The Sound of the Trees (16 page)

You wantin to quit the job?

No. I'm not.

What you want to talk to me for, then?

The boy cast a sidelong glance at John Frank then went and stood by the window. Well, he said. I ain't never been much for words.

No, you ain't. But at least in the past you've used them where they were needed. I reckon with me they're not.

I'm using em now, ain't I?

They were both silent.

You are, John Frank finally said.

The boy walked to the far corner of the room to where a lone chair stood. He dragged it across the room and sat in front of the desk. He rubbed his head and looked around again, as if something in the room might offer him reprieve. How's that little peach of yours? he said.

John Frank watched the boy stone-faced. Then he began to shake his head. She don't want to see me but sunk six feet underground, he said. He straightened up in his seat. I wasn't at my best walking skills that night.

The night I seen you in the plaza.

I'd say that was the one.

You ain't seen her since then, I take it.

I imagine if I'd seen her I'd be sittin here with a wind-filled skull.

What happened?

Well, at first I didn't have no problems. Then we sat down at the restaurant and I could barely keep her face in one showing. There were about three of her rotatin in front of me like I just stepped off a fair ride. She kept askin me why I was blinkin so much and I told her it was out of nervous habit. By the end of the night I thought I'd taken to feelin better. I asked her if maybe she wanted to take a walk for some ice cream and she said Alright. But when I went to stand, I couldn't. My legs was heaviern cow shanks. I told her I couldn't quite walk yet and that it was another of my nervous habits that was probably stirred up on account of bein with her.

You sweet-talked her, I guess.

Yeah well, the problem was she went to feelin bad for me and that's when it all went to hell. She stood and tried to help me up, believin it was all my nervousness, but when I leaned over and unloaded on her there wasn't nothin I could have said to make her believe it was just another habit of mine.

The boy's face grew grave. I don't see where the humor is in that, he said.

John Frank's grin went away. It's not like I'm tryin to make a habit of it, he said. One of those things, is all.

Is that what you call it?

John Frank threw up his arms. Ah hell, he said. At least let me finish the story. Jesus. You're the one said you wanted to talk.

The boy shook his head. Go on then, he said. I ain't stoppin you.

John Frank rubbed his hands together. He righted the legs of his chair so he sat square behind the desk. Alright, he said. This particular time, I did happen to throw up on her. Heaved a good gourd, too.

What did you do?

You see I wanted to help her, so I got up to my feet, but there it came again. I don't know why she hadn't stepped back by then. I reckon she was unable to think at all.

Shit, the boy said.

You said it.

And I suppose she did too.

That and a lot more. I stood there in the middle of the danged restaurant bein laid into by a girl drippin in garbage. The mayor didn't take too kindly to it neither.

He was there?

No. He wasn't there. John Frank poked a fingertip on the desk three times. But I came to work the next day and puked right here.

You were still drunk the next day?

I was drunkern a shithouse pig. Said one more strike and I'm out.

Shit if I don't know you from a travelin clown.

John Frank grinned at him. Hell, he said, even if I was a clown, I don't believe they'd want me gettin up to travel.

They sat. John Frank's mouth turned down. He took up a pencil from his desk and began to tap it and looked out the window. What's been tyin your fancy in such a knot? he said. You been like a goddamn ghost.

The boy did not respond. Frank kept tapping his pencil as he watched the boy. They been talkin about you, he said.

Who has.

People. Everyone. Damn, you ride around the plaza on that danged horse of yours like you was just waitin to fall off. You don't even look like you've eaten better than grass in the last month. I seen one little girl was cryin over you. Sayin, What's happened to the pretty cowboy, Mama?

Ain't nothin's happened. The boy stood. He folded his hands behind his back and walked to the window and let them drop. Maybe that's the problem, he said.

He came away from the window. He pushed his fingers through his hair then down his sides where he began to rub his hips slowly, as though in speculation of his own form. John Frank held out a cigarette across the desk and the boy took it and walked back over to the window and looked out to where the clouds had come low and ponderous into the valley.

Who's been penned lately? he said.

You mean put in jail? Shit. John Frank cocked his head back. Shit, he said. I don't know those things. Nobody does unless somethin goes down in broad daylight. That's the way the mayor's been runnin this town. Keep all the hell-raisers private. That way nobody's got to worry about them.

The boy turned from the window and studied him closely. So you don't know, he said.

No. Things around here ain't the same way maybe you know them to be. Here a man ain't asked to account for all things that occur around him like he used to. And one of them things is the criminals. So I don't know. That's God's honest truth.

I don't want nobody else's truth. I want yours.

Shit, then you have it. I don't know the first or last of any of that business.

The boy turned up the cigarette he had been holding in his hand and now lit it with a match. Who knows then? he said.

Somebody I reckon.

The boy pointed the cigarette at him. You reckon right, he said. Ain't nothin happens without somebody's knowledge. I reckon the wind and rain is about all. He walked to the edge of the table. So who is somebody?

John Frank's face clouded. He slumped down in his chair and hit the table with an open palm. What the hell is this about? he said. Why you want to know? Is one of your old buds in there? One of them outlaws?

The boy's face paled and he looked away from John Frank and out the window again. I ain't no outlaw, he said, and I don't got any buds except you and if you're not wantin to help me I'll be on my way and not botherin you anymore.

John Frank leaned back in his chair. He ran his hands down his face. He looked out at the boy through the gaps of his fingers, then lowered his head and linked his hands over the back of his neck. Ah hell, he gasped. The only one I know who knows about the jail is the mayor himself.

What about the lawmen?

They're hired out from the north. The town's too small yet to have our own peacemakers and we haven't had that much need for them. When we do, they come down and take care of business and then they leave.

But the mayor knows.

Yeah, he knows. And maybe the lawyer too. The lawyer probably for sure. But you'll never meet him, I doubt. Nobody really has since he come on.

The boy looked past him and nodded slowly, as though considering something on the wall behind him. Then he stubbed out his cigarette and went to the door.

Where you goin?

To do my job, the boy said. He tried to smile. It's hottern shit out today, ain't it?

It is. What about all this jail business?

I reckon it's about time I met the mayor.

John Frank looked him over. I guess, he said.

When can I find him?

He'll probably be over at the festival tonight.

What festival?

In the plaza. It's for the harvest.

What harvest they got here?

Not much anymore. I reckon it'll be more for the railroad. Either way, it's tradition.

Then I'll come back after supper.

John Frank snapped his fingers and pointed across the room at the boy. Bring him a bottle. Whiskey or something. He'll like that.

The boy put his head back into the threshold of the door. Whiskey, he said.

When he turned to go again John Frank called out once more.

Hey Trude.

What.

John Frank leaned forward on his desk and took his hands down from behind his head and folded them in front of him and squinted at the boy.

How many seasons you pass up in them mountains anyway?

I don't know.

You don't know?

There weren't no seasons in them mountains, the boy said. Only weather.

*   *   *

In the plaza there was already excitement for the festival as the boy rode onto the thoroughfare. Lights strung lengthwise across the eaves of the storefronts bobbed rhythmically in the breeze. The old Indian women crouched under the shade of the willow tree and tinkered with their wares. Children burst around the street corners winging wooden ladles of water at one another. The men stood smoking and sweating under the porch fronts. Around the base of the tree where the women sat, small lanterns stood unlit. Their crepe paper casings snapped and glistened brightly in the afternoon sun. A few yards off from the tree the boy watched a group of railroad workers hunched over a spit and cradling its ends to fit an iron post across two cherry branches that were forked into the earth and standing on opposite ends of the pit.

He rode the horse at a walk. Some of the Indian women waved faintly at him and he raised up a hand as he passed out into the foothills.

The old man was slouched in the same manner as the boy often found him, the cup loose in his trembling hand and his hand resting on the edge of the tub. He watched the boy with his gray eyes as he came into the room.

Cronus or Zeus.

The boy felt in his shirt pocket for his cigarettes and brought one out and sat at the table. Zeus, he said.

What for so early?

The old man's speech was little more than a drunken warble.

I need a favor from you.

Ah. But only the gods grant the favors. We only here to carry em out.

Then I hope the gods want you to pass over a bottle of whatever's in that tub of yours.

The old man lifted his reddened eyes. I reckon you'd soon need some relief, he said. That town'll kill ya.

It ain't for me.

Who then?

The mayor.

Oh no you don't. The old man wheeled around on his backside and held his cup out at the boy. The mayor my ass. Day that wretch gets a wooden nickel from me will be the day I die and go to Hades.

Well I'm sorry about that but I need it. He's got something of mine.

Unfair deal the mayor been handin ya boy? That ain't no surprise to me. No sir.

Can I have it or not?

The old man studied the boy. His face grew momentarily clear and he lowered his eyes and shook his head like he carried some foreknowledge that if he agreed bad things would befall them both. He sighed and put up his sickly hands, as if concession were an affliction. Straddle up here then boy, he said. I'll show you an old workin man's trade.

The boy pushed out his cigarette and rose and walked to the side of the tub. In that rear corner the room was almost gone to dark. The boy stood a ways from the tub with his head cocked back.

This here's the old peach brandy. Best drink this half of the Rio Grande in the bootleggin days. The old man rubbed his hands together fervently. Look here, he said. This is what you got. First you got some alcohol, he said. That'd be the most important. Then some water. Easy enough. But the trick here's the flavorin.

He stopped and put his hands across his forearms.

Danged if I could ever figure on why, but ya need raspberry flavorin, not peach. Most folks wouldn't know that. He looked up at the boy, his eyes nearly closed. Curious world, ain't it boy?

He touched one of his teeth with his thumb and nodded slightly.

The last thing I recommend, though some would say you don't need it. But with me you get the best. The whole service done up like they do in them big old cisterns now. The finishin touch here is the red ink. Some call it the dye. However you name it, the best kind is Carter's, if you can get your hands on it. It's the clearest and stays set the best in the liquor. Believe me, I know em all.

The old man leaned off the tub and nodded, across his face a twisted smile. The boy tried to thank the old man but his eyes were fixed on the tub and his mind on his father. All those days and nights he went across the road from bar to backroom while the boy kept up the ranch, the stained bottles of whiskey and rye filled by men not unlike his father and bought with the money of men not unlike his father and the passage of that money into their twitching hands no less than the passage of souls across the borderland that balances the world's polar natures.

Fill it up, he said.

The old man wrung his fingers and knitted his brow.

Give me that there colander, he said. Let's see what we can do. Alright, take it back. You hold it there. Right there. Steady now. Here's the pour.

T
EN

BY THE TIME he came back upon the thoroughfare the night was black and the moon a smear of chalk in the deep vast sky.

Some flamenco music twisted through the air. He could see a pony-tailed and blanket-wrapped man standing by the willow tree, snipping castanets with raised fingers. The band makers smiled and canted their heads to the music while the singer flared a bright frilled scarf with his outstretched hands. Around them many of the townspeople moved lightly to the rhythm. Most of the men appeared to be drunk and the women held fast to their shirt collars.

John Frank was leaning a hand against Garrets's porch post. He waved wildly when he saw the boy coming. Ho, he called. Cowboy. Over here. He pointed at himself. Over here.

The boy dismounted and hobbled his horse on the post.

Do ya got to set him right here, Frank said. He stinks.

She. It's a girl.

Whatever you want to call it.