Just close friends, he said.
Your friend here is all mouth and beltbuckle, the man said. I was just standin here wonderin what his insides was like.
What’s your quarrel with him?
Why don’t you ast him?
What the hell did you do, Vern?
Vern’s voice sounded thick and peculiar. I never did a goddamned thing, he said. He raised a hand to wipe his mouth. There in the dark the smear of blood looked like ink.
He was foolin with my little sister was what he was doin. He had her out there in his big car feedin her whiskey.
I was talking to her was all I was doin.
Talkin, hell. He had his hand up her dress between her legs. I’m fixin to amputate that hand too, with no more deadenin than what he’s already got in him.
Binder wondered vaguely about the law. Would there be anybody here? A constable, guard? Probably a bouncer was all, and with his luck this probably was the bouncer.
Look, Binder said. I don’t know anything about this, but he didn’t mean any harm. Let him up and he’ll apologize to your sister and I’ll get him in the car and away from here.
You want me to give him to you?
Yes.
All right, which piece do you want first? What are you anyway, his fucking lawyer?
Damn it, I’m trying to be as polite as I know how. I told you he’s harmless.
Harmless, hell. Look at my little sister. She’s simple. She ain’t right in the head. She’s like a kid, and him comin on to her like that, I’d a got there five minutes later he’d be needin a undertaker stead of a lawyer.
He’s drinking, all he saw was a pretty girl.
I never meant any harm, Vern said.
The man stepped back. He closed the knife and lowered it. All right, he said. I want his sorry ass gone. You get him in that slick black car and haul him someplace out of my sight.
Vern straightened, slid off the car hood to the ground. His cowboy shirt had ridden up out of his jeans. He stood tucking it carefully into his belt. He looked as if he might say something.
Just go on and open your mouth one time, the man in the cowboy hat said. He looked at Binder. I ain’t afraid of your goddamned tire spud, either.
Vern sidled away around the front of the car toward Binder. The man in the cowboy hat was watching them contemptuously. Jesus, he said. A hippie and the rhinestone cowboy. What’ll wash up on Sinkin next?
At the car Binder opened the door and waited for Vern to get in. Vern stood stubbornly clinging to the door handle.
You want to get your ass in? I’ll go get Corrie and Ruthie.
You told that son of a bitch I was harmless. The hell I am. I’m not harmless.
All right, Binder said tightly. I apologize. You’re not harmless. You’re a terror among men, and folks tremble at your footsteps. Now, you want to get in?
Vern got in and Binder closed the door. Stay there, he said as he walked back toward the music.
They rode in ghastly silence for a few miles. Ruthie’s face was bright and accusatory. Then Vern seemed to regain his confidence. His mind began to rearrange events in a manner more to his liking, and he began to tell Ruthie and Corrie about it.
They doubled up on me, he said, two of them, both with knives. Hadn’t been for David no telling what they’d of done. I’ll tell you all a little secret. Deep down in my heart I always thought David was a smidgen chickenshit. But friends, he ain’t. He’ll hang right in there. Me and David make a good team, don’t we, David. He whups the little ones and I get the big ones. Ain’t that right, Binder.
Binder didn’t say anything.
But what did you get into it about?
Hell, I don’t know. They were drunk. I reckon they just wanted a fight and I was it.
Binder could feel Corrie’s dark eyes on him, but he didn’t look at her. He just watched the road ferrule in and out of deep hollows, drooping branches raking the car roof, the car rising over knolls shrouding ancient grownover graveyards, dark remote highrollers’ houses. An orange harvest moon rode high over the dark ridges, flitted in and out of Binder’s vision with the winding of the road.
When they were on the road to the homeplace, Corrie spoke for the first time. It’s so lovely tonight, she said. This is the last of the summer. It’s early, David. Can we stop by the creek a minute.
The silver moonlight was breathtaking. The night still held its warmth and the moon had ascended the tree line, spilling light indiscriminately over the landscape. The creek lay like a motionless river of quicksilver.
Vern was first out, clutching his bottle. By now the two were inseparable in Binder’s mind. He could not imagine Vern with his mouth closed, or not clutching his bottle of peach brandy.
I got to see a man about a dog, Vern said thickly. He stumbled off toward a thick grove of sumac.
They got out and sat on the edge of the wooden bridge, peering down at the water. The surface was clear, motionless as a mirror.
Vern had come onto the bridge. He drained the bottle and dropped it into the creek, roiling the surface of the water. Binder wished he hadn’t.
Yes sir, old David Binder knows how to go to one of these country dances, Vern said. With a jack handle in his hand, by God.
Corrie’s face turned to Binder, her dark eyes wide, her face almost apprehensive, as if she were seeing suddenly a side of him she hadn’t known existed.
You know what we ought to do? Vern asked them abruptly. We ought to go skinnydipping.
No, Corrie said quickly.
It’s too cold, Ruthie said. I’m sleepy. Let’s go to bed.
Chickens.
Binder was constantly amazed at how easily he could read Vern. His voice had been slurred and sly so that Binder wondered if he was as drunk as he acted, if he used it as an excuse for boorish behavior. He knew intuitively that this wasn’t something that had suddenly occurred to Vern. He had been thinking of it for a time, perhaps two or three days. Perhaps since the day his gaze had lingered so lovingly on Corrie’s crotch.
What a bunch of swingers, he said mockingly. Last one in’s a rotten egg.
Binder got a cigarette out of the car and lit it. I never thought you would go to such lengths to see me naked, he said.
Always the smart mouth, Vern said.
In the stark clarity of the moonlight his face looked vacuous and haggard, less like a bored housewife’s dream and more like a man drifting against his will aimlessly into middle age.
I don’t know what it is about you that gets under my skin, Vern said. I’ve tried to be friends with you ever since we’ve been in the family. But forget it. I can’t figure why you think you’re such hot shit.
Vern, Ruthie said.
You shut up, Ruthie. You ain’t got a damn thing. You ought to see my house in Orlando. It looks like a movie star’s house. But you wouldn’t be impressed. You’d be busy scribbling in your notebook. You wrote a book one time, and you think you’re so damned smart. You been around so much. You act like me and Ruthie are hicks.
Binder drew on his cigarette, stared up the embankment toward the toolshed and beyond it the house. I didn’t mean anything like that, he said. Absently he figured he might as well let Vern get it all said; he guessed it had been coming for a long time.
Orlando may not be New York City, but hellfire, we been around, me and Ruthie. We seen them X-rated movies. We been out with them swingers, too. Two or three times we been to parties where they swap up and—
Goddamn you, Vern, Ruthie said. Can’t you just for once keep your mouth shut?
Hell yeah, we swapped and it was fun, too, and I was thinkin—
He stooped and leaned over Corrie, laid a hand on her shoulder, slid it to her bare arm. There was something possessive in his gesture, an attitude of dismissal toward Binder, as if he didn’t count. She twisted her face up, her eyes enormous.
It was those eyes Binder saw when he hit him. He hit him hard in the stomach, taking care not to hit the beltbuckle. Vern folded forward, his stomach closing on Binder’s fist. He slid to his knees and hunkered there, retching, trying to get his breath back.
Yeah, Ruthie said, circling Binder as if she were stalking him. Binder watched her warily. She looked as if she might scratch out his eyes. Yeah, beat up on a drunk man, will you? If Vern were sober—
Help me get him to the house, Corrie, Binder said. He hooked his hands beneath Vern’s armpits and hoisted him to his feet. Vern stood swaying unsteadily, his curls all in his face.
Corrie was watching Binder apprehensively. She seemed near tears, didn’t say anything. Past her dark head Binder could see the toolshed silhouetted against the sky. In the moonlight the worn old wood looked like hammered silver.
They lay in the darkness. Binder could hear the air conditioner whirring, feel Corrie’s presence beside him in the bed. He wondered if she slept.
I shouldn’t have hit him, Binder thought, only half-dreaming it. I ought to have let the hand play itself the rest of the way, at least looked at the rest of the cards. Maybe it wasn’t just something Vern cooked up. Maybe I’m the point of conspiracy. Maybe the three of them had it planned. Maybe they want to draw old Binder out of his shell. I guess I missed my cue. Maybe I’m oldfashioned. Maybe I’m a stick-in-the-mud. Maybe I’m lost.
He turned to look at her face. It was vague and dreamlike, sleeping, the lashes dark and enigmatic on her cheeks. He thought of her eyes. The windows of the soul, the poet had said, but Binder knew there were always little cluttered attics. Dark, damp basements seething with vermin. Windowless little rooms the sunlight never hit.
Mornin, good buddy, Vern said.
Binder came out into the sun with his coffee cup in his hand. He sat on the stone doorstep. Vern, blinking against the day, came out the door behind him in a bright flowered shirt. He was contrite this morning, eager to please.
Last night seemed like a bad dream to Binder. It left a bad taste left in his mouth and his head still ached. He felt hungover and disoriented.
Ruthie and Corrie came out, moved lawnchairs into the sun.
What are you going to do this morning, David?
Binder set his coffee cup down. I’m going to walk back to the homeplace.
Mind if I walk back with you?
Binder did, but he said, No, it’s fine with me.
Why don’t we all go? Corrie asked. It’s just this old houseplace that David says is haunted. He says positively awful things happened there. But I’ve been planning on digging up some more of those cannas. Is it okay if we do, David?
Binder shrugged. Why not?
I’ll get a hoe, Vern said eagerly.
Binder put out his cigarette beneath his shoe. He turned. I’ll get the hoe, he thought.
Vern was halfway through the wet grass to the toolshed. Binder followed him, quickening his pace.
He paused in the door for his eyes to adjust, but Vern was already in. He could hear him blundering around, kicking things out of his way. The halflight came into focus. Vern’s flowered back leant to pick up the tamping bar, stooping toward the gaudy scrap of rag.
Vern, Binder said. Don’t move.
Vern had seen it. He didn’t move anything but his eyes, which sidled sickly sidewise, gleaming with panic, blind fear rising in them like water in a glass.
Don’t even breathe, Vern.
The snake was coiled, her triangular head absolutely motionless, raised in the air a foot or so beside Vern’s outstretched hand. Vern was motionless as well, leant forward like a statue carved in an attitude of agony. Sweat beaded on his forehead. A crystalline drop crept out of the curls at his temple and down his cheek, hovered for a moment on his chin. Do something, Vern whispered.
I wouldn’t talk too much if I were you, Binder said. Snakes can’t hear, but they can feel vibrations in the air. We can’t have too many bad vibes here.
Kill it.
I aim to kill it, Vern. I’m just looking for something to kill it with.
He was looking for a piece of steel he could smash the snake’s head with, or at least distract it until Vern could get out of the way. He paused for a moment, watching. Vern might have been leaning to stroke the snake. Or Corrie’s arm, he thought suddenly, and saw quite clearly Vern’s dark hand laid positively on Corrie’s white arm, seeing not only that but Vern’s face as well, Corrie’s dark eyes turning up toward him.
What can I kill it with, Vern? Binder asked musingly. I can’t find anything. Killing a snake. You need just the right tool…here’s some onions, Vern. A world of onions. Do you reckon I could beat it to death with an onion?
What the hell’s the matter with you, you son of a bitch?
I may have to go get a gun, Vern, Binder said. You just stay like you are. I been aiming to get a gun anyway.
He picked up a broken plowpoint, eased soundlessly toward the snake. As he was raising the steel, Vern’s arm jerked involuntarily. He and the snake exploded into violent motion, Vern screaming and flapping his arm madly, the snake whipping back and forth, embedded in the flesh of his forearm, Binder trying to hit it as it flopped off. The snake struck the broken floorboard and Binder hit it with the plowpoint, the creature coiling in on itself in agony, bright drops of blood spattered in the pillars of sunlight.
He stared in stricken disbelief as from the snake’s mouth emerged a myriad of tiny, writhing baby snakes, perhaps a score of them, some already rusty miniatures of the mother, others almost glasslike, so translucent he could see the dusty floorboards through them. They fanned out on the planking, wriggling outward aimlessly in all directions from the epicenter of the dead snake’s mouth.
Vern was on his hands and knees clutching his arm. You filthy son of a bitch, he said.
Binder went to the door.
Get the truck down here, he called.
Binder sat in the truck in the hospital parking lot. He seemed to have been waiting for a long time. The sun was hot through the glass. He lit a cigarette from the butt of another, leant to the mirror. He could see Corrie approaching, hear her heels hitting the asphalt. She got in.
How is he?
They’re giving him antivenom. The doctors told Ruthie he’d probably be all right.
That’s good, Binder said abstractedly. He was hot in the car, wanted to be in motion. Wanted to be back at the homeplace. He thought of the cool glade by the creek, the autumnal hills beyond it bright with maples like bursts of orange flames. The trees were turning already. Tomorrow there might be the year’s first frost. He thought of the homeplace shrouded in snow, the road drifted deep, the place secure, inviolate.