Jim the Boy (17 page)

Near the head of the valley, the creek sidled closer and closer to the road before turning sharply toward the mountain; the road doglegged and followed the creek. Ahead of the truck, the road vanished into what appeared to be a vertical wall of trees. Jim leaned forward and twisted his head but could not see the ridge line through the windshield. Uncle Zeno looked at Jim and grinned as they rolled into the shade of the woods.

Much to Jim’s surprise, the road curved gracefully into the cool, green forest, and remained level for as far as he could see. The broad trunks of the trees rose like columns from a mossy bed of ferns; they did not sprout limbs until far above the ground. To the left of the road, Painter Creek chattered busily over a bed of small, smooth stones. A blue jay flashed brightly in front of the truck, complaining loudly, and was gone as quickly as he had come.

“Did my daddy walk down this road?” Jim asked.

“This is the only way down this side of the mountain,” Uncle Zeno said. “This is the way your daddy went to Aliceville.”

The road separated itself from the creek and meandered into the forest, rising only slightly.

“He loved this country,” said Uncle Zeno. “I don’t think he ever got over having to leave. He only left because he had to.”

Jim leaned forward, eager to see sights his father had seen. He thought,
My daddy walked under these trees.
And he thought,
I bet my daddy sat on that rock and rested.
Each time they rounded a curve, he imagined meeting his young father marching through the woods, his few belongings stuffed into the feed sack slung over his shoulder. Jim Glass, Sr., lived only six years after he made the trip. He died when he was twenty-three years old.

“Do you think it was a haint?” Jim asked. “Do you think something bad was after my daddy?”

Uncle Zeno’s lips pursed and his brow furrowed.

“No,” he said, finally. “I don’t think anything bad was after your daddy. I think your daddy had a bad heart. I think your daddy’s heart stopped beating and he died. That’s all I think. And that’s all I care to think.”

The road began to buck and heave; it pitched upward and turned back on itself. The switchbacks rolled at them one after another, each more violent than the one before; the road between the curves climbed at a desperate clip. Uncle Zeno downshifted into the truck’s lowest gear. Uncle Coran and Uncle Al slid out of their chairs and sat down in the bed. Jim felt a little sick at his stomach.

The ferns from which the trees grew had been replaced by thick walls of laurel and rhododendron whose dark leaves hissed in echo as the truck passed. Around one curve a tiny creek spilled onto the road; it laughed and disappeared into the laurel on the other side as they splashed through it. After a while Jim began to sense that part of the sky was now below them, although the thick undergrowth kept him from seeing into the distance off the side of the mountain.

“Are we up in the air?” he asked.

“We’re getting there,” Uncle Zeno said.

Finally they climbed around a last snaking curve and drove out into an alpine valley that lay between the peak of Lynn’s Mountain on one side and a low ridge on the other. Painter Creek wound its way between the peak and the ridge, as if running across the face of a mountain was a normal thing for a creek to do. High up above the valley, rhododendron and laurel bloomed against the shining green of the trees. The mountainside and the ridge top were dappled with lavender and white. Uncle Zeno slowed and pointed out a wild cherry tree blooming against the side of the ridge. From down below the outline of the ridge disappeared against the greater shape of the mountain; the valley through which they drove lay hidden from view. On the mountain it was still late spring; back home in Aliceville it was already full summer.

Steep-sided hollows separated by spiny ridges dropped down the mountainside and opened into the valley. Out of each hollow flowed a tiny stream seeking the larger creek; up each hollow ran a narrow dirt track. Jim stared up each track as far as he could see. The first house he spotted was a log cabin whose swept yard was enclosed by a split rail fence. A woman stood in the doorway holding a child. In the field beside the house a tall man cultivated young corn behind a yoke of oxen. Jim leaned out the window and stared backward.

At the head of the valley, beyond the end of the ridge, a bald opened up on the side of the mountain below the road. Jim leaned over Uncle Zeno to look out at the world, but the road turned away from the sky and climbed again toward the summit before he saw very much.

“Can we stop there on the way home?” he asked.

“We’ll see,” said Uncle Zeno.

They passed a store, a church, a small post office, and the one-room school the mountain boys had attended before it closed. A mile beyond the school they rounded a curve and came upon a sawmill. Uncle Zeno pulled off the road and stopped. Hardwood logs were piled on one side of the saw shed and freshly cut lumber was stacked on the other. From inside the shed came the roar of an unmuffled gasoline engine and the high keening of a saw blade biting through wood. Mr. Carson stepped out of the shadows and strode toward them across the muddy, rutted yard. He wore dungarees and a faded canvas shirt. The legs of his dungarees disappeared into high, mud-clumped, lace-up lumberjack boots.

“That’s Penn’s daddy,” Jim said.

“This is his sawmill,” said Uncle Zeno.

Mr. Carson strode up to the truck, spoke to Uncle Coran and Uncle Al, and looked in Jim’s window. Wood chips hung like ornaments in his long, black beard; he smelled of gasoline and sweat and fragrant sap.

“Zeno,” he said.

“Radford,” said Uncle Zeno.

Mr. Carson grabbed Jim’s hand and squeezed it what Jim considered a little too hard.

“Hey, Mr. Carson,” Jim said, trying not to wince.

“Thanks for coming to see Penn,” said Mr. Carson, staring, with what resembled a scowl, straight into Jim’s face.

While Jim stared back in disbelief, tears rose in Mr. Carson’s eyes and spilled over. They raced down his cheeks and disappeared into his beard as if something were chasing them. Inside the black beard, his red lower lip began to tremble.

“My boy …,” he began. “Penn …” He turned and faced away from the truck. “… thinks the world of you.”

He removed a red bandanna from his back pocket and blew his nose loudly. Jim looked up at Uncle Zeno. Uncle Zeno held a finger to his lips. Mr. Carson turned again toward the truck and shook his head.

“Doggone it,” he said. “Ever since Penn got sick, I ain’t been worth killing.”

“It’s a terrible thing, what happened to Penn,” Uncle Zeno said.

“It ain’t nothing you can fight,” said Mr. Carson. “That’s what I hate about it. It ain’t a thing you can shoot with a gun.”

Mr. Carson stepped onto the running board of the truck and rapped the door with a knuckle.

“Dad blame it,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Uncle Zeno pulled out of the mill yard and back onto the road. They passed several log cabins and small frame houses before Uncle Zeno pulled into the yard of a large, two-story log house set well back from the road in a grove of tall poplar trees.

Mr. Carson jumped down from the truck. “I’ll tell Penn you’re here,” he said.

He hurried across the yard and bounded up the steps two at a time. Jim slipped his hand into his baseball glove. He felt terrible and weak in his stomach.

Uncle Coran and Uncle Al climbed down from the back of the truck. Uncle Zeno stepped out of the cab and shut the door. Uncle Al rubbed his behind.

“Boy, Zeno,” he said. “Is that the best you can drive?”

“I thought I drove all right for somebody born in the last century.”

“You drove all right for somebody who don’t know how to drive,” Uncle Al said.

Jim dragged himself out of the truck.

Uncle Coran pointed at him. “Who’s that?” he asked.

Jim didn’t even feel like saying his name.

“Boys,” Uncle Zeno said, “what do y’all say we stretch our legs a bit? Let’s walk back down the road and have a look at Radford’s mill.”

Uncle Al rubbed his behind again.

“Beats sitting,” he said.

“I wish y’all wouldn’t go,” Jim said.

“We’ll be back before you know it,” said Uncle Coran.

“I still don’t know what to say,” Jim said. “What do I say?”

“You’ll know,” said Uncle Zeno, turning away with a wave.

Jim sat on the running board and stared forlornly at Penn’s house. Although constructed of logs, it was considerably bigger than he had thought it would be. The house was framed by a pair of tall, rock chimneys; a porch whose banisters were made of twisted laurel limbs stretched across the front; above the porch lay six wide windows. Red and yellow flowers bloomed in carefully tended beds beside the porch, and a walkway of large, flat stones led from the porch across the yard.

Jim had never asked Penn what his house looked like, and had imagined a one-room cabin perched in the woods on the steep side of the mountain, the world falling dangerously away from its door. He had always assumed that the house he lived in was bigger and nicer than Penn’s, and, during the times Penn had edged him in one competition or another, took secret solace in that assumption. He stood up and looked down the road. The uncles had walked out of sight around the curve. He kicked a rock, walked after it and kicked it again. He wondered if Penn was in the house watching him. He wondered if Penn even wanted to see him. He threw his ball into the air and caught it. He took it out of his glove and studied the red stitching, as if some secret were written there.

The front door opened and a woman Jim took to be Penn’s mother walked down the steps and across the yard. She smiled broadly and waved. She wore a sky-blue dress and a white apron. Her copper-colored hair was tied loosely behind her neck. Jim waved back. When she got closer, he saw that, while she wasn’t as pretty as Mama, something in her face made her nicer to look at. She was wildly freckled, and her smile, which was a little crooked, made Jim want to smile back. She took his right hand in both of hers and held it while she studied him. Her hands were warm and soft. Jim felt himself blush.

“Jim Glass,” she said, in a pleasant, although strange, accent, “I am so pleased to meet you. Penn speaks of you with great fondness.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Jim said. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

She put an arm around his shoulder and led him across the yard onto the porch. They stepped into a painted hallway that ran the width of the house. Through one door Jim saw a parlor with Sunday furniture and a piano; in the room across the hall he saw a tall bed with a canopy. Halfway between the front and back doors, two framed photographs faced each other from opposite walls. In one picture, Penn and Mrs. Carson stood on the steps of a large, brick building with a bell tower. Penn was wearing a white shirt and a necktie. The building looked familiar.

“Do you know where that is?” Mrs. Carson asked.

“No, ma’am.”

“That’s Independence Hall in Philadelphia. That’s where the Declaration of Independence was signed. We were there last summer.”

Jim gaped at the picture and pointed at Penn. “Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson went up those steps?”

Mrs. Carson smiled. “They did indeed. A long time ago.”

“And that’s where you’re from?”

“It is. I grew up in a house not far from there. I came down here to teach school for a year and met Penn’s father.”

In the other photograph, Penn and Mr. Carson grinned extravagantly from what seemed to be the edge of the world. Only a metal guardrail separated them from yawning space. Mr. Carson’s beard blew out to the side in a stiff wind. Penn nervously glanced toward the chasm. Far below, an immense city stretched away until it disappeared into a gray haze. Jim had never imagined a city could be so big.

“Gosh,” he said. “Where’s that?”

“New York City. The Empire State Building,” said Mrs. Carson. “I wanted Radford and Penn to see Manhattan. I think their mouths hung open the whole time we were there.”

Jim looked up at Mrs. Carson and blinked. He wanted to tell her about something important, but couldn’t think of anything. He suddenly felt ashamed and small.

“Why do y’all live here?” he asked.

Mrs. Carson looked momentarily puzzled. “Because,” she said, “this is our home.”

“Oh,” said Jim.

He followed her out the back door and onto a covered mud porch. The yard sloped away toward a small creek. Two rocking chairs faced the creek, and Penn sat in one of the chairs. Jim stopped uneasily at the top of the steps.

“Is he okay?” he asked.

Mrs. Carson tilted her head and smiled at Jim as if he were the one she felt sorry for.

“I think he’s just fine,” she said. “Why don’t you go see for yourself? He’s been waiting for you.”

Jim trudged down the steps and across the yard. He felt mad at the world. He was angry at the uncles for bringing him up here, and mad at Mama for letting him come. He thought about going to wait in the truck for the uncles to come back, but his legs wouldn’t stop moving down the slope of the yard. Penn had been to the top of the Empire State Building. Penn had been to Independence Hall. Jim had no idea what to say to a boy who had seen the things Penn had seen. And he had no idea what to say to a boy who had polio. When he walked past the rocking chairs, his stomach dropped as if he had jumped off of something high. He took a deep breath and turned around.

“Hey, Penn,” he said.

“Hey, Jim,” said Penn.

The two boys stared at each other and grinned, then shook hands awkwardly, as if a grown-up were making them do it. Jim looked down at Penn’s legs before he could stop himself. Penn slapped his right leg twice with an open palm.

“It’s this one,” he said. “I can’t move this one.”

“Oh,” Jim said. “I’m sorry.”

Penn shrugged. “It’s okay,” he said. “It could’ve been a lot worse.” He kicked his left leg straight out. “This one’s fine.”

“At first, down in town, they said you were going to die.”

“That’s what they said up here, too.”

“Did you think you were going to die?”

“Not really. I don’t remember.”