A Far Piece to Canaan (28 page)

The Sunday after I started back to school, I rode my bike to the Mulligans' for a visit and found Fred awful down about his hand. Alfred was down too, talking about how the goddamn sugars was holding him back and how some days he wudn't worth a diddly shit. I kept telling Fred he was worrying about his hand for nothing because we had just read in the paper where a fellow lost a whole arm and leg during the war and was running a four-hundred-acre farm with just him and his woman and that Fred was in a lot better shape than that old boy. Fred sighed and said, “Yeah . . . maybe.” When I left the Mulligans that Sunday, I knew something had to be done to cheer Fred up, but I couldn't think of a thing until it dropped right in my lap.

It come about when Melvin Langley lost his lunch box at school and I found it. It didn't surprise me he lost it because Melvin always looked up. He'd talk to you and it was like he was looking at the top of your head. I couldn't figure how he found anything. Anyway, my finding it made Melvin happy because everybody knew how Miz Langley made her boys walk the straight and narrow and if I hadn't found it he'd have got a licking. That evening on the bus, he invited me over for a fox hunt. I was surprised because the only person the Langleys ever took with them was their dad's friend Mr. Rick. Fred had told me once that he would give most anything to go on a fox hunt, so I asked Melvin could I bring him. He said he'd check and the next day he said yes. I thought Fred was going to do cartwheels when I told him.

I left our house about 7:30 the evening of the fox hunt. The radio said rain, but it was warm and wudn't a cloud in the sky. It was hard biking to the Dry Branch Road, but after that, it was all downhill to the Mulligans'. When I got there, Fred was antsy.

“Hun'ney, you better hurry or we're gonna be late! It's two, three mile to that bluff!”

“We'll make it okay,” I puffed and took off pedaling hard.

We scooted down past where the school bus turned around, then a way further we turned up a gravel lane overhung by hickory and elm. This made it darker and in the early twilight I could hardly see where I was going. It also got steeper. I thought about slowing down but figured if I did Fred would yell so I just let her rip. Pretty soon, we come to the gap Melvin told me about, then pedaled across a field until we come to a big open meadow with just a few trees on top and a thicket at the bottom. We could see four, five people and some dogs.

“Hit's them!” yelled Fred.

Melvin came over to meet us as we pulled up. “Hidey, Samuel, Fred. Y'all just in time. You bring some victuals?”

“Sure did,” I said, and Fred held our sack up so Melvin could see it.

“When we startin'?” Fred asked.

“Just a few minutes,” said Melvin. “Pa and Mr. Rick will take th' dogs down by th' thicket so's they can get a scent. Soon's they pick one up, him and Mr. Rick will come back up here and we'll lay around and talk and eat and listen to 'em run.”

Just then, Mr. Langley got his dogs by their neck chains and started down the hill followed by Mr. Rick with his three. The two men and the dogs faded into outlines against the thicket, the dogs jumping and yelping. One of the yelps got kind of excited, and Melvin grinned.

“Hit's Maude,” he said. “She's on t' somethin'.”

I could see Mr. Langley's form bend down and turn one of the dogs loose, then the other dogs started going wild, rattling their chains and barking. All the dogs were turned loose then, and I watched their ghostly bodies snuffling and twisting and turning. Then one of the dogs began trotting, then loping with all the others following, and the barking changed into a “yaaap, yaaap, yaaap” as they disappeared into the early dark. Mr. Langley and Mr. Rick floated back toward us, then Mr. Rick built a fire.

The rest of the evening was spent lying on the ground and listening to the dogs bay. We ate our sandwiches while Mr. Langley and Mr. Rick drank. I was bored silly, but Fred loved it. I pretended like it was great because I wanted Fred to have a big time. The only real fun I had though was looking into the fire and watching the clouds light up from lightning in the direction of the Little Bend. It was far-off weather, but as the evening wore on, the lightning turned to small streaks and you could hear low thunder.

“Looks like we're gonna get that shower they predicted on th' radio, Frank,” said Mr. Rick as the lightning got closer.

“Yeah, sure could use a shower. Wish I had my rye sowed. Wouldn't you know, I just finished discin' that field. Now I'll have t' do it all over again.”

“Right now, though, we better get outta here before that old truck of mine gets mired down on a muddy hillside,” said Mr. Rick.

Mr. Rick got to his feet and stretched, then picked up his big horn, which was shaped just like the shofar Mr. Gollar blew at shul. Everybody stood around while he wet the end with spit and took a deep breath.

“Burrrup . . . burrrup . . . burrrup,” then he listened to the dogs. “Burrrup . . . burrrup . . . burrrup,” and this time there was some quiet, then a few barks. “Burrrup . . . burrrup,” then quiet.

Fred was still having a big time but I was wanting to go because the lightning was brighter and the rumbles deeper. You could tell that there were clouds gathering too because the stars had gone out in that direction. It was going to pour and I was going to get soaked.

Soon, the dogs came running in, shaking and panting, their tongues hanging out and giving off heat and grass smell and pushing up against our legs, tired and happy.

“Good girl, Maude,” said Mr. Langley, kneeling down and patting her.

Maude flopped down on her back and lay panting while Mr. Langley scratched her belly and took out the pint again. “One for th' road, Carl?” he asked after taking a big snort.

Mr. Rick nodded. “Just enough t' kill,” he said, looking at it through the firelight, then drained the bottle and put it behind the truck seat.

Going back wudn't nothing like as easy as coming down, and we were already tired. By the time we got to the Mulligans', I was beat and the storm was closer.

I rested a couple of minutes in front of the Mulligan house. I thought Fred wouldn't ever stop thanking me. It was good to see him happy.

The air was dead calm as we said good night, but the thunder and lightning was coming every few seconds. I started pedaling as fast as I could. About halfway to Cuyper Creek Pike the trees began moving, slow at first, then quick with rustling leaves as the wind rose. It was coming straight at my face and getting harder by the second. To make any headway at all, I had to stand on the pedals. I was giving out fast, gasping for breath, my legs aching so bad I thought they'd explode. Little flashes of lightning were coming between the big flashes now, and the road kept going from half dark to real bright like somebody turning a switch off and on. Finally, I could see the hill to the pike and knew the turn was a couple hundred feet up the grade. That seemed to give me new power. I reared up on the pedals, cramming them down with all my might, sometimes almost freezing straight up because I didn't have enough weight to turn the wheels against the wind.

Finally, I made the turn and stopped. My breath cut my lungs. A giant lightning bolt split the sky and hung there. I could see the thunderhead clear, boiling and coming straight my way, and I could smell the rain. The wind was to my left side now instead of my front and the road was flat at the start, then downhill, which really helped. I began pedaling like mad, my body stretched out over the handlebars.

Then the rain hit. It came in mighty sheets, cold, like somebody throwing buckets of ice water at me and getting in my eyes. It got hard to see, and the old batteries in my headlamp didn't help much. The wind kept gusting up and letting down, then got terrible hard in little short puffs and once I thought it was going to blow me off the road. The trees were going crazy. A limb as thick as my leg blew across the road just missing my back tire. I knew I had it made, though. I was going into the steepest part of the hill, which meant that the sweet apple tree was just ahead and beyond that our gate. I was giving it all I had when a lightning flash lit up what looked like a great, towering man staggering out of the brush, waving four arms and coming straight at me. I screamed and swerved. The bike skidded and I almost went down, then my foot bounced off the road and I got control.

When I reached the house I was numb. I couldn't remember opening the gate to the lane or yard. I just stood on the screened-in porch and shook and cried. Mom and Dad were waiting up. They'd been worried. They thought I was crying because I'd been scared by the storm and I didn't tell them any different. Besides, the more I calmed down, the more sure I was I hadn't seen anything but tree limbs. People didn't have four arms. Not even crazy men.

T
he fox hunt was just like a tonic for Fred. Friday night was foxhunting night for a while. I didn't look forward to it, but the Langleys were nice, so it wudn't too bad.

We had a cold snap the last week of October, and a lot of time that Sunday was spent inside the Mulligan house. It was bad, boy. The problem was Alfred. He was way down on himself and would sit and sigh and say how weak he felt and how the goddamn sugars was getting him just when he was about to have it made and how he never did have no luck and wished to hell he'd either get better or die and get it over with. Fred would be feeling good, then Alfred would start in and Fred would get big tears in his eyes. I felt sorry for the Mulligans, but I couldn't wait to leave.

The next Sunday I decided that I'd go see Ben. Like usual, I cut across Cummings Hill. It was Indian summer, but the prettiest part of fall was gone. A killing frost had stripped the trees, making them look like wood skeletons. It wudn't cold, but I still wore my mackinaw.

I walked out of the oaks into Ben's clearing just as he stepped through the cabin door, carrying his .22. I cupped my hands and yelled, “Mr. Begley!” Cain and Abel, who had been jumping up on him, whirled in mid-air and started barking.

Ben shushed the dogs, then waved to me. I walked up and we shook hands.

“Howdy, stranger,” he said with a big grin. “Been a long time . . . missed you.”

“Missed you too,” I said, sheepish. “I don't know exactly how come I haven't—”

“You're here now and that's all that counts,” he said, cutting me off. “Let's go get a couple squirrels for dinner.”

We went back into the oak grove and sat down and waited. Pretty soon, two fox squirrels come out and started running down a limb maybe a hunnert foot off. Blam! Blam! And they both flew up in the air and come crashing down with their heads blown off.

“Whooee,” I said. “That's some shootin'.”

“Hit's nothin',” he said, and grinned. “Let's go back t' the house and fix these two for dinner, then we'll shoot up a box of shells and see how your eye's comin'.”

While Ben worked, I checked his carvings. In the corner, where the two big blocks and five little blocks of walnut had been, set a bobcat, mother coon, and five baby coons. The bobcat was reared slightly on its back legs for the attack and the mama coon had her teeth bared and was scooched down, ears laid back, ready to fight to the death for her cubs, which were huddled wide-eyed behind her. I run my hand over the brown oil-smoothed wood and said, “Wow.”

“Like it?” said Ben, flouring up the squirrel parts.

“Aw, yeah,” I said soft.

Ben laughed. “Hit's my masterpiece. Don't reckon I'll make a better one. Gonna set it in a spot in th' corner I can see from anyplace in th' room.” He warshed his hands and dried them, then picked up the .22, which was leaning against the table, and nodded toward the door. “Let's you 'n' me do some shootin', then we'll dig some worms and fish . . . after we make a pumpkin pie and eat some squirrel, a'course.”

I shot up two new boxes of shells after finishing off the one he had already started. Ben either stood or lay right beside me and after every shot told me what I had done right and how to make it better. I couldn't believe how good I was. I could hit the circle in the box eight out of ten times from a hundred feet, and he made it smaller than usual.

By two o'clock, we had dug our worms, eaten the squirrel, made the pie, put it in the oven, and started fishing. Man, did the catfish bite! Real beauties . . . channel cats and blues, a foot long, fatter than moles, maybe fifteen, twenty, almost as fast as you threw in. One cat would have gone ten pound for sure, but he got away.

About four o'clock, we quit fishing and had pie and coffee. I ate half, and Ben ate the other. When we finished, I let out a big burp and we both laughed, then kind of melted into our chairs. We just sat like that, like we had so many times before, only this time we fell asleep. When Ben woke me up, it was twilight.

“Time t' go,” he said, and I jumped to my feet.

When we got outside, I picked up the stringer of fish and wound them around my fingers. The fish were heavy even though I only took a few. “Well,” I said, “you take it easy.”

“I'll do that . . . Samuel,” he said soft, “come back sooner next time, huh.”

“Okay,” I said. “Say, why don't you come over to our house sometime?”

His face went blank, then his arms went around my shoulders and hugged me up against him. He had the same smell as when we first met . . . warm, good, a little bit of stale hog meat thrown in. After he quit squeezing, he stood back with his hands on my shoulders, and said that, yeah, maybe he would, one of these times, when we had the tobacco stripped and sold, and before spring work started. Outside, I patted Abel for the first time. I tried to do the same thing with Cain, but he snarled and backed off.

It was deep twilight now as I trudged along, the stringer of fish slapping against my leg. The moon was coming up and I stopped and watched as it turned from orange to pumpkin yellow, then walked on as it turned whiter and gave off more light. It was going to be later than I'd hoped when I got back and I thought about Mom. If I hurried, I could be there about thirty minutes late and since she was used to me being fifteen behind, she'd just raise a little hell.