The Sound of the Trees (26 page)

The boy gave a dry smile across the table. Yes you are, he said.

John Frank shook his head at the floor. For a while at least. He rapped his fist against the edge of the table. Sumbitch, he said.

Don't worry about it. It'll be good yet.

Frank downcast his eyes. The boy laid two coins on the table and slid out of his chair. John Frank reached out across the table and took the boy's arm and made him sit again.

One more thing, he said. Them fellas over there.

The boy glanced over at the Ralstons who were turning back tumblers of whiskey and eyeing him over the rims of their glasses.

I don't think they like you too much.

S
IXTEEN

COLD AND DARK as it was within the austere gray walls, cold as the rapping of the wine-colored club across the bars of the cell, the girl stood in the dull blue shirtsleeves she had been issued with her hands limp over her pelvis, and even when the key clanked and the lock ran out she did not raise them across her breast but stood silent and without expression until a guard called her out into the hall. One of the two guards who attended to her clamped a pair of rusted handcuffs on her wrists and looked her briefly in the eyes before calling her to walk again.

Twin bulbs lit the narrow corridor she stepped into. Their poor light fell in flat ovals upon the limestone floor. She walked slowly beneath them. She wore the same plain shirt-and-pant outfit as the men and on her feet she wore a brown pair of woolen slippers. The only things left to her keeping were a bloody old rag and a creased photograph of the ocean, which she held pressed to the hollow of her slender throat and had thrashed for and bit hands to protect like a madwoman risen from sleep to in her unformed state between wake and dream reproach the world tenfold.

The guards held her at the elbows. They tugged her along not gently and each in turn eyed her breasts. They led her through a door to another hall of cells where figures rose with the sound of the unlatched lock and stood at their bars and looked out faceless and shadowed and hissed and made catcalls and reached their hands through the bars. One even called her name. But never did the girl turn nor speak nor did she change face, but only went on with her elbows like wings before her and her lips slightly parted to make room for her scattered breath.

They went through another door. One of the guards turned her to the left and through yet another door with his arm across her breast. He held his hand there a moment and smiled viciously at her and pushed her into a room where a small wheel of light spun from a tiny window above and painted the shabby table and chairs and davenport. The guard shut the door and she turned and looked at it. She stood motionless in the room for a long time and regarded the window and the patch of sky it held. Her hair spilled over her smooth face, her black skin made whiter by the cold.

After a while the door opened again and a man came in the room. He studied the girl briefly but intensely with his hand still on the outer knob, then he turned back to the door and closed it and stepped into the room and sat on the olive-green davenport. He rested one hand in his lap and the other on the torn arm of the sofa. She watched him with widened eyes.

The man wore a beige suit and black loafers and he wore a knot of black silk in his breast pocket and his dark brown hair was slicked straight back. He reached inside his suit coat and kept his eyes on the girl and withdrew a pipe and a gold snuffbox. He set the snuffbox on his lap and took a pinch of tobacco from it and thumbed it into the pipe chamber. Still looking at the girl he asked her was she cold, but she said she was not.

He raised the pipe to his dainty lips and from the snuffbox brought forth a gold lighter and began to pull on the pipe. Between puffs he asked her if she thought things could be different than how they were but she only lowered her head away from the window and said No, she did not. She said they never were.

The pipe he smoked had a brown lacquer with a stilettoed mouthpiece and he pulled out thin jets of white smoke that rose from his ruby lips and passed over his face.

I see you are still holding on to old memories, he said.

The girl looked down at the photograph in her hands. Yes, she said. I am.

The man tilted back his head. You are far from home now, he said. And do not think you will return again.

The girl kept her head lowered but did not speak.

Very well then, the man said. Perhaps it is better that way after all, because we all know how empty memories can be. The eyes behind the drifting smoke regarded the girl more seriously now. Sit down, he said. Sit down here. There is no such comfort in your cell. You may as well take it now.

The girl brought her hands together and looked at her wrist. The man raised his eyebrows at her and stood and walked across the room to her with a slight slouch in his shoulder that made him look like some infirm country gentleman. He reached in his pocket and took out a ring of keys and fiddled with them and finally released her from the handcuffs and tossed them on the table.

Better?

She did not say if it was better or not. She wrung her hands over the bones of her wrists and stepped back quickly when the man's own hand went up to her hair. He let his hand down as though she had caused him some grave disappointment. Then he drew on his pipe and blew a soft stream of smoke across her face and told her again to sit down. She raised her eyes to his and he smiled painfully at her and at last she stepped across the room and sat on the edge of the davenport with her knees together. She pushed her hair behind her ears and cast her eyes into her lap. The man straightened his shirt collar and leaned back against the table that stood before the davenport and folded his arms and faced her.

I don't have to tell you how stupid you have been, he said. How thoughtless. His hands went out and his brow tightened and his unanimated eyes squinted, and then he pressed his fingers against his chest and held them there. How thoughtless of me.

The girl composed her hands in her lap again and still she did not speak.

Silence, he said. Always silence with you. He let his hands down. Just like your mother. You are no different.

He lowered his head to try to meet her eyes. He grinned at her.

Silence to the end, he said. But don't think I don't know you. Your silence does not fool me. Were I to let you walk away from here today, you would go right back to the river. You would walk right into the mountains and all the way there you would call out my name in accusation. You would plead against me. No matter how fruitless you know it would be. Isn't that right, princess?

He tilted his head lower and his grin grew both wider and more malicious.

That's what your mother called you, isn't it? Your mother the whore. Princess? You would point and scream out against me.

Down from the window the light fell over the girl's dark hair and onto her lap and she could hear the rain beginning to slap against the walls and she further lowered her head into her chest to hide herself from the light.

Yes, she said quietly. Yes, I would.

The man raised up at the waist and stood and watched her a moment with the pipe held just off his lips. Then he began to pace the darkening room.

Not even able to lie, he said. Not even able to try. You are so noble, do you know that?

His mouth tightened and he spoke to her through his teeth.

So noble indeed. Did I not take care of you? Did I not bring you away with me? All of that poverty and hate. All of that unfortunate death among your family. And still you remain righteous. To me. Even to me. As if you had any right to it. You do not have a right to such a thing. You never have. With or without me.

He paused and for the first time he looked almost longingly upon her, yet even in his longing there seemed to be a disgust for the small shivering figure before him. He crossed the room again and sat very close to her on the davenport and spoke into her ear.

Are you thinking you will be saved? That you will be avenged? Ah, of course you are. I can hear it in your silence. I can see the act in your mind. Perhaps the little boy on his little horse and their country ruggedness.

He studied the profile of her face for any movement but she only turned away from him, the slim bone of her cheek caught in the yellow light. The man put a finger to the bone, a small slow wanting gesture that ran coldly through her fragile body.

The child was not possible, he whispered to her. In this world or any other.

The sudden movement of the girl's head made the man pull back from her ear and she looked directly at him now and her eyes were full of dark fire.

What world is this, then? she said. Yours? She lowered her head again and all sharpness in her features fell away. Yes, she said more quietly now but with the same determination. Yours. Not mine. And I never wanted it either.

The man drew on his pipe. Purposefully. As if to once again right his strict demeanor. Then he leaned forward and slammed it down on the table with a loud clack. The ashes spilled over onto the floor and he watched them for a moment. Then he faced the girl and took her head roughly in his hands and turned her to his pale green eyes.

And so it will be that way, he said.

He held her gaze for a long moment, though her watery eyes looked so deeply past him they seemed not even upon the wall but even farther to where the rain was hailing down from the clouded night. At last he clenched his small palm over her face, as though to hold it or perhaps to obliterate it from his sight. Then he rose and took up his pipe and walked to the door and rearranged his suit coat and breathed deeply and smiled benignly at her.

Just like your mother, he said.

Then he turned the knob and went out and did not look back again.

She sat as she had before, with her hands folded in her lap. She listened to the rain pelting off the tiny window ledge and she heard the Englishman calling for the guards to take her away and she thought of the boy out in the world who had seemed as helpless and alien there as she was, and finally she raised the photograph in both hands and pressed her mouth to it as the door opened again, the tiny pulse of his name running out from her cold and bloodless lips.

*   *   *

THE FIGURE THAT
lay beside his camp was curled fetuslike by a weak fire. In the dim light the boy saw the gaps where the old man's teeth had been and he shook his head to himself and came down and hobbled the mare by his mule and fed them both from a fresh bag of oats he had bought.

A metal cup tipped from the fingers of the old man's outstretched left hand. All of the liquor had dribbled onto the earth. His meager legs poked out from the boy's flannel blanket. The boy sat himself down and rolled a cigarette and smoked and watched the old man's face until he opened his eyes. He moaned and rolled over.

What you doin boy?

You still sick from yesterday?

No sir, the old man said. Still drunk.

He shifted again and rolled to face the boy and regarded him. He sat up and held the blanket over his chest like a prudent maiden. That old mule of yours has still got some leg, he said.

Yes sir. I hope he does.

Got me upriver to where them good berries are yet to be had.

Yes sir. You want me to bring you some coffee?

No, no. I'm all filled up with liquids. He grinned toothlessly at the boy. I ain't the same I used to be, he said. Used to call me the Lake, you know. Back when I was in the business. When I got out they said it was on account I drank up all my profits. He whisked his hand over his nose and stopped grinning. Besides, he said. That damn slag smell been creepin up from the tableland. Railroad getting close enough so's to set the cabin to rumblin once the train gets put up.

How about some of that chicken you never touched then?

No son. I don't need nothin. I was just watchin the river go by. Must of dozed off.

The old man rubbed his eyes with his swollen knuckles. Lots you can see from the river, you know, he said.

The boy poked at the fire with a cherry branch. Like what, he said.

The old man patted down the blanket and drew it high up on his chest again, and then leaned back and looked into the sky. Did it rain? he said.

Yes sir. I think a bit.

Well hell.

The old man shook the blanket out but he only raised a few drops which fell back upon the blanket again. He looked off behind them at the river. The river, he said. I guess what you see from it is dependin on how you look at it. He paused and coughed violently. He spat a thick yellow yolk into the fire. Some say you can see the way time moves by watchin it go by. Others say what you can see is power when it goes by.

I imagine you got your own opinion about it, the boy said. So which is it?

The old man screwed up his face. Both, he said. But I don't put much stock in neither of them. Them's the easy ways to look at it. I think the river be showin a person the way his mind's supposed to work.

The boy buttoned his jacket to the neck. The old man watched him and picked at his teeth and straightened up again and bent a finger to the fluid black current behind them.

You ain't never seen a river stop and think too long about nothin. It don't never twist and squirrel around what lays in its path, exceptin when the thing is too big to go rightly through it. Then it goes around. Gently. But otherwise it just goes and keeps goin. Over and under and through all things again like there ain't no need to lay mind to it. Like it knows they's always to be there at some point. There ain't no dallyin for the river, you see. No steppin back to observe. Just pure flowin and goin and never thinkin twice.

The old man nodded his head thoughtfully, his face a cave of shadows in the firelight.

That'd be what gets me most about it. Never lookin back and never steppin aside but always comin out changed in some way. But never worried about them changes. Like it knows they's to come. It may look the same to us. Out here. The first thing a man's most likely to think lookin on a river is that it don't never change. But it does. It sure does.