Child of God(12)

He hauled forth the half froze robin from his shirt and held it out. It turned its head. Its eye flicked. Looky here, Billy, said the woman. It didn't look. A huge headed bald and slobbering primate that inhabited the lower reaches of the house, familiar of the warped floorboards and the holes tacked up with food tins hammered flat, a consort of roaches and great hairy spiders in their season, perennially benastied and afflicted with a nameless crud. Here's ye a playpretty. The robin started across the floor, its wings awobble like lateen sails. It spied the ... what? child? child, and veered off toward a corner. The child's dull eyes followed. It stirred into sluggish motion. Ballard caught the bird and handed it down. The child took it in fat gray hands. He'll kill it, the girl said. Ballard grinned at her. It's hisn to kill if he wants to, he said. The girl pouted her mouth at him. Shoot, she ·said. I got somethin I'm agoin to bring you, Ballard told her. You ain't got nothin I want, she said. Ballard grinned. I got some coffee hot on the stove, said the woman from the kitchen. Did you want a cup? I wouldn't care to drink maybe just a cup, said Ballard, rubbing his hands together to say how cold it was. At the kitchen table, a huge white porcelain cup before him, the steam white in the cold of the room by the one window where he sat and the moisture condensing on the flower faded oilcloth. He tilted canned milk in and stirred. What time do you reckon Ralph will be in? He ain't said. Well. Just wait on him if ye want. Well. I'll wait on him a minute. If he don't come I got to get on. He heard the back door shut. He saw her go along the muddied rut of a path to the outhouse. He looked at the woman. She was rolling out biscuits at the sideboard. He looked quickly back out the window. The girl opened the outhouse door and closed it behind her. Ballard lowered his face into the steam from his cup. Ralph didn't come and didn't come. Ballard finished the coffee and said that it was good and no thanks he didn't want no more and said it again and said that he'd better get on. I wish you'd looky here Mama, the girl said from the other room. What is it? said the woman. Ballard had stood up and was stretching uneasily. I better get on, he said. Just wait on him if ye want. Mama. Ballard looked toward the front room. The bird crouched in the floor. The girl appeared in the doorway. I wisht you'd look in here, she said. What is it? said the woman. She was pointing toward the child. It sat as before, a gross tottertoy in a gray small shirt. Its mouth was stained with blood and it was chewing. Ballard went on through the door into the room and reached down to get the bird. It fluttered on the floor and fell over. He picked it up. Small red nubs worked in the soft down. Ballard set the bird down quickly. I told ye not to let him have it, the girl said. The bird floundered on the floor.

The woman had come to the door. She was wiping her hands on her apron. They were all looking at the bird. The woman said: What's he done to it? He's-done chewed its legs off; the girl said. Ballard grinned uneasily. He wanted it to where it couldn't run off, he said. If I didn't have no better sense than that I'd quit, said the girl. Hush now, said the woman. Get that mess out of his mouth fore he gets sick on it. THEY WASN'T NONE OF EM any account that I ever heard of. I remember his granddaddy, name was Leland, he was gettin a war pension as a old man. Died back in the late twenties. Was supposed to of been in the union   Army. It was a known fact he didn't do nothin the whole war but scout the bushes. They come lookin for him two or three times. Hell, he never did go to war. Old man Cameron tells this and I don't know what cause he'd have to lie. Said they come out there to get Leland Ballard and while they was huntin him in the barn and smokehouse and all he slipped down out of the bushes to where their horses was at and cut the leather off the sergeant's saddle to half sole his shoes with. No, I don't know how he got that pension. Lied to em, I reckon. Sevier County put more men in the union   Army than it had registered voters but he wasn't one of em. He was just the only one had brass enough to ast for a pension. I'll tell you one thing he was if he wasn't no soldier. He was a by god White Cap. O yes. He was that. Had a younger brother was one too that run off from here about that time. It's a known fact he was hanged in Hattiesburg Mississippi. Goes to show it ain't just the place. He'd of been hanged no matter where he lived. I'll say one thing about Lester though. You can trace em back to Adam if you w ant and goddamn if he didn't outstrip em all. That's the god's truth. Talkin about Lester ... You all talk about him. I got supper waitin on me at the house. BALLARD STAMPED THE snow from his shoes and leaned his rifle against the side of the house and tapped at the door. He glanced about. The sofa lay mantled in snow and over the snow lay a fine stippling of coal soot and cat tracks. Behind the house stood the remains of several cars and from the rear glass of one of them a turkey watched him. The door fell open and the dump keeper stood there in his shirtsleeves and suspenders. Come in, Lester, he said. Ballard entered, his eyes wheeling about, his face stretched in a china smile. But there was no one to see. A young girl was sitting on a car seat holding a baby and when Ballard came in she got up and went into the other room. Get over here and warm fore ye take your death, said the dump keeper, making for the stove. Where's everbody at? said Ballard. Shoot, said the dump keeper, they've all left out of here. The mizzes ain't left is she? Aw naw. She's a visitin her sister and them. Ever one of the girls is left savin the least'n though. We still got two of the babies here. How come em to all leave of a sudden like that? I don't know, said the dump keeper. Young people these days, you cain't tell em nothin. You ort to be proud, Lester, that