The Sound of the Trees (19 page)

For a long hour neither the boy nor the old man spoke but only laid their heads back. When the boy woke the old man was still sitting in the water. His lips were smeared with the red juice of chokecherries and he smiled at the boy like a demented whore. The old man rose to his feet. He slicked back his few matted strands of hair with his pruned hands and wiped his face. Hungry now? he said.

Inside the cabin the old man cradled his legs into his coveralls and clasped the side buttons and rose and stood barefoot by the stove. The boy sat at the table and rolled a cigarette and watched the old man over a rusted timbal that held a seething parboiled mixture. The old man put a wooden spoon down and turned to the boy, his face ruddy and his eyes strangely healthy. The boy turned away from him to where the trees were blackening and growing stark in the night shadows and he regarded them with heavy eyes.

What's her name?

The boy turned back to the old man. Who's name? he said.

The girl. The old man picked up the wooden spoon and shook it at the boy. Old don't mean stupid, he said.

A breeze blew in from the empty windowpanes. The boy watched the cigarette smoke roll over his hand. I don't know, he said.

I'm supposin they ain't sayin neither.

No. They ain't.

But they takin my booze just the same.

The boy nodded. From the kettledrum the old man ladled out a chicken breast with one half of it hanging on by its pink skin. He set it on a wide tin platter and salted it and brought it to the table. He searched the shelving for plates and brought two forward with two knives and a pepper mill and sat across from the boy. He portioned their meal onto the plates and pushed one in front of the boy and pushed the pepper mill forward and the knife and one of the forks lying on the table.

Might as well eat up, he said. This chicken you bought don't look that bad after all.

The boy stubbed out his cigarette in the stone bowl by his elbow. Not long after they began eating the old man set his fork down. Did I ever tell you about Sisyphus?

He paused and waited for the boy to answer. When he said nothing the old man cleared his throat.

He was a king, Sisyphus was. King of Corinth. And he was much loved because he was a gentle man. A man whose powers came from his actions, not his words. Now one day Sisyphus, he was just walkin through his gardens, no reason to it really. Just walkin along, maybe havin a drink or maybe just plain old walkin. Wanderin the land.

The boy looked up. The old man pushed his plate aside. He folded his hands on the table.

Gone out there this particular day he's lookin up at the sky when this big old eagle comes a flappin out of nowheres. Now this wasn't no jay-hawk or bluebird type. This was the biggest, most mighty and fearsome bird the king ever did see. So this bird comes across the sky, glidin headlong toward an island not far off from them, but when it comes out of the sun's glare the king sees the bird clear and he knows right off he seen somethin he ain't supposed to. Now I bet you wonderin what it is.

The old man cut into his chicken and held up his fork.

What he sees is the fairest maiden his eyes ever known and she's caught in the eagle's claws. He seen her face beneath them great wings beatin the air and he seen her face stricken and then soon after they was both gone. Disappeared right into the wind. Like the sky opened up and they went through some unseen door. After that the king he tries to go on about his business but she keeps stealin into his mind. Commences thinkin about her all night and day. And not long after, when the king didn't know what he was to do about it, Asopus, he's what was called the river god, he comes ahollerin into the king's palace all teary-eyed. The king he wants to help Asopus, seein him so bad off. That's just the way he was. So he sits him down and Asopus goes on to tell him that his daughter's been taken, and what's worse is he suspects it was Zeus that did it.

The old man stopped and put his hand forward with his palm turned up as if to make the boy understand.

Zeus in the form of an eagle. Now when the king hears that, he knows he can't deny it. He seen it and he seen that it weren't no common lark that carried her. But Sisphyus was caught, you see, cause he knew what it was to go against a god. Especially Zeus. He knew that if he told Asopus they was headed off to that island, he would be punished by a hand greater and more cruel than any on earth. But because of that love he felt for the girl, because of the way she stayed with him, like she was a disease he'd caught, he told Asopus his story. Asopus, he don't know what to do neither, cause he knew about challengin the gods too. Especially Zeus. But the king helps Asopus resolve himself to it and he goes out huntin.

The old man made an expansive gesture, his bony arms and their black shadows like wings upon him.

The river god stretched his body all across the land but every time he come close to the island Zeus drives him back with his thunderbolts. Old Asopus, he never could get to her, no matter what force he called up from within. And when Zeus found out it was Sisyphus who told the girls' father where they'd stole off to, he was felled straight into Hades. He was cut down into Hades where he was punished on terms you could scarce imagine.

The old man leaned forward and put his eyes on the boy.

He was punished in Hades by havin to forever try and roll a rock up a hill which forever rolled back upon him.

The old man stayed still a long moment, his eyes wide upon the boy, then reached across the table and took up the boy's pouch of tobacco and began to roll a cigarette. The boy put his knife down on the table and looked out the window at the night's dark. I can't just quit her, he said. Besides. The mayor, he ain't no Zeus.

The old man lit the crooked cigarette he had rolled and jabbed toward the boy with it. No, he said. He ain't. He's small brass but around here small brass is all we got. But he don't quit neither. I'm tellin you, I know it.

The old man set the cigarette in the bowl and wrung his hands together like he was trying to work some history from them.

I known the man, he said. Known him from when he was just a pup. His family lived down by Las Cruces where I was workin masonry. Fore I came here. Then I came on and soon after he did. All growed up. He come from good folks but there's somethin about power can turn a man clear to stone. Can put his nose so high only the birds can see it. That's what happens. That's how it is with him. You know why he wears that beard, don't ya? Wears that beard to hide his face. And not just from other people. He wears it to hide it from himself.

The old man shook his head solemnly.

And it ain't just him neither, he went on. They's others to be named but there ain't no namin to be found. He's got ghosts workin behind him. Ghosts who also got the power but you'll never see them. Like that lawyer you go to. You seen him ever? No, you ain't. You said it to me yourself. And you won't. And the mayor knows it and he knows you know, just like everybody else knows. It's like workin against the devil. Or Zeus. The hardest kind of power to fight is the one you can't see.

The old man set his hands in his lap and looked across at the boy.

You'll not likely break him, son. He's got interests of the political nature. He's got Washington interests. He's got strong interests in the future. And to him the world affairs ain't the affairs of the world. They's the affairs of government and they's the affairs of his town and its progress. They ain't got nothin to do with us.

He held a trembling hand out toward the foothill dusk.

They ain't got nothin to do with this place, he said. Least of all to those who set in it.

The boy rubbed his hand over his head and shook it slowly. But he ain't rockhard, he said. Every man got a place where they can be broke. Or at least bent.

He's the highest power in that town, son. And he's had it from the get go. When you been swingin the hammer as long as he has, every-thin starts to look like nails.

The boy turned again to the window and closed his eyes. I don't even know if she's down there anymore, he said. I don't even know her name.

Some things you got to let pass on. Some things you supposed to see and you supposed to want. Maybe even you supposed to need, but for one reason or another you ain't supposed to get em.

With the dark so heavy and the night grown so still, the boy was called back to the great sweeping horizon of the plains on which he once lived. His mind lapsed to a night he sat with his mother on the pasture fence of their ranch at dusk when she had told him that the place where the sun hits the land was not just the horizon but the place where the world sprang from. He remembered her eyes and that strange way she looked out at the pale and endless landscape with a longing so complete that he could not understand how it was that she was smiling. He recalled how she had then said that the place was where everyone strove to be, whether or not they knew it, for only there was the world without history, without name or need, without voice or hand that could steal one's freedom.

I just want to see her once more, he said. I just want to know why she's in that jailhouse if she is at all. Somebody's got to know. Somebody can tell me.

The old man sighed and flung his cigarette onto the floor.

Now listen, boy. You ain't got no cause to be this way. You just a boy. You ain't no goddamn god nor are you the mayor. Nor are you the hand that comes down to say right or wrong. You see what they doin down there? They don't want no problems. They got a new world comin to settle down there. They don't want some kid stirrin up things that'll slow em down. They ain't goin to let the people see that the town ain't no more than a bunch of half cowpoke half idjit country boys who come into a bit of money when they selled off their ranches. Don't you see that boy? Why don't you see that?

The boy looked down at his plate. The old man gazed out the window to where the boy had been looking.

Son, he said. This country here. This country here is gettin old and I'm just tryin to get old with it.

They sat. After a while the boy said, Somebody must know.

When he turned his eyes from the trees the old man saw the boy looking at him. A slackened stare without thought or feeling that almost frightened him.

Well then, he said, I don't know what all else to say. There ain't no reasonin with you. If I had to guess, you ought to be lookin in after that bar crowd. Them Ralston boys. I'm sure you know em. Them burly mustached brothers. They carry some kind of contract with the mayor. I'd say to sniff around them. They may know a thing or two. Only don't sniff too hard. They'll likely tear your nose clean off.

With that the old man began again to pick at his chicken. He sighed once more and set his fork aside and took up the plate and got up and set it untouched by the sink basin. I believe the appetite's gone out of me, he said.

The boy walked around the table to the old man and put a hand on his pallid shoulder and would have spoke but instead walked off out the door.

Hey boy.

The boy turned. He came back through the threshold and stood with the edge of the lantern light touching the tips of his boots and no more.

Just remember.

Remember what?

With one wind cometh another.

The boy smiled slightly. Is that the myth? he said.

The old man did not smile back. He turned away from the boy and picked up his cup and sidled over to the tub. No, he said, leaning over the edge of the tub and not looking back at the boy. That's the truth.

*   *   *

THERE HAD BEEN
a rainfall in the lowland and the dirt path he rode was thick with mud. When he reached the thoroughfare he passed a few railyard workers still dressed in their work togs and leaning against a pickup truck and smoking wordlessly. Black viscous puddles lay like serpents in the undercarriages of the storefronts and the drip and splatter of gutter water broke apart the music coming from the bar. Fine rivulets of water ran wood-colored from the outcropping vigas he rode beneath and they fell upon the sleeves of his jacket. He shook them out as he went. In the near distance a woman was shouting at someone or something from her porch, her voice wildly rising and caving with the wind.

The boy got down from his horse and fanned the dew from his hat and hitched up his pants and hitched the mare at the porch rail and went up to the bar. He stepped aside to let a couple pass. The man tipped his hat at the boy and the woman looked down at her shoes and gripped the man's arm.

When the boy walked in he had to sweep his hand at the smoke-filled air to see his way. Railroad men with harrowed faces lined the bar. Many waved urgently at the barkeep's back, as if they longed to order some antidote for the burdens they carried in their mauled hands and dark blood. Around them women sidestepped unattended, their breasts plumping up against the crude field jackets of the men and their hands skillfully light upon their waists. Those who spoke to the women did so without turning from their tumblers of whiskey and in voices so low it seemed they were mouthing words they could not figure a way to bring from their throats.

The lively melody from the piano did not stir many of the men from the bar ledge. The boy walked slowly past the bar to the back of the room. He stood against the far wall and lit a cigarette and watched a quadrille swinging on the makeshift dance floor. The men who danced seemed to be inclined by some power outside their own reckoning.

When the song ended the boy heard a voice rise from the inset of the bar, a thin wire low note which he knew he had heard before. He moved around the dancers who were now breaking up with the men speaking desperately to the floor. He stood at the end of the bar. He saw the brown sleeve of Thomas Trewitt reaching out to take up a glass of whiskey.

John Barleycorn all around. Hey barkeep. Doctor. You hear me? A little sip for all my friends.

The boy came around, all eyes still on the bar or quietly studying the silver bottles on the shelving as if their own bones set out for display. He stood a distance behind Trewitt whose waistcoat was open and shirt untucked with his potbelly bulging from the belt cinch. Around him sat three tall men with identical handlebar mustaches whom he had seen before with John Frank and whom the old man named the Ralstons. All three watched Trewitt with malevolent amusement. Thomas Trewitt drew back the whiskey glass and caught the boy off guard when he whirled around from the bar and saw him standing there.