The Killing Tree (8 page)

“Didn’t know the name. Just knew it ain’t like the rest of your mountain.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just feels like I’m on a whole new mountain. A wild one. It ain’t all carved up like yours. With roads and a shoppin’ valley.”

“I’ve never been up here before,” I said.

“Never knew you was neighbors with all this, huh?”

We drove past a small boy, around five years old. He was standing on the side of the road, naked except for a pair of boots,
holding a dead squirrel by its tail. His eyes curiously followed our truck as it climbed further up the holler.

“Did you see him?” I asked. He nodded. “Poor little fella,” I said.

He looked at me, and I could tell he didn’t understand or agree with my statement. It all seemed normal to him.

“Where you from?” I asked, after we had driven for a while in silence.

“Down the riverbottom,” he said, giving me the answer I already knew.

“Have you been up here much?”

“Been fishin’ all summer in these parts. They got trout streams better than any place in these mountains,” he said.

“You met any of the people here?”

“When they first seen me, they just looked at me like they couldn’t figure me. It wasn’t the same as the way your people look
at me, though.”

“My people?” I asked.

“Crooktop. The people of your mountain.”

“How do they look at you?”

“Same as a skeeter, I reckon. I’m like a summer bug to y’all.”

He had said “y’all.” He had lumped me together with the rest of Crooktop. He didn’t think that I looked at him like a summer
mosquito, did he? I hadn’t, had I?

I wanted to tell him that he was wrong. That I never knew how to be a part of the “y’all.” But I couldn’t decide which was
worse, the assumption in his voice when he said “y’all” or telling him that I had never belonged anywhere, least of all Crooktop.

“Ever fish before?” he asked me.

I nodded. “I always bait my own hook too.”

He smiled. “So you’re a bait fisher, huh? Well you gotta learn somethin’ new, ’cause I don’t bait fish.”

“What do you do, then, just scoop ’em up in your hands?” I laughed.

“Nah, I use a fly. More fair to ’em, rather than just sinkin’ a fat meal down in their home.”

I had never been fly fishing. Father Heron occasionally fly fished. But I was not his chosen company, and I had never gone.
I wished that I had. I wished that Trout would look at my skill with surprise and approval.

“C’mon,” he said as he hopped out of the truck and disappeared into the woods.

We walked far, but I don’t know how far because I couldn’t see anything but leaves and branches and briars. The air was thick
and heavy with ripe moisture, and gnats bit at my ankles. I was still in my Sunday dress, cream with purple trim, since I
left with him before changing. And my feet hurt as I shuffled through the undergrowth in my scuffed pumps, quickly turning
black with dirt. Eventually, the thickness of the trees began to thin, and soon I heard the stream.

“Down here,” he said as he walked over to a small clearing on the bank.

He took off his shirt and laid it on the ground so that I could sit down without ruining my dress. I liked what that told
me. That he knew I had on a pretty dress.

I tried not to look at him, to stare at his nakedness. My eyes struggled to avoid the rise of his shoulders, the short little
hairs around his belly button, the sweat covering his muscles. I watched the stream, the sun, the chain of ants marching onward,
anything but that naked man in front of me. I had seen Father Heron without his shirt, an altogether different sight of sagging
gray flesh. And I had seen other boys at the docks or at work without their shirts. But I had never been that close or that
alone
with a man. As he described to me how to hold the rod, how to stand, how to jerk my wrist forwards then backwards, I looked
at his face, only his face. His prickly stubble that had tickled my ear. Those sunflowered eyes. And then he told me to watch
him as he fished. To watch his arm. To watch his back. How his body worked together with the line and the rod to create one
smooth rhythm.

I obeyed my teacher. With his back turned, my eyes satisfied their curiosity. But it wasn’t just his nakedness that captivated
me. It was the way he fished. He didn’t hold the rod. He was the rod. It was a part of his arm, curling over the water, grazing
the surface, snapping back with a slight whistle. Curl, graze, snap. It was as beautiful and strange as any of Mamma Rutha’s
blessings. And the fish couldn’t help but bite.

“C’mon, give it a try,” he said, without turning around or ever losing his rhythm.

As his hands covered mine, placing them where they were supposed to be, I realized that I had never really looked at them.
I had looked at the stain, but not his hands. They felt rough, callused by the plants. They were hands that didn’t swallow
mine in largeness, but cradled them gently. Hands with little brown clusters of hair at the knuckles. Smooth lines at the
joints. Traces of thick veins hidden beneath the skin. They were the hands of a man, a fisher, a mater migrant. And all of
them were touching me.

“There you go,” he said as I finally managed to hurl the line over the water after repeatedly getting tangled up in it. “Quit
thinkin’ about it, let the fish take over. They’ll tell you what to do,” he coached.

Don’t think, I told myself. But it didn’t work. I was stiff and self-conscious, silently counting
one two three
under my breath. I cast and cast, but the fish weren’t fooled. Finally when my arm burned with fatigue, I let the line fall
limp and tangled at my feet.

“I guess I’m not much of a fisher,” I said as I walked over and sat next to him.

“Nah, you were great,” he said, smiling. “You was lyin’ about not knowin’ how to fly, weren’t you?”

I laughed and reminded him that I didn’t catch a single fish.

“All the same, you got flyin’ in you. Must be your fancy fishin’ outfit. I figured the fish would just leap out to you.”

I blushed, knowing how ridiculous I must have looked, standing on the banks of wilderness in my cream and purple dress and
bare feet. He looked at me, and his red hand softly touched my red face.

“Hungry?” he asked.

I nodded, rendered speechless by the moment that had just passed between us.

“Sit down and I’ll see about rustlin’ up somethin’.” He pulled out a pocketknife and began filleting the fish he’d caught.
One hand grasping the slippery skin, while the other skillfully carved its flesh.

“I’d ask for a light, but I’m afraid it might make you sassy like down at the docks,” he joked as he pulled a lighter from
his pocket and began building a small fire. He laid the fillets on wide slabs of bark that he had soaked in the stream, and
placed them just at the edge of the fire where they could slowly roast.

The air filled with a delicious smell. It was a full salty scent, one of roasted meat mingling with burning wood. By the time
he slid the pieces of bark away from the edge, my mouth was watering.

“This ain’t no roasted pig or nothin’, like you’d have if you weren’t with me,” he said shyly as he served me a fillet.

We ate with our hands. Greedy hands filling hungry mouths. Della would have been shocked and alarmed to see me, filling my
mouth with that smoked trout, not caring about the pieces of dirt or bark that still clung to the skin.

“Never, never eat ’til you’re full in front of a man that you’re not related to or don’t despise,” she had instructed me.
“Sexy women are hungry women, Mercy. It’s hard for a man to see a woman as mysterious and erotic if he just watched her gulp
down a whole rack of ribs. You gotta save your appetite for when you’re out with other girls, or at home by yourself. Otherwise,
you’ll be a woman in the prime of your looks pigging out without a man anywhere around.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t believe Della’s lesson on men. I knew as I stuffed my mouth with fish that I wasn’t attractive or
feminine. But my hunger and the adventure of eating fish that had been swimming just a few minutes ago overwhelmed any feminine
wisdom that I had acquired. I ate several fillets, never waving off any that he offered me.

“C’mon,” he said, after we finished the last fillet.

I followed him to the edge of the stream and knelt beside him. He leaned forward and scooped water into his hands. I leaned
forward too, cupped my hands together, and let the stream fill them. The water was cold, colder than I expected on that muggy
summer day. It slid down my throat, more cool and comforting than sweet tea could ever be.

We were satisfied. We sat on the bank and talked about his job. How he was careful not to bruise the fruits he picked, how
he was sad that he couldn’t smell the plants anymore because he had worked in them so long. I wanted to ask him why he was
a mater migrant, but I didn’t. I was afraid he would think I looked at him like a mosquito. So we talked about my job, and
Della. I told him she was my best friend. And I asked him about the snakes.

“You never done it?” he asked.

“I didn’t even know places like that were around here. How did you?”

“You and me, we ain’t the same,” he said simply.

“I don’t understand.”

“You walk in your valley, people see Mercy Heron. You don’t gotta go no other place for people to look at you. I walk through
your valley and people see red hands. It don’t bother me none, I ain’t shamed by my hands. But that don’t mean a man don’t
need to go places where people ain’t always lookin’ for ’em. Those places are out there, hidin’ in these mountains. And when
I find ’em, I ain’t a mater migrant no more. I’m just a man.”

We traced our way back to his truck.

“Where you live?” he asked.

“Up from the valley, on the mountain.”

“Do I take a left at the end of the holler?”

“Oh, no. No. Just drop me off at the diner,” I told him, careful to disguise the edge in my voice. He didn’t answer me, and
though I stared out the window as hard as I could, I could tell he was trying not to look at me. I was ashamed of myself.

“I have to face my boss eventually, and I might as well go ahead and do it tonight,” I lied coolly.

He was quiet. And I wondered what questions he was asking himself. If he struggled between wanting to believe me and his suspicion
that I didn’t want my family to see me with a mater migrant. Did he think he couldn’t take me home because I was a part of
the “y’all”? Was he right?

“I had a lot of fun today, with the holler and the fish. I had a real good time. Thank you,” I stammered as he pulled up to
the diner.

I awkwardly stared at my scuffed pumps as I spoke, not sure of how or what to say, but knowing that it just wouldn’t be right
not to thank the man that drove me to the wilderness, entertained, and fed me.

“Good,” he said, still not looking at me. The easiness was gone. His silence had changed into something stiff.

“I really do have to see my boss tonight. I’m not what you think. I’m not like everybody else here.”

“No,” he said, before driving away. “You’re a whole different kind of woman.”

I
went inside the diner. Chairs were turned up on the tables, and it smelled of dirty bleach water mingled with barbecue.
It was quiet, except for water running in the kitchen where the dishes were being washed.

“Rusty?”

There was no answer, but his truck was still there. I guessed that he was out smoking so I hurried and scribbled a note. I
wrote that something had come up with Mamma Rutha that I had to take care of, and that I would be in for work tomorrow. Then
I called Della and told her to pick me up down at the Credit Union.

Her questions were relentless. As soon as she pulled up she knew I hadn’t been at work.

“You’re still dressed up! Where have you been?” she demanded. I tried to act cool and calm. I told her I had just been taking
care of errands.

“Errands, my ass! You have a clean apron in your hand, your shoes are filthy, and that’s not how you go to the grocery!”

I didn’t want to tell her. Not until I had a chance to sort it all out, like Father Heron’s greeter papers, into neat little
boxes of conversations, looks, and laughter. But I felt important, girlishly important. For the first time ever, it was me
who had the story.

“It’s not what you think,” I began. “We just went fishing. That’s all.”

“Who, Mercy? Who!” she demanded.

“Trout. I ran into him on my way to work, and I like to fish so I went along with him. No big deal.”

“Trout mater migrant? The snake handler! That’s almost as bad as something I’d do!” she teased. “And fishing? I’ve known you
forever and I don’t remember you ever hankering to go fishing. The fish you were after just happened to be named Trout, huh?”
She laughed. “Well, tell me what you did, what he said, how he looked!”

I gave her a very boring story. About a man that fished and fed me. As I talked I felt flushed and confused every time I thought
about that curl, graze, and snap, about those hands with thick veins and smooth lines, about the salty smell of that smoked
trout.

“Be careful, Mercy,” she said before dropping me off. “Remember who you are. You’re playing a dangerous game.”

There weren’t any lights on in the house. It was Heron garden night. In the moonlight I saw neat little rows of vegetables,
with leaves that looked silvery black in the darkness. Sounds, smells, and thoughts stirred within me. Like Polaroids. The
image of his back. Of fish guts thrown into the woods. Of scuffed pumps.

“Young lady, I need a word with you,” Father Heron’s voice broke through the quiet night.

A word with me
.
Hello. That’s a word. How was your day, Mercy? Five whole words.
But I knew that none of them would be Father Heron’s
word with me
. Father Heron never spoke
a word with me
in kindness.

He saw me riding home with Della, I told myself.
Della is a whore
. Those will be his words.
Your momma was a whore
.
You will not be a whore like Della and your momma
.