The Sound of the Trees (13 page)

The boy regarded her for a moment, pushing the billfold back in his pocket. He turned the key on the lamp until just a small flare stemmed from the glass casing. At last he stood and looked down at her, a strange longing smile on his face.

No, he said as he stepped around her toward the staircase, I'm too old.

*   *   *

THE BAR AIN'T
the first place you'd want to be if you were too concerned about your well-being. John Frank raised a finger as if to signify the exception to that rule. But you stick by me and it'll be fine. Them boys in there know I work for the mayor and if you're with me, they won't mess with you either.

They walked down the plaza to the east in a darkness disturbed only by the night lamps. John Frank looked down to where the boy was adjusting the Colt revolver under his waist belt.

They'll be havin that at the door, you know.

Yeah. I thought it.

The boy stopped and raised the cuff of his trouser leg to reveal the dirk knife strapped above his boot.

What in the hell is that for, cowboy?

He pulled the leather strap tight to his calf. You're the one said it was still dangerous in there, he said.

The room was smoke-filled and the bar itself was shaped in the manner of a horseshoe. All around men leaned up over their glasses, some leaning back against the polished wood and tilting their heads back and blowing thin streams of smoke into the already gray air. In the far corner of the barroom a white pine-box piano stood unplayed. By the side of the piano a fiddler sat rocking in a three-legged chair, the music he bowed fast and Spanish.

At the antechamber Mexicans sat at slick dark tables and peered toward the bar. Every once in a while they called men over and talked in low voices, grim and knife-mouthed with their faces pitched toward the floor. Around the room were women of all sizes and dress. They glided about the tables, elbowing their way to the bar ledge to stop and converse with the men as they circled the room.

The boy shouldered past John Frank to examine the faces at the bar. All met his gaze with the same unwavering drunken lucidity. After he'd gone full around the bar he turned and motioned the Italian to an empty table near the fiddle player.

I told you to stick by me, Frank said, looking furtively about the room.

Let's set then.

John Frank sat down, flipping back the flares of his coat and drawing a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.

So, the boy said blandly, here's where it all happens.

John Frank offered the boy a cigarette. Here's where what all happens?

Where men break themselves to pieces.

The boy took the cigarette and lit it.

You ain't some kind of cowboy outlaw, are you?

The boy shook his head without any animation at all. No, he said. Just sayin how I see it.

A waitress clad in high brown boots and a denim skirt and a purple blouse came and stood by the table. She looked at John Frank. You sure he's old enough? she said.

Her face was lightly painted and her lips glistened when she pursed them to size up the boy.

He's old enough, John Frank said.

He ran a hand along the hem of her skirt and she swiped it away. She turned to the boy.

You old enough?

For what? the boy said.

John Frank grinned up at the girl and she smiled down at the boy. Alright, she said. I reckon you are then.

John Frank ordered a glass of whiskey waterback. He winked at the waitress. She shifted from him with her lips turned down and asked the boy what he favored.

Just a soda, he said.

The waitress's eyes waited on him as though he would speak some hilarity but the boy only nodded to her and went to looking at the ashtray and the smoke rising from his cigarette.

A soda? she said.

The boy took up the cigarette and leaned back and drew on it. Keeps me sweet, he said.

The waitress smiled a long smile at him then went away, a fist balled up behind her skirt to ward off John Frank's hands.

Smooth-talkin cowboy you are, Frank said when she was gone.

He watched the fiddler and tapped his foot to the melody. After a while he turned back to the boy. Hey, he said. Don't go starin over there. Hey. John Frank raised his glass and pointed it meaningfully at the boy. You know what they say amidst such folk. A stare is a glare, and that ain't something you want to learn about firsthand.

I'm just lookin, the boy said.

Well don't. Don't just look.

The waitress returned with their drinks. Soda for the sweet one, she said.

Damn, John Frank declared when she had gone away again. He pounded his fist on the table. You ain't goin to say nothin? Woman like that make a man out of you yet. And not just any woman. No. He shook his head, his eyes wide with certain wonder. She got an ass on her like a sixty-dollar bill.

Ain't my way.

Ain't my way, Frank repeated woodenly. That's a girl no mama would be glad to see her son with.

Don't talk about that.

The boy set down his soda and pointed his cigarette across the table.

About what?

About my mama.

Shit, I wasn't sayin it like that. Any mama. Hell, it was just jokin.

Well don't.

They drank. The boy had stopped eyeing the room and John Frank eased back in his chair. The Mexicans in the antechamber got up and left. The fiddle player stopped bowing and the bar took on a sudden stillness.

Now listen, John Frank said. Tomorrow at noontime you meet me at Garrets. I'll take you over to the mayor's office in the town hall. Just meet him and be grateful and polite and I'll give you the papers to deliver. Noontime, alright, bud?

The boy drained his soda glass.

You up at Abner's then?

No. Not no more.

Where then?

Yonder in the foothills, I reckon. It's plenty warm now. And the grass don't charge you for sleepin.

You're talkin bout outdoors?

No. I'm talkin about that big old hotel out there in the countryside that has grass growin for beds. Yeah I'm talkin about the outdoors.

But you'll be back at noontime.

Sure as the sun.

For a while longer they sat. John Frank's eyes fell fixed on a girl selling cigars behind a high counter near the door. A peach, he said. A genuine peach. He shook his head. To this day she won't look at me.

Well, you just goin to sit there or are you goin to get up and let her make a man out of you?

The boy smiled at the Italian for what was perhaps the first time since coming down from the mountains. John Frank grinned and slapped his hands on the table and ordered another whiskey.

You first, he said. I'll slide on in behind you.

The boy rose and crossed the floor. The men at the bar watched the boy closely. There was nothing about him that said he should have been there, neither age nor dress nor the lowered hat and hooded eyes. He stepped over to the girl at the counter. What you sellin? he said.

She glanced up at him, then went back to the journal she was studying.

What's it look like?

Like cigars.

Smartly done, she said. She looked up and gave him a cold smile. You want one?

No. I don't guess I do.

She looked down at the journal again. What then? she said without looking up again.

The boy glanced back to where John Frank was tossing back his whiskey. Just wanted to say you a goodnight, he said.

That right? Now why would you want to do that I wonder?

The boy shifted his hat up on his head. Well, he said. Seems to me you might be the only one round here that would appreciate it.

The girl smiled at him again, this time not coldly.

Evenin, John Frank called over the boy's shoulder.

He stepped forward in front of the boy and took down his hat and held it against his chest and pushed at the boy to step back. He winked at the girl. She shook her head slightly and looked down at her journal again. The boy leaned into Frank's ear.

Genuine peach, he said. Good luck with her.

He turned and walked off to the door with John Frank trying to hail him back to his side with a quick snapping of his fingers. The boy went to the doorkeeper and collected his pistol. He stuck it back under his belt, scanned the faces at the bar once more, then strode out the door to where Triften stood looking up at him from the empty street.

E
IGHT

THE HAND HE felt on his shoulder was unfamiliar, yet in his half-conscious state he recognized a roughness he believed to be his father's. When he turned and rolled onto his back the man above him stepped forward. The boy squinted up at him and saw it was not.

It was an old man gathered loosely in his flesh and oversized denim pants. He stood shirtless over the boy with a rifle cocked in his arms. The boy braced himself with his hands. He looked closer at the rifle and saw that it didn't have a trigger.

Cronus or Zeus, the man called out.

His few teeth tilted toward his mouth. The boy rolled over to his knees. The sun darted through the trees beneath which the boy had slept, and he put a hand up against the light. The old man pushed the rifle's barrel into the boy's ribs.

Hey now, the boy said.

Cronus or Zeus, the man bellowed again.

His croaking voice seemed nearly comic in the morning quiet. The boy knocked the barrel away from his chest and propped himself to his feet with the other hand. What are you askin?

The old man spoke very slowly this time. Cronus or Zeus, he said.

The boy stooped over and began to roll up his bed linens. Zeus, he said.

Ah. The old man raised his hands like he meant to send the boy's reply somewhere above, all of the violence in his face dissolving into a wide gaping smile. Ah, he repeated. I knew you appeared sensible even sleepin. A shaking hand went to the pocket of his jean pants from which he drew the boy's knife. You can have this back now.

The boy studied him a moment, then reached out for the knife.

What if I said Cronus?

The old man shook his head. Ah, he said. You wouldn't of. Everyone sensible knows the Titans were nothin but greed. Olympians the ones who gave everythin back to us.

The boy walked over to his horse. The old man followed him, a curious hitch step in his gait. What are you doin out here in my country?

I wasn't aware it was yours.

Well it is. It's mine. I claimed it in '03 and I hold that claim to every last acre in this valley.

The old man peered out at the rocky hills and the thin trees. The boy recinched the saddlebag on the mule. The man turned back and watched him. He appeared suddenly stricken and earnest. You headed for town? he asked.

Yeah.

You hungry?

I reckon I'm alright.

You need to eat. You can come on down under my roof. It's the only one out here. Otherwise you got to wait till you hit town.

The old man turned a crooked shoulder and pointed between two foothills. It's down yonder, he said. Give me a ride down there and I'll let you eat and feed them horses.

The boy thought about it a moment, then helped the old man onto the mule, both of them heavy in the stomach and thin besides. His body tipped forward as he leaned his hands down on the mule's neck. The old man pointed the direction and they downstepped into a flat valley between the adjacent hill rises. The old man mumbled about Cronus and Zeus, and the man and the boy went down the hillside.

The air was pale and the land too. They rode through boughs of cherry and yellow grass which grew high by a stream that ran down the hill. They rode along the stream until they came to a cabin gilded by low-hanging saltwing bush. The house was an old creek cobble structure and from the side walls wildflowers sprang in garish colors. The two front windows were dashed on the ground. A vagary of rusted field tools lay about the yard. There was a chimney of red brick blackened by soot and a thin spindle of smoke rose from it to cross over the streambed.

The boy whoaed his horse and helped the old man down. He hobbled to the door and went in and waved the boy on behind him. Get yourself set in here, he called out.

Inside the one-room cabin was a strong smell of chili peppers. The boy looked around and saw the peppers hanging black and brittle like scalps along the wainscoting on long-staple strings. Toward the back of the room where the light peeled away from the window chute, a porcelain tub tilted to one side where the clawfoot was gone. The smell of alcohol rose out of it. Farther back was a box made from meshing and twigs. Inside the box crickets sprang up and clacked over one another. The old man glanced over at them and told them to be still. It was just a boy.

Set down, he said again.

The old man went to the sink basin. The boy sat at a small table cluttered with clay jugs and tin spoons. The old man huddled over the wood stove and waited for the plate to warm. Besides the table and chairs were only the basin and a thin cot cornered in the shadows. The old man sighed heavily as he heated a pot of beans.

You like beans?

Good as anything else.

They ain't no steak dinner. The old man turned to him as if to solicit his agreement.

No. I reckon they ain't.

He carried a bowl of beans to the boy and pointed to the spoons and sat across from him.

You ain't eatin? the boy asked.

No, no. I don't eat nothin till noontime.

The old man sat back in his chair and crossed his arms and scratched them. His chest was hairless and his skin was brown and wrinkled. Not till noontime, he repeated.

The boy ate. The old man scratched his arms and watched the boy. The clouds split the sky outside, and from the window a wavering strand of sunlight crossed their feet.

You live in town down there?

No.

The old man squinted at him. They send you boy?

Who?

The town.

No.

No?

No sir. I come out on my own.

What for?

I couldn't afford to stay down there no more.