The Hinterlands (44 page)

“You won't get no pay till it's finished, till you build it right,” Mr. Lance said to me. I wouldn't answer him no more. I thought
of hitting him over the head with a shovel, and I thought of just walking away from the job and never coming back. I thought of going to Texas, and I thought of going to the Rocky Mountains and being a trapper there. Only thing kept me from running away was your Grandma. I was going to stay and marry her, and I couldn't look like no quitter in front of her. And I couldn't let the mountain beat me if I wanted to build roads in the future, no matter how much I hated Mr. Lance and his crooked ways. I was embarrassed to face Mrs. Lewis too, for I hadn't paid her a cent for my room and board. I tried every way not to see her, which was hard since I was living in her house.

Darling, it was like that muddy cut was where our family had come to. Our road went back to Cedar Mountain and Douthat's Gap, and it went back through all the work your Great-grandpa had done. It went back to Saluda and the place your great-great-great-grandparents had cleared after they left the settlement at Mountain Creek in Rutherford County, and beyond that it went back to Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and Wales. But it all stopped there at that muddy mountain, and it seemed like I couldn't go beyond it. I had to finish the turnpike, or it looked like they wouldn't be no future at all, for me or the family. Do you see what I'm saying? It had all come down to that one cut through the gap. And it depended on me. Wasn't nobody else could help.

Finally, I figured out what had to be done to the Mud Cut, as people had come to call it. I dug the terraces even wider and deeper, reaching way back up the ridge. And I had the convicts bust up rocks to put on the shelves. It was work they hated, but Mr. Howard made them do it. I guess he wanted to get the job over with and it seemed the only way. For the lower tiers, I built cribwork of logs and planks to hold back the dirt walls. Higher up, me and Noble fixed what is called wattles and gabions by
military engineers. I had read about how they protect earthworks by a kind of wicker made of osiers and saplings. We drove posts in front of the terraces and wove withes and sticks in mats to hold the dirt back. And we wove what looked like big baskets out of withes of hickory and willow, and filled them full of dirt. It took another month longer to finish that. And Mr. Howard and Mr. Lance both cussed and threatened me. But when me and Noble was done, the cut through the gap was tight as a corncrib. The last thing we done was dig a ditch along the top, to keep water from running down on the cut. You can still see the terraces there above the turnpike, though trees has growed on the shelves now.

When we finished the turnpike Mr. Lance give a barbecue at the gap on the stateline. He invited bigwigs and politicians and their wives from Asheville and Greenville. He sweated in the hot October sun and he wiped his face with a handkerchief and made a speech. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “this is the greatest project ever completed in upper Carolina. It unites our states forever in common enterprise.”

They roasted a whole pig on a spit, and they was plenty of sweet cakes and punch. And they was champagne for Mr. Lance and the politicians. The chaingangs that done the digging wasn't there, but their boss, Mr. Howard, was. Everybody eat a plate of barbecue and had a good time. And then they got in their carriages and buggies and started back down to Greenville on the new turnpike, or north to Asheville. I stood where the crowd had been in the gap and listened to the carriage wheels rumble on the plank road below.

Noble had already gone back to Cedar Mountain, and your Grandma hadn't come to the ceremony. She said she didn't want to hear a lot of politicians make speeches and take credit for our
work. She said she wouldn't stand out in the hot autumn sun to listen to them liars congratulate theirselves.

I was feeling good, 'cause Mr. Lance had give me two hundred dollars in twenty-dollar gold pieces. They weighed in my pocket and tinkled when I walked. I wanted to get back home and put them in my bag before they wore smooth at the edges. I wanted to get back and tell Miss Lewis about the bonus I had been give. And I wanted to pay her Ma for mine and Noble's room and board so I would feel free to ask for Miss Lewis's hand in marriage.

But I lingered there in the cut where me and Noble had worked so many months. Grass and weeds was beginning to grow on the terraces. They had built the fire for the barbecue right in the road and I wanted to sweep the ashes and burned sticks out of sight. Slivers of meat still stuck to the bones of the roasted pig. I picked off the best pieces and eat them, looking way down the cut toward Chestnut Springs and the foothills of South Carolina.

I couldn't think of nothing to distract the painter but to take my coat off and rub my hands on the cloth. I tried to smear whatever grease and smell was still on my fingers into the wool. It was the only suit I had. I took my comb out of the breast pocket and stuck it in my trousers. I run my hands through my hair to get oil on them, and wiped that on the coat too. Then I throwed the jacket behind me and hurried on.

It was getting dark even in the woods above the holler. The trail was nothing but a gray hole between the bushes. I tried to think of what I had heard about painters. Was they afraid if a man turned to face them, the way dogs is and a black bear is? Or was they like a bull that comes right toward whatever stood in front of it? Did they like to run down things, and running away would make them more dangerous? I knowed they run down deer and
calves. I made myself slow down. I figured the cat might hesitate to leap on somebody going brave about his business. I thought of your Grandma and all her family waiting supper for me. I told myself I would never go into the woods again without my gun. And I would never go into the night without a lantern. Painters was afraid of fire, but I didn't have no way to make a fire.

In the dark I could smell pine needles on the slope, still warm from the evening sun. They is no sweeter smell than pine straw that has been heated up.

It sounded like the crack of a whip when the painter tore my coat in two. It was like thunder ripping the sky. Old Tryfoot tore the cloth, and tore it again. I guess he was mad 'cause they was nothing to eat except wool with the smell of barbecue on it. It sounded like he was clawing the jacket into threads, snarling and panting.

As I hurried on, I pulled down my galluses and wiped my sweating hands on my shirt. The dark had got hot as a toothache. I undone the black ribbon of my tie and flung it behind me. And then I fumbled to unbutton the shirt. It was like my hands could find the buttons in the dark but the fingers couldn't unbutton them. My fingers was so sticky with sweat they caught on the cloth. It was my only boiled shirt and I didn't want to tear it.

My fingers felt like they was melting at the tips, and sweat and barbecue juice stuck them together. The painter had dropped the rags of the coat and was running up the trail again. It made the awfullest squall, the scream of somebody tortured. It was like a scream I had heard from the house in Greenville where they keep afflicted people. I reckon the painter would already have caught me except it was three-legged and had to run sideways a little.

I tore open my shirt and heard the buttons fly off into the leaves. They was mother of pearl, and Mama had ordered them
special from a place in Atlanta. Then I remembered the shirt had cufflinks. I got the right one out, but the left one was tight on my wrist and wouldn't budge. I picked at it with my fingernails, but the head was stuck in the buttonhole. They was the only cufflinks I had.

Old Tryfoot was practically on top of me. He was so close I could hear him breathing. The shirt fluttered in the dark like a big white bird on my wrist. I give the shirt a jerk with my right hand and tore it off the cuff. I pitched the cloth behind me and doubt it hardly touched the ground before the painter snatched it.

Painters don't growl like dogs. They have their own kind of snarl. Old Tryfoot chewed at the white cloth of the shirt and growled like a glutton jealous of his meat. I could hear teeth gnashing on the fabric, and ripping the seams Mama had sewed so careful.

It looked like I wasn't going to make it. The trail up to the Lewis place runs for about half a mile through the laurel thicket and then through some oak and poplar and sassafras woods before it reaches the clearing. If somebody seen me coming they might grab a gun and shoot the painter. But it was already dark and they wouldn't be nobody on the porch. If the dogs was in the yard they might bark and come running after the painter. But the dogs would be eating their supper in the shed behind the kitchen where Alfred, the Lewises' house slave, fed them.

I didn't have nothing left to throw down but my trousers and the galluses. Without the galluses my pants would soon fall down anyway. I couldn't slip my trousers off without taking my boots off either. It's hard enough to pull your pants off in the dark, much less while you're running.

Slowing a little I reached down and tried to jerk a boot off. But all I done was trip myself and go sprawling in the dirt. It was dark
and everything seemed to be whirling around. The trees and the stars above flew past my head. A bird somewhere in the woods was squawking. Down the trail the painter quit tearing the shirt and come running again, padding the ground, one, two-three, one, two-three. I wasn't even sure which way the trail went no more. But while I was stopped, I pulled both boots off and throwed one behind me. The other one I held onto.

The first boot must have hit the painter in the face, for it sounded like he slid to a stop in the leaves to turn and rassle the boot with his paws. I reckon a three-legged cat can't reach out and grab something as easy as a four-legged one. I heard the boot knocked around in the leaves and the cat snarling as it bit and slapped the leather. The boot must have been too tough to rip.

As I got up and started running again I knocked into limbs and saplings before finding the trail. I stubbed my toes on rocks and roots, and crashed through a bush or two. But my feet, hurt as they was, found the dirt of the path and I begun to run faster. I tried to think, was they some way to slow the cat down so I could get to the house, or at least to the clearing? It just seemed I was a goner.

But I run harder than ever. It was like my feet didn't hardly touch the ground. When I heard Old Tryfoot close behind, I hurled the other boot back in his face. He paused to slap that boot into the brush and then bite it like it was a lamb or pig.

They wasn't nothing left to throw at the painter but my trousers. And in the pocket of my pants rattled the ten gold pieces. It was everything I had from the whole summer's work, for all the sweat and laying off and digging out the landslides, cutting the terraces and tearing out the innards of the mountain again and again. I had took not only the cussing of Mr. Lance and Mr. Howard, but the cussing of the mountain too. It was like the
mountain had tried to put a curse on me, and had a personal grudge against me, and I had won. And now the mountain had sent Old Tryfoot to get revenge. The ten coins was all I had to show for the misery and worry. It looked like the gap was going to win after all, or at least I was going to lose. I had read about victories so hard the winners lost in the long run.

I had to take the gold pieces out of my pocket. And I had to use both hands to pull my trousers off. If I dropped the money in the dark I might never find it, or somebody else might find it. It was all I had to pay Mrs. Lewis and to pay Noble, and for me and Miss Lewis to start housekeeping with. I took the ten hot coins out of my pocket and put them in my mouth. They tasted like sweat and barbecue, and the metal tasted old and new at once.

I stopped and pulled the pants over my feet, one leg at a time. The cat was thudding so fast up the trail I expected the slash of its claws in my neck and shoulders. I could almost feel its teeth on my face. When I flung the pants back I think they must have covered the painter's eyes for he growled and turned sideways into the brush. I started running even faster.

With the coins in my mouth I had to breathe through my nose. And I couldn't holler out for nobody to come help. I held my head up and run like I was reaching for the edge of the world. I run like I was rounding the curve of the earth in the dark. I run so hard it was all a blur as I brushed limbs and hit bushes with my knees. I was so busy running I didn't hardly notice when the dogs come out of the shed and started barking. I guess they had finished their supper or had smelled the painter on the wind, for they met me where I come out of the woods and started snarling at Old Tryfoot until he stopped and turned back into the trees.

I didn't stop running till I got to the porch. There I flung open the door and run right into the parlor. In the lamplight they was
all standing there, waiting for supper to be served. They was Mr. and Mrs. Lewis and Miss Lewis and about ten overnight guests. Miss Lewis was standing by the organ, and she looked startled, like she had seen a headless ghost bust through the door. But your Grandma ever did have a cool head. She reached up and tore a curtain off the wall and brung it to me. It was only when she had wrapped the drapery around me that I realized I was naked except for my drawers and the cuff still on my left wrist. I was out of breath, and I wanted to tell her and all the others I had run from Old Tryfoot. But my mouth was full of gold coins, and when I opened it to speak I felt one of the twenty-dollar pieces slide right down my throat. The funny thing was that as the coin slipped down I felt a laugh rising in my chest. I couldn't help but laugh, seeing the look on everybody's face. It was like I had run a thousand miles, only to arrive in my birthday suit. I had moved a mountain that summer, and here I stood like a baby in a diaper. Miss Lewis and me would go on many hundreds of miles together and thousands of days together, but I wouldn't never be as scared, or feel as silly again. They wasn't nothing to do but laugh about it. Nothing else would get us through that moment. I seen your Grandma starting to laugh too, and already I was beginning to feel better.