He came out of the bushes and walked on down past the automobile. He was just a squirrelhunter going on down the road if it was anybody’s business. When he passed the side of the automobile he looked in. The front seat was empty but in the back were two people half naked sprawled together. A bare thigh. An arm upflung. A hairy pair of buttocks. Ballard had kept on walking. Then he stopped. A pair of eyes staring with lidless fixity.
He turned and came back. With eyes uneasy he peered down through the window. Out of the disarray of clothes and the contorted limbs another’s eyes watched sightlessly from a bland white face. It was a young girl. Ballard tapped at the glass. The man on the radio said: We’d like to dedicate this next number especially for all the sick and the shut-in. On the mountain two crows put forth, thin raucous calls in the cold and lonely air.
Ballard opened the car door, his rifle at the ready. The man lay sprawled between the girl’s thighs. Hey, said Ballard.
Gathering flowers for the master’s bouquet.
Beautiful flowers that will never decay Ballard sat on the edge of the seat by the steering wheel and reached and turned the radio off. The motor went chug chug chug. He looked down and found the key and turned the ignition off. It was very quiet there in the car, just the three of them. He knelt in the seat and leaned over the back and studied the other two. He reached down and pulled the man by the shoulder. The man’s arm dropped off the seat onto the floor of the car and Ballard, rearing up at this unexpected movement, banged his head on the roof.
He didn’t even swear. He knelt there staring at the two bodies. Them sons of bitches is deader’n hell, he said.
He could see one of the girl’s breasts. Her blouse was open and her brassiere was pushed up around her neck. Ballard stared for a long time. Finally he reached across the dead man’s back and touched the breast. It was soft and cool. He stroked the full brown nipple with the ball of his thumb.
He was still holding the rifle. He backed off the seat and stood in the road and looked and listened. There was not even a birdcall to hear. He took the squirrels from his belt and laid them on top of the car and stood the rifle against the fender and got in again. Leaning over the seat he took hold of the man and tried to pull him off the girl. The body sprawled heavily, the head lolled. Ballard got him pulled sideways but he was jammed against the back of the front seat. He could see the girl better now. He reached and stroked her other breast. He did this for a while and then he pushed her eyes shut with his thumb. She was young and very pretty. Ballard shut the front door of the car against the cold. He reached down and got hold of the man again. He seemed to be hung. He was wearing a shirt and his trousers were collapsed about the tops of his shoes. With a sort of dull loathing Ballard seized the cold and naked hipbone and pulled him over. He rolled off and slid down between the seats onto the floor where he lay staring up with one eye open and one half shut.
They godamighty, said Ballard. The dead man’s penis, sheathed in a wet yellow condom, was pointing at him rigidly.
He backed out of the car and picked up the rifle and walked out to where he could see down the road. He came back and shut the car door and walked around the other side. It was very cold. After a while he got in the car again. The girl lay with her eyes closed and her breasts peeking from her open blouse and her pale thighs spread. Ballard climbed over the seat.
The dead man was watching him from the floor of the car. Ballard kicked his feet out of the way and picked the girl’s panties up from the floor and sniffed at them and put them in his pocket. He looked out the rear window and he listened. Kneeling there between the girl’s legs he undid his buckle and lowered his trousers.
A crazed gymnast laboring over a cold corpse. He poured into that waxen ear everything he’d ever thought of saying to a woman. Who could say she did not hear him? When he’d finished he raised up and looked out again. The windows were fogged. He took the hem of the girl’s skirt with which to wipe himself. He was standing on the dead man’s legs. The dead man’s member was still erect. Ballard pulled up his trousers and climbed over the seat and opened the door and stepped out into the road. He tucked in his shirt and buckled his breeches up. Then he picked up his rifle and started down the road. He hadn’t gone far before he stopped and came back. The first thing he saw was the squirrels on the roof. He put them inside his shirt and opened the door and reached in and turned the key and pushed the starter button. It cranked loudly in the silence and the motor came to life. He looked at the gas gauge. The needle showed a quarter tank. He glanced at the bodies in the back and shut the door and started back down the road.
He had gone about a quarter mile before he stopped again. He stood there in the middle of the road staring straight ahead. Well kiss my ass, he said. He started back up the road. Then he started to run.
When he got to the car it was still chugging over and Ballard was out of breath and sucking long scoops of cold air down his throat into his seared lungs. He jerked open the door and climbed in and reached over the back seat and tugged at the dead man’s trousers until he got to the back pocket and reached in and got hold of his wallet. He lifted it out and opened it. Family pictures within the little yellowed glassine windows. He took out a thin sheaf of bills and counted them. Eighteen dollars. He folded the money and stuck it in his pocket and put the wallet back in the man’s trousers and climbed back out of the car and shut the door. He took the money out of his pocket and counted it again. He started to pick up the rifle but he paused and then climbed back into the car again.
He looked along the floor in the back and he looked along the seat and he felt under the bodies. Then he looked in the front. Her purse was on the floor by the side of the seat there. He opened it and took out her changepurse and opened it and took out a small handful of silver and two wadded dollar bills. He rummaged through the purse and took the lipstick and rouge and put them in his pocket and snapped the purse closed and sat there with it in his lap for a minute. Then he saw the glovebox in the dashboard. He reached and pushed the button and it fell open. Inside were papers and a flashlight and a pint bottle of bonded whiskey. Ballard fetched out the bottle and held it up. It was two thirds full. He closed the glovebox and climbed from the car and put the bottle in his pocket and shut the car door. He looked in at the girl once again and then he started down the road. He’d not gone but a few steps before he stopped and came back. He opened the car door and reached in and turned on the radio. Tuesday night we’ll be at the Bulls Gap School, said the radio. Ballard shut the door and went on down the road. After a while he stopped and took out the bottle and drank and then he went on again.
He was almost to the roadfork at the foot of the mountain before he fetched up the final time. He turned around and looked back up the road. He squatted in the road and set the butt of the rifle down and gripping the forestock in both hands he rested his chin on one wrist. He spat. He looked at the sky. After a while he stood up and started back up the road. A hawk was riding the wind above the mountainside, turning the sun whitely from panel and underwing. It came about, flared, rode up. Ballard was hurrying up the road. His stomach was empty and tight.
WHEN HE GOT HOME WITH the dead girl it was midmorning. He had carried her on his shoulder for a mile before he gave out altogether. The two of them lying in the leaves in the woods. Ballard breathing quietly in the cold air. He hid the rifle and the squirrels in a windrow of black leaves beneath a ledge of limestone and struggled up with the girl and started off again.
He came down through the woods by the back of the house and through the wild grass and dead weeds past the barn and shouldered her through the narrow doorway and went in and laid her on the mattress and covered her. Then he went out with the axe.