Hardcastle (26 page)

“Do what the hell you want,” Regus said. “By this time tomorrow I’ll be a farmer, God help me, and ye’ll be no concern of mine. Come on, Bill Music,” he said, and snatching his belt from the young unionizer, he brushed past him.

It took Music a dozen strides to draw even with Regus, and oddly, by that time, all the things he’d had in his head to say seemed not quite equal to the occasion. As for himself, he couldn’t remember when he’d last felt so free and unburdened—yes he could: it was the day before he’d hired on at Hardcastle. He felt square with the world for the first time in weeks and would have said as much to Regus but for the black mood that seemed to haunt the space around him. You’re an odd fellow, Regus Patoff Bone, Music thought, for it was clear that Regus had been in a better mood when he caught the unionizers than when he turned them loose. And so he couldn’t think of a single thing to say all the way back to the truck.

Finally, when Regus had backed the Model T out of the grown-up skidroad into the highway, Music said, “By God, you’ll make Miss Ella happy anyway.”

“I expect,” Regus said, staring grimly through the drizzle and down the highway.

When they had driven only a little way, Music glimpsed the two unionizers duck out of their headlights and vanish like rabbits into the ditch. “There they are,” he said.

“I saw em,” Regus said.

“You think we ought to give them a ride back to the Bear Paw?” Music said.

“Hell, no,” Regus said, “let the sons a bitches walk.”

14

LAST TRIP TO THE
COMPANY STORE

THE NEXT MORNING was cold and clear and still as held breath when Music stepped off the end of the dogtrot on his way to milk. The high ridges and knobs of the mountains were white with snow, but the valley had merely been washed and frozen. Here and there in low spots and swales, patches of ice shone like glass, and the clothes Ella had not taken off the line to dry by the stove were stiff as sheet metal.

On the lowest limb of the black walnut tree a rooster beat his wings, stretched his neck, and crowed as he might have done in Shulls Mills, or anywhere. In her stall the cow moaned. And Music felt brand-new. So, he was certain, did Ella, who had been going about all morning with a bright, unusual spark in her eyes. Only Regus seemed to keep his black mood of the night before.

Nor did he give it up even after the chores were done and the three of them were sitting around the breakfast table.

“I don’t know, but hit seems like we ort to lay in some stores with this last money,” Ella said. “I figure ten pound of coffee, twenty-five of sugar and salt, and fifty pound of flour. And maybe a little side meat while yer a-gittin and a couple of sacks of dried beans.”

Regus neither nodded nor spoke. He forked half an egg into his mouth and chewed, the muscles in his jaw rippling as though the egg were tough as harness leather.

“We might cut that bee tree I found across the branch too,” Music said. “Wild honey is strong and dark and a mixture of whatever has bloomed all summer and fall, but I’ve always liked it. Might get ten, fifteen, twenty pounds of it.”

“Ye’ll git stung is what ye’ll git,” Ella said and laughed.

“Ha,” Music said, “I’m counting on it.”

Regus ate, took a drink of his coffee, and ate some more. He did not eat as though he were hungry, but mechanically, as though eating were only another chore to be done.

Music rubbed the back of his neck. “We ought to knock together another couple of rabbit gums too; fresh meat is always handy, even if it’s only rabbit.”

“I thought you wuz all fired up to git home, son,” Ella said. “You seem to be laying out a big bunch of work fer a feller that’s leavin.”

“I ain’t in such a rush now that I don’t have to walk around with that deputy sheriff’s badge pinned on me and carrying that big horse pistol,” Music said.

Regus looked at him then. He was blue under the eyes as if he were hung over or hadn’t slept, and the skin over his cheekbones looked strangely thin. “You can take off yer badge, all right,” he said, “but if ye think there’s no need for that pistol, yer wrong. Me and you didn’t say good-bye to trouble, cousin; we just changed sides.” He picked up his enameled tin cup, drained the coffee in it, and set it back on the table. “I’d give a little more thought to gettin on back to Virginia if I was you.”

“I think I am not ready to go,” Music said, “unless, by God, you’re telling me to leave.”

Regus pursed his lips and nodded his head. “Suit yerself,” he said. He pushed himself away from the table and got up. “We got people to see,” he said and let himself out upon the dogtrot.

Music and Ella sat where they were for a moment. Music sucked his teeth and shook his head, and Ella said, “He done right last evenin when he turned them fellers aloose. And I reckon, some way or other, he knows it. He just ain’t made peace with hit yet.”

Music nodded.

“He fears he cain’t make a livin outside of coal, I’m thinkin,” Ella said. “And I know he holds the unions to blame for all the world before his daddy died. He’s just mixed up in his head. He ain’t down on you and me.”

“Yeah,” Music said, “if I ain’t steered him wrong.”

Ella threw up her hands. “Lord, son, cain’t nobody steer Regus one way or the other,” she said and laughed. “Don’t you worry on that.” Ella stood up and brushed at her apron. “Did you wrap a clean bandage around that leg last night like I told ye?” she asked.

“Yes,” Music said.

“Well, let me take a look at it and see how it’s farin.”

“There’s no need,” Music said, and he got up too. “It’s not even hardly sore.”

“Well,” Ella said and nodded, “well then. But make up yer mind that I’m goan see it before this day is done.”

“All right,” Music said.

In his room, after trying to put the Colt in his coat pocket—where it wouldn’t fit—and sticking it in his belt—where the weight of it made it hard to keep his pants up and the barrel ran to the middle of his thigh—he put on the shoulder holster again. The badge, at least, he could drop in his pocket like bad money. When he went outside on the dogtrot, Regus was just folding his knife blade away and tucking a quid of tobacco the size of a walnut into his cheek, and Fetlock was rising to stretch himself and wag his drooping tail in anticipation of some word or a rough, clumsy pat on the dome of his skull. But Regus only spat some small shreds of tobacco from his mouth and went off toward the Model T truck, and Music followed.

The moment they turned toward Hardcastle, Regus said, “I don’t know but what it might be smart not to say nuthin to the Burnsides except that they got a long shift to pull. I’d like to get my pay and Momma’s stores and get the hell outten Elkin lest somebody take a notion to try and hold up our money, say, or help us out of town like a trespasser. Cawood’s a little crazy, and I wouldn’t want nuthin cute to enter his head.” Regus spat out the window. “If he ain’t still stretched out on that cot like a goddamned butchered hog.”

“All right,” Music said.

But Cawood was not stretched on a bunk. He was sitting in a split-bottomed chair on the gallery of the commissary, albeit his straw skimmer was hanging on the chair behind and not cocked on the back of his head. Grady was there too, the sole of one boot and his shoulders propped against the wall and, as always, half a cigar in the corner of his mouth.

“Shit,” Regus said, “I was hopin to get our tradin done before we run into them suckers.” He turned in beside the commissary as though to drive up beside the powerhouse, but once he crossed the river, he turned the truck around, drove back to the commissary, and stopped with the truck pointed toward Valle Crucis. “Was Cecil in there?” he asked.

“I think so,” Music said; “there was more lights on than just the night-light.”

“I like a man who loves his job,” Regus said. “Let’s get our pay and tucker.”

When Music reached for the door, his knees turned weak. His stomach, too, was cold and jumpy, and he realized, all at once, that he dreaded the Burnsides. In the next moment he realized he had always feared them, even from the first moment he’d met them. He would never have jumped Cawood if he’d had time to think; he was satisfied of that. But now that Cawood and Grady were the law, and he and Regus were merely themselves, he dreaded them even more. Strange how that works, he thought; any asshole with a badge has got an edge on you. The insight brought an odd smile to his face and made his hand shake when he opened the door of the truck, but he got out and walked around the hood to climb the steps with Regus.

“Mornin, boys,” Regus said. “How’s yer sore head this mornin, Cawood?”

“That ain’t funny,” Cawood said.

“I can see it ain’t,” Regus said.

There was a large blue lump running from the center of Cawood’s forehead back into his hair. His left eye wept and had all but disappeared in the thick folds of his eyelids. His upper lip, too, was puffed toward his nose; but even as Music looked at him and his stomach chilled, he could not get the silly smile off his face.

“They had to fetch a doctor to me last night!” Cawood said. “The son of a bitch charged me three dollars just to tell me I got a concussion!” Cawood pointed his finger at Music. “You gonna pay for sucker-punchin me, buddyroe,” Cawood said. “You gonna pay!”

Music couldn’t think of a single comment to make, nor could he stop smiling.

“I’ve talked to him,” Regus said, “and I’ve told him that a feller who pulls a gun on him has a right to get shot and not whomped on the head like a steer. I don’t blame ye a bit for gettin mad.” He opened the door and motioned Music inside. “Not a little bit.”

“Goddamned right,” Cawood said and nodded, although, in the next moment, his lumpy brow wrinkled with puzzlement.

Halfway down the aisle of the commissary Regus said, “Long as Cawood keeps talkin, I expect we’re all right; he ain’t got enough brain to run his mouth and anything else at the same time.” Regus glanced at Music and then glanced at him again. “What the hell you smilin at?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Music said and wiped his sweaty palms on his britches legs.

“Well, Cecil,” Regus said in a much louder voice, “it’s payday. Gimme ten pound of coffee, fifty pound of flour, twenty-five pound of sugar and salt, and …” Regus turned to Music. “What did she say?”

“Some side meat,” Music said, “and a couple of sacks of dried beans.” Thinking of the bee tree, Music ordered two cartons of quart mason jars, and remembering Ella’s promise to inspect the back of his thigh, he picked up two pairs of undershorts.

Cecil protested that he wasn’t even open yet, but it did him no good, for Regus collected half the order himself and bullied Cecil into setting the rest on the counter and paying them the remainder of their wages in cash money.

On their first trip to the truck the Burnsides merely watched them, which made Music uneasy since both he and Regus had their hands full. The second time Music came through the door, he carried the fifty-pound sack of flour over his left shoulder so that, if he needed to, he could get at the Colt, although the very thought of it made him despair, for he knew, without having to try, that drawing the long cap-and-ball pistol out of the homemade holster would be like dragging a gopher out of its hole. But to his relief Grady was nowhere to be seen, and Cawood was occupied, hat in hand, with easing down the steps, holding on to the wooden railing.

“Where’s yer partner?” Regus asked, coming out upon the gallery with his back bowed over a terrific load of goods.

“Gone to get the goddamned car,” Cawood said.

“Ever step I take jars my head and pains me terrible,” Cawood said when Music passed him on the steps. “I ain’t forgettin it,” he said, his voice as peeved and querulous as an old woman’s or a child’s.

“Cawood,” Music said, “you shot me in the leg.”

Cawood’s lumpy face brightened. “I thought I missed ye,” he said and straightened and puffed out his chest. “I ain’t sorry.”

Music looked at him for a moment, realizing, at last, that however dumb he had supposed Cawood to be, he had overestimated him. The knowledge didn’t make him happier. He shook his head and went on down the steps and loaded the sack of flour in the bed of the truck where Regus, too, was unburdening himself.

“Yer lying to me,” Cawood said behind him. “If I shot ye, how come yer walkin around? Next time I’ll fix yer hash. I’ll shoot yer fuckin lights out, Bill Music!”

Regus and Music got in the truck. When Regus had cranked it and the Model T began to chortle and shake, he stuck his head out the window and spat. “Cawood,” he said, “you tell Grady that yer gonna have to pull a double shift, cause me and Music ain’t got time.” Regus gave his head a little jerk to one side and smiled. “Hit’ll give ye a chance to earn that doctor’s fee back.” Regus pulled his head in and, with a bitter laugh, let out the clutch; and the Model T lurched away toward Valle Crucis.

15

MERLEE

A FEW YARDS from the northern edge of company housing there was a ditch choked with a low growth of sumac, and that was where he knelt. For a quarter of an hour he watched the worn footpaths of Hardcastle, but there was no sign of a mine guard; and at last he stood up, stepped into the open, and walked to Merlee’s shack as casually as he could in the hopes that, if he were noticed, he would seem to be only another miner, confident of his right to be there and so in no hurry whatever. Still, when he knocked on her back door, he was giddy and his palms were damp; but it was much more a consequence of excitement than anything as simple as fear.

He had to knock a second time before the old woman opened the door. White hair straying from its bun around her face and the odor about her of dead leaves, she seemed to look him over for the gift of food he usually brought, until Merlee appeared behind her and said, “Aunt Sylvie, git outten the door and let him in! Quick! Quick!”

“Don’t rush me, chile,” the old woman said. “Hit ain’t no quick left in me.” She shuffled aside, and Music entered, but as she was about to close the door, Merlee pushed in front of her and closed it herself. “Mercy,” Aunt Sylvie said, “ye’d knock a feller down if he wadn’t a-watchin.”