A woman was trudging stoically across the fields toward his houseboat. She dipped into the swale on the far side of the tracks and rose up again, crossed the tracks and came on down the barren path toward the river. She was roundshouldered and slumped and she walked with a kind of mindless dedication like a circus bear. Suttree waited on her, pulling the door to at his back.
When she reached the river she looked up at him and shaded her eyes with one hand. Mr Suttree? she said.
Yes.
She looked at the plank doubtfully, then shifted into motion again and came plodding up to the deck. She was sweating and she blew the hair from her eyes and wiped her eyes against her shoulders, one, the other, as if she were used to having things in her hands and had forgotten somewhat the use of them.
I seen ye from over in the store, she said. They told me you come in over there. I was about give up on ye.
Who are you? said Suttree.
I’m Josie Harrogate. I wanted to see you about Gene.
Suttree looked at her. A big rawboned woman, her hair matted over her face. The armpits of her cotton housedress black with sweat. Are you Gene’s sister?
Yessir. He’s my halfbrother is what he is.
I see.
My daddy died fore Gene was born.
Suttree ran his hand through his hair. Have you been to see him? he said.
No. I allowed maybe you knowed where he was at.
You dont know where he is?
No sir.
Suttree looked off down the river.
Mama died back in the winter I dont reckon he even knows it.
Well. I hate to have to tell you. He’s in the penitentiary.
Yessir. Whereabouts?
Petros.
Her lips formed the word but nothing came out. What was it again? she said.
Petros. It’s the state penitentiary. Brushy Mountain, it’s called.
Brushy Mountain. Where’s it at?
Well. It’s west of here. About fifty miles I think. You could probably get a bus out there. They could tell you up at the bus terminal.
What’s he in for?
Robbery.
She stared fixedly into his eyes to stay his lying or to know it if he did and she said: They aint fixin to electricate him are they?
No. He’s in for three to five years. He could get out in eighteen months.
Well how long has he done been in?
A couple or three months.
Well, she said. I sure thank ye. I knowed you was a friend to Gene.
Gene’s a good boy, Suttree said.
She didnt answer. She had turned to go but she stopped at the rail. What was that name again? she said.
Brushy Mountain?
No. That othern you said.
Petros.
Petros, she said. She said it again, staring emptily upward. Then she started down the catwalk. There must have been a loose cleat somewhere because going down it she fell. Her feet shot from under her and she sat down. The plank bowed deeply and rose again, lifting her flailing figure. She managed to get a grip and steady herself and she stood carefully and went on, teetering along till she reached the shore.
Are you all right? called Suttree.
She didnt look back. She raised one hand and waved it and went on, stooped and heavy gaited, across the fields and the tracks toward the town.
Suttree went up the river path through dockbloom and wild onion to the old floating roadhouse and tapped a last sad time at the green door. He rested on the railing and he tapped again but no one came. After a while he descended the plankwalk and crossed the fields and the tracks to the store.
She’s moved out, said Howard Clevinger.
Yes, said Suttree.
She had a brother in Mascot, I think she went to live with them. Did that woman find you that was huntin you?
She did.
I seen you over there.
Suttree went back out and crossed to the river and sat on a stone and watched the water pass for a long time.
It was just dusk. Hung in the darker wall of the hillside among kudzu and dusty vines a few pale windowlights. The porch at Jimmy Smith’s with its yellow light and half shadowed drinkers above the slat railed balustrade. A broken portico not unlike the shorn wreckage in McAnally save pasted up with these small crazed faces peering out. Over the squalid littoral, the wasteclogged river and the immense emptiness of the world beyond. A garish figure was coming along, a hoyden that sallied and fluttered through the one cone of uncashiered lamplight down all Front Street. Trippin Through The Dew in harlequin evening wear. They half circled, regarding one another.
Well I see you’re still around anyway, said Suttree.
Honey I’m always here. They cant do without me. He smiled, primlipt and coyly.
Where’s your hat this evening?
Oh honey hats are out. They just are. I always thought they were tacky anyway. Except mine of course. He knit his hands and rolled his shoulders and a whinny of girlish laughter went skittering among the little gray shacks and along the quiet twilit riverfront. He sobered suddenly and cocked his head. Where you been? he said.
I was in the hospital. Typhoid fever.
Lord honey I thought you looked peaky. Let me see you. He turned Suttree toward the streetlamp and peered into his eyes with genuine solicitude.
I’m okay, Suttree said.
Sweetie you have just fell off to skin and bones.
I lost about twenty pounds. I’ve gotten some of it back.
You want to rest and take care of yourself. You hear?
Suttree held out his hand. Tell me goodbye, he said.
Where you goin?
I dont know. I’m leaving Knoxville.
Shoot. He slapped at Suttree’s outstretched hand. You aint goin noplace. When? When you goin?
Right now. I’m gone.
The black reached out sadly, his face pinched. They stood there holding hands in the middle of the little street. When you comin back?
I dont guess I’ll be back.
Dont tell me that.
Well. Sometime maybe. Take care.
Honey you write and let me know how you gettin on.
Well.
Just a postcard.
Okay.
You need any money?
No. I’ve got some.
You sure?
I’m okay.
Trippin Through The Dew squeezed his hand and stepped back and gave a sort of crazy little salute. Best luck in the world baby, he said.
Thanks John. You too.
He lifted a hand and turned and went on. He had divested himself of the little cloaked godlet and his other amulets in a place where they would not be found in his lifetime and he’d taken for talisman the simple human heart within him. Walking down the little street for the last time he felt everything fall away from him. Until there was nothing left of him to shed. It was all gone. No trail, no track. The spoor petered out down there on Front Street where things he’d been lay like paper shadows, a few here, they thin out. After that nothing. A few rumors. Idle word on the wind. Old news years in traveling that you could not put stock in.
He took the shortcut up the path behind the houses, avoiding any chance of other meetings in the street. Old broken Thersites would have called down from his high window but he was not well these latter days. Dried vitriol hung in glazen strings from a bush by the side of the house and Suttree even thought he heard muted sounds of grousing in an upper room. He cocked one eye up the high warped clapboard wall to the chamber kept by this old taperheaded troll but no one watched back. The eunuch was asleep in his chair and he stirred and mumbled fitfully as if the departing steps of the fisherman depleted his dreams but he did not wake.
The city ambulance swung down off Front Street and went bobbling over the ground and across the tracks and up the river path until it came to the houseboat. People were watching along the porches and there were people standing around in front of the store watching with grave faces. Two men went in with a canvas stretcher and a blanket and in a few minutes they came out with the body and slid it quickly into the rear of the ambulance. In backing around they got the ambulance stuck in the mud. One wheel shot reams of gouty mire out into the river. The men climbed down and looked. One pushed. The ambulance sank until it was resting on its differential carrier.