I didn’t have any at all.
Then I reckon you ready for some. He disappeared into the house, and Tyler could hear the rattle of pans somewhere inside. He looked about. The house was set on the side of a hill, and the yard sloped away into the woods. The shadow of a cloud went across the sunlit treetops like smoke. Tyler couldn’t see as far as he would have liked, and he wondered where Sutter was.
The coffee when the old man brought it in a delicate china cup was opaque and dark and so strong it almost required chewing. The boy sipped it cautiously and watched the line of woods where the sun made moving shadows.
Sutter got it in for ye, has he?
I reckon. He tried to kill me.
It ain’t none of my business, but what did yins have yourfallin out about?
Well. It sort of come up about my sister. We got into it over her. He fell silent and sat staring at the ground, and his face was bleak with some grief he didn’t name.
And you took to the deep pineys. I would of thought this was somethin for the law to handle. I was never one to run overquick to em, but they get paid for protectin folks can’t protect themselves.
I can protect myself. I just don’t want to kill him unless I have to. Besides, I’ve been to the law. They never paid me any mind. Somebody told me there’s a sheriff in Ackerman’s Field supposed to be an honest man. Bellwether. You know him?
I know of him. He’s got the name of bein a pretty straight law. There’s a lot of these laws around here their badge just guarantees they can do their meanness and get away with it.
The cell door clanged hollowly behind him. He followed the jailer down a steep stairwell to a green room where folk sat about drinking coffee and pretending they were working. A deputy unlocked a locker and took out a pocketknife and a wallet and a cigarette lighter and handed them to him.
Next time you want to bust up a bar, do it in somebody else’s county, he said.
Bookbinder was going through his wallet. Now wait a goddamned minute, he said. I had sixty dollars in this billfold.
Everyone was watching him. Bland eyes out of calm faces.
Chief? the deputy said. A heavyset man behind a desk scratched his sandy head. He rummaged about looking for Bookbinder’s papers.
One pocketknife, he read. One Zippo cigarette lighter. One black cowhide wallet. Nothing about contents. You was charged with a public drunk. You sure you had any money left?
I wadn’t drunk. And I know goddamned well I had it.
All right, Mr.-he glanced down at the report-Bookbinder. There must of been some kind of a mistake. Wallace, take him back to his cell till all this confusion’s cleared up.
Let’s go, Wallace said.
Bookbinder didn’t move. He seemed to have been struck by some profound revelation. Wait a minute, he said. I believe I left that money in my other britches.
The chief was watching him. His face relaxed. All right, he said. All cleared up. See how easy that was?
The old man had been silent a time. I never cared much for the law, he finally said. Or the law in this county anyway. They hired one old boy was a deputy and he liked to whup folks with that club he carried. Like to beat a couple of fellers to death, whupped em right up the steps to the hospital. Right near the funeral home. They got on to him about it and it pissed him off. He ask em, what’s the use of bein a law if you can’t beat nobody up?
Could you tell me the best way to get to Ackerman’s Field?
Well. If anybody could, I ort to be able to. I worked them mines back in Overton the biggest part of my life. Now the way I’m goin to tell you ain’t the shortest, but it’s the easiest. You might as well forget any other way, these old roads windand twist and sometimes they just peter out. You try to stay on the roads and you’ll just circle around and run over yourself. Go due east till you hit the railroad tracks. They growed up, but they still there. It’s about twelve or fourteen mile. The tracks run north and south. Go south and you’ll come out right in Ackerman’s Field.
And that’s all there is to it.
The old man set his cup aside and took out his pipe. He grinned. First you got to get to the railroad track, and that ain’t no Sunday drive, specially if you ain’t used to the Harrikin. Likely you’ll come up on Overton. The tracks is right near there.
Overton?
It’s just a bunch of buildins now. Nobody left but the ones in the graveyard, and if they could of left, they’d be long gone, too. When Overton went, it went like a June frost. All it was was a minin town, and when the ore run out she just folded up.
Did you live there?
Off and on. My, that was a rough place then. I was bad to drink then, and I used to spend some time in that crossbar hotel they had. I was in there one night they had me locked up with this nigger. Way in the night there was a terrible commotion. Folks hollerin, tryin to break into the jail. I was unused to folks tryin to break in. Thought it went the other way. They broke down the door and knocked out the sheriff and took his keys. Roughest-lookin bunch of folks I ever run into. Most of em drunker than I was. They had torches, and one of em was carryin a rope. Lord God, I thought. They’re goin to hang me for bein drunk.
But it was the nigger. They drug him out and hung him from a big whiteoak. Turned out it was over a whore. Theyhad this albino whore named Wanda, white as if the sun had never shone on her. Hair the color of seagrass twine, and even her eyes looked white. She charged two dollars, and this nigger offered her five, and somebody caught em together, and she swore up and down he forced her.
What did they do to the whore?
Do? They didn’t do nothin except keep on givin her two dollars. There was a lot of em in Overton back then. The miners worked the mines and the whores worked the miners and the only ones come out on top was the company bosses.
Tyler rose. All this time he had sat on the edge of the porch seemingly poised for imminent departure and now he seemed to have come to some decision. Well, I guess I better get on. I got a long way to go.
Well. Best not rush off in the heat of the day. But I reckon you know your business. I wouldn’t worry too much about Sutter. Likely he’s forgot about you by now and he’s drinkin him a cool one somewheres.
There was a fierce intensity in the boy’s face. No. He’s not forgot. And you better worry about him, too, because he’s headed this way, and he’d just as soon kill you as anybody else. There’s something the matter with him. When he comes here, just tell him where I went. That won’t hurt me, by then I’ll be somewhere else. And whatever you do, don’t start anything with him. I didn’t mean to mix you up in this.
I ain’t tellin him jackshit. And you ain’t mixed me up in nothing. I reckon I can set on my own front porch and drink a cup of coffee with whoever I want to. But if that stuff about Sutter is so, you need to be anywhere else besides the Harrikin. You need to be out where there’s more folks. Witnesses. He won’t do nothin if there’s a bunch of folks around. I got to do it. I believe my best chance is to get to Ackerman’s Field. Get to Bellwether and tell him the whole story. There’s a lawyer there named Schieweiler trying to get Sutter sent off.
Like I said, I reckon you know your business. What I’d do is stay on the edge of the Harrikin, close to the roads, and try to catch a ride. Most anybody would give you a lift into town.
I don’t have time. He’s too close on me, and I can stay away from him better in the woods. What’s that hole down there, back in the woods? Just a big hole in the rocks, makes a whistling racket.
That’s what they call the whistlin well. I don’t know how it makes that racket it does. Kindly a mournful sound, though, ain’t it? I knowed some old boys went down in it one time on a rope ladder. They went down to where a tunnel like branched off the shaft. They went a ways back in the tunnel, but they was leery of the shaft. Said they didn’t make enough rope. Said you’d drop a rock off in the main shaft and just grow old waitin for it to hit. Said they wadn’t no bottom, but common sense’ll tell you everthing’s got a bottom, howsomever far it may be.