The Wanton Troopers (22 page)

For a few minutes they haggled. Bored and rather scornful, Kevin arose and went to the little glassed-in showcase near the door.

“Kevin!” his father said sharply.

“Huh?”

“Sit down over there! Don't yuh know no better'n tuh run all over the damn place when a man's tryin' tuh talk business?”

“Yessir.”

Flushing, Kevin returned to the orange crate. He hated the little dark flicker of amusement in Biff 's eyes.

But now Judd began selecting delicacies: round, smooth-skinned oranges; grapes that might have been picked from the trees pictured in the Bible; cashews, peanuts, butternuts, Brazil nuts; chocolate, coconut, caramel, butterscotch, and peppermint candy. Kevin's mouth watered as he watched Biff lay the little paper bags on the rough plank that served as a counter. And he noted that Judd prolonged the buying of these things, seemed to relish the privilege of smelling, touching, tasting, and ordering.

He bought a great red hunk of ham and a bag of sausages, and he bought pork and beefsteak. After hesitating for a long time, he bought canned clams and sour pickles and a bag of onions; these last items were the kind of food that Judd liked best: stout, vinegary, biting foods to be washed down with great draughts of black tea or buttermilk.

Then, stuttering and reddening like a young boy, he bought a frock for Mary. He did this hurriedly, staring around wildly as though afraid of being seen, barking a refusal when Biff invited him to feel the rich texture of the cloth. “It's all right! Put the goddamn thing in a bag or somethin'!” And as Biff wrapped the frock, Judd stared at it dubiously, as though it were a silly and useless thing.

Then: “Kevin, come here!”

“Yessir.”

Judd pointed to a box. “Give him one a-them there goddamn watches,” he ordered gruffly.

“Ah, yer makin' a good buy there, Juddie. Them there watches is worth three times what I'm askin' fer 'em! Why —”

“Jist give him one a the goddamn things!”

“Sure, Juddie, sure.”

Biff extended the watch on an upturned palm. Kevin lifted it by its chain and held it gingerly.

“Seven dollar and fifty cents, Juddie, and worth thirty bucks iffin it's worth a cent,” Biff Mason neighed.

To Kevin, seven dollars and fifty cents was a fortune. He felt that this gift was a rich and splendid thing.

“Gee, thanks, Daddy,” he whispered.

“All right, put the goddamn thing in yer pocket and git over there outta the way and sit down!”

“Yessir,” said Kevin, retreating hastily.

Back on the orange crate, he held the watch in front of his face, letting it dangle from its chain. He was rapt with admiration for its shining, silvery case and red-green-and-black face —

“Put that there damn thing in yer pocket, Kevin. I told yuh once.”

“Yessir.”

Judd blinked, straightened his cap and turned back to the corner. His voice had been harsh. But Kevin did not feel hurt.

He understood.

Twenty-Four

Before leaving the store, Judd bought more vanilla extract. Seeking to conceal the transaction from Kevin, he signalled Biff with winks and little furtive movements of hand and head. But he was too clumsy to be cunning. In the field of guile and subterfuge, Judd was like a collie masquerading as a kitten.

The bottles hidden in the pockets of the denim smock he wore over his windbreaker, Judd loaded his arms with groceries. Kevin gathered up the remaining parcels. Their gum rubbers crunching the snow crust, they started up the road toward home.

As they reached the cabin of Madge Harker, Judd slowed his steps. “Seems like I'm fergittin' somethin', Kev,” he drawled archly.

“Yeah?” Kevin's voice was dubious.

Judd stopped. “Eh! I remember now. I owe Madge Harker a few dollars. I guess mebbe I oughta stop in while I got the money on me.” He glanced at Kevin as though appealing to his judgement in such matters. “It'll only take me a second or two,” he added.

Kevin gazed at Madge's cabin: a squat, soot-coloured shack, half-hidden among tamaracks and willows. Smoke rose bleakly from the tilting stack.

“Can't I go with yuh? It's cold standin' out here.”

“Eh? Why don't yuh walk on ahead? I'll catch up with yuh.” Then Judd recalled his mood of friendliness and joviality. “Well, all right, then, come on!”

The path was so narrow that following it was like balancing on a fence rail. Twice, Kevin missed his footing and floundered in hip-deep snow. Laying his parcels aside, Judd lifted the leather latch: Lockhartville people did not knock on one another's doors.

The heat that struck Kevin's face smelled of coal oil, stale beer, and unwashed bedding. Madge Harker's cheeks were lacquered-red, as though from the cold. Her corpulent body was wrapped in a stained and rumpled housecoat. Exchanging greetings with Judd, she motioned him and Kevin to seats. Laying his packages at his feet, Kevin slumped down on the woodbox, by the bedroom door. Judd and Madge began the inevitable, ritualistic dialogue. Kevin fidgeted, sweltering in his wool breeches and mackinaw. He wondered how long it would take his father to tell Madge what she already knew: that he had come to buy liquor.

The cabin was heated by an old-fashioned stove, the legs of which bent like the knees of step dancers. The stove stood on a low platform made of slabs and covered with a sheet of wrinkled tin. Behind the platform lay an overturned carton and a pile of empty beer bottles. The cabin had not been finished: its posts and rafters were naked grey like those in a barn. From a spike in a beam opposite him hung a green-and-red windbreaker which he recognized as belonging to Madge's daughter, Nancy . . .

“Hello.”

The whisper startled him more than a shout would have done. He turned in the direction of the voice. Nancy Harker grinned at him, her body, except for her head and shoulders, hidden in the blanket that served as a bedroom door.

He blinked and gaped. “Hello,” he mumbled.

“Are you scared or somethin'?” she whispered.

He felt his ears reddening. “No, of course not. What is there tuh be scared of?”

“Nothin'. But you
look
scared. When I spoke to you, you turned as white as a sheet.”

He scowled. “You shouldn't oughta sneak up on people that way.”

“I didn't sneak up on you. I made myself invisible. I pressed a vein in my wrist and made myself invisible.”

“I bet.”

She laid her cheek against the blanket. “Why don't you ever talk to me at school?”

“Huh?”

“Why don't you ever talk to me at school?”

“I
do
talk tuh yuh. I've talked tuh yuh dozens a different times.”

“Yes, but you don't
say
anythin'.” She wrinkled her nose. “Did you know that my father was a merchant seaman?”

“Huh?”

“Why do you say ‘huh' all the time?”

“Huh?”

“See! You said it again!”

He glared at her, feeling very hot and foolish.

“Yes, my father is a merchant seaman and he's sailed all over the world. He's in Haiti now. Do you know where Haiti is?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I should make you tell me, to see if you really know. But I won't. You see how nice I am? Did you know that in Haiti all the people are black and that they come out in the middle of the night and dance around fires and after a while the dead all get out of their graves and dance too. Did you know that?”

He decided that she was crazy. “No, I don't believe anythin' like that. It's only a story,” he said, rather lamely.

“No. It's the truth.” Again she laid her cheek against the blanket as though caressing it. “I'm a love-child, did you know that?”

“No. I didn't know.”

He wondered who, or what, was a love-child. He supposed it must be a polite synonym for halfwit. Yet this Nancy Harker was reputed to be one of the smartest girls in school.

“Are you a love-child too? No, I guess you wouldn't be. Madge says I'm very lucky to be a love-child. She says most children are made outta hate — but me, I was made outta loads and loads and loads of love!”

He rather resented her assumption that she was a love-child, whatever that might be, while he was not.

“I was born in Halifax.”

“Oh.”

To Kevin, this was as though she had been born in Antioch or Jericho. Like her, he was whispering. Judd and Madge, ignoring them, continued their conversation at the other end of the room.

“It's a stupid place. I didn't like it much. I wish I'd been born in Haiti.”

“I bet.”

“I like you. I like you a lot. Did you know that?”

“Gosh, yer crazy —”

“I think maybe I'll fall in love with you. I'm thirteen. I guess that means I'm old enough to fall in love. Are you old enough to fall in love with me?”

His jaw dropped. His tongue writhed impotently in his mouth.

“Yes, I think I'll fall in love with you. You have the most interestin' eyes of any boy in Lockhartville. I bet you see all sorts of things. I bet you can see in the dark like a cat.” She grinned. “Did you ever see a vampire?”

He blanched as though she had discovered one of his shameful secrets. He thought of the dark fears that insinuated themselves into his mind on windy nights —

Her laugh was crystal. She bounced up and down, almost tearing the blanket from its rung. “Oh, yes! Yes! Yes! I should have fallen in love with you the minute I got in Lockhart-ville!”

“Yer crazy as a bed bug! Yer crazy as the birds! There ain't no use a-talkin' tuh nobody as crazy as you!”

She made a little pouting face. “Kevin!” Judd called sharply.

“Yessir?” He wanted to escape from Nancy Harker. No — he did not quite want to escape: he wanted to go off by himself and think.

Judd's lips were sly. “Why don't yuh and Nancy carry them parcels up tuh the house, eh? Me and Madge has got a little business tuh talk over here.”

“I'n carry them. I don't need no help.”

Madge chuckled and fingered her scarlet cheeks. “Well, then, you can just take Nancy along for company, Kevin.”

“I don't need nobody tuh help me —”

“Hit the grit, young feller.”

“Yessir.”

He got to his feet, buttoned his mackinaw, picked up his groceries, and started for the door.

“Wait for me, Kevin! Wait till I get my coat.”

Her laughter ringing like a bell, her empty sleeves flailing as she wriggled into her coat, Nancy ran after him —

Down the narrow path between the snowdrifts and under the willows and tamaracks, they walked in silence. When they came to the road, Nancy hopped, skipped, walked backwards, and leapt into the air. “Be careful, you'll spill alla that there stuff,” he growled, thinking her very babyish and giddy.

“Your father is goin' to get drunk,” she said mildly.

“Who says so?”

“Oh, of course he is. He sent us away because he wanted to stay alone with Madge and get drunk. All the mill men get drunk. Madge says it's the only time they're ever really alive.”

“Humph!” He decided that he would not answer her again.

He would stride in cold, aloof silence until they reached his home.

“Have you ever been drunk, Kevin?”

He tightened his lips to a bloodless line.

For a few yards, she skipped, the groceries swaying precariously in her arms. “Madge says I wake up drunk every mornin' a my life! She says that when you're as young as I am you're drunk all the time!”

They passed an open field: a sloping wasteland of snow. Sparrows flew up from almost beneath their feet. Their steps made the sound that horses made as they chomped their oats.

“What are you thinkin' about, Kevin?”

“Huh?”

“Don't keep sayin' that! I asked you what you were thinkin' about.”

“Oh, nothin' I guess.” Too late, he remembered his resolution to rebuke her with stony silence.

“When you look that way at school the boys say that you're stuck-up. They say you think you're too nice to talk to anybody.”

His astonishment was thorough and genuine.

“They say that about
me
?”

“Sure, didn't you know? They say it about me sometimes too. But if you aren't thinkin' anythin', what are you feelin' then?”

“I ain't feelin' nothin' neither.”

He wondered how the boys could possibly believe that he was stuck-up, that he did not wish to speak to them.

“Oh, yes! You must be feelin' somethin'. If you don't feel anythin' then you're dead. You aren't dead, are you, Kevin?”

“Don't talk so silly.”

“That isn't silly. It's true. When you don't feel anythin' you're dead.” She repeated the words with the air of one proclaiming a truth from Genesis.

“Well I guess I'm dead then,” he snapped disgustedly.

“Then I guess you're just like the others. I guess you're just like Av Farmer and Riff Wingate and —”

No insult could have stung him more than this.

“No,” he shouted, almost dropping his parcels. “I ain't like them a-tall!”

Her eyes glittered. “You're not? What makes you think you're not?”

“Because I'm not — that's why!”

He knew he sounded shrill and stupid.

“Oh yes you are! Oh yes you are! Oh yes you are too!”

Whooping, she danced around him like an Indian war party. He wished he dared drop his burden and slap her face.

“No, I'm not!”

“Tell me why you aren't, then!”

He was yellow with rage. The words burst out of him: “Because I'm gonna be a prophet, that's why!”

She stopped. “A prophet! You mean like the prophets in the Bible?”

Hot with embarrassment, he wished he could cut out his tongue. He had spilled his secret. Now she would tattle and everybody at school would jeer —