Tyler didn’t say anything. There were no trees to block the moon here and the barnlot lay told in somber shades of black and silver. The wood was corded under a crude shed of old barn tin nailed on poles and Tyler started ricking it up on his arms.
It’s a wheelbar here somewhere. Saves totin it.
The wheelbarrow was a rickety homemade affair of short boards nailed to cedar poles and its wheel had once served a cultivator. The wheel was unsure of its moorings and moved when you pushed the wheelbarrow with a fey drunken whimsy of its own.
Was you sure enough lost?
I sure enough was. Still am.
You wadn’t huntin bear, though. My guess is you was coon huntin and got turned around and lost your dogs. Did they not ever tree?
If they did I didn’t hear them. Boy, you was lucky to get out alive, wanderin around in there at night. I ever get lost in there, I aim to travel in the daytime and lay up at night. There’s all kinds of wells and holes back in there. Mineshafts. I had a uncle, Mama’s brother, Clifford Suggs, he went huntin in there Christmas Day in 1945 and he ain’t come out till yet. They hunted for him no tellin how long and never even found a track. What do you reckon happened to him?
I don’t know.
I bet he’s down one of them shafts. Nothin but bones by now, I bet. Clifford was all right. He was one of my favorite uncles, but still and all, I’m glad it’s him and not me. Think about dyin like that. Fallin off down one of them things and no way out. Layin there hurt and nothin to eat and them walls too steep to climb. Watchin the daylight and birds flyin over and stuff. It just seems to me somebody ought to be watchin things like that.
Do what?
You know, whoever’s in charge of all this. Whoever’s supposed to be watchin things, seeing after em. Pa always gets the religion at these tent meetins, but he misplaces it after a few days. Pa always says His eye is on the sparrow, but I reckon He must of looked away a minute when Clifford stepped off in that hole. Don’t you ever think about things like that?
Not if I can help it, Tyler said. I’m just like everybody else, trying to get by.
You goin to town with us tomorrow?
I sure am. Don’t you think this thing’s about loaded?
Heavier we load it the less trips we got to make. Boy, we’ll have us a time in town. We’ll go to the picture show. You gotany money?
A little. Not much time, though. I need to see a man in Ackerman’s Field, and then I’ve got to figure how to get a ride back to Centre.
It don’t take long to see a picture show. Last time I went it was Lash LaRue, you ever seen him? We’ll find us a couple of them town girls and set up in the balcony and play with their titties, that’s what I’m layin off to do.
Drew glanced toward the house. Lamps had been lit now, and warm yellow squares of light defrayed the dark. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper even though the house and any ear that might be listening lay fifty or sixty yards away.
You ever had any pussy?
Any what? Seems like I’ve heard of it somewhere, but I can’t think what it is.
That’s what a girl-oh, shit. Nobody’s that lost in the woods. You funnin me again, ain’t ye?
Maybe a little.
Anyway, they say these town girls’ll flat put it on ye. We give Pa and them the slip tomorrow, we just might find out. But you better watch Claudelle; she’s boy-crazy.
Say she is?
Shit yes. You not seen the way she’s been watchin you? Like a cat slippin up on a bird. Ma says it’s just her age, but it just looks to me like she’s come into some kind of a heat. Like cows and such does. She’ll light on you like a duck on a junebug. You better watch Pa, though.
Is that right?
It damn sure is. He’s done run off three or four with a gun. What do you think about that? I think if we don’t get this wood to the house he’s going to have one after us.
All right then, let’s go. I just get to talkin and don’t never know when to quit. Out here I ain’t got nobody to talk to.
Claude waved them to table with an expansive arm. The table had been laid, and Tyler’s sweeping eye took in white beans cooked with chunks of ham and a steaming bowl of snowy mashed potatoes and a platter of fried pork chops. Biscuits from the warming closet and what he judged was muscadine jelly and glasses of buttermilk all way round.
It ain’t much, but it beats hickory nuts and a claw hammer, Claude said. Just help yourself, boy.
Tyler didn’t need asking. Drew was already ladling full his plate, and Tyler was eyeing the level of beans in the pot and spearing pork chops with his fork. The sloe-eyed girl was eyeing him from across the table but he had an eye only for the food and was dishing out mashed potatoes and awaiting the pot of beans.
I like a boy not afraid to help hisself, Pearl said.
Then you bound to pure dee love this feller, Claude said. He makes hisself right at home.
I was about starved out, Tyler said.
Who are you anyway, Lost Sheep? You from over around Centre?
I’m a Tyler. We always lived down on Lick Creek.
Lick Creek? You ain’t kin to old Moose Tyler, are you?
That’s what folks always called my daddy.
Claude had laid aside his eating utensils and was staring at Tyler in parodic disbelief. Well, I’ll be doubledipped in shit, he said. Why, boy, I’ve held you on my knee a lot of times. Old Moose Tyler’s boy. You watch your mouth at table, Pearl said. Be baptized at a meetin and come straight home and talk that way at the supper table.
‘Shit’ ain’t takin the name of the Lord our God in vain, Claude said. Or wadn’t the last time I looked.
It’s vulgar talk, Bible or no Bible, and if it don’t say in there not to say it, it ort to.
If this ain’t the beatinest thing, Claude said in wonder. Of all the people to come up out of the woods and wind up at my table. Boy, I knowed your daddy thirty year or more. He used to make as fine a whiskey as ever run down my throat, and I shore was sorry to hear when he passed on. I’ve passed out in your house and slept in your front room more times than once.
And a lot more front rooms, too, Pearl said. Not that it’s anything to brag about. She was watching Tyler intently and he felt his social standing had plummeted precipitously and he was eating incrementally faster as if the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth might suddenly plate and all be jerked from beneath his knife and fork.
Didn’t you have a sister a little older than you? Pretty little brindleheaded thing with big eyes?
Yes.
Where’s she at? Claude grinned. She ain’t lost, too, is she?
Tyler’s jaws had ceased working. He lowered his fork and sat silent for a moment staring at his plate.
She died too, he finally said.
Drew was fiddling with the radio. Twirling the dial from one end of the scale to the other. Garbled bits of laughter, music, soap jingles. Applause. Snippets of lives that were so foreign to them they might have come from another country, another planet.
Leave it in one place, Claude said. Put it on WCKY. They might have the Chuck Wagon Gang.
I ain’t studyin no Chuck Wagon Gang. I’m tryin to find the Long Ranger.
Claude looked up from the Bible he was poring over. Boy, the Lone Ranger ain’t goin to get you into Heaven.
He’d come about as close as the Chuck Wagon Gang, Drew said. But I reckon he must be out of town tonight. I can’t even get the station.
Let me see that thing. Claude dialing. The tailend of a gospel song. A voice came on telling about a miraculous photograph that had cured folks of cancer, arthritis, goiters. Whatever they had. Tumors the size of goose eggs miracled into oblivion, malignancies turned benign. A photograph was taken of a rose garden and when developed it showed the softly glowing figure of Christ the King reaching out toward whoever held the photograph. All free for the asking save postage and handling and a small donation.
Drew rose and went out and pulled the door to on the night. Claude built himself a Bull Durham cigarette and sat with the Bible open on his lap, listening to the voices coming out of the radio, his eyes closed. The woman was not about, and Tyler guessed she’d gone to bed. Somewhere in the house a clock was ticking loudly, he couldn’t tell where.