Wicked Temper Part 27

"Goodness," she gulped.

"Best rouse that boy and git ready fer supper."

"Okeedoke."

Nottingham turned and went down the hall. Before she woke Matthew, Tizzy went to the sink to wash her hands. They were filthy from the woods, in fact she was plumb foul all over; she hadn't seen a bathtub since the Sat.u.r.day before church. Tizzy caught whiffs of herself as she pumped water over her hands. Then she noticed another curiosity. Something about that fruit jar. The jar Bob was drinking from.

The jar lay on its side in the sink, the dregs of a rusty juice drained out. Had he been drinking cherry cider from the jar, or some iron water? The water gushing from the pump was clear and fresh smelling, straight from the well. She doubted he'd eat a quart of tomatoes, just before supper; but such peculiarities were common with Mr. Nottingham. She was foolish to waste her time fretting over it. Tizzy rinsed the fruit jar, towel dried and put the jar away. Then she went outside to wake up Matthew.

After supper, Tizzy asked if she could have a bath and Nottingham said yes. Matthew took the big washtub down and brought it in from the porch. They boiled many pots of water on the stove. Matthew said he'd wait another week or two for his suds then left Tizzy to her business.

Nottingham had already retired to a parlor fire with some bonded whisky. The fire was a little hot, but it was too chilly out for no fire so they opened the front door. Matthew sat outside against the porch rail while Bob rocked his chair inside, stroking b.u.t.ton by the hearth. The boy wished he had a good chaw of Day's Work. He asked Bob but Bob didn't have a chaw. Bob kept to his liquor, not that he ever showed it. Matthew watched the stars and spat on occasion, just for the devil's fiddle f.u.c.k of it. He felt like spitting. The dark beyond the steps, the dark he spat into; it demanded as much.

Rewinding the tired black tape along the earpiece of his specs, Matthew wanted to crush them instead. Maybe, after a Brinks job or two, he'd buy some prescription sunlenses. They'd be studly numbers alright, more his style

"Surprised ye don't keep no still somewheres, Bob. Never know'd n.o.body could drank store whisky on a regular deal." He scratched his ankle, chiggers were thick as the third of June.

"Don't know nothin bout stills. Never learnt."

"Bet ye could buy ye some tempered lightnin, from one o'these hicks, like that Lych feller back down the road. Reckon he'd run a drop er two?"

"Ain't interested," Bob said.

b.u.t.ton spotted a snout beetle and started tracking it. She tracked it across the floor, out the door, down the porch and off into the night. Matthew waited till she was out of earshot, before his eyes rolled around, ogling through the door at Nottingham.

"That little tadpole, she's missin a few rivets, ain't she Bob?"

"Really? What makes you think so?"

"Aw, I kin tell. Gotta an eye fer it."

"Hnnn, smart too. Yer quite a gangster ain't you boy?"

"Better'n that," Matthew bragged. "I'm bound fer hot sh.e.l.ls and glory. You must be perty dang stupid, Bob, if'n ye cain't see that. s.h.i.tfire, if I ain't done ye another favor. Why, you'll be a-tellin yer friends and neighbors how I oncet let ye live and holed up at yer sty fer awhile--"

"Where's that gun o'yourn?"

"In my bedroll, like always. Whyzat?"

"Just checkin yer memory. That's all." Bob was grinning, sort of.

Matthew wasn't so sure what that last little crack of Bob's was getting after. He was thinking maybe he'd been insulted or something. But he wasn't sure. Lucky thing or he'd have to settle somebody's hash. Besides, he'd never noticed how funny boy Bob showed two lower fangs when he smiled, like a bearcat, or reptile.

"You a real lugnut, Bob. Anybody ever tell ye that?"

A cricket chirped in the dark yard so Matthew spat at it. He grew lonely in his gut, watching the moonrise, listening to the stars twinkle and chirp. Awk.a.w.kaaawww. Another crow started screeching. Matthew was better off if he just ignored such smart remarks until he was free to act with cool deliberance. Distantly, he could hear soapy water sloshing, behind the kitchen door. It would be a good night for a c.o.o.n hunt and this made him restless; he'd love nothing better than to take a game dog and a chaw of tobacco and run down a fat c.o.o.n. The criminal life deprived you of the simple joys. And he seriously doubted that big haunchy hound of Bob's was much of a tracker. Wherever the bejesus it was hiding, the dog just wasn't built right, its nose was all wrong for bloodscent. Not like any c.o.o.ndog he'd ever seen.

He turned back--to ask Bob about his dog--but something struck him queer. Nottingham looked queer. His smile was suspended, as his heavy lids fell on something beyond the hall closet, something Matthew couldn't see from outside the front porch door. Matthew was held at bay, by unseen forces, speechless. The man in the rocker appeared happy at the sight, whatever it was. Happy with an unhealthy sheen to him. Whatever it was, whatever Bob saw, was hidden from Matthew's blacktaped spectacles.

Tizzy had climbed from the tub, leaving behind a truck patch of dirt in the murky water. She dried herself with a flour sack towel. She'd wanted to wash her hair but was afraid of coming down with the croup in this night mountain air. Her towel was stiff and didn't dry very well. Earlier, in one of her bureau drawers, Tizzy found a smallish linen nightgown. It wasn't small enough but would have to do. Finally, she pulled the gown over her still damp body. It clung to her naked skin, her sprout of nipples budding through the thin wet garment. She didn't realize that a draft had blown the door open a smidge, giving a narrow view down the hallway. So she combed out her hair. Unaware.

Unaware of Robert Lloyd Nottingham watching with his whisky gla.s.s and cavernous gaze. He'd taken his mind off the boy and glanced down the hallway a few minutes ago. The kitchen door had parted, she was bent in the narrow frame, wet and clinging. Tizzy was innocent of any change, but out there in the firelight, she had changed in Nottingham's eyes.

Later, while she wandered by that honeyed river with her own eyes clamped tight, a heavy step entered the room. She might have heard it. She might have kept her eyes shut, feigning sleep, afraid of the presence which loomed for long minutes over her bed.

When she dared to look, by morning light, she found a trinket left beside her on the pillow. A tarnished gold chain which she hid in the toe of her shoe, and never told to Matthew.

S T E P 1 2.

"I'm gone track him."

"Track him fer what?"

"I'm gone tailgate the sucker," Matthew said. "See where he goes."

"I doubt Mr. Nottinham'd appreciate that."

"So what, he don't own this mountain. Leastways I don't thank he does."

"But what fer, Matthew?"

"See what he's up to. You don't believe that foolishness bout swappin ch.o.r.es do ye? Ain't enough jaspers up hyere to throw a stick at, fergit about hosstrades er willertar he ain't got no use fer. Besides--"

"Yeah?" she pressed.

"--I'm done stir crazy settin round this joint. Ain't you?"

"Well, sure, come to think of it."

Matthew nodded, slowly, squaring all the angles. It was only the morning after but Tizzy was ready for another bath. She could do without this awful mountain breeze, the hot rising damp, the insects. As usual, Nottingham was scarce when they woke up; as usual, shortly after grits and redeye gravy he returned.

"He's jist like clockwork," Tizzy told Matthew.

"Yeah, well, he's a piece o'work. No gittin round that."

The man was around back at present, burning trash in the barrels. Birdnell and Polk could see the plume of black smoke behind the house. Bob burned things and they loitered by the gristmill, red-hot for a plan. Matthew sat astride the old broken singletree, spurring his wild rocking bronc. He leant forward, whispered in Tizzy's ear.

"Few more days ladybug, another week--an we'll fly this stupid coop."

"I still say, he ain't gonna appreciate n.o.body follerin him."

" Well, I don't appreciate his personality. Come to think of it, I never have." Matthew was still raking over Nottingham's backhanded digs from the night before. Matthew didn't need Bob's little I.Q. test. Matthew was one with his gun. Knew right where it was and when to use it. Yeah, he'd been Dobber The Goat last night, he was pretty sure. And right now that loaded pistol was safe under this boy's shirt.

"But I'm afeared," she chewed her lip. "Them woods is strange to us. He might--"

"Then you best stay here, Little."

"Little?"

"Little missy sissypants. Keep to yer dollbabys and powdery puffs."

For a split-second, Tizzy hated him again. She felt like he'd just spoken ill of Ann, her beautiful chipped friend; but Tizzy knew he was utterly ignorant of Ann. It was just hogboy prattle, the kind Matthew was full of. Still, in all, Tizzy wished she had thought to bring Ann along for the ride.

"What if he hears you on his tailgate?"

"He won't. I'm wise to the woods, see, and fleet o'foot. You fergittin I'm part Injun."

"Just be careful, you knothead."

There wasn't long to wait. Soon the fiery barrels held only white ash. Nottingham doused them, then spaded the ashes over his dormant tobacco plot. His beans and collards were near death already. With this deed done, he went inside, changed his work shirt, and left.

Matthew counted 59 before following Bob. Tizzy stood on the porch, shading her eyes as she watched her wiry boyfriend slink into the pines downwind of the chicken pen. How odd. Boyfriend, she repeated in her mind. An ill-suiting word to her, but sweet. Even if the sweet boy was raised by hogs. Then Tizzy had a horrible thought. If he was Tizzy's boyfriend, wouldn't she be the slopslinger's girl? No. That would never do. Tizzy could hear Shonda Gay's yap from up here on Old Top. When Tizzy finally withdrew to the kitchen, she was fully peeved at Matthew for his disrespectful nature and kicking herself for not going along. She was plenty tired of this old homeplace herself. The kitchen was dull and smelled of sausage grease from breakfast. Nottingham's soot-covered shirt hung on a chair. Tizzy washed it in the sink, then pinned the shirt on the clothesline. It would dry quickly in this swelter. Already she'd forgotten they were in late fall down below, in the valleys, in Cayuga Ridge, when the air was tart as apples. Tizzy absent-mindedly mistook the season for late July or August, when the cicadas and junebugs pitched a fit and the sky was pale yellow.

It was farther into the afternoon, when she realized b.u.t.ton wasn't on the place. Tizzy's snoot caught a wild hair and she went searching for the itty-bit. Surely the tot was curled up asleep in some dank corner. But she wasn't in her favorite closet, or under the porch or crawls.p.a.ce. The chicken coop held n.o.body but a pair of persnickety hens, the rest were out in the yard or strutting through the trees. Only a peppered ham and two slabs of bacon hung in the smokehouse, no b.u.t.ton child curing in its rafters. And all the while, Tizzy kept hearing a chopper, chopping far and away on the mountainside.

Returning to the parlor, Tizzy examined the child's big Victrola. She'd never looked at it close. An ornate, upright player with four scrolled feet, it stood almost as tall as she. Underneath, in the shelves below, she found a stack of 78 r.p.m. sh.e.l.lac discs. Several were Doc Roberts and Vernon Dalhart, a few by the Blue Moon Quartet plus Buffalo Gal by someone called W. Leo Daniel and his Light Crust Doughboys. A disc already lay on the Victrola platter. Tizzy cranked the machine and set the needle. Scratchy notes began, in simple cl.u.s.ters. It was b.u.t.ton's tune, zithery notes, a lullaby twinkling from the speaker horn.

She smiled. She tried to read the label going round and round, but could not. Then something pulled on Tizzy, a sadness in the tune maybe; something pulled her into Nottingham's bedroom. The door was open, she had not looked closely for b.u.t.ton in there. She trod softly upon his floor then stood very, very still. Somehow, she was afraid to go farther, to route his drawers or even linger within. b.u.t.ton's tune was wafting down the hall, into this room, his room, into Tizzy Polk, blacking a girl's blood. She c.o.c.ked an uneasy eye toward the innermost door, the one closed before. But now it stood open: wedged open with a brick. It was the next bedroom. Adjacent in the hall. b.u.t.ton's room. The itty-bit's room was smaller, stark and empty save for a metal bedframe with bare springs. No pillow. Just a twisted, dirty blanket atop the springs. Tizzy stood there disturbed by the music, her eyes cutting back and forth betwixt the connecting rooms--b.u.t.ton's foul blanket--and Nottingham's well tucked iron cot--back and forth, unsure of those vile goblins again, throbbing in her veins. So Tizzy lit.

She left the room.

She went straight to the Victrola and turned it off.

She ran out into the crackling sun.

This was child's play. The man's spoor was heavy in the forest, he was not hard to track, not for this Osage pathfinder. His specs required constant nudging up the nose, but Matthew had no problem at all for the first twenty minutes or so. Until he crossed water. That always threw him. He really hadn't ever hunted that much, his Pap stopped letting him go after a while. His Pap could tell fortunes and knew one thing about the kid; Matthew Birdnell was too lazy to chase a varmint for long. Mainly, what Matthew liked was getting loaded with the hunters, drinking rookus juice and peeing in the fire. After a while he got left at home, unless they needed somebody to tote extra gear. Maybe he'd come back someday, after he was famous, and kill one or two of them. That would impress his Pap. But this was no varmint, this was just Odd Bob. Matthew smiled as he threaded through the pine, he was born to it. Being a young Osage buck, yep, that was his ace in the hole. He could track Odd Bob on purebred instinct. And he would have too, if crossing a creek didn't throw him every time.

Not far from the house, a few minutes downslope through crowded forest, a footworn trail developed and Matthew actually sprinted ahead, catching glimpses of Bob on two occasions. Bob didn't hear him, Matthew saw to that. No, the man just slogged ahead, a hameheaded gait carried him forward, neglecting any spry Injun trackers. His bootfalls sank heavy and deep in the soft earth. It was easy to scout him along a burnt ridgeline, dipping briefly into a shadowy cool holler, then climbing chiseled rock footings to a higher crag where twin elms had fallen. Matthew slipped under the rotting trunks, his wooded ascent was quick and stealthy. He kept the man close.

But then, something terrible happened. He heard trickling water.

His heart sank. As it turned out, it wasn't a very big creek. But it was enough. Pap and his c.o.o.ndog buddies would probably be busting a gut about now, laughing dead men with a slug in each eye. Matthew lost the path on the other side of the creek. He tried to pick it up again, running up and down the muddy branch for the better part of an hour. Before long, he turned around and the sun wasn't in the right spot; that crop of white speckled mushrooms seemed unfamiliar. Surrounding him, strange fern and whispering spruce grew eerie, quiet and whispery as a midnight prayer meeting. But it was hot. Bob was long gone. And the boy was lost.

Matthew wandered around the woods for a few hours, his mouth drawn and thirsty, wishing he'd taken a drink before he left the creek. Once, while wiping stinging sweat from his eyes, he ran smack into a brush pile. He tore his pant leg, gouging his thigh on a greenish copper thump rod. "Christ almighty d.a.m.n", Matthew cursed, making the painful discovery. Hidden underneath the brush was a rust-riddled, derelict still. Bob might not be wise yet; but someone had run popskull up here, not so long ago. Yes sir, Bob had failed that test, hadn't he? Mad Dice Birdnell knew the 100 proof truth alright and, in truth, Mad Dice craved a swig. So what good was a moondry still at a time like this? Such thirsty cravings soon got moot, though.

Somebody moaned.

Matthew stiffened at the sound.

It was faint. A feeblish moan like windy chords in an organ.

Behind the derelict still, Matthew found a cow. The heifer was brown in a gummy lake of blood. And she was ebbing away, bleary eyes almost shut, blood gurgling from the pierced vein in her neck. The boy took care to avoid the puddle; he didn't want stains on his white-top spectators. She moaned again, just barely, softly wheezing through the open mouth, her lye tongue coated with soil and rust. One hoof squirmed in the red slop. Was she resisting the end, in her death throes, or simply afraid of the figment of Matthew? Or of whatever had gored her? Her killer must be nearby, possibly due to return. She had not lain and bled for very long. Matthew's nostrils flared, it was incurable. This heifer would be gone soon and so must he be. Leery, the boy moved on. A swig would have been nice, a swig would have soothed his nerves.

Before the woods gave him up, Matthew saw a few more things. Queerness' he didn't care to think about. The sun went steadily and after a brain parching, shirt snagging push, Matthew happened upon a wild chestnut grove; in the broken light, white chickens scratched at the mossy mountain skin, milling about. Just a smattering of dumb cluckers. n.o.body would know if he drop-kicked a few for fun. But right now, Matthew's stilts were wobbly, his shoes full of sweat, mud, raw blisters. He felt he was mighty close, though: a whoop or two away. So he limped faster, a stringhalted gait thanks to the hole in his thigh. It ain't the gorehorn that kills you, he chanted softly. It's the hole. The hole. The hole. Still, another hour and a half went before Matthew took a wild left turn, through laurel briar, around a wasp's nest--before he spotted the smokehouse below. He left the hot leafy shadow, tripping down to the house where Tizzy waited. On her gristmill. Boiling in the glare of day.

"I doubt you could catch a bug in a bucket," she said, once his tale of woe was told.

"He'uz sneaky. He threw me."

"Yeah, and I'm Joan O'Arc."

"I'm tellin ye Tizzy now, don't rile me up. He's a sneaky, back-trackin jasper, and that's all they is to it."

"Take a rest hogboy. You look thirsty."

"Tole ye not to call me no--"

"I'm sorry. I'm just hot, dern it."

"Git on in the house then."

"Nope," she squinted, chin on her knees. Not moving, not even looking at the house.

"And why not?"

"They's somethin real unfit about this place."

"Well, I ain't gone argue about that." Matthew tried to decipher her meaning, gave up quickly and got himself a kitchen dipper of cool water. Then he spent the rest of his afternoon beside girlfriend Tizzy, outside in the boil; biding slow time until the man's return.

That evening, hours after sunset, a weight still hung in the air. Something thick and stifling that Tizzy couldn't put her finger on. When he finally emerged from the woods, Mr. Nottingham was more edgy, more brutish than his usual brutish b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Mulling over things he would not share, he barely spake at either of them while supper was fixed. Matthew was a wee bit fretful, wary that the man might have gleaned an inkling that afternoon, but Bob showed no signs of such. If he knew of Matthew's shortchanged pursuit, that knowledge was buried deep; there was no glint of concern under the dark brow as Nottingham gnawed his hamhock. The three ate ham and b.u.t.ter beans and canned nectarines in a p.r.i.c.kly state. Bob grunting and gnashing, his angry thoughts elsewhere, while Tizzy and Matthew sat on tenterhooks, afraid to even go for the salt. In the middle of supper, b.u.t.ton crawled in from the back porch. On all fours she scooted under the table's oil cloth. Tizzy blinked, watching as a tiny hand appeared at the empty chair, reaching over the lip, sliding the full supper plate off the table. Ham and beans disappeared below, beneath the cloth, where underhanded slurping and a smacking good time could be heard by the grim eaters above. But it was Nottingham, and only Nottingham, who did not deign to notice.

S T E P 1 3.

"Buuuuu-tton"