The Sound of the Trees (4 page)

I know it, he said.

*   *   *

In the late afternoon heat they walked the length of the street back to the general store where the horses stood hobbled. The boy took out a small fold of dollar bills from the tin talcum box they'd packed in the saddlebag. He rolled himself a cigarette inside one of the bills and motioned to his mother who stood waiting in the road, and walked up the porch and into the store.

They bought cornmeal and soap and tins of shredded ham hock and beans. The butcher cut them strips of elk meat and they bought coffee beans and milk and sugar. They bought a sack of oats and a bag of biscuits and a loaf of unleavened bread.

The boy leaned against the counter and smoked with the clerk while his mother looked idly over the bunches of flowers in the store window.

Where you headed?

The clerk's thumb was tucked into his belt beneath a huge potbelly which stuck out shameless and hairy at the navel where shirt buttons had once been but were no longer.

Colorado, the boy said.

The clerk's teeth clenched around his pipe and his tongue warbled the words from his yellow-stained beard. Long ways, he said.

It is at that, the boy said.

You takin them horses all the way up there?

Yes sir we are.

The boy let his cigarette fall on the floor by his feet and stubbed it out with his boot heel.

Shit, the clerk said. With a great heave he righted himself off the countertop and hitched impatiently at his belt.

The boy looked up from the floor. Sorry, he said. He picked up the cigarette butt and put it in his bib.

Ah, I don't care about that, the clerk said.

Shit for what then?

The clerk moved the pipe to the other side of his mouth, a thin string of spittle descending from his chin. He squinted at the boy.

Why'd you say Shit?

Oh, the clerk said, his eyes opening wide again. He wiped the yellow string from his neck. Shit for the horses.

They crossed the street to an outfitter. There the boy and his mother counted out their remaining bills and bought extra-duty leather riding chaps for the mountains and leather vests. The boy dressed them over his overalls, looking like some time-traveled farmer preparing for a war on the gentry. The saleswoman told him not to worry. She said he looked handsome. He thanked her. He bought an overcoat for his mother after much insistence, though she would not allow him to buy her new gloves despite his pleading.

I don't need new gloves, she said. I like mine fine, and they're warm and comfortable. What we should buy is some new jean pants for you. And a nice shirt.

I got all that packed on the mule.

Well why don't you wear them?

They ain't comfortable.

I suppose they're more comfortable than that vest over your bib. And I'm sure they look better.

The boy turned from his mother and paid the saleswoman. She made his change from the till and told him again he looked right fine. He smiled at her and led his mother out by the arm.

My lord, she said. Some girls got no apprehensions.

Shit, the boy said. And you wonder why I cuss.

*   *   *

In the evening the boy unshod the horses in preparation for the mountain shale, and afterward they ate modestly at an open-air market in the center of town.

The night was cool and the clouds luminous over the moon. The townspeople swarmed and the children chased one another around the parked trucks and squat brick water wells. Old women sat under verandas and the high archways of the government building and called their merchandise to the passersby. They sold bolts of linen and silk and calico cloth and in the darker corners young men with old faces dealt Black Horse tobacco to the businessmen.

The boy and his mother walked arm in arm and spoke at length about the goods being sold and the chandeliers in the hotel foyer they passed and the fine dress of the townspeople, and though the boy deeply considered the coming days through the mountains they spoke nothing of their journey.

The old adobe house they boarded in was owned by a prosperous logger, and when he had shown the boy's mother off to bed the boy sat with the man at his kitchen table and spoke of the north country. The boy leaned on his elbows while the man told him stories about the Colorado streams and the deep and rich forests and the air that smelled like jasmine. Through the feathered light of the lantern that hung low above the table the boy was held captivated, and he spoke unregarded to the man about how he had dreamed of such places. How he had dreamed an entire night of just a single shade of green. He told him how that night while he slept his heart soared and when he woke in the morning he had told his mother that he had dreamed all night of the country they call Colorado. He told the man how he hoped to start a ranch of his own there, where he and his mother would work and make a good life for themselves.

When the clock that hung above the oven range struck eleven the man rose and set the glass of milk he had been drinking in the sink basin and wished the boy well and told him to take care getting up there, saying at last that if he could get his mother up there unscathed, putting up a ranch would be like baking a pie.

*   *   *

When he rose in the morning the boy already felt it. The cold snap broke into the house and through the seams of windows and doors. He looked at his mother shivering on the cot below him. He pushed back his hair and jumped down from the bunk.

A norther's blowin in, he called to her. Time to rise and shine. He pulled on his boots. Then he leaned down and shook his mother's shoulder. Mama. Please. We can't waste any time.

His mother stirred and let down the patchwork quilt from her neck and rubbed her arms. Should we wait another day? she said.

If we wait another day it's likely to get worse. And after that it might just stay bad. Might as well get up there and get used to it before we chance upon snow. I'll saddle the horses.

Outside the light was dark and gray. The boy took his time feeling along the jawline of his horse to be sure the hackamore fit snugly. When he finished with Triften he stepped away from her and looked out. In the morning darkness the town did not appear all that odd to him, save a lone figure that presently came walking down the middle of the road.

He was hunched at the back but walked very swiftly and did not raise his head from where it was pressed into his chest. His hands were pushed deep into the pockets of his trousers and the wind blew the remains of his hair furiously about his head. The boy stopped with his hand on the back of his mother's roan and watched the man coming.

When the man finally raised his chin the boy staggered back against the crossposts of the fence where the horses were tied. He dug out the knife from his bib and held it slightly aloft from his hip. The man in the road kept coming. The wind bore down upon the road and struck up a band of dust across the boy's face. When the water cleared from his eyes he thrust the knife forward.

Hatley Mason's hands were still stuffed down in his pockets when the knife came up in front of him. He smiled stiffly at the boy and jutted his chin out, as if he were merely calling on some old friend. His shirt was torn under the left armpit and in the web of his left hand there was a crust of dried blood. He was thinner than the boy remembered him to be, but his eyes still held their same squinting fire.

Make that your last step, the boy said.

His father halted a few yards away. He raised his eyebrows at the boy. You always had that shaky grip, he said.

The boy eyed his hand on the knife. He clenched it tighter. He shot a glance over his father's shoulder. His mother had not yet come down and all the town was still sleeping. The only sound was that of the wind.

Hatley Mason made a step forward. What you aim to do, boy? he said.

The boy met his father's advance with a thrash of the knife through the air. Get clear of you, he whispered through his teeth. He extended his arm and pointed the knife at his father's chest. Now step yourself back.

Hatley Mason toed the ground but did not move away. For a moment he seemed to be contemplating something in the swirling dust. He frowned at his boot. Then he looked up and stared the boy in the eye for a long time.

Where is she? he said finally.

Blood pounded in the boy's ears. He made an uncertain step forward. She's gone, he said.

His father jutted out his chin again, this time in the direction of the horses. That's her horse there, ain't it?

The boy half turned to the horses. Then he said, She's on the train.

Hatley Mason studied his son. The boy froze under his father's inspection in the old way he had back home and had not yet forgotten, nor would he ever.

Alright. Where'd she go on the train then boy? Hatley Mason's voice was shaky with drink.

I told her to take it to the end of the line, the boy said.

His father chuckled heartily and threw back his head. You told her, he said. You did. Well how about that. He made a false smile at the boy. And what about you?

The boy reset his grip on the knife and tilted the blade forward. I'm on my way, he said. Then the boy came toward his father until the knife was a foot from his chest.

Hatley Mason looked at the knife and chuckled again, this time without heart. His face fell slack. He looked off into the distance like he meant to take inventory of all things surrounding him at that very moment. Then in one quick motion he spat and stepped back and pulled his hand from his pocket and flung something at the boy's feet. The boy kept the knife poised and did not look down, nor did he swipe away the dark red spittle that clung to his cheek.

You give that to her, his father said. He took a few steps backward. You give that to her and let her know I ain't done with her yet. Not by a sight.

Yeah you are.

Don't think I don't know how to find the end of the line, boy.

I don't.

And don't think you'll get clear of me neither. You'll never get clear of me. He squinted at the boy a moment longer, then turned on his heels and started back down the road. When he was halfway gone he turned back once more. Never, he called out. I'm your goddamn daddy, boy. You'll never get clear of me, no matter what. You've got my blood in you.

The boy did not respond but only stood firm with his knife upraised and his knees slightly canted. He watched his father until he was out of sight. Then for a while he watched the empty road. At last he lowered his knife and ran a glove across his cheek and looked to his feet. He bent down and picked the shiny little thing out of the dirt. He pulled his hat tighter against the wind, then he licked the rawhide thumb of his glove and rubbed the dust from the silver amulet that hung from a tiny silver chain. He looked down the road again, the last time. Then he held the amulet up to his face, where beneath the scores and blackened tarnish he made out the crude inscription of his mother's name.

T
HREE

AFTER MANY DAYS of black clouds, descending from the mountains and bearing low upon the rutted and narrowing paths they rode, the sun broke clear and bright. With that sudden light the mountains came into high relief, gnarled and colorless as bones.

Well, the boy called. Just a few more hours and we'll be up there.

Standing her horse beneath the looming shadows of the mountains, the boy's mother made no response.

You ready Mama?

His mother tried to smile but her lips were carved flat. Yes, she said. I'm ready.

The boy kicked his horse on and his mother followed as if by mechanics, and they began their pass with the rust-colored railroad tracks in the southwest and the smoking mountains blowing down from the north.

Late in the morning they came to the head of a moss-banked creek. It was his mother who drew up her reins first, sliding down and hobbling her roan by a willow tree. She stretched out along the bank and called for the boy to come sit with her, her hair flung back in the high grass and her bone-thin forearms tucked under her ribs. The boy slipped down from his horse and watered them all from the creek. He watched all three animals lapping up the water for a while, then sidled up to his mother. Silva Creek, he said.

His mother turned a languorous head to him. How do you know?

The boy gazed around at the closing mountains and back to the southern plainlands. Such silent empty grandeur he could not help but smile. Then he looked hard at the churning water and took out a cigarette and his matchbook and lit it and put the matchbook back in his overall bib.

I been plannin this for a long time, Mama. A long time.

After a few moments he flung the cigarette into the brush and pressed his fingers to his forehead. Listen, Mama. The world was silent. Only the trickle and splash of water could be heard. Now this is country, he said.

The mother and son sat and ate by the bank. The boy said how warm it was and how from here on in it will only get colder and his mother agreed. The day was so blue and sun-filled, and it became a long hour they sat there tearing the remains of the hard bread they had bought in Silver City.

When they were finished eating the boy fiddled with the end crust, easing down onto his back and throwing it up in the air and catching it and throwing it up again.

You havin fun over there?

The boy caught the bread and raised his head above his chest.

Yeah. Something wrong?

No, no. You go on.

Thank you, he said. He threw the bread up again. I believe I will.

When he pitched the bread too far from his grasp his mother laughed out loud and the boy sat up and mock laughed at her, and soon they were speaking softly to each other, as if suddenly younger.

His mother told him of the days when he was still a child and she told him of happier days and county fairs, the boy holding his arms up for his father to swing him on, of making faces at the prize hogs and cheering as his father shot balloons with a pellet gun to win them stuffed rabbits from the scowling hawkers. She spoke of the riding lessons they took together from their neighbor Larry Bowles when the boy was just beginning to walk. She addressed him very quietly and she peered into the water all the while.