The Sound of the Trees (18 page)

The mayor took off his spectacles and peered at the boy through the dim light.

It is no matter, though. How we go. Where we are going. There is only one thing you need remember. You will never become lost as long as you follow the straight tracks.

He made a slight bow to the boy, then turned back to his desk.

But you don't see the same things as when you follow the crooked ones.

The mayor half turned at the boy's voice. He paused there and straightened the papers on his desk.

Keep up the good work for me, he said.

*   *   *

The boy sat silently with the old man late into the night. He pulled to right the battered tines of a fork. The old man sipped at his cup. The moonlight collapsed half shorn from the clouds and onto the legs of the chairs they sat upon.

Eventually the boy rose from the table and walked to the door with a dead cigarette crushed between his teeth.

Don't pay them no nevermind, the old man said.

The boy turned. The old man got up and walked toward the stained tub, his delicate birdlike legs buckling under their own weight, as if salvaged from the wreckage of older bones yet.

They got their own designs.

E
LEVEN

THE MEXICAN LEANING forward over his steering wheel as his truck bounced past the boy and down the lane rubbed a hand across his chin, perhaps pensive of what type of mind worked beneath the lowered hat and the dark squinted eyes. The boy went solemnly through the truck's dust and came down from his mare at the porch of the cantina. He had not slept at all the previous night and the slow roll and drop of the river which he had watched through the early morning hours seemed still to possess his eyes, as if those waters might carry him someplace far from where he now stood.

Through the storefront windows of Garrets he saw the two old men sitting at the bar, their figures warped in the glass. When he came through the door he tipped his hat up at them. One nodded. The other smiled ruefully and spat down between his legs. He sat in the back booth by the window and thumbed loose the wage envelope from his pocket. Miss Jane came swiftly to his table and thumped down a heavy mug in front of him.

Coffee?

Yes ma'am.

Thought so.

She turned away and the boy watched her shuffling into the kitchen. He made to call out to her but stopped himself and leaned over the adjacent booth and took up an ashtray. He lit a cigarette and set down the emptied envelope, working the few oily bills over and over again in his hands as though through repetition they might multiply. Though the money he had saved was still not enough to get him to Colorado, he knew, looking out the smoked glass of the cantina window now, that even if it was he could no longer leave.

Miss Jane returned after a while and he ordered honey ham with red-eye gravy. A radio hummed from behind the kitchen doors, its melody lost to him among the clatter of glasses and plates. He blew on his coffee and looked out at the plaza.

All about were the remains of the festival. Paper lamp casings lifted and slipped along the road. The remains of the hog-butchering pit lay in piles of pink slag. No one crossed the willow tree save a few Indian women who walked hunchbacked and stooped to pick up the crushed paper cups and empty bottles of beer.

Not long after his breakfast arrived, the doorbell chimed. A short squat man the boy had not seen before walked in and stopped still and looked furtively around the cantina. He was wearing a heavy flannel suit of brown. Beads of sweat balled up on his upper lip. A gold chain hung limp from his hip pocket. He wiped the dust from his glasses with a handkerchief he withdrew from his suit coat. When he pulled his glasses back behind his ears he caught the boy's eye. The boy lowered his head back down to the plate but the man had already begun to move toward his booth.

Do you mind if I sit down? He spoke with a gravel voice that did not seem to fit the sight of the man.

The boy looked around the cantina which was empty save the two old men at the bar. I don't guess, he said.

The man nodded with what seemed to be great pleasure and relief and lowered himself into the booth. He straightened his vest with his thick fingers and watched the boy nervously. The boy had begun eating and he kept his eyes on his plate.

I just arrived in town, the man huffed.

The boy looked at him a moment, then took up his coffee.

Where from? he said.

Connecticut.

The man righted his vest again and put his elbows on the table. He moved one hand over the other. The boy went on eating.

It's back East, the man muttered. Right around—

I know where it is.

You do. You do, of course.

The man glanced at the old men at the bar who met his gaze coolly. He turned back to the boy and pinched his nose where the bridge of his glasses had turned it purple.

Yes, he said. I'm a writer, you see.

A writer, the boy repeated.

Yes. Actually a reporter. A newspaper reporter. When I heard about your town here, I just decided right then and there to come out and do a story on it. They say it's going to be a western metropolis.

A what?

Oh yes. Well. A metropolis. It's like a big city.

The boy drank back the dregs of his coffee and motioned the waitress for another. I know what a metropolis is, he said. I just didn't hear ya.

Of course. So I hope to record how your town here grows. Have you a newspaper yet?

I couldn't say.

That's alright. I was planning to go to the town hall anyway. Got to meet the mayor, you know. He smiled meekly across the table. Meet the engine that drives the train, so to speak.

The boy spooned sugar into his fresh coffee. So to speak, he said.

My name is Trewitt, by the by. Thomas Trewitt.

The man reached his short flabby arm across the table. The boy looked up and stared at the soft little hand for a moment. He set down his spoon and they shook hands.

What kind of name is that? the boy said.

Oh. Yes. It's a pen name. It's my name for writing. Trewitt leaned back and looked nervously out the window. He was studying the boy's horse. You still ride horses out here too, he said. That's dandy. That's just dandy. The real West. Is he yours?

She. Yeah. She's mine.

Beautiful. Really beautiful.

The boy pushed his plate away and swung his mug up by the handle and sipped from it. Thanks, he said.

They have good fare here, do they?

It does the trick.

Trewitt giggled and put his hand over his mouth.

It does the trick. That's just dandy. Yes, that's the one. He nodded and pinched his nose again. That's just the one, he said.

The boy finished his coffee and inspected Trewitt who peered back at him from behind his small wire-rim glasses as if in great anticipation of what the boy would say next. The boy said nothing but only turned and looked out at the plaza. The Indian women were squatting once again beneath the willow tree and laying out their wares.

At last the boy gathered up his money and cigarettes and stood. Pleased to know you, he said.

Trewitt looked up at him and then around the cantina. He seemed unsure about what action to take next. Yes, yes, he said. Grand to have made your acquaintance. I'm sure I'll see you again. It's still just a town yet.

I wouldn't worry, the boy said. I'm pretty well sure when the engine gets done with it, it won't be a town no more.

*   *   *

He stood by the window with his hat cupped in his hand and his forehead pitched against the glass. When John Frank came in he turned around and put his hat back on.

How'd you get in here?

Door was open.

John Frank's hair was oily and standing on end and his shirt flap fell untucked from the rear like a tail. He rubbed his eyes and went and sat at his desk.

How was the dance?

There was dancin alright, Frank said. You should have come along.

You just gettin back?

John Frank licked his fingertips and matted his hair down with the palms of his hands. Yes sir, he said. And I ain't all the way here yet.

Find yourself any new friends?

I sure did cowboy. No one I'd know by name, but names don't always tell the tale, do they?

I don't know, the boy said. I don't know what tells what no more.

John Frank grimaced at the boy a moment, then slapped his hands and rubbed them together. You want some coffee? he said. Got a new brewin machine down the hall. You want some? I'll get it.

When John Frank came back the boy was sitting in the spare seat with his elbows on the desk and his head in his hands. Frank put the coffee in front of him and sat.

I put some sugar in it. Sugar, right? For the sweet one.

John Frank blew on his coffee. He leaned back in his chair and watched the boy who sat in the light that fell across the room from the window. After a while Frank said, You don't much like my drinkin and carryin on, do you.

The boy did not raise his eyes from his lap. No, he said. I guess I don't.

Your daddy was a drinker, wasn't he.

Yeah.

I thought it. It can tend to skip a generation on account of what the next of kin sees. My daddy was a drinkin man himself, but I guess I just took up after him. Course he probably wasn't the same man your daddy was on the drink. Not from what I can tell.

I'm sure you're right about that.

He messed you up when you was younger, didn't he.

The clouds came over the sky and the light drew away and the boy raised his head from his hands and looked vaguely out the window as though to turn his gaze that way was nothing more than a thing of function.

My mother said to me not long before she died that he could never settle on happy. I don't know if that's true, but it's the best way I've heard it said. And back home it'd been said quite a few ways.

John Frank stared down at the desk. It appeared he believed that to look upon the boy would be to betray him in some way. He still alive, your daddy? he asked.

I imagine so.

You run off from him then.

Yeah.

With your mama.

The boy took off his hat and pushed back his hair and set it atop his head again.

I guess I could never talk to him right is what it was, he said. People say when you got a problem with another you just need to talk at it and it'll go away. Well there's a lot more to it than that. Lots of ways to talk at something and lots of different results in them ways. I guess I just talked wrong. At least not the way I wanted to. But the stare he'd put upon you was enough to make cattle turn heel and run for pasture. The boy paused. He laughed without heart. I guess in a way I wanted to help him then, he said. But not no more. Truth of it is I hate him. Hate him worse than poison.

John Frank stayed his eyes on the desk. After a while he made a slight shrug of his shoulders. Well, he said. You got to remember, though. Blood's blood, same way dirt is dirt. You can't change it.

The boy shook his head slowly at the window. I don't know, he said. I don't know what's more in him. Blood or dirt.

You think he's huntin you?

No. At one point in time I thought he might keep comin after me, but not now. That's one face I know I'll not see again.

How can you be so sure of it?

I don't know. It's not that I believe he's quit the idea. But I imagine he's had lots of ideas in his days, just not too many he's seen through. Anyway, he never seemed to be a man to give too much thought to the past.

You tellin me you ain't even afraid for it?

The boy turned back from the window and looked at John Frank, then looked out the window again. I didn't say I wasn't afraid, he said. Just less afraid than before.

*   *   *

On his way back from the lawyer's house the sun clamored free to shine upon his dark and folded shape. His mare had come to a path of her own liking and the boy half guided her through the bramble while the horse snorted and footed her way to the old man's cabin.

When they came into the clearing by the river's edge he saw the old man sitting flat and nude just outside the water's current. He was holding a small pot in one hand and balancing himself upright with the other. He saw the boy coming. He smiled wide and toothlessly. The boy raised a hand and the old man grunted something as he poured a potful of water over his head. The boy dismounted and led his horse to the river and dropped the reins and let her down to drink.

What happened to you?

The old man tilted his head back and swept the pot of water over his hair again. I got too drunk's what happened, he said. I'm sobering myself back to health. Can't remember when I last bathed either. I reckon it was all and all a good venture to come down here. He wiped the water from his face and looked at the boy. And what about you? he said. Lookin like a bad check back to haunt me.

The boy kneeled down by the bank and sipped the river water from his cupped hand. He shrugged. A single bird called out from the forest's dark.

Whoowhee, the old man declared. I thought my legs numbed up for good that time. You'll have to start watchin over me, you hear? Keep me clear of the white devil.

The white devil?

The tub, boy.

The boy nearly put up a fist to him. I will not, he said. You're old enough to know what you need to be doin and what you ain't need to be doin. It ain't my fault you're wrecked.

The old man smiled demurely. Well you're still feisty at least, he said. You hungry?

No.

The boy leaned back into the high grass by the river's edge and the old man watched him a moment longer, then fell silent. He swanned his fingers through the water and seemed entranced by his white toes which bobbled before him.

The boy watched the light jog down the cut path of the river. He put his head back and his breath pacified and before long his eyelids slipped shut.

In the winding tunnels behind his eyes he watched her hair spiral downstream. Her face gleamed and rippled past in the sheets of water. Her eyes appeared crossed and backstitched to the muddy banks and he watched as his vision of them bloomed and crumbled, wondering vaguely if always and everywhere the world's body would be perishable. Then he heard his mother's voice coming once again from the deep forest, distant and resolute and rising and falling with the tumbling water. There were no words in her voice but he felt an emptiness there that he imagined she named Pity and it was abreast in her calling and nowhere was there a sense of redemption. Nowhere was there a sense that all could be whole, that all could be forgiven.