to go with it,” said Jack. “To come back with an answer that quick after you were crowing over him on Banner Top.”

“He’s thick with Old Red, as thick as he can be!” cried Curly.

“Uncle Homer may be doddering before long, but this time he wasn’t asleep at the switch. He won’t lose by much,” said Jack. “Thanks to you for selling away my truck!”

“Old Red knew it wasn’t in the bargain for him to come for that truck till after Tuesday’s celebration. And you didn’t reckon I was going to let him
have
it, did you?”

“You just did!” cried Jack.

“I couldn’t hit Mr. Comfort! He sent Mr. Comfort!”

“Yes, Jack, to add insult to injury, Mr. Comfort came back to be the one to haul it,” said Gloria. “And nobody stopped him.”

“To think that’s the way Mr. Comfort elected to put in his appearance. After all this time, being given up maybe for dead!” said Jack.

“It’s these daddies that need the whippings,” said Miss Ora.

“At least he gets a better mark than Ears Broadwee for beating the train to the crossing,” said Jack.

“He didn’t have a minute to spare,” said Gloria. “Suppose the train had been on time?”

“You’re a fine one to criticize!” Mrs. Moody exclaimed. “Who wouldn’t throw a bucket of water on her husband? Just let him lie there while that old monkey got away with it.”

“I wanted you to wake up right on time to see what they all would do without you, Jack,” said Gloria. “Judge Moody showed
his colors too—all he did. to help was stand there and say ‘Stranded. Stranded!’ ”

“
Stranded?
” Jack cried. “Who’s stranded?”

Over the water, the bell rang again, faint as an echo. “I missed the funeral service in Alliance,” said Judge Moody.

“You ain’t going to miss the burying in Banner!” cried Jack. “No sir. I made you a promise to get you back on your road, and I’m going to keep it yet. They ain’t in sight yet. I’m going to patch you up in time to join in with the parade to the cemetery. And that’s your road home, Judge Moody—after we bury her, you just keep on going. With good luck getting through Foxtown, you’ll be back at the courthouse by dinner time.” He spun around. “All right, Curly, where’s your newest tires?”

On a pipe coming out of the wall three used tires hung like ringers in a game of quoits. “You’re going to need ever’ one I got,” said Curly, rolling them out. “I’ll put ’em on for three dollars and your old tires, mister.”

“Three won’t take me anywhere,” said Judge Moody, coming down the steps into the yard.

“The best-looking one in sight is Judge Moody’s spare,” said Jack. “All it ever had was one blowout. Patch it and it can go on a front.” He dived down in the bob-tailed shirt and crawled under the Buick with the jack.

When the Buick stood up on four slick, gray, pumped-out tires, Judge Moody climbed into the driver’s seat.

“I’m still unable to get a spark,” he said. “I didn’t expect to.”

“Keep your head out of my engine, Jack Renfro!” Mrs. Moody cried.

Jack’s hands and face were hidden from them. “One wire is pulled just a little bit loose from your coil,” he said. “There, it’s hanging in two.”

“Leave it. Leave it in two. Leave it that way, Jack,” Judge Moody said.

Jack shuttered down the hood, clambered inside the Buick as Judge Moody squeezed out of the driver’s seat, and seized the wheel as if it were a pair of vibrating handlebars on a motorcycle. With the noise of a motorcycle, the engine leaped to life.

“How do you account for that? How do you suppose you fixed that wire?” Judge Moody asked over the motor’s singing.

“I used some of my spit. I believe it might even hold you as far
as the courthouse,” Jack said as he jumped out.

Judge Moody heaved a long sigh.

“Was it all that hard, Oscar?” asked his wife, getting in beside him.

“Everything’s hard,” he said. “Or it’s getting that way.”

“Do you want me to tell you what your next birthday will be?” she asked.

“No,” he said, and she told him.

“Pump me in a dollar’s worth of gas, then,” he called to Curly Stovall.

“That makes two. And it’s a dollar for the trip to Banner Top and a dollar for the trip down,” Curly reminded Judge Moody as he paid him. “And three tires.”

“Seven whole dollars! And I want to add to that that you’ve been thoroughly objectionable and I won’t soon forget you,” said Mrs. Moody.

“And sixty cents more for the rope,” said Curly. “I ain’t going to be able to use it again or sell it either.”

“Sixty
cents!
” Mrs. Moody screamed. “Is that the rope we were all hanging onto? Is that what he supposed our life was worth?”

“Keep it. I’ll charge the rope to Jack,” Curly said, as Miss Ora Stovall came and took the bills out of his hand, folded them, and snapped them inside her purse.

Curly Stovall went into the store and came back with his candidate’s hat on, placed down low over his brow.

“Now, hurry up, funeral!” Miss Ora called. “It’s just quit raining for you.”

“Funeral coming?” asked the wavery voice of Captain Billy Bangs. He put his old hands tight on his knees. “Is it Elvira Vaughn?”

“No sir, she started on ninety-one this morning,” said Jack.

“Just wanted to see if I could catch you,” said the old man. “She still putting up with Billy Vaughn?”

“We buried Grandpa, Captain Billy,” said Jack in a low voice.

“Well, I like to see who I can catch,” said Captain Billy. “Who are they fixing to bury now?”

“Miss Julia Mortimer, sir.”

“Oh, is that the case with her,” he said and fell silent.

“I want to get home,” said Mrs. Moody from the Buick. “Bury the woman and get home.”

“There’s been some starch taken out of you too, dear,” Judge Moody said then, and he put his hand down on her knee.

“White piqué wasn’t intended to be worn a second day. Much less to graveside services in falling rain,” she said. “But can we
not
go, Oscar? And then be able to forgive ourselves?”

“Oh, we’re going,” he said. “We always were.”

“If you so decree. But I wish you could see yourself!” she cried. She aimed a finger at his seersucker trousers where he had gone down in the mud. “People from Ludlow, and Presbyterians from everywhere, will wonder what you’ve been doing down on your knees.”

“Let them wonder,” he said.

She gave him a short laugh. “And when they see this car, and look for the winged Mercury I had especially put on the radiator! They’ll say it’s lucky you had me along to vouch for who you are.” Judge Moody glanced at her and she said, “And I’ll tell you something. One thing along with us is still snowy—Maud Eva Moody’s gloves! They’ve never come out of my purse until this minute.” She drew them forth.

“Put them on,” he said. He turned and leaned out of the Buick. “We’ll say good-bye. You kept hold of us all for a pretty good little while there this morning, Jack.”

“I was proud to do it.” He blushed. “The one thing I wasn’t ready for was a poor excuse for a rope!”

“Well, I hope—I hope you save the hay,” said Judge Moody.

“Thank you, sir.”

Judge Moody put out his rope-burned hand, Jack put up his bloody one, and they shook.

“The one you’d been happy to see in the ditch, you saved and shook hands with,” said Gloria in a low voice.

“I know it,” said Jack.

“I didn’t want you risking your neck either time.”

“I’m proud you helped me in spite of yourself,” said Jack, bending to kiss her cheek. “Like a little wife.”

“It’s hard to help somebody and keep them out of trouble at the same time,” she said. “But through it all I tried to keep my mind on the future.”

“Leaving what was going on to me. That was a good wifely way,” he said.

“But you’ll do it again,” she cried. “Put me in the same fix!
You risked your life for them! And now look at you.”

“Look at his eye,” Mrs. Moody called over to her. “That’s from his own family. His own child gave him that.”

“It was a love-tap,” said Jack and grinned as he went to shake Mrs. Moody’s gloved hand.

“And look at your hands, Jack! They’re rags!” said Gloria.

“You can put a little goose grease on ’em for me when it’s all over and we get home,” he said tenderly. He washed them under the pump, then said, “Come stand close.” He kissed a finger and rubbed her cheek with it. “I think I must have given you a little smear on your cheek.”

“Blood?” she asked.

“Only about fifty percent. The rest is pure Banner clay. Now I reckon we’re as ready as we’ll ever be for that funeral.”

“Come on, funeral!” called Miss Ora Stovall.

“You and the girl haven’t got a way to ride,” said Judge Moody. “You can ride in the back seat of our car to the cemetery.”

“I’d hate us to sit on that velvet,” said Jack. “The Buick on the inside is as good as it ever was—when you get it home, you can find something and pound the dust out of it.”

“They’re young, Oscar,” said Mrs. Moody. “They can walk.”

“We’re not tired,” agreed Jack. “There’s a pretty good shortcut. Aren’t you ready for a march, Gloria?”

“You still don’t know the worst,” Gloria said. “Prentiss Stovall finally got your shirt-tail, Jack. And nailed it to his beam.”

Jack went scarlet. He brought up a clenched fist, but Gloria laid her hand on his arm, over the muscle. “Too late now,” she said. “You can’t get another minute of it in. I see what’s coming.”

Slowly their arms went around each other’s waists. Moving together, they walked the last few steps down the road to the old plank platform of the bridge.

The opposite bank of the river was high, and not red clay but limestone. It rose shell-white out of the water, washed and worn into the shapes of tall, waisted spools, of forts with slits, old towers cut off at the top. The high-water mark was a golden band of rust nearly as high as the bridge floor. Where the bridge reached it, the stone was wrinkled in rings like a pair of elephant legs braced to hold it up.

As the slow-moving procession followed the line of the bank and then turned to pour down its road toward the bridge, down-floating
wands of light and rain tapped it here and there. As it reached the bridge, loose planks began to play like a school piano. The stringy old cables squealed, the floor swayed. Behind the hearse the line seemed to narrow itself, grow thinner and longer, as if now it had to pass through the eye of a needle. And the eye of the needle was the loudest place on earth.

Yet a moment came when the procession stretched and covered the full length of the bridge. The clatter of the cables stopped, the floor drummed in a different key. As it ran full from one end to the other, the bridge become nearly as quiet as the river.

“Hope they don’t fall through with her at our end,” said Miss Ora Stovall. “That wouldn’t do our reputation very much good.”

“Miss Julia came over that bridge every Monday morning for a good many years,” said Judge Moody. “It would do well to bear her weight one more time.”

Arms entwined, Jack and Gloria stepped down out of the way, their feet on a path that led down under the bridge. Below, the river bed reached out from the bank a bare, pocked, uneven white floor, over which ran strands and knotted ropes of red water. Beyond the farthest shelf of rock, nearly all the river there was was flowing by in one narrow channel. A child might have jumped it. And between here and there, the whole limestone floor was ignited with butterflies, lit there and remaining as if fastened on. Without rising, some of them opened and closed their yellow wings, like mutes speaking with their hands.