The Sound of the Trees (31 page)

The boy paused and crossed the room and sat again. He leaned forward in the chair with his hands clenched upon the arms of it, his good eye red and sharp upon the mayor.

I know they called for it, he said.

Who and for what?

The people. Those Ralston boys. Someone above your common code. They called for her to hang and not by no random lot.

The mayor leaned away.

This is not about you, son.

Tell me it was random then. Tell me that at least.

The mayor took off his glasses again and set them on his desk and groomed down his beard with the back of his hand.

Tell me.

It was, the mayor started, but before he could finish the door swung open and from it came a voice.

Nothing in this world is random.

The mayor scrambled up his glasses from the desk. The boy turned in his chair. The figure at the door stepped out of the lit hallway and into the candle flames. It was the Englishman from the mountains.

My lawyer, the mayor said hastily.

Before he could go on, the Englishman motioned the guard into the room and spoke coolly to the boy. And you will be gone from here, he said. One way or another.

Then he turned from the door and the guard came forward. The boy made to stand when the mayor nodded solemnly to the guard, but just as he was rising the pistol butt once again came down to lay darkness upon the light in his eyes.

*   *   *

HE SAT WITH
his elbows on the table while the old man worked up a pot of coffee. By the time he'd returned it was very late and bitterly cold with the wind slashing through the empty window frames and the last blow from the Ralston brother still ringing in his ear.

How'd you get back here?

Walked.

Someone came out here and said he was a friend of yours. Went rummaging through your things.

John.

Yeah. That was him. Sort of nervous little fella. Kept goin on about Zeus's dick.

The old man turned from the stove and brought forth the coffee and placed the mugs on the table. They banged you up pretty good, he said.

I know it.

You reckon they'll leave off you now?

No. Not if I stay. They expect me to be gone right soon.

But you won't be.

No. I won't.

They drank. The old man fumbled for a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pockets and took one out and handed the pack to the boy. These are yours anyway, he said.

Keep em if you want.

The old man shrugged and put the cigarettes away in his pocket. What's become of the girl? he said

She's to be hung. Like I thought it. Like I knew.

The old man lowered his head uncertainly and scratched his arms. What will you do?

I don't see but one choice. I'll get her loose before they …

The boy paused and nodded to himself.

I'll get her loose, he said.

How do you aim to do that?

The boy shook his head. I don't know, he said.

They sat and drank their coffee in the windy dark.

They didn't bother you too much, I hope, the boy said.

Naw. What good would it've been to em? Old buzzard like me made of nothin but booze and bones. Naw, they tried to scare me but I knowed their faces from a long time ago when they was young and they seen that and maybe took ashamed. Told me not to take you in no more is all.

But you did.

I did. Yep. No matter.

The old man turned away and nodded plainly and with some embarrassment. They watched the outside. The clouds were thick and sticky with rain and after a long time the boy stood and went to the back of the room and laid out his bedroll still twisted and turned inside out from the night of his arrest.

You'll sleep alright now. I done cleared out the tub.

The boy looked up at the old man, then over the rim of the tub. The old man was nodding slowly with his hands raised up. I quit it, he said. Day after they took you.

Why?

I don't rightly know. I figure I could have given forth a good fight if I wasn't so much made of liquid. Maybe drawn some blood from them fuckers. He crushed down the stub of his cigarette in the stone bowl on the table and grinned at the boy, gnawing on his gums as though to work a barb from the back of his mouth. Next time I'll be ready, he said.

N
INETEEN

THE CHILL OF the norther that came boring down from the mountains woke the boy and the old man equally and they rose together before dawn and sat again with a fresh pot of coffee. The old man sat shivering with his blanket clenched at his throat and the boy fixed up a bowl of eggs which they split between them along with a quarter loaf of bread. After a few minutes the boy pushed his plate away and rose and began to pace the cabin floor. The old man was hunched down and hefting forksful of eggs into his mouth.

Given me quite a hunger, he said, not drinkin and all. You goin to finish that?

The boy turned back a hand toward his untouched eggs. The old man pulled the plate across the table and worked the pepper mill over it.

Least you got a haircut out of it, he said.

He crooked his neck around to smile at the boy. The boy was staring off out the window. A blank portrait, even the dips and rises in the land flattened by the sad dispersion of light.

I'll get someone to fit some plate glass for the windows, the boy said.

I'd prefer only some good burnin wood.

And something to seal them with.

I'll be fine with some dry wood.

Look at you shiverin, the boy said. I'll get some glass.

He turned back and walked to the table and pushed back the blanket from the old man's chest and reached in his pocket and took out the pack of cigarettes. He ran a match down the table and pulled it lit.

When's it to be then? the old man asked quietly through the smoke.

Three days. Saturday.

The old man guffawed. Just in time for their sabbath, he said.

The boy walked the floor a while longer. When he finished the cigarette he thumbed it in the bowl. He found his hat in the back of the room and punched it out as even as he could and set it on his head.

I got to get on, he said.

They don't want you here no more, boy. Where you think you're goin?

The boy gazed across the room. The old man shook his head at the look and pulled the blanket back to his chin and worked his fork impatiently through the eggs.

Go on then, he said. I fed the horses while they had you down there. He looked up at the boy through his fierce gray eyes. I reckon I'll be prepared to do it again.

*   *   *

He dismounted his horse in front of Garrets and stroked the mare under the gaze of some early-rising passersby. He heard them whispering as he went up the porch steps, but he did not look up. There was little left he believed he had not heard and there was nothing he believed could worsen things and whatever remained of his name could be carried away on the wind and without consequence.

Jane was waiting for him at the door with her apron strings loose in her fingers and her arms held out for him.

Come on in here, she said.

She smiled wide and sad and took him around his caved shoulders, then held him back at arm's length. You look tired, she said.

Yes ma'am. I've heard it said and I believe it.

She led him to his booth in the back. No one else was in the cantina except the cook who looked out from the plate window momentarily then disappeared into the kitchen.

Jane brought him coffee and an ashtray. The boy thumbed loose the pack of cigarettes he'd taken from the old man and set them on the table.

Bring me whatever you got, he said. I believe I'm ready to eat.

I'll bring you a feast, she said.

The boy took up his cigarettes and shook one loose and turned to the window. There were blinds drawn over it and the boy looked them over and pulled them apart with his fingers and eyed through to the plaza. It was cold-looking and nearly empty with the norther winds picking up the dust in great cones. Even the Indian women were absent from the tree. Only the innkeeper was across the way, sweeping off his porch and blowing on his hands from time to time. Before too long the boy's breath drew up a fog on the glass and he let the blinds drop shut.

The waitress returned with a fried steak and red corn tamales and a bowl of beans cooked with mint leaves. When you've finished with that I've got a nice mincemeat pie for you, she said. Just like I promised.

The boy made a slight nod to her, but she lingered by the table with the apron strings twisted around her fingers and finally she sat down across from him in the booth. You alright? she said.

Alright as I can be, I reckon.

You heard about the hangin and all. It really will be.

Yes ma'am.

Makes me sick to my stomach.

Your mayor ain't the saint you thought he was.

No, she said. I guess he's not.

They sat in silence for a moment, the waitress still watching the boy uncomfortably. How's the steak?

He looked up at her from his plate. After a moment he said, It's good, Miss Jane.

She nodded absently. She kept watching him with her fingers still knotted in the apron strings. They hurt you pretty bad, did they?

They left me alive at least.

Do you know that girl? The one you were lookin after when you broke into the mayor's place?

I know her. Yes ma'am.

How?

The boy looked up from his plate again and studied her face, so hardened and drawn with lines yet innocent even to him. I just know her Miss Jane. You know what I mean?

She smiled at him and pushed back her yellow hair nervously. I'm sorry, she said.

Don't be.

Let me get you more coffee.

She slid from the booth and came back with the pot and poured it for him. How about that pie? she said

He lit a cigarette while she went back into the kitchen and turned it in his fingers. Miss Jane brought out the pie. He picked at it for a while, drinking his coffee in small swallows. He asked her for a glass of water and she brought it to him. When he finished the pie he motioned her back from the bar where she had been watching him from the corner of her eye.

How much do I owe you?

The waitress smiled dimly and placed a tentative hand on the back of his neck. This one's on the house, she said.

Let me pay you.

Trude. Darlin. You paid enough.

He looked up at her standing there above him and rubbed his hands together and rapped the table with his knuckles and rose.

Be careful now, she said. I don't want to wait so long between visits again. She smiled full at him. You've become my best customer.

She put a hand on his, then withdrew it and pressed both against her stomach.

By the way, the boy said, inclining his chin toward the window. What are them blinds about?

Miss Jane pulled her eyes off him and looked to the window and sighed and went and flipped her fingers through the wooden slats and looked out a moment at the writhing willow tree, then turned back to the boy.

Some people just don't like to watch the winter come, she said.

*   *   *

He spent the morning in an alley adjacent to the town hall, waiting for John Frank to come out. People had begun to appear in doorways, on the plaza, riding in cars. Children crossed sullenly behind the barbershop and toward the schoolhouse. The departure of the warm months seemed finally to appear in the people's dress. Black dusters rode the men's backs like old-time capes and long gray shawls were held bundled over the petticoats of the women who clutched at their breasts as if the cold would inflict them. The boy watched all of this from a wooden crate he sat upon with his hat low and his knees drawn to his chest.

All morning long he sat smoking and listening to the crisp winds turn the corners of the building and from time to time looking off to where he had left his horse deep in the alley. He watched a purse maker down the way rocking slowly in a chair on the porch of the general store with a blanket across her lap while she cut lengths of brass straps. In the distance he could see the railroad workers gathering in circles along the track line and could hear the drill bits driving into the ground and the railing of the foreman's whistle after which the men would shift sluggishly farther down the line where they raised their tamps and sledges into the cold sunlight.

A mime artist who came and stood under the willow tree held the boy's attention for a while. He was trying to gather an audience from those passing with wild theatrical acrobatics. His face was painted powder white and before him stood a beaten copper drum with a single bill leafing over the rim. A black tear was painted on his left cheek and he repeatedly feigned wiping it away when someone came near but there it stayed all morning until he finally picked up the drum with a few loose coins clattering in it and went away.

An hour later John Frank appeared at the door of the town hall and came down the porch steps. The boy gripped a small rock he had been turning in his hand and threw it toward the porch. It skidded and bounced by Frank's feet. John Frank stopped and looked around. The boy stood obscured by a wall and he thrust out his hand into the open air and waved it furiously. Frank came jogging into the alleyway where the boy had pressed his back against the wall.

What the hell, he huffed. You know you shouldn't be here.

I know it.

I see you're not plannin to leave, then. John Frank shook his head at the boy's silence. He put his hands on his hips and breathed down at his feet. When he'd gotten his breath he looked up at the boy. He regarded his worn and dusted clothing and the ragged look around his eyes, then sat himself on the crate. You look like shit, he said.

Yes, I believe we've covered that.

I don't have words that'll make you feel any better.

I wouldn't imagine you would.

Shit, John Frank said. His eyes darted down the alleyway and back onto the plaza. We can't stay here. Let's take a ride.