The Orchard Keeper (1965) (2 page)

Inside there was a genuine bar, purportedly of mahogany, that had been salvaged from a Knoxville saloon in 1919, done service in a laundry, an ice cream parlor, and briefly in a catacombic establishment several miles from Red Branch on the Knoxville road that failed early in its career due to an attempted compromise between graft and cunning. With the exception of two Doric columns of white marble set in either end the bar was of plain construction. There were no stools, and along the front ran a high wooden foot-rail chucked between wagon-wheel hubs. Four or five tables were scattered about the room attended by an assortment of wrecked chairs, milkcases, one treacherous folding campstool. When the inn closed at night the proprietor opened the back door and swept all litter out into the yawning gulf, listening to the crash of glass on glass far below. The refuse collected there cascaded down the mountain to a depth undetermined, creeping, growing, of indescribable variety and richness.

One evening late in March the drinkers blinked in a sweep of lights on the curve, watched a glistening black Ford coupe pull up across the road. It was brand new. A
few minutes later Marion Sylder came through the door of the inn resplendent in gray gabardines, the trousers pressed to a knife edge, the shirt creased thrice across the back in military fashion, his waist encircled by a strip of leather the width of a whip-end. Clamped in his jaw was a slender cheroot. On the back of his neck a scarlike gap between sunburn and hairline showed as he crossed to the bar.

There he propped one pebbled goat-hide shoe upon the rail, took from his pocket a handful of silver dollars and stacked them neatly before him. Cabe was sitting on a high stool by the cash register. Sylder eyed the coins briefly, then looked up.

Come on, Cabe, he said. We drinkin or not?

Yessir, Cabe said, clambering down from his stool. Then he thought: Cabe. He studied the man again. Wraithlike the face of the lost boy grew in the features of the man standing at the bar. Say, he said, Sylder? You the Sylder … you Marion Sylder, ain’t you?

Who’d you think I was? Sylder asked.

Well now, said Cabe, don’t that jest beat … Where you been? Hey, Bud! Looky here. You remember this young feller. Well now. How about this.

Bud shuffled over and peered up at him, grinned and nodded.

Here, Sylder said, give these highbinders a drink.

Sure thing, Cabe said. Who’s that?

Sylder gestured at the dim smoky room. They all drinkin, ain’t they?

Well now. Sure thing. He looked about him, uncertain as to how to proceed, then suddenly called out into the tiny room: All right now! All you highbounders got one comin on Marion Sylder. Better get up here and get it.

•  •  •

When Rattner reached the road he stopped and lit a match by which to examine his shin. In that small bloom of light the gash in his leg looked like tar welling. Blood trickled in three rivulets past the black smear his trouser had made, deltaed, rejoined; a thin line shot precipitously into his sock. He let go the match and jammed his scorched thumb into his mouth.

Aside from the torn leg his elbow was skinned and stinging badly. A low strand of barbed wire had been his undoing. Now he pulled a handful of dried weeds, crumpled and struck a match to them. They crackled in quick flame and he hiked his trouser leg again. Wiping the blood away with his palm he studied the rate of flow. Satisfied, he patted the sticky cloth back against the wound and took from his front pocket a billfold. Holding it to the light he pulled out a thin sheaf of folded notes and counted them. Then he ripped the billfold open, scattering cards and pictures. These he examined carefully along with the insides of the ruined purse, then kicked them away and tucked the money into his pocket. The weeds had burned to a ball of wispy cinders, still glowing like thin hot wires. He kicked them away in a burst of dying sparks. Far up the road a pale glow hung in the night like the first touch of dawn. He had left Atlanta at ten … it could not be past midnight. He patted his leg once more, sucked at his thumb, and started off in the direction of the lights.

Jim’s Hot Spot, the sign said in limegreen neon. He circled catlike among the few cars, peering in at their black insides and keeping one eye weathered to the door where in a dome of yellow light an endless whirlpool of insects aspired. He came past the last empty car to the door and by this light checked his furrowed leg once again and then made his entrance.

•  •  •

The little coupe could be seen leaving or entering the Sylder place at strange hours, or in the heat of the day parked glistening and incongruous before the house, sleekly muscled and restless-looking as a tethered racehorse. Saturday evenings he collected parcels of townward-walking boys in new overall pants from the roadside as you might gather hounds the morning after a hunt—them leaping awkwardly in, riding solemnly or whispering hoarsely one to another until they gained speed. Sylder could feel their breath on his neck—those in the rear, wedged in like crated chickens—as they peered over his shoulder. A long silence as they watched the needle vanquish the numerals on the dial in a slow arc to hover briefly at 80 on the last and long straight stretch before reaching the city limits. Sometimes one of them would venture a question. He always lied to them. Company itself don’t know how fast she’ll go, he’d say. They plannin to take one over to the Sahary Desert to find out.

At Gay or Market he would pull to the curb and yell: One stop! and watch them erupt from the car like circus clowns—five, six, as many as eight of them, all bound for the show, farmboys with no more farm than some wizened tomato plants and a brace of ravenous hogs. In the rearview mirror he could see them watching the car scoot away, hovering and bobbing on the sidewalk like a flock of curious birds.

Sundays the Knoxville beer taverns were closed, their glass fronts dimmed and muted in sabbatical quietude, and Sylder turned to the mountain to join what crowds marshaled there beyond the dominion of laws either civil or spiritual.

Jack the Runner’s mouth was blue, his tongue blue-black as a chow’s. At the table by the door of the Green
Fly Inn he sipped blackberry wine from a liniment bottle.

Where’d you leave em? Sylder was asking.

Ahh, Jack gurgled. Over on mountain.

You’re on the mountain now, Sylder said.

Over
, Jack emphasized. Hen’son Valley Road.

Henderson Valley Road? Whereabouts?

Top o mountain, like I tol ye …

You reckon he’s tellin us right? June asked.

Sylder looked from him to the runner again. Jack studied a huge and evil-looking cigar he had found in his shirtpocket and fell to turning it against his tongue with drunken singlemindedness. Yeah, Sylder said. Most likely he is.

Right feisty, Jack was saying, holding now the cigar at arm’s length. A loop of spittle woggled mucously from its underside. Right feisty.

Caught in the yellow glare of the headlights they had the temporarily immobilized look of wildlife, deer perhaps, frozen in attitudes of surprise predicating imminent flight. Sylder drove past and up the mountain.

Ain’t you goin to stop? June asked.

Comin back, Sylder said. Behind em, like I was goin their way. I never figured they’d be headed wrong. Way they’re goin, through Sevierville, it’s near thirty mile.

Between them in the crevice of the seat nestled a mason jar of whiskey. Sylder heard the skirling tin sound of the lid being unscrewed and he reached out his hand for June to pass the jar. Moths loomed whitely before the windshield, incandesced, dusted the glass with mica. A ballet of gnats rioted in the path of the headlights. He drank and handed the jar back. Under the black hood the motor hummed its throaty combustions.

Sylder thought about old man Tipton saying it wasn’t
sensible as any fool could see that with the pistons going on an angle like that—lop-ass-sided, he’d said—they were bound to wear through on one side. Pistons were supposed to go up and down. Street’s are full of em, he said, if it’s any comfort to know you wadn’t the only one took.

They turned at the quarry and came back down the mountain coasting silently, the tires making a soft slapping sound at the cracks in the asphalt. When the lights picked them up they began to group and sidle to the ditch as cows will. Sylder brought the coupe to a stop slowly alongside of them.

Howdy, said June right into the ear of the girl on the outside. You-all need a ride?

The other one was standing next to her then. They looked at each other and the first one said, Thank ye, I reckon we can make it all right. The boy hung back behind them. Across June’s shoulder Sylder could see him looking not at them or at the women either, but at the car.

How fer ye goin? June wanted to know.

The two exchanged glances again. This time the taller one spoke up. We jest goin down the road a piece, she explained.

Tell her let’s all go down the road for a piece, Sylder suggested.

What? the short one said. Then the boy piped up and they both turned to glare at him.

How fer is it to Knoxville? That was his question.

Knoxville? June couldn’t believe it. You say Knoxville? Why you-all cain’t
walk
to Knoxville. It’s twenty mile or better—ain’t it, Marion?

A groan went up from the travelers. Sylder was already motioning him out the door.

Here, June said, climbing out. You’ns get in here. We goin to Knoxville, proud to hep ye out.

Sylder presented them each with a welcoming smile as they climbed in and studied each in turn his face under the domelight.

He dropped into the Hopper—the steep twin fork road—without braking. The little one between him and Tipton squealed once and then hushed with her hand clapped over her mouth as they swerved across the pike and shot out into blackness, the lights slapping across the upper reaches of trees standing sharply up the side of the hollow. The coupe dropped, squatted for a moment in the gravel of the lower road, sprang again and slithered away obliquely with the exhaust bellowing from the cutout and gravel popping and rattling in the woods like grapeshot.

The one in the back was making small sobbing noises. No one spoke for a few minutes and then the little one said, Where’s this go?

Goes to the gettin pla …

Town, June broke in. Goes to town. Shorter this way. He thought she seemed to have edged closer to Sylder although she turned and was talking to him. He saw Sylder’s hand greenly phosphorescent under the dashlights pulling out the choke.

They reached the first bridge before it began to sputter enough for her to notice. Above here the road began to climb again and Sylder let it buck a time or two before he shifted to second. She didn’t move her leg. He was watching her out of the corner of his eye, her sitting forward on the seat and peering out intensely at the unfamiliar night. A moth whipped beneath the windscreen, brushed her cheek. He cranked the glass in a turn. When the car bucked again she flinched and asked what was wrong.

He started to tell her the generator was out of water but thought about the boy in the back seat. No word from him at all. The tall one in the back had leaned forward,
breathing in Tipton’s collar and fixing the windshield with a look grim and harassed as if contemplating one desperate leap at the black passing night country.

Vapor lockin, he said finally. Overheats on these hills and you have to stop and let her cool off.

She looked at him and then looked away again, not saying anything. A phantom rabbit froze in the headlights, rolled one white eye, was gone. June was talking to her in a low voice, her still looking straight ahead, saying nothing. The one in the rear had sat back. No sound from her. In the mirror Sylder could see half a head dark and bushy in silhouette as a bear’s. He recognized the smell then. A tepid odor of urine, musty-sweet, circulated on the air now as they slowed.

They jerked around the last curve below the pine thicket and shuddered to a stop in front of the Olive Branch Negro Baptist Church. Sylder switched off the ignition. I guess that’s all she wrote, he said.

He opened the door and started to get out when he felt her hand on his leg. He stopped and turned.

Not him, she said. Not the other one.

No, he said. O.K. Come on.

He switched off the lights and then they were gone, negated in the sudden darkness. Marion, June whispered hoarsely. Hey, Marion?

From his porch Arthur Ownby had watched them pass and now he heard the slam of the car door up the road where they had stopped. It had begun to rain. A yellow haze in the woods flicked out. He could hear low voices, near-sounding on the warm night air. With one foot he tapped out the time of some old ballad against the corner post of the porch. From under the brim of the roof he studied the movements of stars. A night for meteors tonight. They cannonaded the towering
hump of Red Mountain. Rain falling now from a faultless sky. A girl’s laugh on the road. He remembered her sitting high on the wagon seat Sunday morning that the mule broke wind in his ear while he unhooked the singletree and he stove two fingers in on a rib and it never even flinched. Late hours for an old man. Arthur Ownby had watched from his porch. He dozed.

When the boy came past on the road he looked up at the house on the sidehill, dark and abandoned-looking. He could not see the old man and the old man was asleep.

It was near daylight when they started back from Knoxville, a pale cold graying to the east.

Where’d you take her? Sylder asked.

June reached for the cigarettes riding in the visor. Goddamn she’s ugly, he said. You know what she told me?

What’s that, said Sylder, grinning. That I was the nicest boy ever needled her.
Needled
, for God’s sake. Where at? Huh?

Where’d you take her. You come down from the church but I never heard you come up. Where’d you go?

Ah. Up in the backhouse.

Backhouse?

Shithouse then.

Sylder was looking at him in amazed incredulity, acceptance and belief momentarily suspended, unable to picture it yet. He had one more question:

Standing up?