The Run for the Elbertas (18 page)

Godey eyed the meal sourly, keeping turned to hide the rip. “A dog wouldn't eat a mess like that,” he caviled. Nevertheless he took a serving. With cheeks full he added, “I wouldn't except I'm so weak I couldn't rattle dry leaves.”

“You might do as well at your own table,” Riar countered, “but it's not my information.”

Hardly were they moving again than Godey broached driving. “I'm ready to steer awhile, Big Buddy.”

Riar grunted noncommittally.

“Last night you let on I could.”

“I never made such talk. I promised you two dollars, and have them you will the moment they're earned.”

Godey produced his knife. “I'll give you this, and hit's a bargain. Four regular blades, and an awl, and a punch, and a shoe hook, and—”

“All that play-daddle is fit for is to rub a hole in your pocket.”

“Then,” said Godey determinedly, “I'm going to have my wages now, cash on the barrel.”

“Are you making that cry again?” fretted Riar. “They said you were pranky, but I didn't figure on all the mouth I'm having to put up with.”

“You heard me.”

“My opinion,” Mal joined in, “you're not to be confidenced.”

Godey declared, “Fork over else we'll allow the shed crews to steal you ragged. Even might help 'em.”

“Great sakes!” Riar exclaimed. “Two dollars not yours yet and you growling for them.”

“Why, you're behind the times,” corrected Godey. “You're paying me an extra three to buy a pair of breeches. Your old cushion has tore a hole in me big as outdoors.”

Riar sputtered, “I haven't taken you to raise, Mister Boy.”

“According to law,” said Godey, displaying the tear, “I've suffered damage in your vehicle. I know my rights.”

“I'll see you to a needle and thread.”

Godey had Riar going, and he knew it. He said cockily, “Want to satisfy me and not have to tip your pocketbook?”

“Deliver my life and living into your hands?” Riar chuffed, on to the proposition.

“Turn the truck over to me thirty minutes and I'll forget the breeches. I may even decide to let you off paying me for a while.”

Riar groaned. “My young'uns' bread depends on this machine.” But he was tempted. Loading without watchers was a misery, and he couldn't abide further expense.

“It's me drive,” Godey said, “or you shell out five dollars.”

“Wreck my truck,” Riar bumbled, “and I'm ruined. You don't care.” But he could see no alternative. “I get along with folks if they'll let me,” he said, relenting. And he questioned anxiously, “Will you stay on your side of the road and run steady and not attempt to make an airplane of it?”

“Try me.”

Riar slowed and stopped, and he took pliers and bent the point of the broken spring. Godey slid under the wheel, face bright with triumph, and he asked, “Anything coming behind?”

The truck moved away evenly, the gears knuckling without sound. Watch in hand, Riar prompted, “Don't ride the clutch,” and “She's not tied up for speed,” and “She brakes on the three-quarter pedal.” But his coaching was useless, as Godey drove well enough.

Meeting a bus, Godey poked his head out and bawled, “Get over, Joab,” and he grumbled, “Some people take their part of the highway in the middle.” He reproved Riar. “Why don't you quit worrying. You make a feller nervous.”

“I can't,” breathed Riar. “Not for my life.”

Before Godey's half hour was through he inquired, “Have I done to suit you?”

“You'll get by,” grudged Riar.

“How far to the North Carolina line?”

“Another hour should fetch it.”

Godey's eyes narrowed. “Want to pet your pocketbook again?”

“What now?” Riar asked skeptically.

“I've decided to swap my pay to drive to there.”

“You're agreeing to pass up the money, aye? And after vilifying me about the Colley brothers.”

“I aim to,” said Godey, “and I won't argue.”

Riar shook his head. “I promised cash, and cash you'll have. I'll prove to you June bugs my word is worth one hundred cents to the dollar.”

Godey shrugged. “Made up your mind, Big Buddy?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well,” said Godey, “let's see can we change it,” and without further ado he floored the accelerator. The truck jumped, the cattle rack leapt in the brackets. The shovel hanging from the slats thumped the cab.

“Scratch gravel,” crowed Mal. “Pour on the carbide.”

“Mercy sakes!” croaked Riar.

Godey spun the wheel back and forth. He zig-zagged the road like a black snake. The rack swayed, threatening to break free.

Riar's mouth opened, but nothing came out. The veins on his neck corded.

Godey cut to the left side of the highway and sped around a blind curve.

Riar could stand no more. “All right,” he gasped. “All right.”

Godey slackened. Grinning he said, “Why, you break your word fairly easy. Get you up against it and you'll breach.”

By early afternoon they had put western North Carolina behind and crossed into South Carolina. The mountains fell back, the earth leveled and reddened, the first peach orchards came to view. The sun beat down, and the cab was baking hot.

Riar charged the boys, “I'm expecting you to keep your eyes skinned when they load my peaches. The fruit goes on several bushels together, and the sharpers can trip you.” Godey and Mal sniggered.

Godey said, “Did they know it, it's us they'd better watch.”

“What I say,” agreed Mal.

“I'm after my honest due,” Riar said. “I don't intend to cheat or be cheated.” And a thought seized him. Glancing swiftly at the boys he said, “You can count to two hundred, I hope to my soul.”

“I can count my finger,” jested Godey.

“How much schooling have you had?”

“Aye,” said Godey, “I learned who killed Cock Robin.”

Mal said, “Godey Spurlock coming up short hain't been heard of.”

Beyond Landrum a packing house appeared, the metal roof glaring sunlight. Riar drove past, and Godey clamored, “Hain't you going to stop?”

“They're a contract outfit,” Riar said. “They wax and shine their fruits like a pair of Sunday shoes, and some retail at ten cents apiece. They don't deal with the little feller.”

“They'd allow us to peep around, I reckon.”

To humor them, Riar drew in at the next shed. “Another large operator,” he explained, “and we won't buy here either. Just stretch our legs and cool.”

A line of ten-wheel trucks was parked at the loading platform, and Godey breathed, “Gee-o! Look at the big jobs.” He
teased Riar. “Hain't you ashamed to take your old plug out where people can see it?”

“Not in the least,” said Riar.

From the platform Godey and Mal gazed under the shed. They saw the roll conveyors tumbling fruit forward, the workers busy at the picking belts. Hail-pecked and wormy fruits were being shunted aside. The peaches flowed on through sizers and brushes of the defuzzer to the packers, and there seemed no end to them.

Godey's eye lit on a huge peach in a basket, and he snatched it up. A voice behind him spoke, “You're welcome, young fellow, stuff till you bust.” Without deigning to turn, Godey held out the great peach and sneered “Pea-jibbit!” and let it fall and stepped on it. But he peeled and ate six others.

When Riar got up with the boys twenty minutes later there was nothing they had not looked at. As they drove away Godey said, “The first ever I knowed peaches have hairs like cats.”

“Get them brushings on you,” said Riar, “and they'll eat you alive.”

“What they told me,” said Godey. “Claimed it takes a spell to dig in, but after it does bull nettles hain't a patching to it.”

Said Mal, “We'd got some, did we have a poke to put 'em in.”

“Of what use is it? I ask you.”

Said Godey, “For Doss and Wint Colley a beating is too fine. I want to see them dance.”

“Now, yes,” said Mal. “They'd throw an ague fit.”

Riar frowned. “Hitting back at folks is all you think of.”

Two miles beyond Landrum, Riar turned onto a dirt road and the wheels set the dust boiling. The boys' faces were streaked where they wiped the sweat. Riar stopped at a number of small-growers' sheds, buying at none, saying, “They sell high as Haman,” or “Their fruit is too green for my business,” or “Most of my customers want Elbertas.”

Godey said, “Always I've heard a fruit bought off of you had better be stomached quick, it's so rotty-ripe.”

“The mellower the cheaper,” said Riar.

Mal said, “You'll travel farther for a dollar than anybody on creation.”

“Was I you,” said Godey, “I'd take any peaches handy and call 'em Elbertas, and nobody'd know the difference.”

Riar shook his head. “When I say a thing is such and such, you can count on it.”

“Oh, yes?” scoffed Godey. “You point me to a plumb honest feller, and I'll show you a patch of hair growing in the palm of his hand.”

“My opinion,” gibed Mal, “He's hunting a place where they give away.”

“About the size of it,” said Godey.

“Even if I had my fruit on order I'd wait until the shade comes over,” said Riar. “I don't cook my peaches by hauling in the sun.”

The shed where Riar bought was a barn with the sides gone. A single processing unit was operated by the owner's family, and the picking belt was lined with children. Elbertas and Georgia Belles and J. H. Hales lay across the floor in drifts.

With Godey and Mal at his heels Riar inspected the heaps. Encountering a boy, Godey opened his knife and greeted, “Hello, Coot, what'll you give to boot?” He lifted a Georgia Belle on the awl, peeled it with the butcher blade, used the shoe hook to pluck the seed. A second youngster hastened to watch, and Godey readied another, bringing the scalper and corkscrew into play.

The owner cast an appraising look at Riar. Noting his eye on a section of Elbertas three days harvested he said, “There's your bargain. A dollar and a quarter a bushel.” To explain their being on hand he added, “The whole crop is trying to shape up the same minute.”

Riar broke several in half. The flesh was grainy and yellow. He tasted, and they had the sugar. Though much softer
than he usually handled, he judged most could bear the trip. They would last the night and the cool of the morning. If he bought them reasonably and peddled them at two fifty, he could clear his debts and have money left. What matter the loss of the bottom layers. He said, “I'll pay seventy cents.”

The owner had hardly expected to get rid of the aging fruit. Still he said, “I can't accept less than a dollar.”

“Seventy cents,” repeated Riar.

“Yesterday they were a dollar fifty.”

“Day after tomorrow,” parried Riar, “you'll have to scrape them up.”

Godey butted in. “People don't call him Tightwad just to beat their gums.”

Riar's neck reddened, but he held himself.

Trying to make a stand, the owner said, “I'll drop to eighty, but they'll rot on the floor before I'll accept less.”

“Well, then,” said Riar, “we can't do business, for I won't pay above seventy for dead-ripe peaches.” Shuffling to go he asked, “How far to the next shed?”

The owner changed his tune. He said, “Couldn't we split the difference and meet in the middle?”

Riar gazed at the Elbertas. Only hovering gnats bespoke their advanced maturity. “I'll tell you what I will do,” he proposed, “and we can both keep our word. I'll pay eighty for a hundred and seventy-five bushels if you'll throw in the twenty-five that are bound to mash.”

“Riar to a whisker,” said Godey.

After figuring a moment, the owner grumbled, “But you'd still be getting them at seventy cents.”

“What I know,” admitted Riar.

Throwing up his arms, the owner groaned, “Take 'em, take 'em.”

The sun was still high. Leaving Godey and Mal on their own, Riar rested in the truck, but it was too sultry to sleep. And at sunset he called them with, “My peaches will never be any greener.” Godey carried a paper poke, the neck of which
was tied with string, and Riar said, “If that's something you've picked up, leave it lay.”

“Where I go this poke goes,” said Godey.

Guessing the contents, Riar said, “The stuff will not ride in the cab with me.” Yet thinking to forbear until he had his peaches aboard, he added, “If you're so set on it, put the poke in the toolbox.” He figured to lose it later.

The children loaded the truck, the smaller filling baskets and sending by conveyor to the platform, the larger hoisting them over the rack and emptying. The work quickened upon the arrival of a contract van. Riar counted at the tail gate, and Godey and Mal clung to the slats and sang out the number, and though three measures were often dumped at a time, Riar got his two hundred without a doubt.

The servicing of the van started immediately. And the moment Riar and the owner disappeared into the crib office to settle up, Godey traded his knife to the boys. Five bushels of Georgia Belles headed for the van were switched onto Riar's truck.

At leaving, Riar handed Mal two dollars and advised, “Keep them in your pocket, they won't spoil,” and he chided Godey, “You could of had the same if you hadn't got ahead of yourself.”

Godey smiled slyly. “I hain't so bad off,” he said.

Night caught them on Saluda Mountain in North Carolina. Pockets of fog appeared, and sometimes Riar had to drive with his head through the door. As they crept upward, vehicles passed them, and Godey taunted, “I want to know is this the fastest you can travel?”

“She'd show life,” said Mal, “was she fed the gas.”