Hard Twisted (2 page)

What's the matter, I'm too ugly to look at?

You ain't ugly.

The man worked a matchstick in the corner of his smile.

If you're lookin for my pa, you're too late. He's over to Durant. That's his bad luck then, ain't it. Here I come all this way to offer him a job.

What job?

He gestured toward the truckbed. Brought him a rooster.

A rooster ain't no job.

He shook his head sadly, grinning into his hat crown.

What all's he supposed to do with it then?

Hey, you remind me of someone, do you know that? Was you ever in the movin pictures?

Not hardly.

Then it was one of them photo magazines. Am I right?

She lowered her gaze, the heat prickling her face.

What's your name, anyways?

Lucile. Lottie to my friends.

His eyes left hers to scan the field behind her, settling on the
spavined house and the broken windmill and the cold thread of woodsmoke hanging above them.

I got friends.

How old are you, anyways? Fourteen?

Thirteen.

Thirteen. He nodded once. I got me a niece name of Johnny Rae, and she's just about your age. She's my sister's youngest.

Lottie shaded her eyes. Does she live in these parts?

He nodded again. Matter of fact, she and me, we was gonna take us a drive down to Peerless tomorrow to visit my daddy. You ever been to Texas?

I don't know.

My daddy's got him a farm down there with cows and goats and pony horses. It's too bad you all couldn't come with us, cuz them horses need to get worked. He looked south, far beyond the horizon. Could use us another hand tomorrow, that's for damn sure.

She studied the stranger's profile. His tooled boots and his new Levi's and his polished oval belt buckle.

My pa wouldn't let me go noways.

How come? Why, you and me and Johnny Rae and her mama, we all could have us a day. Maybe eat us a picnic dinner. You like fried chicken?

I suppose.

And they's a swimmin hole for you girls if the weather holds. Hell, we all'd be back by sunset.

Well.

You want I should talk to your pa?

She shrugged. I don't know.

What's your pa's name, anyways?

Dillard Garrett.

Dillard Garrett, he said. As if weighing it.

They faced each other in the silence that followed, his cornflower eyes locked on to hers. She looked away, fists thrust into pockets.

I got to go.

You need a ride somewheres?

No, sir.

Don't
sir
me. I ain't your daddy.

All right.

Clinton Palmer. That's my name. Clint to my friends.

Now you're funnin me.

Grinning again, he removed the matchstick and slid himself upright.

Tell you what. Come over here and take this rooster for your pa. I'll come by in the mornin, and him and me'll have us a little talk.

He climbed into the truckbed and, without bending, slid the lone crate toward the endgate with his boot.

Careful now. That's one rank bird.

The cock was rust over black, and the black of it held a greenish cast in the gridded sunlight. It fanned its ruff and pecked at the wire where she reached her hand.

Does he got a name?

No, ma'am, but I reckon you could give him one.

She tipped the crate carefully with her forearm, hiking it onto her hip. The bird was all but weightless, its pink talons balled and its pink head rooting in short and halting jerks.

He sure is fancy, but he don't weigh nothin a'tall.

She carried the crate across the ditch and hiked it again as she
walked, pausing but once to turn and face the slender figure still skylighted in the truckbed.

I got me a notion to name him Clint.

The mill jobs in Durant had been but two jobs, for which over a hundred men had applied. Her father's voice quavered as he told the story, and between long tugs of bonded whiskey he cursed the day and he cursed the mill foreman and he cursed Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt for good measure.

The rooster stirred in its cage.

It's got to where a white man can't find a honest day's work for a honest day's wages, he rasped, his hands trembling, his dark eyes shining in the firelight. It's got to where a Christian man is treated no better than a godless goddamn nigger.

Lottie listened, chewing and nodding in mute commiseration, waiting until at last her father had stoppered the bottle and rolled a smoke and leaned back into his bedroll. Only then did she broach the subject of Peerless, but his answer was curt, and emphatic, and so she let the matter drop.

The truck sat shimmering in the roadside sun as Lottie emerged barefoot from the creekbed. Before it were two figures in backlight, one tall and one short, the shape that was her father listening with folded arms while the smaller man spoke and gestured, first to the truck and then to the highway, and then in a sweeping arc that encompassed the broken house and the field where Lottie crouched in the pokeweed, her eyes closed, her lips moving in swift and silent prayer.

Where's Johnny Rae?

Lottie paused with her foot on the running board as Palmer held the door.

Packin her kit bag, I reckon. We'll fetch her up in Hugo.

He closed the door and circled the truck, clapping dust from his hands, his eyes scanning the highway in both directions.

The cab where she waited was spare and tidy and bore the masculine smells of motor oil and leather and old cigarettes. A spider crack stippled the corner of the windscreen. A cowhide valise, like a doctor's bag, rested on the seat beside her.

Palmer clambered in and slammed the door, setting his hat atop the valise and raking his hair with a hand. He looked at her and smiled. He turned the ignition and pressed the starter and mashed the pedals, working the shift lever up and back until the gears ground and caught and the truck lurched forward, rocking and wheeling southbound onto the empty highway.

That weren't too difficult.

What all'd you tell him?

Oh, let's see. That I was Clyde Barrow and needin me a gun moll, and that we all was gonna rob us some banks and shoot our way down to Mexico.

She giggled. You're crazy.

He said to bring him one of them sombrero hats is all.

The day was warm, and the warmth of it rippled on the scrolling blacktop. She watched him in stolen glances; the line of his nose and the set of his jaw and the dance of his hair in the breeze.

What is it?

Nothin, she replied.

You was smilin at somethin.

It weren't nothin to talk about.

They passed beanfields and cornfields and grazing cattle, and then the ironworks and the cotton compress, slowing only at the stockyard where the roadway and the rail line crossed. Palmer pointed out the railmen's barracks, and the ice plant, and a gated cemetery where he swore that elephants and circus clowns had been buried.

A redbrick bank was on the main street, and a general store, and they passed them both before turning left at midblock down a narrow alley.

Wait here a minute, Palmer said, setting the brake and collecting his hat and sliding from under the wheel.

She sat and watched as cars and trucks and occasional horses plodded past the alley mouth like targets in a carnival shooting gallery. She fingered the knobs on the dashboard. She hummed. When a man approached the truck and removed his hat to ask if she could spare a dime, she told the man that she had no dime to spare.

When Palmer returned, he was swinging a brown paper sack that he tucked between his legs as he resumed his place at the wheel.

Change in plans, he announced breezily, releasing the brake and reversing the gears and slinging his arm over the seatback. Looks like Johnny Rae and her mama done already left. We'll have to meet 'em down there, if that's okay with you?

I guess.

He turned to her and winked. Bigger shares for you and me if we hit us a bank on the way.

They passed the Methodist church and the Baptist church, and outside of town they passed the tie-treating plant, where Lottie pinched her nose against the treacle smell of creosote. Beyond
these, the countryside opened and the highway rose and fell and she saw in the rising a jagged suture of brighter green that ran for miles from east to west and marked the Red River valley.

They crossed into Texas on the Highway 39 bridge at Arthur City, where she watched their reflection warp and disjoin and form again in the storefront glass. They turned onto a gravel side road, recrossing the railroad tracks and dropping into the cool and empty shade of the riverbank.

You need to pee? he asked, setting the hand brake.

I don't know.

If you don't know, who does then?

He killed the engine and shouldered his door, slipping the paper sack into his seat pocket as he alighted. She watched as he walked into the rushes and curtsied and fumbled with his trouser front. Then he crossed the little clearing to a downed log and settled himself in the shade, fanning his face with the hat.

You all comin out? he called to the truck, and she opened her door and closed it and moved through the dappling sunlight and the pustular smell of rotting bulrush.

You gettin hungry?

A little.

He shifted where he sat. They's a café in Paris. That's about a half hour's drive from here. Think you can hold out?

I guess.

As she settled on the log beside him, he placed the cowboy hat on her head and leaned back to study the effect. He reached for the sack, folded back the paper, and uncorked the bottle within with his teeth. He took a long drink of the amber liquid and offered the bottle to her.

You sure? ... All right then, suit yourself.

He set the bottle on the ground, crossing his legs and prying his boots off each in turn. He wore no socks and his feet were as a child's feet, small and veined and pale as candle wax.

I got me a notion to wash up, if that's all right with you. Cleanliness bein next to godliness and all.

He stood and unsnapped his shirt, draping it on a low branch. He was lean and hard-muscled, tanned on his neck and forearms, and he smiled at her over his shoulder as he sauntered through the canebrake. At the river's edge he stopped to roll his pantlegs before wading into the water.

She watched him closely, pretending she was not. Watched as he produced a kerchief from his pocket. Watched as he dipped the cloth and wrung it, half-squatting, scrubbing at his face and neck. Watched as he turned to where she sat, his voice echoing across the wide and silent river.

Come on, Bonnie Parker! A little water won't kill you!

She looked from the man to the bottle and back again to the man. To the truck, like a great wounded beetle with its one door open. To the shirt, limp and empty as a snakeskin.

At the river's edge the air was warm and alive with insects seen and unseen, and she watched the threaded grasses streaming in the water beyond the wide shadow of her hat brim. Palmer stood in full sun, hands on hips, the cold water glistening on his chest.

Come on in. It ain't that fast.

She waded out to where he stood, the cold mud oozing between her toes, stepping and pausing, stepping and pausing, her weight braced against the heavy current, while upriver, before the riveted railroad bridge, sunlight danced on the water.

He lifted a hand to her cheek, rubbing a spot there with his thumb, his hand lingering on her face and on her neck as though
gentling a skittish yearling. Then he slapped the bandanna across his shoulder, reaching his hands to her shirtfront.

What're you doin?

Just hold still a second.

Quit it!

She twisted away, backing and almost falling.

Hey! Careful of that hat!

She stood with her legs braced, her fear and her excitement veiled by the shadow of the hat brim.

I was only tryin to help. It was kindly gettin close in that truck, if you get my meanin.

Her face burned. She looked to her feet, or to where her knees below the rolled pant cuffs met the sheeting water.

What's the matter now?

She shrugged. I'm cold.

Here.

She accepted the cloth, and after he'd waded past her toward the bank, she bent and submerged it in the river, raising it to her nape, shivering as the water ran in hard, icy fingers down her shirtback.

I'll be over yonder with my eyes closed! his voice faded behind her. Don't you worry about me!

She lifted her sweater and her shirttail, scrubbing at her underarms. She swirled the bandanna and wrung it out and sniffed of it and swirled it again.

Hey! You ain't drowned out there I hope!

She could not see him, but when she'd waded ashore, she found him fully dressed and reclined against a treetrunk with his hands nesting the bottle in his lap.

How was that?

She shrugged.

He rose, brushing at his seat and accepting the wet cloth and retrieving the hat from her head.

I don't know about you, he said, but I could eat a folded tarp.

Back inside the truck cab, he uncorked the bottle and took another drink.

Here.

No thanks.

Go ahead. I won't tell your daddy.

That's all right.

You ain't scared, are you?

She looked at him, and at the bottle. She accepted it, sniffing at the neck and crinkling her nose.

Go on, it won't kill you.

I know it. She looked at him again and closed her eyes and drank.

A spray of bourbon whiskey wet the windscreen. At this Palmer roared, rocking and red-faced, his child's feet stamping the floorboards.

Whoooeee!

'Tain't funny, she gagged, coughing into her sleeve.

Tell you what though, it'll do till funny comes along. Give that here.

He drank again and wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve. And as he nestled the stoppered bottle inside the valise, she saw through still-watering eyes the hard, blue shape of the pistol.

They sat as bookends in a booth by the window. Fly husks on the faded sill were hard and iridescent in the sunlight, and Lottie watched them and their faint reflections rocking in unison to the
slow wash of the ceiling fan. A waitress, herself nearly as desiccated, filled their mugs and produced napkins and flatware from a sagging apron pocket.