The Cove (6 page)
C
hauncey rose from his desk and walked to the recruiting office's window. His gaze lifted over Lusk's Barbershop and the post office and up the swath of green grass to the college's clock tower. Fifteen minutes. Most men would pull down the blinds and leave and no one would think the least thing about it, but Chauncey Feith couldn't do that. The one time he had, Ben Lusk lifted his white smock and checked his pocket watch, then looked at Chauncey like he'd just saluted a portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm. He sat back down and lifted the brass paperweight and straightened the recruitment forms, placed the paperweight back on the restacked paper.
Except for breaking up the brawl on the boardwalk, it had been another slow week. Which was only to be expected. The men who really wanted to fight for their country had volunteered last fall when America entered the fray. Now, with folks believing the war all but won, there was even more excuse not to enlist, though that didn't keep Captain Arnold at regional headquarters from blaming Chauncey when he didn't meet his enlistment quota.
Boyce Clayton passed by the window and Chauncey watched him cross the street and walk down the boardwalk to the Turkey Trot Gentlemen's Club. When the tower's bell rang, Chauncey would go to the Turkey Trot himself and ask about Boyce's nephew Paul. It wasn't something he wanted to do, or had to do for that matter. It would even be after he was officially off duty. Yet he owed it to Paul. Just one more thing that people in Mars Hill hardly noticed, or if they did notice took the wrong way. If folks like Ben Lusk or Marvin Alexander at the post office saw Chauncey entering the Turkey Trot, they'd believe he was only going to get liquored up, not inquire about a wounded soldier.
It was the same with Chauncey getting up fifteen minutes early to spit shine his shoes and iron his uniform. He never left the house until he'd checked that the RS and US on the collar buttons were aligned, the blue hat cord perfectly centered. Doing it just to look spiffy was what people wanted to think, not realizing that when potential recruits came in, especially the farm boys in overalls and brogans, they'd imagine themselves wearing the polished shoes and fresh-pressed uniform. Chauncey saw it in the way the boys scanned him from head to toe, not just inside the recruiting office but when he walked around town or drove out to visit a farm. Even Paul Clayton had once been like that, shyly asking to wear Chauncey's campaign hat so he could look in a mirror with it on. Chauncey had let him. Later, when Paul turned eighteen, Boyce and his brother Ansel had tried to talk him out of volunteering, telling their nephew that his mother needed him more than the army did.
The bell finally rang and Chauncey closed the blinds. He made a last inspection to ensure he left the office in good order before walking out. As Chauncey turned the key, he saw his face reflected in the window. The skin was smooth and clear, which wasn't always good since the slightest thing made him look flummoxed when he really wasn't. But like his mother said, Chauncey had a strong chin, and people noticed that too. The Turkey Trot was on the outskirts of town so the law and the preachers could pretend it wasn't breaking state law. Veterans drank there, including Tillman Estep, who'd lost an eye and had his face scarred rough as a washboard. The first time he'd seen Estep after his return, Chauncey saluted and Estep didn't return the salute, just glared at Chauncey with his one eye like Chauncey had been the one who sent the mortar round into his trench. Estep went around Mars Hill telling anyone who'd listen that the war was nothing more than a bunch of men killing each other for a few acres of mud. Saying such things hurt morale on the home front, and things were already bad enough. The county was all but overrun with Germans. They spoke German, telling each other who knew what, and ate German food and just because they didn't wear Hun army uniforms no one seemed worried a bit by them being here.
Chauncey walked down the street toward the one-windowed clapboard building. He pushed through the swinging doors, paused a moment to adjust to the lesser light. Tillman Estep sat at the table nearest the entrance, almost like he'd planned it so Chauncey would see him first. A man wearing an overseas cap sat at the table as well. Chauncey didn't know his name, but he'd heard about the man and his ailment. Just pretend you were looking for someone else and leave, Chauncey told himself, but others had noticed him now, including Boyce Clayton, who was at the bar talking to Toby Meachum. Three old men sat on stools at the bar's far end, liquor bottles out in the open. Maybe because of his war veteran clientele, or bribes, Meachum no longer pretended his “Gentlemen's Club” was anything but a saloon. No one looked especially glad to see Chauncey, including Meachum, who began polishing the bar, acting like he hadn't noticed his coming in. Didn't turn away when he needed money from Feith Savings and Loan to buy this building, Chauncey thought.
The air suddenly seemed thicker and his ribs felt like laces pulled tight around his lungs, but Chauncey squared his shoulders and stepped to the bar, remembering his father's advice on his first day at the bankâlook confident and people notice and acknowledge that confidence. Chauncey placed his left boot firmly on the brass railing. Boyce, like Tillman Estep and the three old men at the bar end, chased his beer with a shot glass of clear liquid. Moonshine, and it was Boyce and Ansel Clayton who supplied it to Meachum. They probably didn't think Chauncey knew about such things, but it was part of a recruiting officer's job, at least a good one, to know what went on not just in Mars Hill but the whole county, especially since some of the youths in his Boys Working Reserve lived as far north as Shelton Laurel and south to Moody Knob.
Refusing to drink anything other than brown liquor was the sign of good breeding. That was something else his father had taught him, but there were times like this when doing so would seem high nosed and putting on airs. At the bank Chauncey had always known how to show customers he thought himself no better than anyone else. Sometimes it was using phrases like “lipping full” or “just as lief,” or offering his hand first to shake, yes sirring a farmer who owned nothing more than a couple of acres and a swaybacked mule, or rising from his chair when some snuff-gummed widow came in with her coupon book.
“I'll have the same as Boyce here, Meachum,” Chauncey said, smacking a half eagle on the varnished wood, “and a round for all at the bar. Whatever they want, and pour yourself one. We're drinking to Paul Clayton, a true hero.”
The old men offered slurred thank yous and tapped their shot glasses for Meachum to fill. The bartender drew Chauncey's beer and set it on the counter with a shot glass. He poured the moonshine, then went down the bar and filled the old men's glasses.
“Have you another beer, Boyce,” Chauncey said, “long as it ain't Schlitz or some other Hun beer Meachum's hiding back there.”
“I'm fine,” Boyce answered.
“Pour yourself one, Meachum,” Chauncey said.
The bartender hesitated, then drew himself a beer and picked up the gold piece. The cash register chimed and the wooden drawer slid open. Meachum returned with four silver dollars, stacked them on the bar like poker chips.
Chauncey raised his shot glass and the old drunks did as well. He looked at Meachum and the bartender raised his tankard.
“To Paul Clayton, a hero,” Chauncey said.
He knew they were watching to see if he'd sip like a nancy pants or drink like a man. Chauncey tilted the glass and swallowed as if the shine was nothing more than a shot of sarsaparilla. It went down easier than he'd expected, an oily warmth settling in his stomach. He held the empty shot glass aloft for all to see, then set it down hard enough that the glass rang against the wood.
A chair scratched and Chauncey looked in the mirror. The man with Estep muttered something and stood, his hand still on his stomach. Tillman Estep helped the man to the entrance, a brief unfolding of late-afternoon light as the doors swung. The man had come back from Europe convinced, though he'd had no wound, that his guts were torn up. A doctor in Asheville said it was because he'd bayoneted a German. Chauncey knew such things happened, had read about it in a pamphlet the army sent him. Sometimes snipers went blind or a man who'd shot another in the leg would become lame. Still, any shirker could playact such a thing to get out of the war.
Chauncey began to feel the alcohol. Nothing much, just a soft buzzing in the back of his brain. He'd heard moonshine was twice as potent as bourbon, but he'd once drunk half a bottle of L & G and never slurred a word.
“What do you hear about your nephew?” Chauncey asked. “They still think Paul to be up there awhile?”
“Three more months,” Boyce said, staring at his glass as he spoke.
Chauncey took a swallow of his beer and tapped his shot glass against the bar. Meachum came over and refilled it.
“That's some fine white liquor you're pouring,” Chauncey said. “When those doctors in Washington are done, all Paul will need is a couple of glasses of this and he'll be totally cured.”
“That's God's own truth,” one of the old men said as Chauncey drained his shot glass. “It'll cure most any ailings a fellow can have.”
Chauncey swallowed and set the glass down hard again as the alcohol made its slow slide into his stomach.
“Yes, that's quality whiskey,” Chauncey said, and winked at Meachum. “Whoever made it knew what he was doing. Right, Boyce?”
“I'd not know,” Boyce answered.
“Of course not,” Chauncey said and grinned. “There couldn't be anybody in these parts running a still. It's probably something those Canucks brewed.”
Boyce emptied his shot glass and took a long swallow of beer. Chauncey felt his face starting to tingle. It wasn't an unpleasant sensation, more like drizzle on a hot summer day. An amber glow now limned the room. He looked at his reflection in the mirror, let his eyes settle on the sergeant's stripes. Estep and the other man had been privates, both sent home after six months, but Chauncey had been in the army ten months already and was still in. His eyes drifted from his own face to Estep's. At a district meeting, Captain Arnold had said there were men so afraid before battle that their nipples gave milk. So cowardly they were trying to turn themselves into women, Captain Arnold claimed. For all Chauncey knew, Estep could have been chicken enough to do that. It wouldn't surprise him a bit.
Boyce finished the beer and stepped from the bar.
“You tell Paul we'll do something special for him when he gets back home,” Chauncey said.
Boyce gave the slightest nod and walked out.
“We will,” Chauncey said, and one of the old men grunted in assent.
He could leave now too, but Chauncey didn't feel like leaving anymore, at least not yet. Five months he'd avoided Estep, sometimes crossing the street so as not to pass him. People had noticed. He knew they'd rather believe Chauncey did it out of fear than out of contempt for a man who had to be conscripted to fight, the same as they'd rather believe he had gotten to be a recruiter because his father and Senator Zeller knew each other. Captain Arnold himself had told Chauncey the day of his commission that if Chauncey Feith wasn't the right man for the job he wouldn't have appointed him even if his father was Woodrow Wilson.
Chauncey studied the mirrored face he'd avoided too long, looking at every inch, the ridged scars and even the sunk flesh where Estep's eye had been. Meachum polished the bar near the old men, rubbing the same spot over and over like it was a magic lamp he hoped to summon a genie from. Probably wishing I'd leave, Chauncey thought, and tapped the glass, not so much for a drink as to make Meachum quit pretending he wasn't in the room. Meachum brought over the bottle.
“You sure?” the bartender asked, saying it soft, but not soft enough that the others couldn't hear.
The old men gandered his way. Estep looked up as well.
“I wouldn't ask for it if I didn't want it,” Chauncey said. “Pour my damn drink.”
He lifted the glass and drained it and looked around. The liquor didn't settle as easy this time.
“That's some fierce drinking you're doing there,” one of the old men said, and raised his empty shot glass. “I'd toast you if I had me some more nectar to sup.”
“Give him another, Meachum,” Chauncey said, and Meachum poured the man a drink.
“To you, sir,” the man said, raising the glass, “and all men like you what have worn the uniform.”
A scoff came from the back of the room. Don't give him the pleasure of acknowledging it, Chauncey told himself. The old men hadn't seemed to notice, Meachum either, who was back polishing the bar. But it didn't matter if they had heard because Chauncey Feith didn't give a damn what Estep or any of the rest of them thought, and that included Hank Shelton and his smart-ass remark when all Chauncey had done was remind Shelton and the rest of them who the real enemy was. He thought about Estep, who could laze all day in a saloon and no one said a word about it, but if Chauncey left his office fifteen minutes early the same folks went into conniptions.
The liquor began to sour in his stomach. Rotgut, that's what some called it, and with good reason. As Chauncey stared in the mirror, he thought how a soldier in Europe could be a fool or a coward for months and act brave one time, maybe for just a few seconds, and everything he'd done wrong was forgotten. Or maybe not even brave for a few seconds. From what Chauncey knew, all Estep had done was stand in a trench, probably cowering there because he was too chickenshit to leave it. The same was true of Hank Shelton. Some folks would think him quite the fellow because he tried to take water to a wounded soldier. They'd forget all about the cove and that witchy sister of his. But Shelton himself admitted he'd thought it was a Tommy since the man called for water in English. He'd probably figured there wasn't a Hun within miles. Shelton hadn't gone alone either. Another American soldier went with him and he got the worst of it, shot in the chest and nearly dying. If Hank Shelton had known it was a German sniper, or that one was close by, he'd probably have been afraid to go. Yet they'd both been given purple hearts, like Shelton and Estep had done nothing but be heroes the whole time. And now they got to come back and act like Chauncey Feith wasn't near the man they were, even mock his first name, too ignorant to know that the name Chauncey meant chancellor, a leader.
