The Sound of the Trees (17 page)

Maybe she thinks you stink. And I don't know that she'd be wrong.

Maybe she thinks …

But John Frank was too drunk for crossing words. He shot the thin mouth of a bottle against his lips and shuddered and pushed it toward the boy.

Festival, he cooed.

Not for me.

Che no? Per quanto tempo fará cosi?

My Mexican ain't that good.

C'e italiano.

Then it ain't at all.

Porca miseria, John Frank said, grinning.

He made a slow sweeping gesture toward the stage where cones of minced red and yellow fluted from the paper-tinted lanterns.

The women here, my friend. You don't even got to look and you can see em, there's so many.

I guess you ought to look first. Specially in your state.

Look here, John Frank said. Every one. Soft skin. Smell of roses and talc. Red lips, tight hips. Eyes like a bedroom.

He shook his head with exaggerated slowness and they both looked out into the crowd, watching the people dance.

A tall lean man dressed in black stood elbowing over the hog roast pit with a butcher knife. He cut loose the entrails of the hog while the children stood by and cheered and the women turned away with amused disgust. Blood popped in the flames. With knives in hand some Mexicans stood and awaited their turns.

Someone was calling for the head. The tall man rose up with tears of blood on his cheeks and put up a finger and smiled. An instant later the hog's head came down. It rolled to the edge of the pit, then sunk to a stop. Its eyes were peached over and cross-tilted and the little mouth had taken on an unnatural crook.

The boy turned back to John Frank who was leaning against the porch post again and making eyes at the women who passed. He reached out once to pull the knot of a handkerchief a wide-hipped woman was wearing over her red hair, but his fingers missed it. The boy lit a cigarette and flushed out the match and dropped it and spoke.

Can I see him?

John Frank looked up from two women's backsides who were now going by. Him?

The mayor.

Ah. Frank looked at his pocket watch and fumbled for a cigarette in his coat pocket. What time you think it is? he said.

The boy shook his head. Just tell me, he said. Will he be here or not?

Ah hell. Just go on over then.

Over where?

Town hall. His office.

Right now?

John Frank lit up his cigarette and drew it in. Hurry, he said, and the boy was gone.

Outside the door of the town hall he fixed his hat straight and buttoned his shirt. He walked very slowly and he fingered the wall as he went. He listened to the dull clack of his boots on the stone floor and he turned the bottle of brandy with his thumb and forefinger. He paused a moment in front of the mayor's door, then lifted the ironwork handle. Soon after he dropped it a second time the door opened and the mayor stood before him.

The boy stepped back and brought his hat to his chest. Evenin, he said. The mayor looked him over casually and meticulously. He removed his spectacles and nodded and held his hand back into the room for the boy to pass.

Good evening, he said.

He was not much taller than the boy and he wore a long duster black and white at the seams and a bolo tie of polished silver. His shirt collar raced along his shoulders where it was still stiff with starch. He smelled of the leather of a woman's riding saddle and his eyes drooped slightly at the corners. He wore also a pepper-colored beard that bristled upon the pink of his lips. His boots were shining black, and even in the low candlelight they sprang forth from the floor like hand-rubbed coals.

Please, he said, sit down.

The boy put his hands on the back of the leather chair that faced the mayor's desk. He walked in front of the chair and the mayor tilted his head. The boy spun in the chair, raising up and sitting again and reshifting it to face straight forward. He put his hat on his lap and touched his hair. The mayor leaned toward him.

I am sorry about the lighting, he said. He made a gesture with his hands at the candles. I have read by candlelight for many years and I'm sure you agree that waste is a terrible thing. He smiled at the boy. Now, how can I help you? The mayor turned an inkwell under his fingers and regarded the boy with unwavering eyes. I was just on my way over to the festival, he went on, raising his hands as though to mark this new thought. Would you like to join me?

Maybe in a while, the boy said. He lifted the bottle of brandy onto the table. I brought you this.

The mayor looked at the bottle but did not move to take it up.

Thank you, he said. I know that you are new to our town. I have seen you in the plaza on your horse.

Yes sir. That was me.

That's a fine little mare.

Thank you sir.

The mayor nodded, slowly and with circumspection. Not taking his eyes off the boy, he took hold of the bottle and set it in his lap and leaned back. He turned the bottle and lifted loose the corking and put his nose to the lip of the bottle. He raised an eyebrow.

Peach brandy, he said.

Yes sir.

But what kind, it doesn't say.

It's from the hill country.

It was all the boy could think to say.

You mean the bathtub?

Well. Prohibition's over, ain't it?

The mayor smiled obliquely and turned the bottle once more. The boy's eyes shifted around the room and fell onto deep oak shelving crammed with leather-bound books. His eyes stopped at a row of glass statuettes of train engines and caboose cars.

There is a man in Grand Junction who makes those for me, the mayor said. He is a glassblower. The mayor looked upon the trinkets in a manner that suggested he had not thought of them in a long time. Once I asked him why he liked working with glass and he told me because it is the closest a man can get to shaping the wind. You see, he believes the glass is a form of wind. That the glass is the wind captured.

I reckon it's a good thought, the boy said. But the way I see it, the wind can't be captured. The glass don't blow. You blow the glass. He pointed toward one of the crystal trains that held softly the candle's tapered light. The only thing that train and the wind got in common is the sound they make when they come.

The mayor smiled. This is your opinion, he said.

Yes sir. That's all it is.

It is a good one.

Yes sir. Thank you.

The mayor slowly turned the inkwell in his fingers. Why did you come here, to our town?

I just kind of rode into it.

Just rode into it, you say?

Yes sir. I came out of Grant County with my mother. He paused with his hands upon the crown of his hat that rested on his knee. When I came through the mountains I rode into the town and just ended up stayin. I'm on my way to Colorado. My horse needed some rest and I needed a bit of money is all.

He looked up from his lap. The mayor was still watching him.

And that's it?

The way he asked the question seemed oddly forceful to the boy. Yes sir, he said. I work for you.

The mayor leaned back. I know, he said evenly.

I do a good job, I think.

That is what I am told. But where is your mother?

The boy looked at one of the brass candle fixtures above the shelving. He turned and saw himself reflected in the window behind the mayor's desk. He straightened his shoulders, a response perhaps gathered from some lesson of manner she had once taught him. She ain't with me no more, he said.

I see.

The mayor stood and walked to a wheeled drink cart and took up a glass between his forefinger and thumb and held it out to the boy.

Thank you. No sir.

The mayor poured himself a small amount of the old man's brandy and sipped from it and studied the syrup behind the glass and turned it in his fingers and went and stood by the window behind his desk.

Perhaps I could lend you the money, yes? I know how it is to be without. It is quite a thing. Quite a thing indeed.

The boy looked down at the floorboards. They ticked darkly in the candlelight. Thank you sir, he said. But no. I reckon getting paid always followed work, the way I know it. I'd feel wrong about it somehow.

The mayor watched him with a curious smile. He nodded to himself and drank from the brandy. What's your name? he asked.

Trude.

Trude what?

Trude Mason.

Are you from Indian descendants perhaps?

My grandma. She was Navajo.

The mayor nodded. This is nice brandy, he said. He pursed his lips to the glass again. Yes, he said. I thought I saw it in you. The Navajo. They are fine people. Violent people.

The boy looked down at the floor again. Most are, he said.

The mayor raised his eyebrows again and nodded in agreement.

Sir?

Yes.

I have a question for you.

The mayor took his shoulder off the window and stood upright. He appeared suddenly formidable. What is it?

The boy lifted his hat from his knee and leaned forward in his chair.

Have you got a girl jailed here?

A girl?

Yes.

The mayor eased back against the window again. He moved his fingers through his beard. What girl?

You see, the boy said. Well. He fumbled with his hat for a moment, then folded both hands atop it and looked at the mayor. A black-lookin girl, he said.

The words seemed to hang still in the room like something unwanted and waiting to be claimed. The mayor sat again and resumed turning the inkwell in his fingers.

You are a smart boy, I think. Do you know what respect means?

I reckon I do. Yes.

Yes. Here we have a certain kind of respect. The mayor withdrew his hand from the inkwell and pressed his palms together into the table. Respect is an elusive thing, he said. Some people think respect is about a person's etiquette around others. Do you know what I mean by etiquette?

Yes sir.

Well, etiquette is only a very small part of respect. Respect is deeper than etiquette. Respect is more important than courage sometimes.

With this he paused and regarded the boy over his spectacles.

Here I have made respect a way of life. I have made respect undisturbed by age or status. I have made it so the people believe in me and know I will bring them everything I can to help them up the long ladder to wealth and substance. I have made respect into a form of truth. And the truth here is that the world is not easy. The world is a complicated place and we must treat this world with respect, as we do one another. Here there is respect shared between our people. Day to day. On the streets and at home. But this respect is also necessary to keep us from trouble. To keep us from the troubles of this world. I have respect for all the people, and I know that I am making this town as strong as I can for them. In turn the same is expected of the people. They must respect me. The mayor brought his hands from his stomach and held them out toward the boy. And you, he said. You must respect me too.

The boy glanced down at his hands. I do, he said.

Good. I believe you. So you must understand that some things that make the world difficult should be left to those who can deal with it. You must respect those people who can deal with it.

Does this mean I can't ask you about who's been jailed?

The mayor moved his spectacles back against the bridge of his nose.

If you are at home and you curse your sister, do I come and ask if it is so? Do I come and say, Trude, is it you who cursed your sister inside the walls of your home? No. I do not ask you that. I must respect you. Your position. If you do not respect your sister it is not my business, unless for some reason it becomes so. But if you damn your sister, it is you who ultimately suffers, regardless of whether or not I am called upon. It is again about respect.

The boy fingered the rim of his hat and moved it to the other knee. Well, he said. I have a different way of lookin on it.

The mayor tilted his head back. He ran his fingers through his beard. Oh?

Respect don't always come to all of us, the boy said. Some people who aren't respected have no one to help with their problems. Some people just plain don't have no handle on respect. Excuse me sir, but some people would just as soon knock their wives out as take dinner with them. It ain't that simple. If the world is as complicated as you say, so are the things that happen and don't happen in it. And when they don't happen or they happen wrong, who's there to say? Who's there to deal with it?

The boy's eyes fired and the mayor watched him with deference and caution. This is your opinion, he said flatly.

This is how I've seen it to be.

I see. Maybe so. But we must try and keep things in order. We must make some sort of order or else there is no cohesion between us. Rules are rules are rules and they come in many forms, but they all come for a reason. And that is to keep order. These rules, my rules, they must remain. As long as I remain, they must too.

So I can't know.

The mayor shifted in his chair, then pulled the shirt cuffs under his duster and stood. With respect, he said. No. You may not.

The candles faltered in their wax pools. Through the warbled light the boy looked at the mayor a moment longer, then rose and took up his hat.

Well.

Well, the mayor said. Go on to the festival. Be easy. You are young. You don't need to be spending your time with all these grave questions. Enjoy yourself. Though you may think otherwise, this is a fine town. And a fair one.

Yes sir. I guess I'll wait to see it.

The mayor pressed the boy with his eyes. Ah, he said. You will see.

The boy took one last look around the room. His eyes lingered on a glass caboose that stood molded in the blue light.

You like trains? the mayor asked him.

The boy was standing at the door now with his back to the room. He turned around.

I couldn't say. I never been.

The mayor folded his hands in front of his belt.

You know it is coming here, he said. The train. You will see how fine this town becomes very soon. Perhaps by then we will find some better work for you. Something to better suit you. But you see, the train, it is very exciting to me. It is what I imagine your horse is for you. It is like the child you do not have, the child who goes with you and loves you without condition and will never leave. But it is my way that is in advancement and yours that is in passing. We are not so different though, you and I. Only the pastures you wish to travel through are of grass and mine are of steel.